Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to welcome Ms. Adam and her team.
I would also like to thank you. I am a member of Parliament and I have been a member of this committee for four years, during which I have come to know you and to greatly appreciate you. When you come from a province where you represent only 4 per cent of the population, you appreciate having someone in the commissioner's office who understands minorities. Thank you very much for all the work you have accomplished.
I would like to ask you two questions. They are very general questions and they might be difficult to answer.
First, I think that you were the person most suited for this position over the past seven years. You have established structures and a system. What do you think the next commissioner's role should be?
Circumstances change. For example, at the Caisse populaire Saint-Boniface, a person who was very well versed in finances has just ended her mandate. We are now looking for someone who will be responsible for promotion and marketing. Without wishing to put words in your mouth, I see someone who would travel throughout the country and tell Canadians that they have a right to certain services. That individual would actively undertake promotion on the ground.
In Manitoba we recently celebrate the 25th anniversary of the organization called Canadian Parents for French. What these people have achieved in Manitoba over the past 25 years is absolutely incredible. Yesterday I attended the graduation ceremony at the Collège universitaire de Saint-Boniface and I was astonished to see, in the college where the language has been dispensed in French only, the number of graduates with English names. I am sure that they constituted at least a third of the student population. I thought, as I often do, that perhaps we had missed the mark in terms of integrating these people and, thereby, increasing the francophone cultural presence.