Mr. Chair, I am in the process of explaining this point to you further. It's very clear.
As I explained, Mr. Drouin already apologized before the motion was even moved. So there was no reason to move this motion.
We're here to deal with the issue under consideration. Mr. Drouin's comments, for which he has already apologized, were related to this committee study.
So I'm trying to clearly explain to the people who are with us and to those who are listening to us the importance of the study. If we are unable to draw conclusions from this study, we will have wasted a year.
I would remind you that the minister was with us today precisely to answer questions that were raised by witnesses—either by the witnesses who were here on Monday or other witnesses who have appeared over the past three or four months. These people made suggestions that I found extremely worthwhile. One of those recommendations was to create a structure that would enable experts to find mechanisms through which the federal government could grant funding directly to universities.
I used to be the executive director of a school board, so I know what it's like to work with Canadian Heritage and the government to receive funding for certain purposes. If we don't have the funds to fulfill our commitments, we can't enforce the rights granted by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. At the end of the day, the responsibility of a school board administrator is to provide quality education, but without the funding to do so, they cannot fulfill the mandate they were given.
So I repeat that this study is important. When will we be able to continue it? I'm not sure right now. I am concerned about this decision to waste an hour with the minister, who could have given us more food for thought. It's even worse when you consider that the department's team is here today and could give us more food for thought. These people played an extremely important role during the study of Bill C‑13. The beauty of modernizing the Official Languages Act is really that, now that we've established new rules of the game to better fulfill our responsibilities to the communities, topics will rise to the surface. One of those topics is the lack of funding for francophone universities in Canada. Once again, I want to congratulate Mr. Beaulieu for having the wisdom to bring this topic of discussion to the committee.
Why have these universities been relying on international students? It's to fill in the holes in their funding. We recognize that not all provinces are as open to the idea of supporting and providing education in French, but I can talk about Nova Scotia. Still, in Nova Scotia, we had good relations.