On April 7, the Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN) hosted a town hall webinar attended by more than 60 people, which was later posted on YouTube. During the webinar, QCGN policy, research and public affairs director Stephen Thompson and legal adviser Marion Sandilands explained the implications of the bill, which is currently undergoing second reading in the House of Commons.
The QCGN presents its overview of Bill C-13, An Act for the Substantive Equality of Canada’s Official Languages, introduced in the House of Commons on March 1, 2022.
“It’s downright asymmetrical,” says Joan Fraser, a QCGN Board member and former senator, on the recently-tabled Bill C-13, An Act to amend the Official Languages Act: “It only talks about promoting and protecting the use of French within private companies in Quebec. There is no word on the protection of members of the [Anglophone] linguistic community in Quebec.”
The Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN) is disappointed with the bill presented by Ms. Petitpas Taylor.
According to the organization, it deplores what it analyzes as an abandonment of the principle of symmetry in the Act between minority Francophones and Anglophones.
We are creating a dangerous precedent, not only for us, but also for Francophones in other provinces
, says Joan Fraser, former senator and member of the QCGN’s board of directors.
The federal government plans to set a target to bring more francophone immigrants to Canada as part of a drive to revive and protect French in the country.
Joan Fraser, a board member of the Quebec Community Groups Network, said the proposed law focuses heavily on protecting French within Quebec, and the French-speaking minority in the rest of Canada, and not enough on the English-speaking minority within Quebec.
Today, Minister Petitpas Taylor’s Bill C-13, An Act to amend the Official Languages Act, to enact the Use of French in Federally Regulated Private Businesses Act and to make related amendments to other Acts, was tabled in the House of Commons. Like its predecessor C-32, an Act for the Substantive Equality of French and English and the Strengthening of the Official Languages Act, that died on the order paper before the last election, the new legislation contains some positive measures. However, it must also be acknowledged that in several areas the federal government has abandoned 50 years of commitment to the national vision of linguistic duality and equality in federal law between our official languages from sea to sea to sea.
As the 44th Canadian Parliament of the House of Commons gets under way, the Quebec Community Groups Network welcomes the opportunity to work with the new Minister of Official Languages, Ginette Petitpas Taylor, and Francophone minority communities from across Canada to modernize the Official Languages Act, legislation that is critical to the vitality of our minority language communities.
The Quebec Community Groups Network today congratulated Ginette Petitpas Taylor on her appointment as Canada’s new Minister of Official Languages and offered our keen assistance in her new portfolio. We also congratulated her predecessor, Mélanie Joly, on her promotion to Minister of Foreign Affairs.
The QCGN is funded by the Government of Canada through the Department of Canadian Heritage.
