Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My fellow members from all political backgrounds who make up this great and beautiful committee—I'm speaking to Mr. Beaulieu, Mr. Généreux and Mr. Blaney, my opposition colleagues from Quebec—there seems to be a serious decline in the French language in Quebec. Mr. Beaulieu placed great value on a very important motion on this topic, a motion that we asked to work on. Do we really want to hear the same old thing again with this motion? Is that what we want to accomplish? Is it that important? We aren't naive. No one here is naive. Is it responsible to sneak a motion through the back door when the motion hasn't been accepted in the House of Commons? Is this more important than talking about Campus Saint-Jean, which, as my colleagues said, is in danger in Alberta? We almost lost the Université de l'Ontario français in Toronto as a result of the provincial Conservatives' actions, and the Conservative Party in Ottawa remained silent about the matter. Let's all remember this.
Since I've been a member of the Standing Committee on Official Languages, it has always been 99% non-partisan. Does the motion on WE Charity, a hypothetical question from an organization that's no longer on the scene about whether it violated language rights in Canada, take precedence over everything that I just brought up, not to mention everything else?
During the pandemic, we heard about the lack of information in both official languages on drugs, dosages, and instructions for devices or equipment that we received. Does the scandal surrounding WE Charity, which we've discussed in I don't know how many committees, overlap with all this? Is it really worth it? Is this motion worth more than Mr. Beaulieu's second motion, which I find very valuable because the motion is of national interest across the country and it specifically concerns the decline of French in Quebec, a Quebec that also has two official languages?
Above all, I don't want to repeat what Ms. Lambropoulos said to my colleague, Mr. Généreux. However, for those who didn't fully understand Mr. Beaulieu's motion—and this brings me to my second point—it doesn't suggest that we address this issue in the Standing Committee on Official Languages. Rather, the motion is asking the House of Commons to agree to the creation of another committee, a third party committee that will review this matter.
This brings me to my question, which may be somewhat similar to my colleague Ms. Lattanzio's question. Does a standing committee such as ours have the authority, under the rules of the House of Commons, to ask the House of Commons to create another committee? That's my first question. Do we have the necessary power and jurisdiction to do this?