Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I represent a region where the Franco-Ontarian population is quite significant. As an anglophone, I am fully aware that minority rights were not created by the majority. The right to services in one's language and to French-language schools was obtained by minorities, and these minorities based their arguments on their convictions and faith in equality. In my region, the debate is still ongoing.
When Mr. Harper decided to cut the program he said he didn't want to pay money to Liberal lawyers. Of all the programs that were cut at that time, this one was seen to have been singled out. It was described as a frivolous program, partisan.
How do you feel, and how would you respond to that kind of denigration of the work that this program has done?