Ginette Petitpas Taylor is brandishing the specter of early elections to encourage MPs to adopt the bill modernizing the Official Languages Act (OLA) as quickly as possible, despite the reluctance of French language defense groups. “We are not sure that the government will be there for two years,” warned the Minister of Official Languages at To have todespite the agreement in principle between the Liberals and the New Democrats allowing the minority government of Justin Trudeau to remain in power until 2025.
Various groups have been lobbying for several months for Bill C-13 to receive royal assent by the holiday break. One of them published an open letter in The duty asking Ottawa to ignore the demands of the Federation of Francophone and Acadian Communities (FCFA), which is calling for the designation of Treasury Board as the agency responsible for implementing language reform. The current version of the law provides that various ministries will ensure its application. According to the FCFA, in the absence of a central agency, “several federal institutions do what they want, as they want”.
However, Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor does not intend to amend her bill. She enjoys the support of former Supreme Court of Canada judge Michel Bastarache as well as that of ten members of the Canadian Francophonie network, including the president of the Société de l’Acadie du Nouveau-Brunswick (SANB). , Alexandre Cedric Doucet. In a letter published in the pages of To have to on November 10, they denounced the lack of “obvious progress” in the study of the bill, which was tabled on November 1er last March, and the “opposition […] distressing” of “opponents” to the initiative of the Liberal government.
Spontaneous support?
The letter was sent to To have to November 9 by Alexandre Cédric Doucet. However, the newspaper found that the name of Richard Léger, policy director for Minister Petitpas Taylor, appeared in the document’s metadata as one of the authors. Alexandre Cédric Doucet, for his part, says he doesn’t know who wrote the letter or how Richard Léger’s name could have found its way into the document’s metadata.
The professor of the University of French Ontario Linda Cardinal, one of the signatories of the letter, affirms for her part that Richard Léger “did not write a line” and that it was she who wrote the text. in collaboration with Franco-Ontarian lawyer Ronald Caza and New Brunswick researcher Donald Savoie, among others. “I don’t know what his name is doing there,” she said of Richard Léger.
Official Languages Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor denies that a member of her cabinet could have been involved in drafting the letter. “I absolutely tell you to go and see the signatories. I didn’t tell them to write that letter,” she said. She went on to say that there was “absolutely no” involvement from her office in the drafting of said text.
The importance of acting quickly
The signatories of the letter interviewed by The duty agreed with the Minister of Official Languages: Bill C-13 must be passed sooner rather than later to avoid it dying on the order paper, like Bill C-32 in the summer of 2022 , in the event of new early general elections.
“After the Holidays, Parliament could be prorogued for an election or for a Speech from the Throne,” said Alexandre Cédric Doucet, president of the SANB. “There are elections coming up in two years, so this bill must be passed,” thinks Mr.e Florian Arseneault, President of the Association of French-Speaking Jurists of New Brunswick. “It’s a minority government, so an election can be called at any time,” says Acadian jurist Michel Doucet to highlight the urgency of the situation.
A first major modernization in 34 years
The OLA has seen only one significant change since 1988, when the legislative text was updated to meet the obligations of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Bill C-13 changes almost every section of the act. It certifies that French is in a minority situation compared to English in Canada, imposes institutional bilingualism on the Supreme Court, but not the individual bilingualism of judges, and specifies the impact that measures favorable to the development of French-speaking and English-speaking minorities.
In addition, Bill C-13 provides for government-wide coordination in the implementation of the act. The Minister of Canadian Heritage “promotes and encourages” its implementation with the assistance of other federal departments. But C-13 does not provide for the designation of a central agency responsible for enforcing the law as desired by the FCFA. According to the group of signatories, however, Ottawa would be making a mistake if it agreed to the FCFA’s request. “The Canadian Francophonie would experience significant setbacks” in such a situation, we read in the letter.
This story is supported by the Local Journalism Initiative, funded by the Government of Canada.