Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, Ms. Epners, Mr. MacLeod, Mr. Perreault, Mr. Rodgers.
We only have five minutes, and the subject is very broad. I want to emphasize that, in the early 1990s, I worked at the Fédération de la jeunesse canadienne-française with Roger Bernard, who is no longer with us. That man from Hearst and professor at the University of Ottawa had published a document entitled Vision d'avenir for the federation. In four volumes, he told the old story of how “the fruit of our womb is blessed”. I'm from the Franco-Ontarian world, and I lived in Saskatchewan, among the Fransaskois, for a long time. He talked about what the federal government should consider doing to remedy the horrors of the past and the horrors that still exist today in regard to political will, through the inaction of provincial and federal governments, which close their eyes to this matter, in order to set out on the path toward assimilation.
The statistics on assimilation in Table 5 of the document provided by Impératif français are aberrant. Unions seeing 74% of their workers dying on the job site would do something. In Saskatchewan, the assimilation rate is 74%. In a country that calls itself official bilingual, it's heartbreaking to see the community die out that much in Saskatchewan; we're talking about 37% or 50%. Even in New Brunswick, the rate is 9%. These figures are appalling.
Mr. Perreault, from Impératif français, has raised this question, and it's an issue that has been around for nearly 20 years now. Even the Supreme Court has ruled on this subject.
Mr. Perreault, could you explain to us the reparations approach that should be adopted so that French is considered an element that should be revived or at least put back on the rails relative to bilingualism?