LANG Committee Report

BLOC QUÉBÉCOIS DISSENTING OPINION ON

THE REPORT OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON OFFICIAL LANGUAGES ON POSTSECONDARY INSTITUTIONS AND THE PROMOTION OF BILINGUALISM IN CANADA

TABLED TO THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON OFFICIAL LANGUAGES

First and foremost, the Bloc Québécois would like to thank all the witnesses who appeared before the Committee on Official Languages during its hearings in Ottawa. Their evidence illuminated for us the problems of staffing bilingual positions in the federal public service, and the role that universities and other postsecondary institutions can play in training the next generation of public servants.

Generally speaking the Bloc Québécois agrees with the thrust of the Committee’s study – that bilingual positions within the federal public service should be filled by bilingual employees – but notes that a number of considerations were obscured by the Committee in the drafting of the report and that the recommendations ignore Quebec’s linguistic reality and its difference. Now recognized as a nation by the House of Commons, Quebec must be able to insist on recognition for its own attributes, including its linguistic reality. As a result, the Bloc Québécois can only oppose the report, and wishes express serious reservations about it.

First of all, the report establishes that there are major differences between the situations and needs of the different language groups. For example, it notes that Francophones in the public service are currently overrepresented in key (and thus bilingual) positions, given their population share, and that one of the main problems is that Anglophones see little reason to learn French. These observations alone, in our opinion, are enough to justify proposing different approaches, adapted to the two groups’ realities and needs. Some of the recommendations in the report quite simply do not apply to Quebec.

Moreover, the strategy promoted by the report focuses on the role of educational institutions, and education is clearly one of Quebec’s areas of jurisdiction.

The Bloc Québécois would have hoped to see the following added after recommendations 8, 9 and 10: “That Quebec, which has the expertise, the network and the contacts to identify and meet the needs of its citizens, must have the right to opt out unconditionally, with the full compensation, from any program that the federal government introduces in Quebec’s areas of jurisdiction.”

While some provinces may welcome or accept federal government involvement in introducing educational programs or allocating research grants, this is clearly not the case with Quebec, which is still paying the price for the federalist parties' paternalistic and centralist attitude.

Lastly, given that Quebec has been working for years to make French the public and shared language of the people of Quebec and thereby put the brakes on assimilation, it is inconceivable for the Bloc Québécois to support a recommendation that calls on the federal government to promote bilingualism both in Quebec's educational institutions and among its population, and without the assent of the provinces, what is more.

Under the Official Languages Act the federal government is required to guarantee the bilingualism of its institutions, but it has never received a mandate to promote bilingualism among the public at large. In addition, the Bloc Québécois considers that the federal government, rather than fixating on schools, colleges and universities, should demonstrate greater political will and do more to promote bilingualism within its own institutions.