The President of the AMBM and Reeve of the Rural Municipality of La Broquerie, Mr. Ivan Normandeau, issued this statement following the announcement that the Senate of Canada had confirmed Royal Assent of Bill C-13:

We welcome the coming into force of the Act to amend the Official Languages Act, which aims to achieve real equality between Canada’s official languages.

We would like to congratulate Minister Ginette Petitpas-Taylor for her vision and commitment to Francophone minorities, as well as all parliamentarians. Together, they are providing all Canadians with invaluable new tools to not only protect the French language, but above all to promote its growth across the country. We also applaud the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne (FCFA), in particular its president Liane Roy, for their hard work and tenacity. The FCFA has played a key role with the federal government over the past few years, closely supporting the process leading up to the new version of the Act.

We’re delighted to see that the modernized Act creates the winning conditions to encourage and assist provincial and territorial governments to foster the development of Francophone minorities, notably by offering municipal services in French. We now have in place a federal legislative framework to support the continuous improvement of government services in both official languages, for all orders of government.

The timing couldn’t be better as we prepare to implement the new Municipal Maturity Model (3M) in partnership with our member municipalities over the coming months.

Ultimately, we are confident that the new Official Languages Act will provide a new impetus for increased intergovernmental cooperation, to the benefit of Francophone minority communities across Canada. We join Minister Petitpas Taylor in declaring this an historic day, as this legislation will have a “positive and lasting impact on our children and grandchildren”. We assure her that our local governments will do their fair share to help achieve true equality between our two official languages, particularly in the delivery of municipal services.

Information: Office of the Chief Executive Officer (O-CEO), 204-289-4077, [email protected].