House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2006, with 62% of the vote.
International Trade September 18th, 1996
Mr. Speaker, the minister refers to previous agreements. Canada recently signed a free trade agreement with Israel. This agreement was signed in secret. The same thing is happening again with Chile.
Could the minister at least pledge greater transparency before signing a free trade agreement with Chile or with any other country?
International Trade September 18th, 1996
Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of International Trade.
Today we learned, once again through the media, that negotiations on free trade between Canada and Chile have reached an impasse, after nine months of talks.
Can the minister tell us if the cancellation of the visit that the Chilean president, Mr. Frei, was scheduled to make in early October is somehow related to the deadlock in the negotiations on a free trade agreement between Canada and Chile?
[English]
U.S. Helms-Burton Bill June 18th, 1996
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to announce to the minister that his officials have known for two years that American Express is breaking the law, yet they have done nothing.
As he prepares to propose to beef up the present legislation on foreign extraterritorial measures, can the minister tell us that it is his intention in future to apply that act more stringently than he has to date?
U.S. Helms-Burton Bill June 18th, 1996
Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of International Trade.
When a Canadian citizen inquired of the head office of American Express why he had not been able to use its travellers' cheques in Cuba, he was told that it was the policy of that company and of all of its affiliates throughout the world to follow to the letter the American embargo on Cuba.
Since American Express is clearly violating the current Foreign Extraterritorial Measures Act, does the minister intend to prosecute the Canadian subsidiary of this American company as promptly as possible?
U.S. Helms-Burton Bill June 17th, 1996
Mr. Speaker, earlier today, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and International Trade announced that, this fall, the federal government will be introducing a bill to amend the Foreign Extraterritorial Measures Act, with a view to counteracting the effects of the American Helms-Burton bill with its extraterritorial effects.
Faced with this unacceptable legislation that has been objected to on many occasions by Canada and a large part of the international community, how can the Minister for International Trade turn his back on the urgency of the situation and defer until fall the planned amendments to the Canadian Foreign Extraterritorial Measures Act?
Immigration June 13th, 1996
Mr. Speaker, in the past, we have sometimes wondered about the judgment shown by some public officials responsible for issuing visitor's visas for Canada. This time, it seems someone really outdid himself.
On Tuesday, June 11, in Le Journal de Montréal , Franco Nuovo told the following story in an article simply entitled ``Rosa'': Three sisters from Ecuador, all wives, mothers and workers in their country, were denied visitor's visas for Canada. Why did these women want to come to Canada for a short stay? Was it a for a good reason or a trivial one?
These women wished to come to Canada because their mother, a Canadian citizen who had been living here for eight years and who was suffering from lung cancer, had reached the terminal phase of her illness. Rosa Saraguro died on May 30, without her three daughters from Ecuador at her side, because some public officials did not deign to use common sense and to show some compassion. This is awful.
Supply June 13th, 1996
Mr. Speaker, no, I will not talk to him about his frogs.
He gave an eloquent reading of several quotations from Lise Bissonnette. I would like him to comment on the one I am about to read. It goes back to May 28, 1995 and is entitled "A First". In the middle of the page, we find the heading: "The Bloc finally finds the path of the Canadian Francophonie". It was fine to quote from Lise Bissonnette and Le Devoir a while ago, and this is the same Lise Bissonnette and the same Le Devoir . Does anyone have a problem with that? Thank you very much.
"On the other hand, the Bloc has even outdone the federalist parties on this project". She is referring to the Bloc's position at the time on francophones outside Quebec. "The Quebec Liberal Party never had anything approaching a policy on francophones in Canada. And there is nothing to suggest that it ever will. As for the federal Liberal government, it was contributing large, but ever-diminishing, amounts of money to support official languages programs. The last budget continued the cuts introduced by the former Conservative government, and the Prime Minister has just turned down flat a recommendation by the official languages commissioner to raise the status of bilingualism and francophones by assigning responsibility for them to a new organization reporting to the Privy Council. The Prime Minister turned the whole matter over to the minister, Michel Dupuy, who was reduced to admitting that he had no policy on francophones outside Quebec".
So, here is my question for the member for Ottawa-Vanier, who is working very hard to come up with money to challenge Quebec's democratic laws. What does he think of the cuts and of this article by Lise Bissonnette?
Supply June 13th, 1996
Mr. Speaker, I was going to say that they were all over the map, but I will not, and will instead try to bring my colleague back on track.
He was surprised to hear the Bloc Quebecois speaking about francophones outside Quebec. My answer is that he will perhaps have an opportunity to speak shortly, and while the others have the floor, he can look in the red book where the Liberal party tells us what it is going to do for francophones outside Quebec. We will no doubt be treated to the great insights of the writers of the red book and the wonderful French of the quotation, which my colleague, the member for Bonaventure-Îles-de-la-Madeleine, can be counted on to read us in a few minutes when he has found it.
To help him out, I will tell him that his neighbour, the member for Ottawa-Vanier, would rather collect money to oppose legislation that has been prepared and presented by a democratically elected national assembly in Quebec, than defend francophones, who will see their assistance cut in Ontario. We will not get into the economics of it, because they are already having such a terrible time with numbers.
I would just like to point out to my colleague that when he says that 16.2 per cent of young people between this age and that speak one of the two official languages, that does not mean they are speaking French, because one of the two official languages could be either French or English. In other words, 16.2 per cent of young people speak one of the two official languages, which probably means French or English. One could therefore interpret this to mean that 16.2 per cent, or a proportion, of these people speak French and English.
I am answering his questions with other questions, because clarification is required. If his statistics also come from the federal government, there is a problem, and we could have a debate, because Statistics Canada, in its catalogue No. 96-313F on languages in Canada, says that 29 per cent of people spoke French in 1951, while the percentage was 24 in 1991. Mathematics is not my strong suit, but 29 take away 24 leaves 5 per cent fewer people speaking French. This means that the number of people speaking French in Canada can certainly not have increased by a third. I could be wrong. The numbers come from Statistics Canada. In line with my earlier suggestion, if the Liberal government is not happy with the data provided by Statistics Canada, it can either replace its chief statistician or abolish it altogether.
Supply June 13th, 1996
Mr. Speaker, since 1982, when the Constitution was patriated, section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees French-speaking and English-speaking minorities the right to their own school and to manage them as well, wherever numbers warrant it. This is the problem.
In Canada, there are 260,000 francophones-theses numbers are not coming from mean separatists-and only 160,000 have access to education in French. But there still is a 100,000 gap. The common denominator for all francophone communities is that none of them have the right to collect their own school taxes. Therefore,
they are all dependant on English school boards or the provinces, which usually do not recognize the particular needs of francophone communities, leaving them without enough resources to manage their schools.
I am told that this is not so. This compels me to mention a few facts. New Brunswick is the only officially bilingual province in Canada. However, it does not respect section 23 of the charter since, on March 1, it abolished the French and English school board to replace it with advisory parents'committees. From now on, all the school structures are under the direct authority of the education ministry, in other words public servants. This reform is deemed unconstitutional by parents, who have applied for financial support under the Court Challenge Program. When their application is approved, they will be able to embark on preliminary research and ask for legal advice to confirm that this reform is indeed unconstitutional.
I am told that is not the case, Mr. Speaker. The Fédération des parents francophones de Terre-Neuve et du Labrador has been waging a 10-year fight for the right to manage their own schools. In 1988-89, this federation filed its first lawsuit against the Province of Newfoundland to obtain the right to manage their own schools under section 23.
Mr. Speaker, I apologize for not informing you earlier. I am dividing my time into two ten-minute periods so that one of my colleagues could speak.
The Fédération des parents francophones issued a press release, and I quote: "This right is conferred to them under section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but the province still refuses to implement it. The province's francophones are therefore asking the federal government to intervene on their behalf when the proposed amendment is tabled". I should point out that there are no Bloc MPs in Newfoundland and I understand that the premier there is a Liberal.
This situation is totally unacceptable to Michel Cayouette, the president of the Fédération des parents francophones de Terre-Neuve et du Labrador. There is an inconsistency in all this. On the one hand, clause 23 of the charter requires the provinces to recognize minority language educational rights and, on the other hand, Parliament is about to adopt a major constitutional amendment affecting the way these schools are managed.
So we have two provinces, other than Quebec and Ontario, which do not comply with that clause. Furthermore, eight out of ten provinces, all English-speaking, are finding legal, administrative, financial and other ways to contravene the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by not providing the educational services provided for in section 23. As a result, only one in two eligible children in Ontario, one in five in Manitoba, and one in sixty in Saskatchewan, goes to French school. There is more undereducation among francophones outside Quebec than among anglophones.
In 1994, 45.2 per cent of anglophones had graduated from high school compared to 37.4 per cent of francophones. And, as we know, education is the future.
I have just been talking about education, but for these children education is their future, knowing in which language they will grow up and eventually be working.
I am going to answer a question put to me by my colleague for Cape Breton Highlands-Canso who wanted to know if it could be proven that the French fact had been strengthened or not throughout Canada.
In 1951, 40 years ago, outside Quebec, in the other Canadian provinces, 7.3 per cent of the population spoke French. And 40 years later, despite the Official Languages Act, only 4.8 per cent of the population speaks French, a drop of nearly 50 per cent.
What about the mother tongue spoken at home? In Canada, 20 years ago, 25.7 per cent of the population spoke French at home, this has now dropped by 2,4 per cent throughout all provinces, Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia. Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. In Saskatchewan, this proportion has dropped sharply from 1.7 per cent to 0.7 per cent over 20 years.
Statistics Canada does not give any indication that the French fact has been strengthened in any province over the past 20 or 40 years.
If the Liberal Party of Canada and the Reform Party agree with these statistics, then the situation is urgent. If they do not agree, they are turning a blind eye and are putting their heads in the sand when they wrongly accuse the separatists.
Supply June 13th, 1996
Mr. Speaker, could the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell be decent enough and courteous enough to observe the rules of the House and listen to his colleagues' speeches? If not, may I ask him, through you, to show that much courtesy?