Mr. Chair, you have indeed summarized the situation very well, but what I want to say is that we digressed for the official languages commissioner.
We respect democratic parliamentary institutions. It's a House of Commons officer, and I think it was altogether legitimate, further to the tabling of his report, to discuss and hear the report in this committee. Now, last week—you are entirely correct, Mr. Chair, and you've summarized the situation very well—we held a discussion. You agreed to a vote. The Liberals agreed to vote on a specific request to move forward. We, the Conservatives, voted against it. We have principles, we have values, and we are consistent. But as long as the member for Glengarry—Prescott—Russell is sitting on the committee, I have to inform you that we, the Conservatives—and it's unfortunate for the official language minority communities—we cannot accept this person's presence. Unfortunately, we will continue to intervene with that in mind.
My motion is clear. As of Monday, we have lost seven meetings. Seven meetings means that the official language minority communities have lost out. It's not us, the three opposition parties, that decided to waste these meetings; it's the Liberals, because they won't allow us to vote. Under the circumstances, I must move the motion so that we can make up for lost time in the interest of our mission here at the Standing Committee on Official Languages. That's it in a nutshell.
Now I find it unacceptable that we should be in this situation, which came about because of obstinacy. The Liberals will say that it's the opposition parties being stubborn, but who caused this situation? It wasn't the NDP, it wasn't the Bloc, it wasn't the Conservative Party; it was an MP for the Liberal Party of Canada, the party in power, who treated witnesses in an unacceptable manner. Our institution deserves respect. We challenged your decision, Mr. Chair, to the effect that it was inadmissible. We won, and so the committee's decision must be complied with, just as I complied with its decision last week. The time has to be recovered. I think it's important for us to consider that issue.
I'm going to stop there and wait to hear what the people around the table have to say. There are, as I mentioned, three studies. There's the report on post-secondary institutions, the report on linguistic obligations and the report on economic development, which we could do this summer. I understand that no one around the table would be happy about having to come back. But who caused this situation? It was the people opposite who were being obstructive. We want to move forward. The solution is simple. The government MPs need to allow us to vote, and that would settle matters. It's simple. Abide by the committee's decision. If the committee decides that yes, Mr. Drouin should remain, that will be an end of it. If it decides that, in accordance with Mr. Beaulieu's motion, a report to the Speaker of the House is required, then you will provide a report to the Speaker. We would then have to await the Speaker's decision.
Right now, there's a deadlock. I'll repeat once more that the three opposition parties are in agreement. I'm reaching out, to use an expression we heard as my colleagues were being obstructive. I am reaching out to break this deadlock so that we can start on the right foot in the next session, because there are only one or two meetings left in our spring session. I think telling Quebeckers that we will never raise this matter again would be a wonderful Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day present to them on June 24. We could then move on to something else.
We could then work hard in September on behalf of all francophones, everywhere in Canada, even in Quebec.