Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I remember the time when people from the Francophone community were considered second-class citizens in northern Ontario. At the time, if you were a foreign worker or a Francophone, you worked in the mines, and if you were an Anglophone, you were a manager.
But the situation has changed.
I would say, again, as an anglophone watching, that the francophone community of the north has been very, very successful. So many of our young leaders are francophone. The sense of pride, the sense of identity.... We have a flag. It's not the Red Ensign; it's the Franco-Ontarian flag. I see it flying everywhere.
I'd like to get your perspective on how much it has been transformed in the north, and what steps we would need to take in terms of government policy to ensure that it continues. As a supplementary to that, because I'll leave this question to you, I remember when the francophone community in the north began its very vocal struggle to maintain its rights, and there was a sense in the anglophone community that these rights would be coming from the anglophones. That sense seems to have disappeared. And now you have the Cree in the region also speaking on behalf of their rights.
Do you see the success of the francophone community in northern Ontario as being part of the overall success of the community, all the communities, or is there still a need to tug away rights from one group in order to secure rights for the minority?