(Ottawa) The Bloc Québécois, with support from Conservative Party members, will force an emergency meeting of the Standing Committee on Official Languages to be held to extend study of the Official Language Reform Bill Act, The Canadian Press learned.
Posted at 6:11 am
Michel Saba The Canadian Press
“To date, the Committee has only adopted 20 of the 71 clauses that make up Bill C-13, leaving only a session and a half, or 3 hours, to study and adopt the remaining 51 clauses,” write Bloquiste Mario Beaulieu, as well as the Conservatives Joël Godin, Bernard Généreux and Marc Dalton in their letter of Thursday to the Chair of the Committee.
Her motion invokes Rule 106(4) of the House Rules of Procedure, which requires the chairman of a committee to convene a meeting within five days if he receives a motion signed by and represented by at least four members of a committee two different political parties.
According to the signatories, it is “obvious” that in the current situation, the Committee will not be able to “devote all the necessary attention and reflection to properly carry out its mandate”, especially as the formalities of the Languages Act have not been complied with revised since its adoption 50 years ago.
In an interview, Bloc Québécois spokesman for official languages, Mario Beaulieu, conceded that “we’ll have to get things done eventually,” but said he had trouble explaining why other members of the committee wanted “to rush things.”
Mr Beaulieu refused to advance to a series of additional sessions, but assured that he would at least like MPs to hold a debate on the “sensitive” Article 54, which affects private companies under federal jurisdiction. The bloc intends to table an amendment aimed at subjecting them to the French language charter, which was due to be passed thanks to the support of the Conservative Party and the New Democratic Party (NDP) and despite opposition from the Liberals.
Mr Beaulieu indicated that he understood the emergency meeting could take place as early as Tuesday, immediately before the eighth and currently final meeting scheduled for the clause-by-clause study.
Asked to respond to the letter from the bloc and the Conservative Party, NDP official language critic Niki Ashton said she was okay with “a session or two” being added to “make up for wasted time”.
“But we remain committed to ensuring that the law is passed quickly,” she added. Churches have waited long enough. »
The office of the Minister for Official Languages, Ginette Petitpas Taylor, refuses to comment on the addition of sessions, content to say that “the decision rests with the committee”.
“We remain committed to introducing C-13 as soon as possible,” spokeswoman Marianne Blondin said. It has now been a year since we presented the law and stakeholders and all of Canadian Francophony are eagerly awaiting its adoption. »
Two weeks ago, the minister’s parliamentary secretary, Marc Serré, took an even colder stance on the idea of adding sessions.
“That’s not necessary,” he had launched in the press crowd. Mr Serré had also insisted that the motion, which made it possible to move to a clause-by-clause study, was “clear” and called for “eight meetings”.
The famous Dec. 1 motion is the agreement members of the committee reached after weeks of wrangling last fall.
They had agreed that consideration of the bill would last eight sessions, after which any remaining amendments and clauses “shall be deemed to be proposed, and the President shall put them to the vote promptly and sequentially without further debate”. However, the agreement also provides that the study can be extended if this is requested by the majority of its members.
The Canadian press, at the time of this writing, had received no response to a request for comment from Conservative language critic Joël Godin.