Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I cannot support this amendment, because it is clear that WE is not in a position to offer this program in both official languages. It's in the contract, of course, but obviously they have to turn to another organization for their services.
It's clear that the issue here isn't whether or not WE Charity had the capacity to deliver the program in the French language. It's clear that they did not have that capacity. That's why they contracted with National. The issue here also isn't whether or not the contract signed on June 23, backdated to May 5, contained clauses that mandated the delivery of the program in both official languages. All federal contracts have those requirements as a basic standard. The issue here is “the government's decision”, and the amendment would eliminate those two words from the motion. The issue here is the government's decision.
The government has said for weeks that the reason the WE organization got the contract was twofold. The first was that it was recommended by the federal bureaucracy, and that the Liberal cabinet ministers had nothing to do with it. It's come to light in recent days, even yesterday, that this was not the case. Liberal cabinet ministers were heavily involved in helping WE craft a second proposal to meet the requirements of delivering this program. The second thing the government has maintained, right from day one, is that the WE organization was the only organization in the country that could deliver this program. That's also clearly not the case.
The issue here is not the capacity of the WE organization to deliver programs in both official languages. It's the disconnect between the Prime Minister's assertion that the WE Charity is the only organization that could possibly have been able to deliver this program and the fact that it couldn't. It had to contract out the delivery of this program to a lobby group, the National lobby group, that would deliver part of these services to 25% of Canadians whose first official language is French.
That's the issue here, and that's the reason I cannot support the amendment.
Thank you.