Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in debate on the concurrence motion regarding the report from the Standing Committee on Science and Research, “Revitalizing Research and Scientific Publication in French in Canada”.

A fun fact about me is that my maiden name is Godin. My father and our family anglicized us. As an anglicized child, I feel very strongly about the importance of accessing French language training and the preservation of the French language in Canada.

I just want to draw from the supplementary opinion to this report, written by the Bloc Québécois, and read two lines into the record:

However, the Bloc Québécois feels that the report does not go far enough and does not fully respond to Quebec's demands in terms of research and education.... The Bloc Québécois believes that the most obvious remedy to this problem is for the federal government to withdraw completely from this field of activity, while granting Quebec the means to assume these responsibilities.

The problem is the funding of research in French and access to French language research projects, etc.

With regard to the line that says the report “does not fully respond to Quebec's demands in terms of research and education”, I note one of the Quebec government's most recent demands. I will read from an article from True North news by an author named Elie Cantin-Nantel. The title of the article is “Quebec higher education minister denounces EDI practices in letter to universities”.

This whole situation started to arise in March 2022. This is an article from the Canadian Press: “Quebec university criticized for job posting that excludes white men”. That is a headline from a CTV article.

It says, “Ministers in Francois Legault's government took exception on Wednesday to a call for candidates from Laval University that they consider exaggerated and even discriminatory.” This relates to a funded research position from the Canada research chair program.

In response to this issue, the Quebec government went so far as to pass a motion in the National Assembly on December 7, 2022. A National Post article said that the motion “expresse[d] a commitment to merit-based hiring on university campuses and reject[ed] the imposition of racial or gender quotas by the federal government.”

I guess I am just wondering if, in the supplemental report, where the Bloc says that the report “does not fully respond to Quebec's demands in terms of research and education”, that line is, in fact, referring to this recent motion that was put forward in the National Assembly regarding calls for merit-based hiring, particularly when it comes to Canada research chairs.

The Bloc has called for, essentially, a devolution of research funding—

Michelle Rempel

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