I'd like to welcome you. As you all know, my name is Yvon Godin, and I am the second Vice-Chair of the Standing Committee on Official Languages.
This is the second province we've visited. Yesterday, we visited Newfoundland; we went to St. John's, Newfoundland. This is the first time in its 25 years of existence that the Standing Committee on Official Languages has travelled in the country to meet its citizens directly in the provinces. One may perhaps wonder why we didn't go to Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia to visit people directly in their province. As you can see, the committee has been around for 25 years and has never travelled. Let's put our cards on the table right off the top: it wasn't even easy to get to Moncton. We were supposed to travel last year, but that was cancelled because of the election.
Our committee consists of members from all the political parties. As you can see, the government is represented by Sylvie Boucher, Pierre Lemieux and Daniel Petit, the official opposition is represented by Jean-Claude D'Amours and Raymond Simard, and Guy André represents the Bloc québécois.
This morning, we'll start with Prince Edward Island. The purpose of this trip was to go to the regions. That made it possible to meet with the organizations that very often don't have a chance to come to Ottawa. However, that wasn't the only reason. It also gave us the chance to make some checks. For example, is the Action Plan for Official Languages working in the region? Do citizens have any questions? Do they have any suggestions to make to the government? Based on that, we'll draft a report and also examine the Action Plan for Official Languages. We're looking at health, education, culture, in short, everything. I want to hear what you have to say on those subjects.
We're here with our analyst, Jean-Rodrigue Paré, Samy Agha, the committee clerk, Louise Thibault, procedural clerk, our technicians and our translators. On the technical side, in particular for translation, you don't have to touch the microphones because everything will be done automatically.
With that, we're going to start, and you'll have to introduce yourselves. As I said, we'll start with Prince Edward Island. Mr. Landry isn't really from Prince Edward Island, but, from what I've been told, he's representing the Atlantic Region as a whole.