Past Session:

Proceedings of the Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament

Formerly: The Committee on Privileges, Standing Rules and Orders

Issue 5 - Evidence for May 2, 2001

EVIDENCE

OTTAWA, Wednesday, May 2, 2001

The Standing Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament met this day at 12:05 p.m. to consider matters pursuant to its mandate under rule 86(1)(f) of the Rules of the Senate.

Senator Jack Austin (Chairman) in the Chair.

[English]

The Chairman: Honourable senators, I see a quorum.

The first item of business in our public session is to continue with the views of senators on the motion of Senator Gauthier with respect to the establishment of a unilateral - meaning "Senate only" - committee on official languages.

I have noted that Senators Losier-Cool, Rivest and Kinsella wish to speak to us today.

Senator Gauthier: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order, it is not a unilateral committee that I am asking for. I am asking for an autonomous committee of the Senate, which means that they can have their committee in the House, we can have ours, and there can be a joint committee. You used the word "unilateral."

The Chairman: "Unilateral" in English means "our own" vis-à-vis "joint." I understand exactly what you are seeking and I was probably using shortcut language. I apologize. I think everyone in the committee understands what you have asked for.

Senator Losier-Cool, did you have some comments on the existing work of the joint committee with respect to the motion of Senator Gauthier?

[Translation]

The parties seated here at this table do not have the same schedule as we members who are in a minority position, so to speak. The former Reform Party, now the Canadian Alliance Party, did not support the policy of bilingualism. The Bloc Québécois is unwilling to admit that the federal government can do something for Francophones in a minority situation. That made matters very difficult. Since Senator Gauthier proposed the creation of a Senate committee on official languages, and since the many interventions of the Commissioner of Official Languages, structural changes have occurred. Regular members are now attending meetings. That was not the case in the past. People would come and leave after five minutes. They seemed to have no interest in the proceedings. I believe that the pressure brought to bear by Senator Gauthier and by others on Mr. Boudria and the House of Commons whip have succeeded in changing the makeup of the committee. As I said, we now have the same clerk all the time. Before, we rarely had the same clerk. There seems to be more structure.

I would like to give the Joint Committee on Official Languages a second chance. I will make a final decision in June as to whether we should form our own committee or whether we can improve the structure of the existing committee.

[English]

The Chairman: I just wanted to explain the procedure of the committee in order that honourable senators are not misled.

Since Senator Gauthier made his presentations and we began the review of the question of whether the Senate should establish its own official languages committee, we have invited those who are or have been members of the joint committee to come and advise us with respect to their impressions and conclusions.

We wanted to finish that intervention process today in order that the Official Languages Commissioner may appear before us. She will come either next week or the week after. She has agreed to come and discuss her views of the operation of the Official Languages Commission. She will also respond to our questions.

We had two other colleagues in the final round of presentations, Senators Kinsella and Rivest, who are not here. I will suggest that we go to other business in the meantime.

Senator Grafstein: Mr. Chairman, I have not addressed this topic, but I have listened carefully to the debate. I am not bilingual, so I still struggle in English.

I have detected in Ottawa in the last four or five years an increasing use of the French language in committees - in Parliament and in the Senate - for whatever reason. I notice even in caucuses there is much more discussion in French than there was in the past. I do not know what the relative terms are, but there is more.

For those of us who have not been following those issues and yet will be asked to support or reject a proposal that, on its surface, seems to be very commendable, I would like to hear from Senator Gauthier about the two or three areas where there is a clear and present danger of discriminatory treatment with respect to the use of the French language. We can then focus on issues as opposed to generalities.

In other words, I have heard that the bilateral committee - the joint committee - is not meeting. It is not fulfilling its mandate. Having said that, I could make the same critique of a number of other committees. For example, I could make the same critique of the Standing Joint Committee of the Library of Parliament. As one who uses and relies on the parliamentary library, having no other staff in my office except my secretary, perhaps that is a cause as well.

Having said all that, it would be very interesting to focus on one or two concrete areas, or perhaps three or four.

By the way, our resources are diminishing. The opposition has made a valid point that with each addition to every committee, it is strained as an opposition. I think we must respect that because at the end of the day the opposition is diluted, and unless you can have a balanced debate, you are not having a debate.

It would be interesting if Senator Gauthier could tell us, "Here are the two, three or four areas that are not being treated, where there is a huge deficit from the standards that were supposed to be established by the legislation dealing with bilingualism."

I am not looking for a discursive discussion. I am just asking for one, two, three, to give us an idea of what he feels is the emphasis or the animus that should provoke us to make this change. I am open to doing this.

The Chairman: Senator Grafstein, thank you very much. Senator Gauthier, in introducing the motion, made a number of key points. I would be pleased if Senator Gauthier could respond.

Senator Gauthier: First, the committee has met four times in five years, to discuss the annual report of the Official Language Commissioner. That is the most important report that committee has before it. We met once about a week ago, on the annual report of Ms Adams, the present commissioner, dated 18 months ago. There is a lack of interest in the annual report. You can pick and choose small subjects related to that, but the main issue is the annual report. It has not been looked at basically because the opposition and the other parties are not interested in the issue. That is one point I will make. I can document that with facts, if you would like.

Second, do not compare this committee with the Library of Parliament. It is not the same thing. There is a fundamental difference. Canada has two official languages. We are not a bilingual country; that is a lot of baloney. We have two official languages and we must respect those languages in all that we do with the people of Canada. They expect to have service, they expect to have equitable representation, whatever they call that in English.

There is a significant amount of indifference. Air Canada is a good example. Air Canada does not give a damn about official languages. It is the champion of complaints every year. I have been here for 30 years and that has been the case every year. The House of Commons and the Senate put in article 10 of the law in 1998, which says that Air Canada is a federal institution and is bound by the Official Languages Act. Air Canada said the hell with it.

I have written to Mr. Milton, the Chairman, many times. I've waited four, five, or six months for a response. I am just a member of Parliament. I am not the committee. The last time I wrote, he said to me, "I will be there at the end of May."

That committee has worked no better than the other committees. They do not do their Estimates. The Estimates are deemed to have been tabled at the end of this month, May, but the committee has not yet looked at those Estimates, as far as I know, and I have been there since the beginning.

I could give you many other points.

Senator Grafstein: I raise it because Senator Gauthier is right. The bilingualism committee is a more basic and fundamental committee than the others. There is a differentiation between the committees. I did not wish to make an odious comparison between that and the library of Parliament. They are different in substance and kind.

However, Mr. Chairman, we had exactly that discussion yesterday about other committees that do not fulfil their parliamentary responsibilities. It is important that we have that as a principle. This is an excellent example of exactly that principle.

Senator Gauthier: The motion I made calls for a committee of the Senate composed of a maximum of seven members. Right now we have nine senators on that committee, the househas 16 - a total of 25 members. Ask Senator Cools. We have had occasional difficulty getting a quorum. She was a chairman of a joint committee and she knows.

The Chairman: These representations are on the record.

Senator Fraser: I said I was not going to speak, but I would like to put two elements on the record, if you do not mind.

First, a minority English community is concerned with the work of this committee, too. It is not just francophones.

More substantively, there have been developments in recent years that have not had the kind of examination in a commons-dominated committee they might have had and it has been harmful to minority language communities.

With respect to the devolutionary aspect of contracting with provincial governments to provide services previously provided by the federal government - spinning off Crown corporations, privatization of various activities - until recently, there has been little follow through to ensure federal language obligations are carried through as these activities go.

These activities, by their nature, tend to be the closest to the people affected. That is one reason for handing them over to the provinces. That is the kind of thing that has not had sustained attention in the committee as it exists. The issue then becomes: what is the best vehicle to provide that kind of sustained attention and actually have an impact?

The Chairman: It is clear there are broad issues to be discussed. I would invite senators to prepare their questions for the language commissioner when she is here in the next week or two.

If I may editorialize briefly, following the precedent of Senator Fraser, the entire area of bilingual education in Canada is a necessary part of the story of official languages. It is something about which we have been sensitive, but we should lose our sensitivity and take a look at what is happening in that field.

In any event, colleagues, we have other things to do. We have been in public. I now want to ask the committee to go in camera so we can discuss our agenda.

The committee continued in camera.