I will be very brief, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to start by saying something to my friend, Pierre. I want us to be on the same wavelength, Pierre, and I want us to speak frankly to each other. I will list about 10 activities and you can tell me whether or not they are part of what the Royal Canadian Legion does. First, does the Legion organize blood donor clinics? Yes, that is part of the Royal Canadian Legion's activities. What about presenting historical lectures on the First and Second World Wars? Yes, you do that. Do you give students scholarships? Yes, you do. Do you help young people financially or otherwise in the area of sports? You say you do. Do you help people such as veterans find solutions to their problems? Yes, you do. Do you organize Christmas parties? You say you do. Do you organize card parties? You say you do. Do you organize dart games? You do. Do you organize breaks so that people can have a beer? You say you do.
In Quebec, we call all of those activities a social mission. Consequently, the Royal Canadian Legion is a social club. I never said that you were part of a club whose main reason for existing was to have a drink. You have the same social mission as a social club. Consequently, would you care to retract your comment, because I did not describe the Legion incorrectly.
My next comment is to the chair. Mr. Chairman, I think we missed the boat today. Next time you invite witnesses please ask them to give us their views about establishing an ombudsman's post and about the charter and, if they have no views on these matters, please ask them to stay home. Today, we've been contesting or promoting the Royal Canadian Legion, but we have not talked about the ombudsman or the charter. It was a waste of my time.
I am not saying that the people were not nice or friendly, but they did not give us their own definitions of certain terms. We don't have time to wait. We are here to find out what they think about this so that we can come to some conclusions ourselves. That is not what we heard today. I apologize, but I think it was a waste of my time. That was not because Pierre and Ms. Burdett did not want to do a good job. They did a good job and they gave us a good introduction to the Royal Canadian Legion.
I preferred your last visit. In 2005, you appeared before the committee and we asked you what you thought about the ombudsman. You said that you wanted no such position. Thank you for that — you said exactly what you thought. We did not waste any time. After that, we moved to other matters and had a friendly discussion about the Royal Canadian Legion. I was not expecting you to define your vision for me today. I did not want to hear what the government thinks, I wanted your opinion about the ombudsman and about the charter. That does not mean that your vision is wrong and that ours is right. We are here to determine what the ombudsman should do, what he should be, how he should act and what rights veterans should have.
That was our task today. We were not here to talk about just anything. Our job is to learn from your knowledge to make up our minds about these things. We were unable to benefit from your knowledge. I'm sorry, but in my opinion, today's meeting was not very productive. I do not know whether my colleagues share my opinion, but I've never said privately what I wanted to say openly.