Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses as well.
We always talk about how we can have a system where immigrants, new Canadians, have success in Canadian society whether that is economically or in civil society. When we talk about it I believe, this is my belief, that those who have knowledge of one of the official languages have more chances of success, fast and better success. I know that in our Canadian Citizenship Act we have had a requirement of adequate language knowledge since 1947. Recently with the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act we extended the language and knowledge requirement from 14 to 64 years of age as well.
When we extended this was there any research that showed that language helps new immigrants to succeed more quickly, and to succeed in a better manner? When we extended this age, why did we need to extend the age and what are we looking for as an outcome?