Thank you.
I'm very glad to hear this background information that you gave. Personally, I didn't know about that, and I'm sure our students don't know about it. I don't think students will become bilingual through coercion, but they will through incentives. If they know there are many opportunities for them if they graduate in a field of their own interest and they have the other official language as well, they will be much better positioned to have those 12,000 positions that are coming up in the next few years.
Learning a language starts with primary and secondary education, and it is in those sectors that improvements have to be made first. That is where the federal government and the provinces have a role to play, by making sure that students have the chance to learn the other language and have access to quality programs in the other official language.
I see the role of the universities here in high-quality teacher education programs to train good teachers through the best methods, and also in conducting up-to-date research so that we are informed about the best practices. I think this is the role of the university.
At the university level, offering options or programs to students that give them a chance to add French to commerce or economics or political science is the way to go. I don't think making it mandatory for students would necessarily lead to great success, but if the federal government can support making French more available in universities in some programs and if students know that there is potential for them to access jobs, I think they will surely use those opportunities.