Pierre De Savoye

[Controlled Drugs And Substances Act, April 19th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to the remarks the hon. member for Vancouver Centre made before Question Period. In her remarks, she repeatedly provided assurances to the effect that provisions not included in the legislation, which were to be covered by the regulation, would be appropriately covered. I am not quite sure that I am satisfied with that, but at least I had the pleasure of hearing her say that, in her mind, a solution may be found in precedents created in previous pieces of legislation.

More specifically, I would like the hon. member to assure me that one way or another, the courts can, while not being legally bound to do so, induce people charged with possession or use of narcotics to seek rehabilitation and detoxification therapy.

At present, as we know, the law does not require a judge to deal with a youth, for example, in such a way as to get him or her rehabilitated or detoxified. It is left entirely to the discretion of the judge. Unfortunately, judges all too often put behind bars young offenders who really need treatment instead.

Finally, is it not unfortunate that mistakes of youth cause young offenders, children, and teenagers to have criminal records following them for the rest of their lives, when it would be so much simpler to set them back on the straight and narrow by decriminalizing offenses which are, by and large, minor and fight the big-time drug lords instead.

I will conclude on this note. In the hearings on Bill C-85, the ancestor of Bill C-7, members of the police forces themselves expressed concern about the fact that the bill did not deal with drug lords, but only small-time dealers.

I would appreciate it if the hon. member could comment on this.

[Bankruptcy Act, April 18th, 1994]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-237, an Act to amend the Bankruptcy Act (priority of claims).

Mr. Speaker, as we all know, the fruits of our labours are sacred. Unfortunately, when a business goes bankrupt, wages are added to other debts and given no special status, which means that in the event of a bankruptcy, employees are deprived of what is owed them.

The purpose of this bill is to change the priority of claims when an employer goes bankrupt, so that payment of an employee's wages and pension fund, up to a total of $9,000, takes priority over all other claims.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed.)

[Leader Of Equality Party, April 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, this past weekend, the media reported that, according to the Equality Party leader, Ottawa should take every necessary measure to keep Quebec from becoming a sovereign state, including an intervention of the army, even following a referendum vote in favour of sovereignty.

We join together to denounce these shameful, irresponsible and anti-democratic comments.

The right of Quebec to self-determination is no longer an issue, nor is the peaceful, legitimate, legal and democratic character of each stage leading our province to sovereignty.

We expect each and every member of this House to make sure he or she joins us now in denouncing firmly this attitude which

goes totally against one of Canada's most profoundly respected values, the respect for democracy.

[Supply, April 18th, 1994]

I am surprised at being asked how we think this or that could work. We are not the ones putting forward a motion. The Reform Party is putting forward a motion. They should tell us how things would work for the French speaking communities outside Quebec.

How will the Reform Party ensure that these French communities evolve and the French speaking people get good jobs and good salaries? They are the ones who should be supplying those answers.

What we are saying is that Quebec, as a sovereign state, will continue and enhance its effort to support all French speaking communities from coast to coast. That has been pledged over and over again. I am not going to explain why I believe these people will make it. They have done so against tremendous odds up to now. Hopefully if the laws of the country continue to support bilingualism and if-this is the second if-they are implemented correctly, which they are not at the time, then these communities will be able to sustain themselves.

However, I am asking the question again. It is not for me to answer those questions. The Reformers are putting forward a motion. Let them support how it will work in the real world for the French speaking communities from coast to coast or do they want them to be eradicated?

[Supply, April 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I will respond to this. First, I respect the cultural solidarity mentioned by the hon. member. However, I do not have much respect for his mathematical skills.

Let us take his first argument. Indeed, Quebec is certainly, for French-speakers outside its borders, an important focal point, and it will continue to be unless the Government of Canada tries to enforce a violent opposition to it, which I doubt.

Now, for the mathematical part. The National Capital Region is not only the Ottawa side, it also includes, whether you like it or not, the other side of the river, that is Hull and Gatineau. You know that, Mr. Speaker, I am sure. When the hon. member says that bilingual public servants in the National Capital area serve a Franco-Ontarian population, I expect they also serve a Quebec population. Otherwise, this would be tantamount to abuse.

This aside, when I compared Quebec with the rest of Canada, I took care to say, and I repeat, that I was excluding the National Capital area, both from Quebec and from the rest of Canada. I am therefore comparing apples with apples and oranges with oranges. However, the hon. member may find it to his advantage to skew reality. As he said, let us leave political correctness aside and let us show things as they are. We give 57 per cent more service to English-speaking persons in Quebec, than French-speaking persons receive in the rest of Canada.

[Supply, April 18th, 1994]

Thank you.

For all this bilingualism enjoyed in this country since 1969 and all the goodwill in that respect, we must nevertheless realize -as the Commissioner of Official Languages indicated- that access to federal services in French has not always been satisfactory. Francophones outside Quebec should be able to receive services in their language not only from federal agencies but also from provincial ones. And that is where the shoe pinches.

Let me quote Mr. Jean Dufresne who said, in an article published in Le Journal de Montréal : Mr. Goldbloom, who speaks his mind but at the same time shows a moderation fitting a man whose mastery of French I can only envy, acknowledges that federal services in French have deteriorated so much that, in certain regions, francophones do not even bother to complain any more. In British Columbia and the Prairies, for example, the number of complaints dropped by half last year. Mr. Goldbloom attributes this drop to the clients' frustration with the little progress made by various institutions.'' And he concluded by saying:Overall, not a very positive report.''

I might add that problems exist not only in British Columbia and the Prairies. Last Sunday, in my riding, I met with Mr. Duval, from Cap-Santé, who showed me a number of things, including UI cheque stubs. On these stubs, you can read:

-UI benefit statement, date 3003, 1994 from federal tax, Quebec tax, et cetera. It is all in English. This is in Cap-Santé for Mr. Duval.

Something is seriously wrong. The figures relating to bilingualism in the Public Service certainly make you wonder. Take the number of bilingual positions in Quebec for example. Excluding the National Capital Region, there are 15,500 bilingual positions in the province, as compared to 39,500 in the National Capital Region and 8,800 in the rest of Canada. You will tell me that this is in line with the relative numbers of francophones and anglophones across Canada. That fact of the matter is that it is not.

You see, with 900,000 anglophones in Quebec and, excluding the National Capital, there are 15,500 bilingual positions in the province. On the other hand, 968,000 francophones are living outside Quebec, that is to say 68,000 more than anglophones living in Quebec, and to serve all of them, there are only 8,800 bilingual positions, that is a bit more than half the number found in Quebec. In other words, this means that francophones outside Quebec are entitled to only 57 per cent of the level of service provided to anglophones in Quebec. And I am not making this up. I am just quoting figures from the Commissioner of Official Languages' annual report.

I would also like to mention this other finding by the commissioner. In Foreign Affairs, 44 per cent of francophones report using English as their written language of work and, according to 85 per cent of the sample of employees interviewed by the commissioner, meetings are held only or mostly in English. Bilingualism is not very well, Mr. Speaker.

In fact, given the figures I just gave you, we can see that the government's efforts to conceive and carry out bilingualism programs only work in Quebec. Simply put, we can see that a vast majority of bilingual positions in Canada are located in Quebec and the National Capital Region. Quebec and the National Capital Region account for 55,000 bilingual positions, compared with 8,800 in the rest of the country. Quebec is where bilingualism can be found.

I would now like to move on to education.

Education, as everyone knows, is a provincial jurisdiction and, although the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms provides for certain obligations with respect to minority language rights, we must realize that some provinces still lag behind.

It is worth mentioning that these rights were made clearer by two Supreme Court decisions in 1990 and 1993. But these rights have been in the Charter for ten years now, and the provinces should have delivered the goods ten years ago.

Nevertheless, francophones outside Quebec had to fight to have their rights recognized and we know that, at least in Ontario, the situation is still not settled or even very clear at this time.

As for the three provinces that legislated in this field more recently-namely Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta-, I hope that, if it took them ten years to come up with a law in line with the Charter, it will not take another ten years for reality to reflect the spirit of the new legislation.

A word on Ontario. The President of the French-Canadian Association of Ontario, Jean Tanguay, recently said that the Commissioner's report did not reflect the fact that his community is in a state of crisis. He went on to say that, unfortunately, the Government of Ontario continues to deliberately defy the law in matters of school management.

The Liberal member for Ottawa-Vanier said essentially the same thing on the TVA network on March 23: "We asked to manage our own schools because it goes hand in hand with normal management. We still do not have it in Ontario, in spite of continuously asking for it for 30 years."

Bilingualism in Canada is not well, not because of the law or the Charter but because there is resistance somewhere.

I would like to point something out to the Reform speaker who, as he admitted himself, was unable to come up with a satisfactory answer to a question he was asked earlier about the wage gap between francophones and anglophones.

We know that the income gap between francophones and anglophones keeps growing outside Quebec, while it has declined considerably in Quebec. So why is there a gap and why does it keep growing outside Quebec?

Well, here is the answer. We can observe that it is partly due to the fact that francophone minorities do not control the management of their primary and secondary schools, because we know that education is one of the most important things for success in life. If our francophone minorities outside Quebec cannot have access to education in their mother tongue, they automatically lose the equal opportunity that their English-speaking fellow citizens have.

The gap is not small. In 1977, it was 4.4 per cent in favour of anglophones. Not only did it not stay the same but it grew to 10.3 per cent in 1992; that is a tragedy.

I would also like to talk about a statement that the Hon. Prime Minister made in this House last week. Speaking of Quebec sovereigntists, our Prime Minister said: "When they have achieved their objective of separation, a million francophones will probably lose their language." That was a regrettable statement. Francophones do not have rights because Quebec exists. Francophones outside Quebec have rights that belong to them, irrespective of Quebec. These people, these French-speaking citizens, have their own culture that belongs to them and in no way depends on whether Quebec exists as a sovereign state or not. However, I see that some people are not able to appreciate the rights of these minorities.

Believe me, Quebecers are very strong defenders of French culture in all of North America and especially in Canada from coast to coast and in all the provinces where these communities are established and have grown and developed over the years. They deserve to be supported by this government; more than deserve it, they are entitled to it.

I will say that the sovereignist forces in Quebec have already announced a generous policy with respect to the anglophone minority. I also consider it unfortunate that the Commissioner of Official Languages believes that English Canada would eliminate the rights of French Canadians outside Quebec if Quebec became sovereign.

At this time, you will understand that it is all the more important for Quebec to unconditionally support all the francophone minorities in the rest of Canada if the federal government abdicates its duty in this area.

To conclude, I have a few questions for the Reform Party. If the present bilingualism policy were abolished, as the Reform Party proposes, what policies would that party propose so that francophones outside Quebec could enjoy the same rights, privileges, guarantees and respect that anglophones in Quebec have? Would they be in favour of francophones outside Quebec managing their own schools? What do they propose as an alternative to respect and support for francophone organizations outside Quebec if the government did not spend money on aspects of language policy that are within exclusive provincial jurisdiction?

I have stated some facts, I have raised some issues, I believe that if the Reform Party wants to follow through to the end, it must do more than propose a notice of motion, it must propose a solution that respects all linguistic minorities in Canada, be they French or English.

[Supply, April 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the Reform Party has put a motion before the House today, and for the benefit of our listeners, I would like to start by reading the motion and then comment on a number of aspects I feel are particularly important and which I think each and every one of us should give some serious thought. The motion reads as follows:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should:

(a) amend the Official Languages Act to reflect the philosophy of "territorial bilingualism", which holds that French should be the predominant language of Quebec and English the predominant language of the other provinces, and that federal government services should be available to official language minorities in their own language in any part of the country where there is demonstrable local public demand;

(b) continue to facilitate the use of English or French in the debates and other proceedings of Parliament, in the records and journals of Parliament, in federal courts, and as the languages of federal legislation; and

(c) refrain from spending monies on those aspects of language which fall under the sole jurisdiction of the provinces.

Mr. Speaker, when this motion was presented by the Reform Party, the mover of the motion said, and I quote:

-the Official Languages Act is not working well.

I agree with what he said. In fact, I believe the Commissioner of Official Languages himself pointed out that the legislation was not as effective as one would expect it to be.

The hon. member for the Reform Party went on to say that this act-

-is divisive and too expensive.

Well, we in Quebec do not feel that this act is particularly divisive or that it creates dissent. It is too bad the hon. member for the Reform Party seems to think there is a measure of dissent and divisiveness, and I suppose that later on he could perhaps explain how he arrived at this perception. He also said the Official Languages Act was too expensive.

According to the Commissioner of Official Languages, this legislation costs 0.3 per cent of total federal spending. If less than one-third of 1 per cent is too expensive, how low must we go to meet the criteria of the hon. member for the Reform Party?

At this point, I would also like to set the record straight on something that was said by the previous speaker. He referred to the "asymmetrical bilingualism advocated by the Bloc Quebecois". The position of the Bloc Quebecois is clear: bilingualism must be the rule in all federal institutions. There are also a number of obligations in this respect that must be met at the provincial level. However, neither the Bloc Quebecois nor any other party can influence the will of the provinces.

Incidentally, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that today, New Brunswick is celebrating 25 years as a bilingual province.

[Customs Officers, April 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, very briefly and on a serious note, the members of the Bloc Quebecois agree fully with the comments of the hon. Minister of Revenue. We wish to convey our deepest sympathies to the families and friends of Mr. David Moore and Mr. Jim Finnamore.

[Criminal Code, April 13th, 1994]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-234, an act to amend the Criminal Code (facsimile advertising), and Bill C-235, an act to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act.

Mr. Speaker, with your permission, I am introducing today two bills which deal with related subjects, so I will speak on both together.

First of all, as we know, of course, masses of unsolicited advertising material are delivered to our homes regularly. A number of our fellow citizens would prefer that Canada Post not deliver this kind of material.

The purpose of one of the bills I am introducing is to allow people who do not wish to receive direct mail advertising or unaddressed mailing to so advise Canada Post Corporation and stop receiving such material.

Let us now move on to another type of unsolicited advertisements, the type we often receive by fax, not on paper paid for by the originator but rather on our own paper. Sheet after sheet after sheet of ads that we never solicited pile up overnight in our offices.

The purpose of this bill is to prohibit the use of faxes to advertise the sale of goods or services to individuals or corporations which did not solicit it.

(Motions deemed agreed to, bills read the first time and printed.)

[Bilingualism, April 13th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, beyond the issue of costs, will the Prime Minister recognize that the mere fact that the Commissioner of Official Languages recommends eliminating bilingualism bonuses is, in itself, another proof of the failure of the bilingualism policy coast to coast?