This summer, we were all shocked by Mr. Marouf's comments. The Jewish community, francophones, and all those who care about respect for humans, the basic respect in our society, were all offended and shocked to hear the comments made by Mr. Marouf. Moreover, his organization was funded by the government.
We were looking forward to today's meeting, which was intended to get to the bottom of things. We had asked to meet with Minister Hussen and officials from the Department of Canadian Heritage and we had them for one meeting. What did the Conservatives decide to do? They decided to use the second hour of that meeting to table a motion demanding the appearance of Minister Rodriguez, as well as an amendment to that motion to demand the appearance of the CRTC chair.
This could have been done at another time. We could have had some basic respect for the people who tuned in to the meeting today and for the witnesses who came to testify. We could have asked questions of the department officials, who can give us the answers we were looking for about how the program works and what measures are going to be put in place. Instead, we spent an hour making the people listening to our meeting wait for answers and explanations.
There are three minutes left before the mandatory end of today's meeting. I appeal to colleagues to hurry up and vote on this motion and amendment to get it over with as quickly as possible, because I think it is a disgrace to the Jewish and francophone communities, who have been insulted and who were waiting for explanations today. It is embarrassing.
That's all I had to say.