Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have a short comment and question for Canadian Parents for French.
There are as many Canadians now with a non-official language as their mother tongue as there are francophones living in this country. I think the rapidly changing demographic makeup of this country is something that a lot of people aren't aware of in Ottawa. For example, Chinese is taught as the first language in three of the larger provinces in this country, in Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia.
More worrisome, I think, is that the number of bilingual anglophones aged 15 to 19 has declined precipitously in the last decade, according to Statistics Canada, from about 16% in 1996 to 13% in 2006. These are very disappointing numbers, especially considering that we've had an action plan on official languages, launched by the previous government and continued by the present government, that has poured billions of dollars into trying to raise the profile of both languages, but especially French, in Canada.
My question to you is why are these numbers in decline, specifically the numbers for bilingual anglophones coming out of our education system? Why did the action plan, launched in 2003, not go anywhere in achieving its objective of doubling the number of bilingual students aged 15 to 19?