Without commenting directly on a decision of the current government, and without considering all the ramifications, I would like to make this point. One of the things I have been struck by is the growing interest for French in British Columbia. There are 30,000 students in immersion programs alone. The number is limited by the funds available. I looked at the trends in the eighties, and had funds not been limited, there would have been a million students in immersion programs in Canada, rather than 300,000. That shows the commitment that exists regarding language.
With respect to francophone minorities, I agree 100%. If we look at the figures in the action plan and the resulting report, we see that assimilation is a serious problem. I think one of the ways of dealing with this is to start language training when children are very young.
I was lucky, I was able to learn French, but French is my second language, it is not my mother tongue. I think that when children are learning not just academic material but are also developing an identity, this is a very important issue. However, I do not have enough information at the moment about the details of the program to comment further. This issue is of concern to me.