Official Languages committee  I teach at McGill University.

Official Languages committee  No.

Official Languages committee  Yes.

Official Languages committee  I've taught at CEGEP and at university, and, yes, I do see it, and it is very discouraging even when you get to the level of university and there is still the low level of what we'd call literacy. As a parent, though, I'm even more struck by this. If I may say, I teach at university, therefore I expect to be able to help my children with the kind of work they bring home.

Official Languages committee  Well, we have to be attentive to this as a global thing. It's not—

Official Languages committee  The francophones outside of Quebec have worked extremely hard for a long period of time simply to create schools, let alone school systems. More or less, the anglophones in Quebec have had a school system for generations and generations. I hesitate because as I began speaking...there is the Protestant-Catholic distinction, which means we can't, technically speaking, talk about the English school system.

Official Languages committee  There is a demographic problem everywhere; that's not an issue. Part of the issue is that 40 or 50 years ago there were a large number of schools built across Quebec. A large number of them are now part of the English school system, more than the population can sustain clearly. That is true across the board, but it is particularly true in the English school systems, wherever they happen to be.

Official Languages committee  That's correct.

Official Languages committee  I don't understand these numbers; I'm sorry. There is no way that the immigrant population, if we want to call it that, can increase numbers in any substantial way to the English school system. It is possible that francophones do attend English schools in Quebec; in fact, in some parts of the province there are considerable numbers of them because of a parent or grandparent who went to school in English.

Official Languages committee  Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for allowing me the opportunity to speak about schooling in Quebec. This is something I enjoy doing, after having spent some years researching the history of the Protestant school system and producing a book called, A Meeting of the People: School Boards and Protestant Communities in Quebec, 1801 -1998, if you'd like further information.