Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm pleased to see you, someone I've sat with at other times and in another place, the Quebec National Assembly.
Welcome to all my colleagues.
The motion before us today refers to an urgent event, which is why we have called the committee members together. We believe that there is an urgent need to act, to understand and to hear from the key players in this situation involving WE Org.
The motion reads as follows.
That the Committee undertake a study of the government's decision to select a unilingual anglophone organization, with no presence in Quebec, to administer the Canada Student Service Grant;
That the Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages, Melanie Joly, be invited to appear for at least two hours and before August 21st, 2020;
That other witnesses include, but are not limited to:
The Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth, the Honourable Bardish Chagger;
b) NATIONAL Public Relations;
c) WE Charity;
d) The Commissioner of Official Languages, Mr. Raymond Théberge.
The reason we asked for these people to appear is the following. All Canadians are aware that when the pandemic occurred, emergency measures had to be taken and choices were made, sometimes quickly. We understand that. However, there were some ground rules that still had to be followed. We all know that for over 50 years, Canada has been a country with two official languages. Each of its policies must therefore reflect that reality. There's a reason that a minister's primary responsibility is to protect these two official languages.
We have learned that the government decreed that a unilingual English organization with no presence in Quebec would be responsible for a contract worth more than $912 million. We aren't talking about a $16 orange juice, but rather a fairly large amount. So we want to understand what happened and why it happened that way.
There is an urgency to act because the government is setting the stage as we speak and will soon be bringing forward other programs to help Canadians. We aren't against those programs, and we aren't against helping Canadians. Of course we're in favour of that, but it has to be done in a way that respects who we are as Canadians and as a country. We need to understand why the government rushed into this situation and how it happened, what steps were taken to get there and what steps weren't taken, so that this doesn't happen again. We're here to help the government not make the mistakes that were made in this case.
That's why we believe there is an urgency, and we invite the government and the key players in this debate to come and tell us what happened. We want to give the government a chance to explain.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.