Top Acadian minister outlines 'non-negotiable' stance on bilingualism

The top francophone cabinet minister in Premier Blaine Higgs's government has drawn a line in the sand on what changes he's willing to accept on official bilingualism.

Daniel Allain says in a written statement that he wants to see the office of the commissioner of official languages remain intact and wants two separate health authorities to remain in place with separate boards of directors and CEOs.

His Progressive Conservative cabinet colleague Kris Austin has questioned the usefulness of those institutions in recent weeks.

Allain said in his statement that he felt he had to lay out "the limits of what would be acceptable, and what would be non-negotiable" on language rights.

The local government minister, first elected in 2020, is one of two francophone MLAs in the Progressive Conservative caucus and cabinet.

Asked in an interview to define what he meant by "non-negotiable," Allain said he would not resign if those institutions are changed but would "vote against it in caucus, cabinet and the legislative assembly."

A minister who votes against a government bill normally does not remain in cabinet.

"That's not for me to decide," Allain said. "I serve at the pleasure of the premier."

Higgs has said there's no plan to eliminate the language commissioner's role or merge the two health authorities.

Allain said he was caught by surprise when Radio-Canada revealed last week that the government had sought a legal opinion earlier this year on eliminating the dual school bus systems in the seven anglophone and francophone school districts.

"It would have been interesting if I'd had some type of knowledge of that," he said. "I learned of it from Twitter, just like you guys."

In his statement, he said a single bilingual busing system would violate constitutional language rights and "would be a major setback for francophones."

Allain also acknowledges in the statement that while he supports changes to French immersion to address the problem of streaming, "it is not clear we are operating with the best information available.

"There is disagreement about the validity of the data the government is using to justify its plans," he wrote. "This conflict needs to be explored further and resolved."