Over nine years, you doubled the budget of these organizations and now you plan to take 15% away from them, knowing full well the effect of inflation and so on.
We sometimes get the feeling that the Liberal Party doesn't consider official languages to be important, while the country's francophone minority communities are working extremely hard to maintain their vitality. Honestly, I don't know how you would be able to justify a budget cut for these people. I saw how resilient they are in my 10 years on the official languages committee, and I'm glad we're here talking about it. I really believe that they need to be able to count on sustainable funding, because they are in a risky situation.
My question is this: Do you think it's appropriate to cut the budget of francophone minority communities? Can you promise me today that, in the next budget, there will be no cuts to the budgets for these communities?