I think we are all familiar with the history of the past few decades. Certainly, there was a climate in this province that members of the anglophone community were not comfortable with some time ago. I think that is no longer the case. The anglophone community in Quebec now, I know, is not so much worried about the political uncertainty of the future and that sort of thing. But I think you've already heard this morning the reality that the best and the brightest have left.
The youth who are not leaving, those who remain, tend to be less well educated, have lower employability, and low socio-economic success. It's not a bright picture. You've heard from Rachel Garber of Townshippers' some of the interventions in the youth area. The interventions are very positive, but the needs are very large.
I think the demographic that describes the anglophone community in Quebec now is a skewed demographic. It's skewed because of the fact that some of the better educated, more mobile leaders of the community, if you will, are not here. This leaves a deficit, and it creates a greater challenge for those of us who are still here to try to put things together and make them work better.
The other aspect of that, which I think is very evident, is that neither Bob nor I are youngsters. There's a serious shortage of youth leadership in the English sector. We're very delighted to have people like Michael Van Lierop, who was here earlier, as a youth member of the community stepping forward to accept a leadership role. That is tremendously encouraging, but when you look around the table of the Quebec Community Groups Network, you see a lot of gray hair--in fact, sometimes you don't see any hair. In a sense, that's part of society, but it is a more pronounced problem in the anglophone community in Quebec because of the fact that so many....
If you look at the demographic analysis from recent census figures, you will see in the Quebec anglophone community that there is a stressed youth sector here. There is an older population segment, which I probably represent along with Bob, who may have a reasonable education, have careers behind them, and have perhaps retired or are about to retire, and Quebec is home and that's fine; it's a great place to be. But in the middle there's a hole. If you look at the census figures, there's a hole there. Where are the 30- to 50-year-olds in the anglophone community? Well, they live in Calgary or Vancouver or Toronto; they don't live in Quebec. That is a major deficit in our community.
It means that the leaders who should be taking Bob's and my place aren't there. It means that the stronger economic cohort is not there. It creates a serious question mark over the future of our community, and I would hope that the whole question of replenishment of the anglophone community in Quebec can be addressed more constructively in the years to come than has been the case in the years gone by.