Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome to all of you.
On March 31 of this year, we had witnesses from the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada, as well as an assistant deputy minister, and we discussed the Vancouver Olympic Games of 2010. During your presentation, Mr. Fraser, you spoke of the cultural wealth of our communities. Ms. Bossé, of the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada, pointed out how her organization is unhappy. I will read you the passage in question and I would like to hear your reaction to it:
We were rather displeased to hear that the French language component for the February 12 countdown to the Olympics show consisted of one musician who himself admitted that he had probably been chosen because of his francophone name. [...] Among the participants there is the Quebec-based group Beast, which sings in English, Bell Orchestre which is a Quebec instrumental group that has a unilingual English website and the Manitoba Métis Music and Dance group which we've heard present a video of Louis Riel over the course of its performance.
That is all there was that was even slightly francophone. We heard there was a choreographer whose work was shown. My colleague, Ms. Guay, responded to that by saying: “By the way, Madam, French is not a choreography but a language.”
This happened with VANOC on February 12, 2009; it's quite recent. It is therefore one year before the games as such. This is where we are at in terms of the quality of French, culturally speaking.
I would like to hear your comments on this and know how we can send a clear message to VANOC to tell them that we are not satisfied with their way of viewing French cultural expression for all of Canada.