I think it would be good for you.
You are not a lobby group, you do not protest and you do not leave people to deal with issues on their own. That is what I understood and I respect that. We need people to apply pressure and we need others who want to stay put. We need mediators in between both. You are more like mediators and we appreciate your work.
Take New Brunswick, for example, under the previous Conservative government. Did we miss the boat with respect to francophones in that province? The francophone hospitals were shut down in the north of the province — Caraquet, Lamèque, Dalhousie and Saint-Quentin. The lobby group took to the streets and finally got six beds. At the same time, a large anglophone hospital was built in the south of the province.
Obstetric services were lost throughout the Acadian peninsula, which is home to 60,000 people. These people now risk having women give birth in ambulances. Two births have occurred in ambulances since last year. Yet the government says that in Bathurst, doctors are not qualified to assist women in giving birth unless they are specialists. Furthermore, this service is going to be transferred to Campbellton, which is two hours from Bathurst.
So for francophones, an ambulance driver is qualified to assist women in giving birth — I am talking about the francophone community — but the service you are providing in Moncton, with all due respect...
Hopefully your cousin will continue to provide this service and he will not close other hospitals in the north in his new capacity as Minister. I would pay special attention because when a minister comes from the area, he closes hospitals. That is what has happened to us.
So what can your group, that you are so proud of — and rightly so — do to help an area like ours where francophones are being struck at a speed of 400 miles an hour?