Official Languages committee  What I said was that the New Brunswick Commissioner of Official Languages published a report yesterday by Pierre-Marcel Desjardins and David Campbell, two experienced economists who live in Moncton. They did an analysis and discovered that each position filled by a bilingual pers

Official Languages committee  Absolutely.

Official Languages committee  Yes, I can send it to you. Actually, it's available on the website of the New Brunswick Commissioner of Official Languages, Ms. d'Entremont.

Official Languages committee  We don't have any data on that, but it's clear that some of them want to stay. Actually, there are very few temporary workers in Moncton. They are mainly in the regions, including in Kent County in the northeast, near Mr. Williamson's riding, where there are fish plants.

Official Languages committee  Our competition, frankly, is in French-speaking nations. France itself has lots of francophone immigrants from Morocco and other places in Africa, for example. A lot of immigrants go there, so we are in competition with France. I would say any French-speaking nation would be our

Official Languages committee  No, we haven't looked at it in depth. Our approach is to try to help entrepreneurs who want to hire someone. We try to reduce their paperwork as much as possible. For example, when there are job fairs, we offer positions and try to navigate the whole process for them.

Official Languages committee  I think that's right.

Official Languages committee  I will go back to the early 2000s, or even the late 1990s. Economic development was then based on attracting businesses. We were running after everyone and their dog: businesses, call centres, manufacturers and high-tech industries. There was a boom. As you know, I was involved

Official Languages committee  It is 63%.

Official Languages committee  Pretty much.

Official Languages committee  It’s not too bad. It is quite a significant pool of the population. Clearly, the challenge is figuring out whether we can keep up the same level of education and the same number of students who come from abroad. They actually come from Africa, Haiti, all over the world. The chall

Official Languages committee  As I mentioned in the beginning of my presentation, Express Entry is a very important program and will help grow the urban population of Moncton, a municipality that has quite a large linguistic minority. We recommend that you grant additional points to immigrants to encourage t

Official Languages committee  In Moncton, we have the Centre d'accueil et d'accompagnement francophone des immigrants du Sud-Est du Nouveau-Brunswick. That organization provides retention and integration services that are funded in large part by the Government of Canada. There is also the Multicultural Associ

Official Languages committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will use Moncton as an example, where, in 2006, approximately 9% of immigrants were francophones. Nine years later, that percentage has doubled: it is now 18%. So we are moving in the right direction. Can we take all of the credit? No. It has to be said

Official Languages committee  Thank you Mr. Chair. And thank you to all members of the committee for this opportunity to meet with you today. The City of Moncton is proud to be the first officially bilingual city in Canada, through a declaration by council made in 2002. Over the past three decades, Moncton