Thank you, Danielle.
Ladies and gentlemen, in its study, your committee is focusing in particular on the manner in which the universities can train bilingual graduates so that the federal public service can respond to citizens in their mother tongue.
I am pleased to inform you that, thanks to the financial support of the Department of Canadian Heritage, which is responsible for official languages, the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences is offering a program that specifically addresses the federal government's expectations. It concerns not only a succession for the public service, but, even better, a succession that possesses a very good mastery of Canada's two official languages.
Since 2004, Simon Fraser University has offered a program in public administration and community services, which we also call the French Cohort Program. This is a multi-disciplinary program, unique to Canada, mainly offered in French to young graduates of the French immersion and core French programs and of the francophone program of British Columbia.
The French Cohort Program has a curriculum that includes courses in political science, public administration, history, economics and international studies, to name only a few. It is thus preparing these young citizens who master both official languages to join the public service.
The initiatives that we have put forward to encourage our students to achieve excellent proficiency in French and to understand the communities in which French is used are numerous and original.
Allow me to cite two examples. In the French Cohort Program, after two years of postsecondary studies in British Columbia—