Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I reiterate what my colleague Mr. Samson said. There was an incident and Mr. Drouin apologized. It's disappointing that Mr. Drouin said that in his conversation with the witnesses. However, the damage has been done and he has apologized a number of times.

I think that what we're doing is no better, since we're not doing what the public expects of us. I have received comments in my riding about this. Some organizations have called me. They were frustrated by Mr. Drouin's comments, but they're saying that we're continuing to debate something that's not going to do anything except remove someone from the committee.

They want to know what we're doing for them. The time we're spending on the incident involving Mr. Drouin is preventing us from defending and promoting the interests of our organizations, our fellow Canadians and all those facing language challenges. It's disappointing. Is the goal simply to remove a member from the committee and humiliate them? If so, how far does the committee intend to go, and at what cost? Do we think we're going to advance the cause of the French language and promote it in this way? I don't think so. So I ask that we reconsider this motion so that we focus on promoting the French language.

I'm going to share an anecdote. I was born in 1965. When I started high school, I went to an English school because francophones wanted nothing to do with Italians. In the 1970s, when I started kindergarten, I went to an English school. I was supposed to go to a French school, but the Quebeckers, the old-stock francophones, wanted nothing to do with Italians because they felt threatened. So I continued my education in English. However, when the time came to do my law training, I didn't do it in English. I studied law in French. People won't believe me, but I didn't go to McGill University to study law, even though I studied political science there. For my law degree, I chose the most Quebecker university and the most francophone university there is: Université du Québec à Montréal.

I integrated well and I was well respected. The proof is that today, I still speak French. Sometimes, there are words I don't understand or that I say with an Italian accent, but I'm a product of Quebec. I was born in Quebec. I learned French because I believe that Quebec and Canada should be bilingual in order to be stronger. I don't think there should be only one unilingual francophone province, because that will exclude the others who want to learn French.

All I want to say is that it's more important to focus on promoting our language, our languages, rather than focusing today on the motion put forward simply to humiliate a member of the committee. After all, you have to understand that we're all members. We all make mistakes. The member has apologized. Others will make mistakes as well, and they will probably apologize too. We mustn't dwell on human error, on an error of conviction. We can't say that Mr. Drouin doesn't respect the act and doesn't believe in it. He's a great defender of the French language, especially in Ontario.

Angelo Iacono

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