Mr. Chair, the wording of the new subsection 41(5) of the Official Languages Act proposed in clause 21 of the government's Bill C-13 requires “that the positive measures that it considers appropriate are taken for the implementation of the commitments under subsections (1) to (3).” We will not revisit the debate surrounding the phrase “it considers appropriate”.
However, this same government is now proposing an amendment that would, in my opinion, water down or soften Bill C-13 by suggesting, in the French version, “la prise de mesures positives”. The word “les” is eliminated from line 29 of the French version of the bill to include the word “de”, which has the same meaning as “des”.
I'll return to my example from earlier. Assuming the existence of 10 positive measures, LIB-14 would allow for the application of only one, or three, four, five, or all 10. We don't know. The current wording of this bill would require federal institutions to implement all 10 measures. Why diminish and water down this bill?