Official Languages committee  I would like to give you another example on this. If memory serves, you are with a school board in northern Ontario. If there were, for instance, a question on schools attended by children and parents, Statistics Canada could easily show that the numbers are double what they wer

Official Languages committee  Because of the information that was collected, the survey allowed the communities to justify more services. If another such survey is done, we would like to take part in its development because of the data we would like to obtain. Mr. Vandal, your question was about whether ther

Official Languages committee  We did discuss this topic, and it would be an excellent idea to do another survey. That would be absolutely essential, but we mustn't let this blind us — I would say that we need other means to assess how this lack of information has consequences on the vitality and sustainabili

Official Languages committee  It has had an enormous effect. I think it is at the very core of the issue and of our interventions. When I was director general, I tried to prove to the government—the Ontario government, in this case—that we needed schools in certain places. I was then asked a very legitimate

Official Languages committee  In the final analysis, there would be more infrastructure. It's a kind of vicious circle. If there were more buildings, there would be more students. If there were more students, our communities would be seen as being very vital. If there were more infrastructure, it would streng

Official Languages committee  I really like the energy you bring to this, Mr. Samson.

Official Languages committee  If you agree, I will not answer in the same way.

Official Languages committee  You are correct, Mr. Samson. I am referring to a British Columbia case and a decision handed down by a judge in that province. The issue, basically, is assimilation. The problem is that we are told that the francophonie will not survive very long because we are being assimilated

Official Languages committee  That is what we hope. The first question in the Statistics Canada survey has several possible interpretations. It is not clear. It urges people to choose a single language—in most cases, that would be English—as their mother tongue. However, the question does not give the person

Official Languages committee  Thank you for the question. We could try to use surveys to determine who is a rights holder and who is not but, unlike Statistics Canada, we do not have the necessary resources to gather all that information through a mandatory survey. Having served as executive director of a

Official Languages committee  I want to point out that our organization, a French-language school board outside of Quebec, has not existed for very long. We acquired our rights following many battles involving governance rights. Before that, we were far more involved with anglophones. We had advisory committ

Official Languages committee  Thank you, Ms. Chartrand. Hello everyone and thank you for welcoming us here. Like any organization responsible for providing a service, francophone school boards need to know their potential clientele. The rules for admission to francophone school boards vary from province to

Official Languages committee  Yes, I will be very pleased to do that.

Official Languages committee  No. That is a very good question. That argument is certainly made in our brief. As you surely know, before we submitted our brief, we consulted our lawyers, that is, the lawyers of the three federations, as well as the communities, parents, and all other interested parties. We

Official Languages committee  I wouldn't want to tell them what to do.