Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, Mr. Côté, good morning Ms. Gallant.
First of all, I am glad to see that one of my electors has taken the witness stand. We had suggested your name especially as we were aware of the work that you have done. We know that in our riding, there are at least three companies directed by blind persons, which is almost a record in the province of Quebec. The same subject was also raised by Ms. Guay, whose father has visual problems, and by myself, as my godmother was born blind. We are interested in the subject from a slightly different point of view.
Let me first make a comment, and then I will put a question to you. First, Ms. Gallant said something very important: her province is bilingual. Therefore, it must deal with people who come from anglophone or francophone families. The school curriculum for these people must apply identical methods, so as not to confuse the students. A couple may well consist of a francophone and an anglophone. Their child might be registered in the anglophone or in the francophone system. This would create an extra problem for them.
There is no end to the problems that we can find, Mr. Côté, but you raised this matter and I have the same question as Mr. Rodriguez, who represents the Liberal Party. I am a bit skeptical regarding your version and what we heard previously. If I correctly understand your explanation and the explanation from Ms. Gallant, the unified code does not seem to please anyone because it transfers the Code Antoine into your number system, which causes problems for you. This means that a young student who has finished his schooling up to the CEGEP level and who has to switch overnight to the unified code could not even recognize chemical formulae anymore. There would be a risk that he could blow up the laboratory. I am exaggerating slightly, but this is more or less the situation.
Canada has two official languages: French and English. We learned that there was a problem with creating a unified code. European and African francophones are trying to implement a system in Quebec. This seems to have had repercussions in your province of New Brunswick. I can affirm that there are repercussions in Ontario and in Alberta as well, because they have the same problem.
When a young person registers with a school system, no matter what subjects are taught, he ultimately wants to get a diploma. Ms. Gallant, Mr. Côté, I thought I heard you say that you are currently using the braille code, which really consists of the six graphic forms of braille writing that can exist in English as well as in French. Am I right?