Of course, I would have liked to hear what my colleagues had to say about this. It would have been interesting.
I am disappointed that this incident is being used for political purposes. I don't know how many times a person can apologize, but I know that this morning, at the beginning of the meeting, the member for Glengarry—Prescott—Russell made a very official apology and that the members of the committee heard it. Then a motion was moved calling for the member to apologize, even though that had already been done. So we're playing political games here.
It's too bad, as the minister was here. Getting a minister to appear before the committee is not easy. He was here for an hour when we were finishing the study on funding for post-secondary institutions today, but we were not able to discuss that with him. What are we going to do? The minister will not be able to come before the committee in the next five weeks. So we won't be able to complete our study on post-secondary institutions, a topic suggested by Mr. Beaulieu.
This study is extremely important for the francophonie, for Quebeckers and for francophones outside Quebec. It's part of the continuum. As you know, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which was signed in 1982, established the right to education in the minority language. Now, the government is being open and understands that, in principle, the right to education in French in Canada begins at birth and continues until the end of our days. Finally, we can take concrete action to make people understand, as I have already explained several times, that education is a key element for a society. We have a responsibility to ensure that those who have that right are able to exercise it.
It was Mr. Beaulieu who suggested this extremely important topic for us to study. We've heard from witnesses on this issue. A lot of worthwhile arguments have been made. I think the minister would have had the opportunity to comment on certain elements and probably could have guided us. For example, some of the witnesses we've heard from in this committee have asked to look at the possibility of creating a mechanism that would enable the federal government to provide funding directly—