I'd like to thank you for being here.
There are definitely some problems. I would ask my counterpart Mr. D'Amours to be less partisan because, when we work together in this committee, we do a good job. We just did that in the context of a study on postsecondary education.
I would like us to study what is going on in the communities. We definitely support the vitality of your organizations in our communities. The services that you provide are very important. I know we are working closely with our minister and that the minister is pressing officials to expedite the review of your files.
What I'm saying is that it's not just under this government that there have been problems. When we did our study in 2006, we heard similar complaints that applied to a previous government. It's not a political thing. It's process and bureaucracy that are in the way, and we need to fix that. I would certainly be in favour of us looking at this in more detail so that we can continue to work with the department to correct what I see to be a significant problem.