Thank you, Mr. Chair.
In fact, I'm surprised to hear the questions from the other side of the table. The committee has a responsibility to be vigilant about respect for official languages in the exercise of Parliament's functions and procedures. A number of issues have already been raised. The other side of the table is arguing that WE Org is bilingual. For our part, we're wondering why it needed to turn to a national organization to ensure francophone representation to Quebeckers or francophones outside Quebec. These are already questions that need to be answered. The study will enable us to obtain answers to these questions.
We must not take exception to the fact that the premise of our notice of motion is misrepresented, quite the contrary.
The fact is that WE Org was awarded a contract, supposedly by mutual agreement because it was the only organization that could provide this service in a country where there are two official languages. The members of the party opposite may not have realized that this organization wasn't bilingual, but the organization's representatives had the wisdom to recognize that they didn't have the skills to offer their services in French. So they simply gave that contract to someone else. However, if another firm had the characteristics necessary to provide those services in English and French from coast to coast to coast, and if NATIONAL could do so, there were surely several others.
So what did the Minister do to protect one of the two official languages—French—in awarding a government contract by mutual agreement?
That's one of the questions the committee has to ask, and I think it's a very legitimate one. We have to remember that our purpose is to allow the committee to make recommendations. Right now, we're in the midst of a pandemic. We've been living it for a while, and we'll continue to live it, but we don't know how long it will last or how it will go. There will be other programs; I hope the current government is creating programs to help Canadians. However, in the course of creating those programs, there may be other situations similar to this one.
Our goal is to protect both official languages. In this case, it's French, but in another case, it could be English. Understandably, there are fewer francophones in Canada than anglophones. That's why there is an official languages act.
It is very relevant that we act quickly by giving the committee the tools it needs to be able to make recommendations as quickly as possible, in order to protect the interests of anglophones and francophones.