Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'd like to welcome Madame Martin-Laforge and Mr. Thompson here today. It's a great pleasure to have you at the committee. It is not the first time, and I think the relationship with the committee has been good in the past. We hope we can help your community, the minority in Quebec.
You were talking about the transfer of money. It's like a contract between the federal government and the provincial government on jurisdiction that really is not federal--it's provincial--like health care, education, and so on. I want to hear more from you about what voice the community should have in this regard.
I want to hear about it because we do have the same problem across the country within the francophone community. We complain, for example, that money is being sent in-province for the francophone minority, and francophones feel that the money is not coming in. We raised the question to the Commissioner of Official Languages this week, and the answer was that he's only there to investigate federal, not provincial, institutions. He had no authority at all.
I still believe the Commissioner of Official Languages could have gone to the minister in charge of a certain department and said, “Your department has sent money to a certain province. Are they not accountable for where the money went?” He could still have gone to the federal department to get the accountability, to see if the money went to the right place. The province has been complaining, people have been complaining, did the money go to the province, while in the community they don't feel they've had it.
I understand, Madame Martin-Laforge, that you're saying the same thing too. You're saying you feel that money goes to Quebec, but you don't feel it goes to the community where it was supposed to be sent. I'd like to hear more from you on that.