Official Languages committee  I would not have data to answer that question, sorry.

Official Languages committee  There are probably several reasons for that, but I am not the proper person to answer you. I would invite you to put these questions to the immigration specialists. At the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages for New Brunswick, we wonder whether the immigration practices of both levels of government—federal and provincial—are maintaining the respective demographic weight of the communities.

Official Languages committee  I wish I could answer your question. I'm not an immigration specialist and I don't know the answer to that question.

Official Languages committee  I'm sorry, what recommendation are you referring to, Mr. Daniel?

Official Languages committee  I'll take a stab at that one, at the role of post-secondary institutions. I think their role is vital. I just want to tell you a little bit about New Brunswick. In New Brunswick we have a francophone university, l'Université de Moncton, with three campuses. We also have a few anglophone universities.

Official Languages committee  In preparing the report we noted that only 12% of immigrants are francophones or integrate into the francophone community. The results speak for themselves. The office of the commissioner maintains that efforts must be made by both orders of government if things are to change in New Brunswick.

Official Languages committee  I have not yet made recommendations on retention; I have simply made recommendations about the targets that should be achieved. I published my annual report in June of 2014. I did talk about immigration in the annual report. I will be talking about immigration again in my next annual report, so you may want to stay tuned for that.

Official Languages committee  Thank you for the question. I have with me a couple of documents that the department responsible for immigration has produced. I would invite you to consult the documents and invite the experts who may have authored these to come and answer those specific questions. The government has implemented an action plan on francophone immigration further to recommendations by me, my predecessor, and I am pleased to see that the provincial government has set an objective of attracting 33% francophone immigrants by the year 2020.

Official Languages committee  Yes.

Official Languages committee  My understanding is that there's a hope that it will be renewed. With respect to your previous questions, I don't run the immigration program in the province. I'm the Commissioner of Official Languages and those are not answers that I could provide to you, but I'm sure that I can send you in the direction of those who may.

Official Languages committee  I'm not an expert in immigration, as it isn't my area of expertise. In terms of your questions regarding immigrants' experience in New Brunswick, I would suggest that you invite immigration officials from the New Brunswick government. As commissioner, I'm here today to discuss New Brunswick's stance on immigration.

Official Languages committee  Ladies and gentlemen, I am extremely pleased to be here with you today to talk about something that I feel strongly about—immigration. This issue is central to the future of our two official language communities across Canada. During this presentation, I will provide an overview of recent changes in francophone immigration to New Brunswick.