Merci, monsieur le président.
There were a couple of comments I thought were interesting. One was from Mr. Thériault, who said that official bilingualism is essential but not sufficient. I think that's a very good way of putting things. Also, Mr. Jedwab said exogamy is an integral part of how French is carried from one generation to the next, and that households with francophone mothers and anglophone fathers tend to see the francophone language carried through to the next generation. I've seen that in many cases myself, anecdotally speaking.
One of the things that is clear in the statistics is that we have seen a decline in the number of mother-tongue francophones in this country over the last 30 to 40 years. That trend is clear. It's inescapable when you look at the statistics. The other trend that I think is unmistakeable is the increase in the number of Canadians who are recent arrivals or minorities in this country. I think those two changing realities are related to each other, and many would say are colliding.
I think there might be a way to address both of those concerns in a way that's beneficial for both communities. I'm talking about a possible solution that would adopt a more European style of education system in which we would require students, especially students bound for college or university, to know three languages, two of which would be French and English and the third would be the student's choice. It would be a sort of two-plus-one approach to language policy. The federal government could use its spending power to do this by setting up a federal fund of let's say $1,000 per student per year. There are 2.4 million students in the primary and secondary education system in Canada, and this fund would be available to provinces that wanted to utilize it to adopt this policy. I think you would address a number of issues at once. The first is obviously the issue of concern to francophones in this country, which is their declining numbers with respect to the larger population.
Secondly, you'd address the diversity element for newer Canadians who want to retain their mother tongue. You'd address the trade and commerce aspect. I don't think we're taking advantage of the large expatriate populations here, especially with respect to international trade and commerce. I don't think we're leveraging those human assets here in ways that we could in order to be the Phoenicians of the modern world. I think you open yourself up to the other. You open yourself up to a different culture, because language, in my view, is the carrier of culture.
In the context of those statistics, I'm interested to hear what the three panellists think about an idea like that and whether or not this is a potential solution to these demographic trends.