Mr. Speaker, the official languages file has been stagnating for years. Every day we see the same thing: the French language is declining in this country. The Commissioner of Official Languages has been very clear about this.

Despite the federal government's promises, only 2% of immigrants in provinces other than Quebec have French as their first official language, a measly 2% of francophone immigrants outside Quebec. As the Francophonie critic, I cannot help but deplore this government's mediocre record. I am not alone. As a member of the Standing Committee on Official Languages, I have heard much testimony describing the decline in French in Canada. A number of minority communities are very concerned since they risk losing more and more of the services that federal institutions provide in French. The Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada, the Association canadienne-française de l'Alberta, the Fédération acadienne de la Nouvelle-Écosse, and the Commissioners of Official Languages of New Brunswick, Ontario and Canada, to name a few, are sounding the alarm.

The executive director of the Fédération acadienne de la Nouvelle-Écosse even said the following:

...although the CIC's programs have made it possible to accommodate a growing number of immigrants to Canada...it seems the services provided favour anglophone over francophone immigration...

This flies in the face of a number of Canadian laws, such as the Official Languages Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, as well as the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, no less.

Need I remind members that Citizenship and Immigration Canada has a constitutional obligation to promote the equality of French and English as the official languages of this country? However, for nearly three years the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration has been pitching his new express entry program as the answer to all the problems with francophone immigration. In January 2015, the government launched the express entry program without consulting the communities. However, this program is very flawed. First, it does not identify francophone candidates. According to the minister responsible: ...we are not satisfied with our immigration system's capacity to determine the French-language skills of newcomers...

There is not even a question asking people whether French is their first or second language. The minister is off-loading the government's linguistic obligations in the area of immigration onto employers. Given that we are talking about the express entry program, employers are asking for people to fill positions without checking what language they speak. Results to date have not been good. No one is happy with this program, not even the minister responsible for it. He said that he was disappointed with francophone immigration in Canada. In fact, he said that “[t]he number of francophones arriving in Canada could be higher than we realize.”

We are hearing a lot of talk but not seeing a lot of action.

In closing, I would like to share with the House a quote from the former president of the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada that I found shocking. She said, “If the goal were to kill off Canada's francophone and Acadian communities bit by bit, to make them disappear through attrition, it would be difficult to come up with a better strategy.”

Anne-Marie Day

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Adjournment Proceedings

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