I believe that Mr. Pelletier and Mr. Charbonneau would be excellent deputy ministers. The mere fact that they're already bilingual would correct the deficiency rightly pointed out by Mr. Godin.
I would like to ask Mr. Charbonneau a more basic question. I don't know whether Mr. d'Entremont is still President of Université Sainte-Anne. Whatever the case may be, I met him a few years ago, and he spoke to me about one of his fears. Since Université Sainte-Anne is a French-language university in Church Point, in southern Nova Scotia, many immersion students enroll in it, students from Yarmouth, Pubnico and southern Nova Scotia. That institution was to compete with other university institutions in Nova Scotia, of which there are 10, I believe. The words he used struck me. He was afraid that the Université Sainte-Anne might become a big high school for anglophones who want to learn French at university.
This is a small Acadian institution with a rich history; if offers courses in its own selected fields. However, it finds itself in a situation in which the surrounding community is becoming anglophone, and the French aspect of the university is being lost. It is somewhat like, on another scale, the Université Laval becoming an anglophone campus if the majority of its students ever came from the anglophone world.
We want to train anglophones in small institutions in very anglophone environments. Those institutions are trying to make do as best they can to keep the Acadian character of the place.
Doesn't this challenge present a danger for these small institutions?