As you know, we live in a secular society. We do not live in a theocracy where religion decides everything—fortunately. For example, Newfoundland has a multiconfessional system. In Saskatchewan, Francophones decided not to have a French Catholic school board as well as a public school board. They preferred instead to merge them right from the outset, in 1995. It had been abolished by Anderson's Conservative government in 1931. You may recall that French-language schools in Saskatchewan were abolished by the Conservatives in 1931 and nothing was changed in that regard by the Liberal Premier Thatcher, or subsequently by the NDP. It was only in 1995, some 64 years later, that French schools were able to re-open, when Mr. Romanow was in office. A model was developed where French was really the key component in the communities.
Would you agree to give this some thought and could you possibly agree that there should be a merger? Constitutionally, that would be possible because it was done in Quebec through a unanimous vote in the National Assembly. In Quebec, the decisive factor is not whether you are protestant or catholic, but rather which language you use—French or English. The National Assembly and the House of Commons both gave their approval to such a system. So, with Queen's Park and the House of Commons, it would be possible to bring all Franco-Ontarians under a single system where language, rather than religion, would be the priority. Would you agree with such a system?