Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Fraser, I am pleased to see you again. I will not ask you whether you would do a better job if you were minister, because I am certain that you would do a better job than what is being done now.
I have before me an article from yesterday's paper, which reads as follows:
Unilingual customs officers from Ottawa will not have to learn French. Unilingual anglophone customs officers will be able to continue to welcome visitors at the Ottawa International Airport as long as they call upon bilingual colleagues to provide service in French to travellers who request it.
This, Mr. Fraser, is unacceptable today, especially in Ottawa. We are supposed to be a bilingual country. However, that is completely false. You just have to go on Sparks Street to see that you cannot get served in French. I find that completely unacceptable. This is something that certainly has to be examined closely.
In another article, it says that when it comes to bilingualism, airports perform poorly. The Vancouver Olympics are fast approaching. We know that there is a problem and that we will not be able to obtain service in both official languages. We have 9 million francophones and 26 million anglophones. We should be able to provide these services. And yet it will not happen. I am telling you, we are going to have a big surprise during the 2010 Olympics, and it will not be very flattering for Canada.
I would like to hear your views on this. The fact that customs officers are not forced to learn French is truly unacceptable. A complaint should be filed. Something has to be done to change that.