Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-419, An Act respecting language skills, which was introduced by my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent.

This bill would require anyone appointed to the office of the 10 main officers of Parliament to understand French and English and to be able to communicate in both official languages at the time they take the job.

The positions in question are the following: the Auditor General of Canada, the Chief Electoral Officer, the Commissioner of Official Languages for Canada, the Privacy Commissioner, the Information Commissioner, the Senate Ethics Officer, the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, the Commissioner of Lobbying, the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner and the President of the Public Service Commission.

These positions are very important and the people who hold these offices interact regularly with parliamentarians. They do an excellent job. They keep us apprised of what is going on. For example, the Auditor General just released his latest report and we learned a lot of things.

That is why I think it is very important for these officers of Parliament to be able to communicate in both official languages.

On occasion, the general public also has to interact with these people. As we saw with the allegations of electoral fraud, I think it is important for a member of the public to be able to speak with the Chief Electoral Officer in either official language in order to discuss the problems and to make a complaint.

I think it goes without saying that anyone appointed to the positions I mentioned will have a lot of experience, will have worked in the field and will have had training. They will probably have a few degrees. This is not a job you get right out of university.

That being said, the reason I wanted to point this out is that, when a person progresses in his career, no matter what that career may be, and things are going well and he thinks that he might want to aspire to another position, it is logical to think that, at some point, he might have the opportunity to be appointed Auditor General.

If that person knows that the position requires him to be bilingual, then he has more than enough time, from the beginning of his career, to say that he is going to learn French or English right away, depending on which language he is less familiar with.

It is completely reasonable to think along those lines. If a person knows he needs to be bilingual in order to reach his future career goals, he will do his best to learn the other language. Often, the people appointed to these positions are from the public service. They have already worked in various capacities and have therefore had access to courses in the other official language. I think that that is an important point to make.

I would like to come back to the work done in committee. At report stage, a Liberal amendment was rejected and four Conservative amendments were accepted. I am sorry to see that the preamble was done away with.

The preamble reiterated the fact that the Constitution recognizes that English and French are the official languages of Canada; that English and French have equal rights and privileges as to their use in Parliament; that parliamentarians use both official languages during parliamentary debates and proceedings; and that persons appointed with the approval by resolution of the Senate, the House of Commons or both Houses of Parliament must be able to communicate with parliamentarians in both official languages.

I think that it is unfortunate that the preamble was removed. I think that all parliamentarians should be proud to stand and say that, in Canada, we are lucky to live in a unique country with two official languages and two linguistic communities that live together and that have learned to value each other.

Yes, there is sometimes conflict between the two communities, but Canada is an example of a country where two communities that are fairly different in terms of language and culture are able to live together and to be proud of who they are. Still, the Conservatives decided to remove this preamble. The preamble would have given us the chance to reiterate how proud we are of our country. I find it really sad that it was removed.

I believe that the Conservative Party is wasting an opportunity to stand up and proudly say that Canadians are proud of our language skills and proud to speak French and English, that we are proud of who we are and that it is important to put that in a bill.

In deciding to have bilingual officers of Parliament, we are taking a step in the right direction to show that, in Canada, we speak two languages and to give the reasons why we pass these types of bills. We are proud of our two communities, which are equal before the law. Instead, they decided to eliminate the preamble.

With regard to clause 2, which was amended, we originally asked that the incumbent understand English and French without the aid of an interpreter. It was decided that “without the aid of an interpreter” would be deleted. I find that unfortunate.

Members will recall that the Commissioner of Official Languages, Graham Fraser, said the following, which is taken from the Official Languages Act, and I found it to be appropriate.

If you say that people can use an interpreter, that indicates that the person does not have sufficient proficiency in the other official language.

I believe that it was important to keep these words to indicate what is meant by “understanding of the other official language”. If someone does not need an interpreter, it clearly shows that they are proficient in the other official language. That provides a criterion for determining whether or not the person has sufficient knowledge of the other official language. I am disappointed that the Conservatives decided to delete this clause.

It is also unfortunate that they deleted clause 3, whereby the Governor in Council could, by order, add offices to the list established in section 2. It would have been possible to add offices without necessarily having to go through the entire legislative process with a new bill to amend a bill about to be passed. The government might realize, for example, that some offices should have been on the list, or a new office could be created. No one knows what the future needs of the country may be. It is possible that other officer of Parliament positions may be created; they could have been automatically included in the bill and the law. I find it unfortunate that we are not giving ourselves some flexibility. There was no need to eliminate this clause.

Clause 4 stated that, in the event of the absence or incapacity of the incumbent of any of the offices listed in section 2 or vacancy in any of these offices, the person appointed in the interim must meet the requirements set out in section 2. In other words, the person must be bilingual even in an interim position. I regret that this clause was also deleted.

I know that Canada has an abundance of competent people with outstanding skills. I also know that there are bilingual candidates for all positions. It is not true that there are not enough; we can find them. We could have applied the same requirement to interim positions, if only out of respect for Canada's official language communities.

It is simply too bad that the requirement was deleted and that it was decided—even before the situation occurred—that it would be impossible and that we needed some flexibility. I know that Canada has a lot of competent people. Every time we conduct studies in committee, we see the expertise of Canadians. Many people have the skills and can give us the right information. This is really about not being willing and refusing to look for bilingual people. That is just too bad.

It is important to remember that a number of people supported our bill in its entirety before it was amended. For instance, Marie-France Kenny, President of the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada, and Graham Fraser, Commissioner of Official Languages for Canada, supported it. They all said good things about the bill.

I am clearly pleased to support my colleague's bill, but, honestly, I would have much rather not seen it amended. I think the clauses that were deleted made the bill better and it is unfortunate that they were removed.

It is also unfortunate that the Conservatives missed the chance to keep the preamble and to reiterate how much they believe in a bilingual Canada and the importance of two equal French-speaking and English-speaking communities in our country.

I am proud of this country. I used to wear the flag on my shoulder when I was in the military.

I am very proud of what Canada stands for and I am always happy to say how proud I am of our country.

Christine Moore

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