I believe that immigration can play an important role in improving the demographic situation of francophones in minority communities. To do this, we need to look quite closely at the destinations of immigrants.
According to the most recent census, most francophone immigrants who decided to settle outside Quebec chose Toronto and Ottawa. The majority—over 50%, based on figures I saw recently—picked one of these two cities as their destination.
That said, Manitoba is experiencing problems with regard to sponsorship. For example, we're trying to attract francophones from the Maghreb region to our communities. We are trying to do this elsewhere too.
I remember having done a study, in 2000, for the Office of the Official Languages Commissioner on the contribution of francophone immigration to the development of minority-language communities in British Columbia. When I called places in British Columbia, I asked where I could find francophone immigrants and I was told there weren't any. And yet, according to the census, there are rather a lot of them. I was quite surprised then by this reaction.
There is also the whole issue of integrating francophones. This relates back to what I said earlier with regard to the question of identity and inclusion. Who is francophone? In order to ensure this contribution, we have to ensure that our definition of francophone is inclusive. However, we must also be realistic. In Toronto, and elsewhere, it's also important for francophone immigrants to learn English, as do many francophones outside Quebec in their place of work. In fact, there are very few workplaces where French is the only language spoken, outside New Brunswick and Quebec. Even here in the National Capital Region, people need to be bilingual, except perhaps in some areas of Gatineau. So we must also take that reality into consideration.
You have to be realistic about what the expectations are. We're going to encounter in cities like Toronto the phenomenon of multiple identities, dual identities. Given this evolution we're headed toward, I don't think the debates we're having today are going to be the same in 20 to 30 years.
We'll have to address more of this mixing and this duality, and the census will be struggling with those things. We'll be struggling with issues of identity, as is the case not only here but in many other pluralistic countries throughout the world. That's what we need to think about, even in terms of the contribution of immigrants who are French-speaking in places outside of Quebec.