Official Languages committee  Good morning, Mr. Chong, Monsieur Godin, Monsieur Dion, Monsieur Gourde, and members of the committee. It is a pleasure for the QCGN to be back before this committee today. We are especially pleased to be joined today by Lorraine O'Donnell, the coordinator-researcher of Quebec English-Speaking Communities Research Network, QUESCREN, a joint initiative of the Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities, CIRLM, and Concordia University's School of Extended Learning.

Official Languages committee  If I could just follow up on that, it's important to realize what that interdepartmental coordination means on the ground. We all live in communities and we all access services as individuals within our own communities. We don't access silos. We access fully functional communities.

Official Languages committee  The question was not asked.

Official Languages committee  The other thing about the health agreement that's important is that it also answers questions of accountability. What we have here, then, is an agreement where federal money is coming into the province. The community has a say on where the money's going, and the community can track the money and work with the province.

Official Languages committee  There are some wins in Quebec around the English-speaking community. In the region where Mr. Gourde comes from, Quebec City, the English-speaking population is seen as a positive part of the community. There are economic benefits to having an English-speaking community, and benefits in terms of attracting and retaining immigrants to the regions.

Official Languages committee  We attended a research conference that was sponsored by the Official Languages Secretariat on September 1, and Jean-Pierre Corbeil was there. Those in minority languages will know who Jean-Pierre Corbeil is. He's the statistician at Statistics Canada who deals with our communities.

Official Languages committee  We should be clear on what it is we're talking about. There is an academic community in Canada that studies minority language communities. You can make an academic career out of that, but not out of studying the English-speaking community of Quebec. There is no place where you can go.

Official Languages committee  If your question is based on the Government of Canada's usual definition of the official language community, which would be folks in Quebec whose first official language is English, there are about 950,000 of us—roughly equivalent to the number of francophones who live outside of Quebec.

Official Languages committee  It depends on the age group, sir. For our population under 40, it’s over 70%. For our population over 40, it’s about 65%, and then it goes down as folks get older.

Official Languages committee  I'm not sure.…