Yes, I've spoken with Mr. Boileau and with Mr. Carrier from New Brunswick. What concerns us is the loss of independence. It's important for a commissioner to be independent, especially in the language rights field. An ombudsman has a particular job to do. He receives complaints from all citizens concerning many cases, but he doesn't specialize in language rights.
The commissioner's role is not merely to conduct investigations. You also have to advance the official languages in the community and in the machinery of government. That's extremely important. That's what we've been doing for 50 years. We still have a lot of work to do with the machinery of government because it ultimately provides services in French.
It's important to be independent and to be able to criticize an organization and to congratulate it where appropriate. To do that, you have to be independent. That's the aspect we've focused on.
If the Office of the French Language Services Commissioner were attached to the Office of the Ontario Ombudsman, that would be more than a commissioner's office because the two don't play the same role. Our discussions covered a lot of ground.
In Ontario it's the Legislative Assembly; here it's Parliament. The commissioner's independence must be guaranteed or else the commissioner wouldn't really be a commissioner. That's the main point we agreed on.