Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup for his question, because, in fact, it goes to the heart of the problem we have at present when it comes to official languages.
First, we need a minister responsible for official languages who will demonstrate leadership, who believes in what he or she is doing, and who does not leave official language minority communities by the wayside. Second, we need an official languages watchdog, and that person is called official languages commissioner.
As I mentioned earlier, what we are dealing with here is the fact that the Minister of Canadian Heritage and the Liberal government wanted to make a partisan appointment. We have all proven that. Everyone saw that, which is why she withdrew her candidacy in the end. She could see that her strategy was not working. The Liberals wanted to make a partisan appointment, perhaps because too many Canadians are filing complaints against the Prime Minister. A number of Ontarians filed complaints against the Prime Minister because he went to Ontario and spoke only English, even though there were people from francophone minority communities who wanted to speak French and hear the answers in French. The Prime Minister said that since they were in Ontario, he would speak only English. Later, he travelled to the Sherbrooke area in the Eastern Townships, but did not know that there are anglophone communities there, because when he went, he said he would speak only in French since he was in Quebec. He was told that there are anglophone communities in Quebec.
He is supposed to be the Prime Minister of all Canadians, French-speakers and English-speakers alike. It is totally mind-boggling.
I lodged a complaint along with many citizens, because people were shocked. The complaint was received and the government was reprimanded. They were told to implement the recommendations. Maybe the Liberals did not like that and decided to appoint a commissioner who would side with them. Unfortunately, it did not work.
The worst part of all this is that since Saturday, we no longer have a watchdog. This lack of leadership means that we can receive communications from ministers in just one official language, which is unacceptable.