Mr. Chair, the premise of the motion really bothers me, and I'll explain why. I'd like my colleagues to understand what I mean, without feeling offended.
First of all, I'm not from the province of Quebec. We, francophone members of Parliament from all walks of life who aren't from Quebec, are in a minority here. Look around the table.
Being from New Brunswick, I can tell you that a very superficial search on the Internet about WE Org shows that the organization is present in Quebec and that it has held many activities that many young people have participated in over the past few years. I say that with some reservation, because I'm not from Quebec.
Mr. Chair, if I say that the premise of the motion bothers me, it's that we're telling the Canadian people, since we are in committee and we represent the Government of Canada regardless of our political affiliation, that WE Charity is unilingual, which we don't really know. I'd say that this organization is bilingual. It has a bilingual presence, and its website is bilingual. When I consult it, it appears in French, without me even having to change the language.
So the premise really bothers me, because by passing this motion as written, we'd be telling the Canadian people that we've already determined that WE Org is a unilingual English organization that has no presence in Quebec. That's what we're telling the Canadian people in front of everybody, and that really bothers me.
However, before even studying the content and purpose of the motion, we need to know whether or not WE Org is a unilingual organization, even though we will never know for sure since it no longer has a contract. We know the history. So how does launching such an inquiry advance official languages? First, we have to determine whether or not WE Org is unilingual and whether or not it has a presence in Quebec. That's the starting point of the motion. Until that's established, the rest is futile.
The premise of the motion really bothers me. I can already tell you that, as the first sentence is worded, I'm going to oppose it. We'll come back to that.
I repeat, through this motion, we are telling the Canadian people that we have determined, without any serious investigation, that WE Charity has no presence in Quebec and that it is unilingual.