Hello, Mr. Corbeil and Ms. Badets.
For my part, I have to say that I would have liked to hear more. In particular, I do not want to sugarcoat things. For as long as the Standing Committee on Official Languages has been preparing reports on linguistic minorities, I cannot believe that, in 2018, you still do not understand.
That being said, as someone who hates statistics, I am anxious for Statistics Canada to start speaking in human terms. We are more than just numbers. Rights holders are more than just numbers. They are French-Canadians right across the country and they have rights.
I am really tired of hearing about figures only. Rights holders are human beings who have suffered from the lack of schools. You just have to look around—the committee has just returned from a trip—to see that people are struggling every day. It is not possible that, in 2018, you have not had the time to consider the situation.
Statistics Canada wears a lot of other hats. There a lot of other subjects, but they are not all as important as the two founding peoples. In 2018, we should not even be having this conversation. That is what makes me angry, Mr. Corbeil.
In your view, we are just figures—and I have nothing against that. Behind those figures, however, are human beings, human beings who have the right to simple questions. Show us those questions and we will see if we understand them. There are people here who come from minority communities. For my part, I am from Quebec. We are more than just numbers, we are human beings, and I want you to treat us and treat rights holders as human beings.
The Standing Committee on Official Languages has been producing annual reports for years. In the past, I was part of the government, a parliamentary secretary. We issued a number of reports. If you do not read them, that is a problem. We put our heart and soul into our work here.
What I am asking you today is to provide the questions on March 31. We will understand them and we will try to help you. We are here to help you. We are here to defend linguistic minorities. Please stop treating us as numbers. When you talk to us that way, I do not feel involved. I am working on issues other than rights holders. The black hole in my riding can still be traced to statistics.
I don't know how things work at Statistics Canada. Behind the numbers, are there human beings who understand the problems we have had for much more than two or three years? I have been in federal politics for 10 years and we have been talking about this the whole time. In the past 10 years, surely you have come up with some numbers somewhere. This is not the first time we have asked you this. You said you did a study of rights holders in 2006. So you do have something to work from.
Why is it so complicated today to talk about issues that are so essential to people in remote regions and minority communities? With all the time we have spent talking about this, I do not want to wait until 2020. It startled me earlier when I saw that because this is not the first time we have talked about this. If it had been the first time, I would not have said anything, but we have been talking about it for 10 years. You must have some figures.