Mr. Pierre Lemieux (Parliamentary Secretary for Official Languages, CPC):  

    Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to respond to the motion of the member for Joliette. The point I want to make is that the Bloc members' statements about official languages do not stand up. Inevitably, they start by claiming that French cannot flourish in Canada, which could not be further from the truth and flies in the face of our country's history. 

 I want to assure this House that our government is firmly committed to meeting its obligations to support the official languages and promote French and English throughout Canada.

 I will begin by outlining the linguistic framework put in place by the Government of Canada in recent decades. The objective and results of this framework have always been to enhance and not to impede the vitality of our two official languages.

 The first Official Languages Act, passed in 1969, laid the groundwork for protecting and enhancing linguistic duality in Canada. This act was adopted as a result of the recommendations of the Laurendeau-Dunton commission on bilingualism and biculturalism.

 In 1982, we saw the adoption of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which was part of the constitutional amendments that came out of the repatriation of the Canadian constitution. This charter clearly states that English and French are the official languages of Canada and have equality of status and equal rights and privileges as to their use in all institutions of the Parliament and Government of Canada.

 A new Official Languages Act came into effect in 1988 to reflect and implement the provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This new act included provisions about promoting English and French, and these provisions were strengthened by an amendment in 2005.

 I would like to remind the House that it was a unanimous resolution of our caucus that paved the way for the adoption of this amendment, whose main objective is to enhance the vitality of English and French linguistic minority communities in Canada and support their development.

 This description of the measures that have been put in place in recent decades to recognize French shows that there is a consensus in Canada on official languages: Canada's linguistic duality is an essential part of the Canadian identity and an extraordinary asset for all of society.

 Our government is fully in favour of this linguistic framework, which it intends to strengthen in the near future, as announced in the most recent throne speech.

 I would stress that the provisions relating to linguistic duality are not inconsistent with the Charter of the French Language, as the Bloc members suggest. The Charter of the French Language in fact has full effect in areas under Quebec’s jurisdiction, and things work well that way.

 I would like to mention in passing that the Official Languages Act essentially applies to institutions of the Government of Canada, plus a few others such as Air Canada. One of the objectives of the act is to ensure that services are provided to the public in the language of their choice. This is true in most cases.

 Members of the public who speak the minority language can therefore receive services in either official language. As the most recent census figures show, 98% of the Canadian population speaks English or French, so we are able to reach virtually everyone by using one of those two languages.

 The policies of the Government of Canada regarding the implementation of the Official Languages Act assign an important role to linguistic duality. I can also say without hesitation that there are many policies and programs that deal directly with the French language itself.

 One concrete example is support for minority language education throughout Canada. Some provinces have established immersion programs in recent years.

 It is too early to evaluate the final results of those measures, but requests for second language instruction continue to grow.

 Teaching French as the minority language is a component for which the Government of Canada provides direct support to provincial and territorial governments. There are funding agreements in place for this.

 On the question of knowledge of French, I would point out that based on recent census figures, anglophones in Quebec are increasingly bilingual. Their rate of bilingualism has reached 70%, while among young people it has risen above 80%. We can therefore say that programs to support official languages work directly to promote learning French from one end of the country to the other.

 In the area of immigration, as we all know, Quebec is permitted to select its own candidates, and the Government of Canada fully recognizes provincial jurisdiction and Quebec’s francization objectives. You know that for several decades there have been agreements in place in this regard, and considerable amounts of money have been paid to the Government of Quebec to facilitate the integration of these immigrants.

 From the last census, once again, we can see that for the first time in Quebec, most allophones who switched languages opted for French rather than English. This trend seems to be taking hold since three-quarters of the new immigrants who arrived between 2001 and 2006, and who speak English or French at home, chose French as their main language. In short, the immigrants who arrived in Quebec after 1971 have overwhelmingly chosen French.

 As the right hon. Prime Minister said last year, French is the first language of Canada, and the developments that I am bringing to your attention show that its importance remains. We will celebrate the fact that French came first, chronologically speaking, in the coming year during the 400th anniversary of Quebec City.

 French is also an international language spoken on all continents. It also ranks, I might add, among the ten major languages spoken in the world. After English, French has an official status in the greatest number of countries. As you know, the Government of Canada actively supports the institutions of the international Francophonie.

 Given the Government of Canada's support for the French language, as I have just explained, I really wonder why we would have to amend the federal legislation to allow a so-called better protection of French in Quebec. The Government of Canada already acknowledges Quebec's francophone reality in all of its initiatives, and a number of indicators suggest that this approach is working. In Quebec, and in the rest of Canada, the promotion of French remains a priority to which we are committed.

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