Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague, the parliamentary secretary, for his comments.
We welcome the Liberal government's decision to bring back the francophone significant benefit program. I congratulate it on doing what all communities were hoping it would do.
However, the parliamentary secretary was in committee today when we heard from the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, who refused to budge on something everyone is asking for. All members of the Standing Committee on Official Languages, including the Liberals, and people in official language communities want a person responsible for francophone immigration for official language communities.
Unfortunately, the minister refused, saying that he would be the one taking care of it. Someone joked that he would be taking on a lot of work. It is a lot of work to take care of francophone immigration as a whole, and the minister already has a lot of work.
Why is the parliamentary secretary refusing to grant this request that was made by all members of the Standing Committee on Official Languages, not just me and the NDP?