Mr. Chairman, would you like us to leave and then you could make up a schedule, show it to us and we will just do as you please? Is that what the Standing Committee on Official Languages has become? I have been sitting on this committee since 1998 and I have never seen a chairman act in this fashion. It's all very well to read Marleau-Montpetit or the standing orders, but one has to look at the underlying intent of the standing orders.
I understand that a chairman has the right to cancel a meeting if, for example, the witnesses don't show up that morning. That has happened in the past and it has not been a problem. Witnesses have cancelled at the last minute, we have been advised of this, and the meeting has been cancelled. I have seen things like this happen, however, Mr. Chairman, the reasons you gave are an insult to the minority francophone community of Canada. You're telling us that we're too political. Welcome to politics! Is it the Conservative government's intention to tell us now that Question Period has become too political and therefore that will be cancelled as well? I have never seen something like this happen since 1998.You told the media that we have heard enough about the Court Challenges Program.
Mr. Chairman, you are only one individual. You must remain neutral within this committee. You are here to rule when the committee is divided but not to impose your will. You are acting in an anti-democratic fashion, absolutely anti-democratically. You did not even have enough respect to ask to call a special meeting. Nothing prevented you from being respectful enough to call us to a meeting and tell us that you were uncomfortable, if that was the case.
The federal government had to pay to bring witnesses from Winnipeg and Montreal. In the Canadian Press it says that today your party's whip stated that we did not think there would be a hue and cry throughout the country if the committee did not sit. Are you going to call that political? When I think about a committee as important as the Standing Committee on Official Languages and the work that it has done! You said yourself before the cameras that we did a national tour and that we wrote a good report for the House of Commons. And your party's whip said that this wouldn't bother anybody!
Is this committee a waste of time? This is an insult to the francophone community and to minorities. I am very disappointed. I never thought it would get to the point where a chairman would show complete disregard for democracy in Parliament and would take communities' right to speak to us away. I cannot find words to qualify your actions. I think a chairman is important. He is the person who convenes the meetings, the person who allows democracy to express itself and who gives us an opportunity to express ourselves.
Not only did you cancel last Tuesday's meeting but you also cancelled Thursday's meeting. You called no special meeting to discuss this. You simply stated that today we would discuss future business. That means that all the decisions that we took democratically were rejected by one person. That is contrary to democracy in this country. It shows how your government operates and that is not partisanship. It shows that your government acts against the rights of minorities in our country.
You were embarrassed by the cancellation of the Court Challenges Program. That's the real problem. As chairman, you should be ashamed. I look forward to hearing what you are going to say about this. You have the right to cancel a meeting, I acknowledge that, but you must have good reasons for doing so, for example, if the witnesses do not show up and so on. However, you do not have the right to tell us that you do not like the topic, that you have heard enough and that the issue has become too partisan. Allow me to recall the bill implementing the Final Nisga'a Agreement.
At the time, the Reform Party or the Canadian Alliance, which formed the opposition, tabled 471 motions before the House of Commons. We had to vote from Monday evening to 6 o'clock Wednesday morning. Was that a waste of time and money for Canadians? It was costly but that is democracy. The opposition has the right to table motions in the House of Commons and we respected that right. Parliament sat for three days, night and day. Was that partisanship? Could one not question partisanship in that case? Mr. Chairman, who are you to tell us what partisanship is? We are in politics, this is a parliamentary committee and each political party has the right to put questions.
Mr. Chairman, I want to know what your real reasons were. If this was your own decision, then I am very, very disappointed. If it was a government decision, then I am not surprised at all because it reflects the position that it took this past year: it cancelled the Court Challenges Program, the status of women program, and the literacy program. I could give you several other examples.
The government's decision to take that direction has nothing to do with me but it won't prevent the Official Languages Committee from looking into the reasons. Even the Official Languages Commissioner asked for a moratorium on the Court Challenges Program last year, until the study of this issue had been wrapped up. We're not the only ones questioning this. One hundred and seventeen complaints were laid with the Official Languages Commissioner. During our trip throughout all regions of Canada, a trip that you think was useless, you can't say otherwise—You said yourself that this is a good report.
What is the problem Mr. Chairman? What do you think about parliamentary democracy when your whip states that there will no longer be an Official Languages Committee if you are relieved of your duties? Where is democracy in a Parliament that sends soldiers to die in order to implement democracy in other countries while in our own country you are suppressing democracy? You should be ashamed.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.