As you know, this happened on February 24. The next day, the head stakeholders met, particularly leaders representing Franco-Ontarian associations. Our objective was to try to convince the government that they had made a mistake. In passing, I was a member of a major provincial committee, called the Who does what? or Qui fait quoi?, which had in fact been extremely close to the government in power at the time of the infamous mergers, etc. I felt that the government would understand if it realized that it had made a mistake. We immediately rented the Ottawa Civic Centre and held a gathering three weeks later. It was almost a miracle to be able to attract so many people. They came from Ottawa and the region. Some of them came from Quebec; others from Toronto, Kapuskasing and Hearst. Buses also came from Windsor. So people throughout the province were joining the fight. Furthermore, I think Michel and I met each individual from each town, I think. We told them everything about Montfort and their rights.
Then, young people joined in the fight, giving us extremely important support because they formed a human chain around Montfort and chanted our slogan, "Leave our hospital alone". We were really touched to see that young people, although it wasn't really their hospital—because their hospital was really the Children's Hospital—were with us nevertheless because they knew that it was the hospital used by their grandmothers, grandfathers, and where they had died. It was their parents' hospital or even where they themselves had been born.
We continued to fight. We wanted to make it an election issue. Unfortunately, the woman who was supposed to ask our question on Montfort fainted in public. She was moderating the leaders' debate and she fainted. So we missed our opportunity with regard to the federal government and the election campaign.
Then, we organized brick sales at the Festival franco-ontarien. We did all kinds of things to raise money. We didn't rely on the government. We tried to find our own solution. And we went on. Then the media throughout Canada started taking an interest in our cause. There were even people from Romania, Papua-New-Guinea, Morocco and ambassadors who came, because they had heard about it. The world became interested in our fight. They were trying to take away the only Francophone hospital in the province from the Franco-Ontarian minority.
You know, every year, Montfort trains some 40 Francophone doctors, family doctors, who are in demand across the country. They also train doctors who studied in an immersion program and who want to specialize.
We continued to fight. When the government offered to give us a clinic instead of a hospital, we did not accept, but rather we said that we would continue to negotiate with it. We worked for a year. In May, when Mr. Harris said that we had never tried to negotiate a solution, we realized that we were wasting our time. That is when we tabled in July...
You see, we weren't stupid, we didn't immediately turn to the courts. That is not what Francophones do. First they try because they know full well that it will cost them an arm and a leg to take the government to court, particularly the wealthiest provincial government and, at the time, the strongest government. It was like David and Goliath. Then we turned to the Ontario Divisional Court.
Ultimately, we won our case in the lower courts with the support of three out of three judges, two of whom were Anglophones. We won again in the Court of Appeal. Then, the government sent three ministers to tell us that it would not appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of Canada. That was a victory. All this to say that one doesn't turn to the courts for no reason. In answer to Mr. Nadeau, we got money from across Canada.
