Official Languages committee  This is what happens. I find it upsetting that the Prime Minister said that.

Official Languages committee  Mr. Chairman, I would like to clarify something. In our case, we had a dozen lawyers who met free-of-charge for a year, the whole time we were discussing this issue with governments. They met for a year in order to prepare the case. These 12 lawyers—who were certainly not all Liberals, I can assure you—who got together to choose Mr.

Official Languages committee  When the government goes to court, it uses our money to defend itself.

Official Languages committee  I mean that we got money from a wide variety of sources, we received letters from across the country, we had everyone's support. And on the weekend, we are going to give them medals and many other things to thank all the Francophones in Canada and the Anglophones who supported us.

Official Languages committee  As you know, this happened on February 24. The next day, the head stakeholders met, particularly leaders representing Franco-Ontarian associations. Our objective was to try to convince the government that they had made a mistake. In passing, I was a member of a major provincial committee, called the Who does what?

Official Languages committee  Mr. Chairman, first of all, I would like to congratulate you on having been elected to the chair. We can now continue discussing with the government. I hope the government will listen to what we have to say about this program, which was essential to us. Before the implementation of the Court Challenges Program, Franco-Ontarians, among others, had to struggle unrelentingly to uphold their right to use French, even in their schools.

Official Languages committee  You could perhaps wait until we've left, because you did tell us not to engage in politics during our appearance.

Canadian Heritage committee  I'm sorry, but I would like to speak to you. You accused me, and I would like to answer you.

Canadian Heritage committee  Could I answer the gentleman? He accused us of being a little partisan. Well, I can tell you that I was a Conservative once, and I even ran in Ottawa—Vanier for the Conservatives. The bad experiences we've had are that it has twice been taken out at the federal level, both times by Conservative governments.

Canadian Heritage committee  Whenever francophones want to raise any funds for any purpose—for instance, I am currently co-chair of the hospital foundation—it is very difficult for us to do because we do not have major corporations outside of Quebec. In Quebec everyone knows that there is the Hôpital Sainte-Justine, other major hospitals, etc.

Canadian Heritage committee  Sir, we have fought for five years to save an institution. From 1912 to 1947, we fought against regulation 17 before it was withdrawn in its entirety. We also fought from 1970 to 1979-1980 for French schools. Quite often, governments try to wear us down right to the bitter end.

Canadian Heritage committee  Do you mean to say, at Montfort, if we had chosen someone who was close to the government or—?

Canadian Heritage committee  Not at all.

Canadian Heritage committee  Mr. Bélanger, I believe that, in fact, the federal government does not have power over everything. The provincial governments have power over some things. Minorities need, above all, social services, education and health care services. The federal government can be the best government in the world, and yet have a provincial government that fails to respect the francophones in its province, as in our case.

Canadian Heritage committee  Mr. Chairman, we come before you today to raise our concerns about a government decision whose consequences are so disturbing, that we find it hard to believe that the decision-makers gave any serious thought to its impact before making it. The Harper government decision to abolish the Court Challenges Program has a direct negative impact on Canada's linguistic duality, a direct impact on the assimilation of minority francophones and, assuredly, over time, an impact on national unity.