Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to thank our witnesses for being here this morning.
A little earlier, you touched on the issue of languages. With respect to what my colleague opposite, Ms. Glover, was saying, I think perhaps society as a whole has to make a decision about French. I live in northern New Brunswick, in a community that is 98% francophone. I took classes in English at the polyvalente, and the teacher—and I will not give any more detail so as to avoid targeting anyone—talked to us in French. And yet it was an English course. That is the opposite of what usually happens. At some point, people have to decide whether they want to be unilingual or bilingual. The question applies equally to francophones and anglophones regarding the other language. It is ironic to realize that this English course was being taught in French. How do you learn English in a community that is 98% francophone, and where the few anglophones living there, most from birth, all speak French in the community. That makes things even more difficult.
You raised the issue of the two languages, Ms. Faitelson-Weiser. The problem does not affect the public service only: it is everyone. Businesses or other private companies have no obligations. Often only one language is used, and that is the one spoken in the community. Everywhere else, or at least in most other countries, people do not mind learning three, four or sometimes more languages. Elsewhere, this seems totally natural, yet here in Canada it is seen as a burden. As you mentioned, a requirement could be introduced forcing people who want jobs with the federal government to be bilingual at the outset. However, that would not fix the problem regarding private companies.
Does Canadian society have a problem in this regard? Let us take the example of my English classes being taught in French. The same thing happens in anglophone communities, where it is not easy to speak French. Why should people not be learning three or four languages? As my colleague demonstrated earlier, he knows at least three languages. Of course, I do not know how well he was doing, because I could not understand a word he was saying.