I wanted to add that they are very important. Contrary to what my colleague claimed, some people from the francophone and Acadian communities have told me that what is in the bill is not acceptable and that the bill must be strengthened. We could come back to Mr. Lepage, but there are others who have started speaking out as well. I could go over all this in detail. Some of these people have not yet been able to come here to testify. Those we heard from also wanted to bring forward very significant amendments to Bill C‑13.
For example, some wanted the central agency to be Treasury Board, not Canadian Heritage. It is important that we have the time to hear from these people. However, we were told that the Minister of Canadian Heritage would not be appearing before us. I thought that was a shame, because under Bill C‑13, Canadian Heritage is the designated central agency, even though Treasury Board is given some powers. The only people from Canadian Heritage we heard from were public servants. Public servants cannot express their opinions freely and will only say what they are told to say, which is understandable. The minister, however, is accountable to Canadians and can give us his opinions and defend his bill. I find it unacceptable that we cannot even hear him testify. That is one of the reasons why we must take the time we need. Maybe the Minister of Canadian Heritage could not come before the dates scheduled. Perhaps the deadline was too short. Nonetheless, it is essential that we hear from him and that he be able to speak to this.
As I was saying earlier, there are witnesses we have not heard yet, for example, on the divisiveness issue. In Quebec, we work very hard to integrate newcomers. We are being pressured to increase immigration levels, but if we do so without having the means to integrate newcomers and help them learn French, this basically amounts to proposing that we make ourselves even more of a minority, plain and simple. That is absurd.
These witnesses could tell us about all the groups in Quebec that receive funding under the Official Languages Act, such as the Quebec Community Groups Network, and their mandates. It is often implied that Quebeckers are racist and that our desire to ensure the future of the French language causes us to turn inward, when the opposite is true. It's about including newcomers. However, providing funding for these groups directly undermines the integration of newcomers in Quebec, because the linguistic indicators they use include a very large percentage of newcomers who need to learn French in Quebec. This is vital to maintaining our demographic weight. It is therefore important that we hear from these witnesses.
I'm assuming that no one here truly and knowingly wants to make francophones in Quebec even more of a minority and, in a way, continue supporting what Lord Durham proposed in that past. I don't think anyone here wants to do that, so we have to make it clear. However, this is effectively what will happen, if we pass the bill as is. This is not even an interpretation.
We expected to get a unique perspective on this from a number of witnesses, such as the president of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal, the oldest institution in America that defends a nation. This organization is over 180 years old—