You raised a number of points that worry me. I do not know if you got the chance to listen to the representatives from Canadian Heritage who were here earlier. It would have been a good idea for them to stay a few minutes longer at least to listen to what you had to say. It may have shown some desire on their part to improve the situation. In any case, there do not seem to be too many people here.
Two things are of serious concern to me. First of all, the Cultural Olympiad. Ms. Mounier told us earlier on that, if there were any errors in schedule A of the agreement on the Games, changes would be made. At the end of the day, there is no purpose in having a schedule A if changes are made to the Cultural Olympiad but there are no improvements with regard to the Games as such.
I did not get the opportunity to raise the point that worries me, but it has to do with the level of French. People from Canadian Heritage mentioned earlier that volunteers had been recruited. I can not recall the exact number, but I think she mentioned 11,000 volunteers. I do not recall whether that was 11,000 francophones, but she did say that these people could express themselves in French to varying degrees. When you have a car, you do not ask whether or not it has brakes. In this case, either people speak French or they do not. How can we talk about varying degrees of French? Either we offer the services or we do not. How will we make sure these services are offered?
I wonder if this implies that francophones understand French to varying degrees. People may have different ways of speaking. Mr. Godin and myself, as well as other francophones throughout the country, may express ourselves differently at times, but we remain francophones. We do not speak French in varying degrees.
I would like to know whether this situation with respect to the volunteers seems acceptable to you.