But if the survival and vitality of these communities are, as set out in the act, a concern of this government and, as Mr. Fraser said, there has been no consultation, hence they have not complied with the act. It seems self-evident to us that the program needs to be restored.
If the Charter is indivisible,
we expect this committee will understand that it is of course within its purview to look at both the equality and official languages provisions of the charter, given that they often intersect. There are many in our schools who are double minorities, so that's absolutely essential. If one of the impediments to renewing the program is that there are some perceived problems,
we refer you to comments made by André Pratte, Editor-in-Chief at La Presse newspaper, who said that the government had thought that the patient might have a cold, and the solution was to kill the patient.
Based on our experience with the program, the assessment and study of files has always been extremely rigorous. If there are any changes that need to be made, so much the better. But going from that to abolishing a program that cost a modest $2.3 million this year really raises questions. I believe that it is extremely important to say that, based on our understanding of it, the opposition that you have heard from linguistic minority groups would be echoed if equality measures in such a program were cut.
So the notion of separating the official languages aspects of this program from the equality ones is something we would find absolutely unacceptable.