Official Languages committee  I feel that at a federal level there needs to be a change in policy or a reinvigorated application of current policies to support bilingualism. I think there are multiple ways in which the federal government, including the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages and Heri

Official Languages committee  These are very mundane issues to you and me, but they're very important issues for schools. One is the dissemination of information to stakeholders in the community—parents, educators, and specialists who work with children on the current state of research on second language lear

Official Languages committee  Well, I think Canadians, monolingual Canadians especially, and Canadian businesses will be competing increasingly with individuals and companies around the world that have a multilingual advantage. We have the French-English thing in good shape, but we don't have competencies in

Official Languages committee  That's a very good question. I do appreciate that it is a complex issue in Canada because of the jurisdiction issue. There are models that I am familiar with, primarily the one in the U.S. Interestingly, the U.S. has several national centres that are concerned with foreign and

Official Languages committee  Well, that's a tricky question, since I don't quite know how the federal government really works.

Official Languages committee  Some of this is reviewed in the summary I sent out. There has been considerable research done on children, primarily in early French immersion programs, who are at risk for difficulty in school because of first language impairment due to cognitive difficulties, because they're fr

Official Languages committee  I'm not sure if that answered it.

Official Languages committee  That's an interesting question. There is simply no research on those issues, in part because the research efforts, like the educational efforts, are all localized. To do a national comparison would require some kind of national initiative, and that kind of initiative has never be

Official Languages committee  There is an organization called Canadian Parents for French, which was created by the first Commissioner of Official Languages, as far as I know, Keith Spicer. He actually created this organization. Canadian Parents for French monitors the state of French immersion across the c

Official Languages committee  It's a complex issue. On the one hand, in an egalitarian society such as ours, I think public school programs should be available to everyone. At present, schools with immersion programs struggle to work with students who have learning challenges, who as a result are often exclud

Official Languages committee  I'll keep my comments very brief. I want to start by saying that as many of you probably already know, immersion programs in Canada, especially French immersion programs, have been a singularly effective innovation in Canadian education. From their beginning in the mid-1960s to

Official Languages committee  Good afternoon. Thank you very much for inviting me and giving me this opportunity to speak to you. I understand that I have 10 minutes for these comments. Is that correct?