Mr. Chair, the minister should really think further. Against whom did my Franco-Ontarian parents, now 86 and 89 years old, do battle? They were prevented from studying in French by Regulation 17. In Ontario, French schools were abolished in their early days, when they were mere toddlers. My sisters did not get the chance to study in French in high school because there were no French high schools before 1968. I was the first in my family to be able to go to a French high school. That is what I call vision. As soon as a community starts to disappear due to assimilation, it starts getting what it should have been given 100 years earlier.
The battles for the French fact were not fought by the federal or provincial governments, but rather by the communities. They were fought in spite of all the efforts of the enemy—that is the provincial governments—to try and choke us, while the federal government watched with an approving eye, without doing a thing to help us.
I would like to know what the minister thinks of the president of SOS Montfort at the time, Gisèle Lalonde. She will be our guest tomorrow, at the advisory committee of opposition parties on official languages. She will speak to us about the battle fought by SOS Montfort. SOS Montfort won the battle against the Government of Ontario while the federal government watched approvingly, without doing anything to help the hospital survive.
What does she think of a person like that, who maintains that the court challenges program is necessary and should be restored?