Monsieur le président, members of the standing committee, the Quebec English School Boards Association, QESBA, is grateful for this opportunity to share with you its experience, aspirations, and concerns regarding a subject that is at the very core of our educational mission, French second language instruction.
I am Suanne Stein Day, member of the QESBA board and chair of the Lester B. Pearson School Board on Montreal's West Island. I am joined today by Christine Dénommée, assistant director of pedagogical services at the English Montreal School Board, and David Birnbaum, executive director of QESBA.
We understand the specific topic of study before the commission to be the official language immersion programs. As representatives of the English public school network of Quebec, we take some personal pride in having been the very birthplace and incubator for language immersion in Canada and in many ways for educational jurisdictions across the globe.
We trust you will indulge us this modest bit of boasting, which we allow ourselves actually for an important reason. First, to have played a role in what has become a story of enrichment for children and families across this country, indeed a story of nation-building, well, that's surely a legitimate source of pride. But more importantly, QESBA makes this point to emphasize that French immersion and related intensive French second language programs in Quebec are a lifeline, perhaps the most vital ingredient in the future vitality of Canada's English-language minority community, the community we serve.
Intensive French second language programs are more than a source of enrichment in Quebec, more than a window on our fundamental value of linguistic duality. These programs in our schools are the required passport to full participation, to full access to opportunity within Quebec society. So the success of intensive French second language programs, the government support for them, and the student participation in them are nothing less than essential.
We look forward to your questions presently, but allow us to use this short introduction to enumerate four areas of pertinence that QESBA trusts will find their place in your study report.