An Act for the Substantive Equality of Canada's Official Languages
Date: 2023_04_26
Chamber: HOUSE OF COMMONS
Mr. Mario Beaulieu: the atmosphere in Quebec is electric these days. There is a movement, a collective awareness as the decline of French is picking up pace. There is every indication that is the case. Whether it is a question of which language is spoken at home, a person's mother tongue, the first official language spoken or the language of work, there is a rapid decline of French, especially in Montreal. This cannot continue. Language projection studies--even those from Statistics Canada, which is certainly not a loyal ally of French in Quebec--indicate that there is going to be a very rapid decline. Bill 101 has been shored up and the mobilization continues. Quebec's French language minister has called for a national awakening. I think we need to continue to mobilize. The federal language law has long been the blind spot in Quebec's language debate, but I think that with the debates we have had on the federal language law, people are beginning to better understand what it is. It is pretty incredible. For 53 years now, since 1969, Pierre Elliott Trudeau's Official Languages Act has been essentially, if not solely, about strengthening English in Quebec. The Official Languages Act came into being on the heels of the Laurendeau-Dunton commission. The commission was the brainchild of Andre Laurendeau, an editorialist with the newspaper Le Devoir. He championed a model somewhat similar to the one used in Switzerland or Belgium, a territorial model based on collective rights. He also believed that the Quebec issue had to be a priority. Lester B. Pearson was in power at the time. In the meantime, Andre Laurendeau died. When Pierre Elliott Trudeau came to power, he changed course completely. He introduced an institutional bilingualism model that gave individuals the freedom to choose their official language, English or French, but only where numbers warranted. Essentially, this model is the opposite of Quebec's approach, which is centred on protecting the future of French and making French the common language across Quebec's territory. The same approach is used around the world. This type of language planning model makes it possible to ensure the future of a language and genuinely protect Quebec's minority languages. The other major principle of the Official Languages Act is really an aberration. I am talking about the principle of symmetry or equivalence between Quebec's anglophones and the francophone and Acadian communities. It was really an aberration from the start. The Laurendeau-Dunton commission conducted a very thorough investigation and found that, out of 14 language groups in Quebec, francophones ranked 12th in terms of average income. We were therefore at a great disadvantage. Quebec anglophones were part of the Canadian anglophone elite, and they enjoyed over-funded institutions, like schools and hospitals. There was really institutional extreme overfunding in favour of the English. What Mr. Trudeau and the Liberal government of the day decided to do to help was to fund institutions, English-language educational institutions. This has frequently been denounced. The Bloc Quebecois has always denounced it. In a case on signage brought by Alliance Quebec, even the UN ruled that anglophones in Quebec cannot claim minority rights because they are part of the Canadian majority. It is there in black and white. If Quebec were independent, we could then say that francophones form the majority, but until Quebec is independent, we are subordinate to the federal government, which passed official languages legislation that aimed to strengthen English in Quebec, the only francophone state in North America. It continues to do so. If the federal language law was overlooked, it was mostly because the Liberal government, rather than directly confronting Quebec and intervening to challenge Bill 101 before the courts or using its power of disallowance, used a very effective strategy, which consisted of fostering the emergence of special interest groups in civil society, groups that it funded directly and that led court challenges and mobilized the population to defeat Bill 101. The government even established a court challenges program to defeat Bill 101. These 60 or so groups are funded by the federal government. For a very long time, whenever French was being defended in Quebec, we were called racists, xenophobic or inward looking, when the complete opposite is true. Having a common language makes it possible for a nation to include newcomers. That is not at all what happened. This continued for a very long time. Bill 101 was undermined in almost every sector to which it applied. Today we are seeing a more rapid decline of French. In this federal language law, part VII requires federal institutions to support the anglophone community in Quebec. The government is funding the anglophone community in Quebec. We thought there would be a change when the government recognized that French is in decline and that it had a responsibility to protect and defend French everywhere, including in Quebec. The Prime Minister kept saying that when he was presenting his action plan, but almost all the new investments in Quebec, roughly $280 million out of $1.4 billion, will be used for protecting and promoting English alone. It is incredible. That is $56 million more a year that will be added to the $90 million that is being paid to bolster all these groups that have budgets. Anyone involved in groups advocating for French outside Quebec -- I, myself, was involved in such a group in Quebec -- knows that money is key, and in the case of this funding, it will contribute significantly to anglicizing Quebec. I think we really need to take action. We saw the action plan. There was a last-minute agreement with the Government of Quebec regarding the French language in federally regulated businesses. That is an improvement, a step in the right direction. I said it before and I will say it again, because we want to promote the widespread use of French in every business sector. This is supposed to encourage the knowledge of French among business executives. The Bloc Quebecois supports any possible advancement of French in Quebec. That is why we are going to support this bill. However, there are still some asymmetrical elements in the rest of the bill. The principle of equivalence between anglophones and francophone and Acadian communities is still there, so this bill will continue to anglicize Quebec. Fortunately, Quebeckers are beginning to organize. We will keep informing people. I plan to do a tour of Quebec, because not many Quebeckers really know how the Official Languages Act works or know that all the funding goes to anglicizing Quebec. I think that if we take a few years to rally public opinion and to get this legislation changed, and if the federal government stays as closed off as it has been throughout the debates, there is one question that Quebeckers will start asking themselves or that will become more and more clear in their minds: assimilation or independence?