Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to begin by saying that we will be supporting the motion. It was not an easy decision, but out of respect for this committee and out of respect for democracy—an ideal that is of paramount importance—we have no choice. Elected representatives are given a voice that must be used to advance the society in which we all live. The committees of the House of Commons are essential fora for exercising this responsibility. Preventing us from exercising our right to speak by cancelling Tuesday's meeting and by failing to schedule a meeting on Thursday is an abuse of power.
Mr. Chairman, there is another important point that must be understood. When we were in the House of Commons for Question Period on Tuesday, I sent you a memo asking you why you had cancelled the meeting of the Standing Committee on Official Languages. You replied that the committee was becoming too partisan, and that the Court Challenges Program was before the courts and was also being studied by the Official Languages Commissioner. By way of conclusion, you said that we would invite witnesses at a later date, when all of these questions had been resolved.
Mr. Chairman, you felt that the committee was too partisan. The Conservative Party, the Liberal Party, the Bloc Québécois and the NDP are part of the Canadian political landscape. There are some 15 political parties in Canada, and 4 of them have managed to get members elected. Furthermore, I would remind you that during in-camera work completed in the course of our recent trip, we attempted to produce a report in keeping with the parliamentary program.
A meeting on the Court Challenges Program was scheduled and, suddenly, you too decided to be partisan and cancel the meeting because your political party disagrees with the opposition's position on this subject. You are accusing others of what you are doing yourself—behaving in a partisan manner.
Other arguments have been advanced: the matter is before the courts; the Official Languages Commissioner is studying the program; and French and English language communities in minority settings in Quebec and Canada want to see the program reinstated. However, none of these in any way preclude the committee from studying the matter, especially since it was part of our program. It did not just appear out of nowhere.
When we visited all of Canada's French-language communities in a minority setting last fall, people told us that the program was essential. Logically, we therefore decided to put the issue on our work schedule, so that we could study it with the appropriate witnesses.
Your arguments in defence of your decision to cancel the meeting hold no water. The behaviour of the current Conservative government is indicative either of ignorance—which I do not believe to be the case—or of a lack of respect for members of minority communities, in particular French speakers—which I find all too easy to believe.
On September 25, 2006, the federal government decided to abolish the Court Challenges Program, as the Mulroney government had done before it—you will note that both the Mulroney and Harper governments were Conservative governments. The decision was made without any consideration for the communities' request to maintain the program. The Court Challenges Program has been used to help both the communities and society at large flourish by ensuring that their most fundamental rights are respected. In other words, the program ensured that people were able to conduct their lives in the official language of their choice at all times: be it in French outside Quebec, in English in Quebec or indeed in either language anywhere in the country.
The Court Challenges Program was also extremely useful in the struggle for schools. I am disappointed to see that some members from the region are not as tuned into the matter as they ought to be. The Montfort Hospital was a recent battle; it did not take place centuries ago. The program had to be used in the case of the Franco-Ontarian, the Franco-Saskatchewanian and the Acadian schools that were mentioned earlier, because the provincial governments and the school boards were not respecting the Constitution.
The current government told us that it was going to respect the Constitution. However, they did not stop to think that the federal government is not the only player involved here; the provincial governments have also failed to respect minority rights, even though these are rights enshrined in the Charter.
Allow me to continue. The government appointed an ombudsman for victims of crime who does not speak French. It also recently appointed a new Chairman of the National Capital Commission, who told us that, at the age of 62, he was going to start learning French out of respect for the people around him. And this, in a so-called bilingual region, recognized as such by the Canadian federal government. The failure to choose somebody able to communicate in French constitutes another affront to francophones. It was your government that made that choice.
Next we have the program for the Canadian armed forces. The government changed the entire program, not to ensure a greater respect for the Official Languages Act, by which the Department of National Defence should continue to be bound, but for other reasons. DND is not part of an independent State within the nation State, and should therefore implement and uphold mechanisms to resolve the problem that has plagued francophones in the Canadian Forces since the Official Languages Act was adopted some 39 or 40 years ago.
Given the wider context, the decision to cancel the meeting is, to my mind, indicative of a culture of disrespect for Canadian citizens, who told us that this matter required our attention. It is through debate that greater understanding is achieved. You prevented us from having this debate and from exercising one of the fundamental rights of a democracy—the right to speak and the right to be heard—thus preventing us from finding solutions to the important problem of ensuring the respect of all Canadians, whether they live in Quebec, in New Brunswick, or elsewhere in the country. We have legislation to ensure that official language minority communities are respected. The Court Challenges Program has proved to be a useful tool in many areas for French-language communities in a minority setting.
The reasons you cited earlier in no way justify your decision to prevent us from exercising this right, and you do not deserve to be the chair of this committee.