That was my understanding.
I simply want to say that, as soon as our second-last meeting began, people wanted to sweep this matter under the rug. Mr. Drouin has made half-hearted apologies. Whether or not he is a defender of French in Ontario is ultimately not the main issue here.
After that, there was a filibuster for an entire meeting. We are forced to use Standing Order 106(4) to get the committee back on topic. Why is there so much filibustering? It's to prevent the committee from going to a vote. However, we are allowed to be of the opinion that Mr. Drouin has disqualified himself from his mandate to help promote the French language internationally and to showcase the vitality of French in Quebec, the heartland of the French language in the Americas.
He is not an extremist like Mr. Housefather or other members who are more… I said “extremist”, but I will withdraw the word. The fact remains that some members have said certain things. For example, Mr. Rodriguez said that, in wanting to apply Bill 101 to federally regulated businesses, the Bloc Québécois was dividing people based on their skin colour. I didn't hear anyone censure him for that. I am anti-racist. When witnesses suggested that we were racist, I was the only one to speak up. No one else supported Quebec on that.
We have to consider not only what happened during the meeting itself, but also what happened afterwards. At the beginning, the member said that he wouldn't tolerate being taken for a fool and being given an argument that did not hold water. I am sorry, but it is a valid argument. The member may not agree, but when he says that people are taking him for a fool, he is still accusing people of advancing arguments that do not hold water. In my opinion, there's a difference between saying that someone is incompetent, saying that someone is taking us for fools and saying that a witness is “full of shit”.
I think the member misrepresented what the witnesses said. I am happy that he has provided some clarifications, but in my opinion, it's too little, too late.
I also don't think it's appropriate to bring up the dead ducks matter again and all those things that were said 40 years ago. If we looked at all the things that have been said over the past 40 years, we could dig up a lot.