Mr. Chairman, I've been in active politics for 25 years, and I've been a member for 11 years. I was Secretary of State for Amateur Sport. My first term as a member was about official languages, and my second about agriculture and agri-food. I was Secretary of State for Amateur Sport, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, President of the Privy Council and, in particular, Minister responsible for La Francophonie. On each of my change-overs, I made sure—the Canadian Heritage people know this—that both languages were respected.
Today I'm witnessing a pathetic scene when I look at the Conservative government side. Let Mr. Lemieux do his job; that's fine: he is the parliamentary secretary, the pillar of the Prime Minister's Office.
I want to hail my friend Godin and my friends from the Bloc. They've clearly grasped the problem. I understand why Mr. Petit is a little uncomfortable. The committee's role is to ensure that we do our job as parliamentarians in English and in French. As Secretary of State for Amateur Sport, I changed sport policy. I forced the national federations to speak both languages. I had the Canadian Olympic Committee sign a memorandum of understanding following the insult suffered in Nagano, where things were done in English only. I made sure that, from that moment, the Canadian Olympic Committee would be able to do things in both languages, because we are first-class citizens as well. Canada is bilingual. That means that translation isn't enough and that we must respect both languages.
As Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, I made sure—this was a historic first—that the first federal-provincial/territorial meeting was held in Manitoba, after 100 years of its existence. It was an unprecedented success. We wanted to continue the work that Sifton had started at the time; we wanted a new idea for immigration and to ensure that we could be inclusive with regard to the communities and that everyone could play his role fully in both languages. From that point on, every province had a bilingualism clause to ensure that we could work in that direction. It's not a panacea; it was a step in the right direction and the start of a beautiful, long march. In New Brunswick, I made sure that we signed specific agreements to ensure that foreign students could have specific reports in both languages so that we could win their cases in English and in French.
Mr. Chairman, we had unprecedented success in immigration in Manitoba because we adopted provisions that promoted the vitality of the French fact in that province. When we talk about immigration, we're talking about the Canada-Quebec agreement. When we talk about another major success, we're talking about the agreement with Manitoba.
When I was President of the Privy Council...
Mr. Chairman, I have a right to speak. You want us to talk about politics; we're going to talk about it!