Mr. Roberge, Quebec's new minister of the French language, contacted our colleague, who is not here today. Mr. Roberge told him he was seriously concerned about this Liberal motion, for the simple reason that he was part of a comprehensive list of people who were to testify before this committee. This list included Marc Power and Darius Bossé, who drafted the amendments of the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne, the FCFA. There was also the International Association of Conference Interpreters, the Canadian Bar Association, the Government of Quebec, obviously, and the Association des juristes d'expression française du Manitoba. We also wanted to have the Commissioner of Official Languages appear for an extra hour.
Other parties included the Fédération nationale des conseils scolaires francophones, the former chair of the Conseil scolaire francophone de la Colombie-Britannique, Marie‑France Lapierre, the Fédération de la jeunesse canadienne-française, Employment and Social Development Canada, the Barreau du Québec, the Assemblée communautaire fransaskoise, the Alliance des femmes de la francophonie canadienne, as well as passengers who had filed complaints against Air Canada and representatives of the airline. All of these people would have liked to come and testify to help complete our study.
As Mr. Gourde just said, we've just wasted about four hours for nothing. If we had received some of these witnesses, we could have finished the study, but instead they are trying to muzzle the committee members. The Quebec minister of the French Language took the trouble to call Mr. Godin's staff to express his concerns about the motion before us today.
I will choose my words carefully because I see people who have been here for a long time, such as Mr. Samson, who is a parliamentary secretary. One thing is certain: As parliamentarians, we have extremely important responsibilities towards the Canadian francophonie. I have been here since 2009 and I can attest to what we have seen since 2009. This is a long-awaited bill, and people have been talking about it for a long time. A first version was introduced but fell through. The bill was then reintroduced in a new version and now, under the pretext that it takes a bit of time to study it, we are telling these witnesses that we have heard enough and it is time to take action, to use Ms. Ashton's words earlier.
I completely agree with Ms. Ashton, but as Mr. Gourde just said, this is a historic piece of legislation, and we won't be talking about it for another 50 years. Anything that changes in this bill after it is passed will be changed through regulation. The organizations that came here to testify, including the FCFA and all of its members, among others, will no doubt have to come back here in a year or two to say that this or that was not included in the legislation. I'm sorry, but it will be too late. We are looking at it now and we need to take the time to get it right.
We have collaborated really well so far to ensure we move this bill forward as quickly as possible. Again, the party in power is not stepping up to ensure that this bill progresses as it should in committee. We are being muzzled and that is a real shame.