Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
In listening to you speak, it is clear that you are feeling very frustrated and we can see that there is a problem. It's like an old couple or a couple that is not getting along. On the one hand, there is the government and on the other the official language communities. There is a problem within the couple. The official language communities are saying that they are trying to speak to the government but that the government does not want to speak to them. Eventually, a split occurs. Increasingly, the government can be seen to be withdrawing from areas in which it ought to be supporting the official language communities.
Earlier Ms. Gagné-Ouellette, when you spoke about the federal/provincial/territorial Early Childhood Development Agreement, you stated it very clearly. Earlier, I had mentioned the Publications Assistance Program to you, whose budget is being cut. There was discussion of the September 25, and of all the cuts that were being made, but it began well before, when the government decided to back out of the promise to spend $5 billion on day care centres and the guarantee of a percentage of money for francophones, to vary depending on the province. The cuts to the communities did not start yesterday or on September 25. In fact, since it was elected on January 23, the Conservative government, as soon as it had the chance, made cuts to its grants to official language communities. As soon as it had an opportunity to attack the official language communities, it did so stealthily. Every time there are discussions, and in hearing you and when we speak together, it can be seen just how much harm the Conservatives have done to us and since when. Sometimes, it is areas that we did not know about: the question of this federal/provincial/territorial agreement strikes us as something new. It was something new, as it happens. The federal government had an agreement that was designed to guarantee amounts to help the communities within its available financing.
Do you share my feeling that this reality really goes back to the very beginning of the new government? It calls itself new; soon we will be calling it old. The fact remains that since this new government came to office, little by little, very gradually, the official language communities have been losing ground. We now wonder what types of measures will have to be taken to make up for these deficits and even to simply recover what has been lost, let alone talk about moving forward.