Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Corbeil, a little earlier you said something that has stayed in my mind. We find ourselves in a paradoxical situation in which we are asking francophone immigrants, regardless of their country of origin, to fill a void and thus to contribute to the continued existence of the French fact, whereas francophones and French Canadians are not doing that job themselves. They are under social, historic and even daily pressure that pushes them to join a surrounding anglophone majority. They no longer even identify with their origins, with what their parents taught them, with the cultural heritage they gave them. That's a crucial problem.
I remember one young woman who, following her studies at the University of Ottawa, was hired as a teacher at Zenon Park, a very rural community. That girl was originally from Ottawa, an urban area. She had asked whether there was a shopping centre nearby where she could do our shopping. The recruiters, who really wanted to hire this teacher, answered that there was a large shopping centre in that place. The large centre in question was in fact a Sears depot. So you can somewhat see the paradox. When people want to attract immigrants to a certain place, they at times deform the facts.
We consider Eastern Ontario a rural area. I'm originally from Hawkesbury and I've made the unfortunate mistake of talking about "my home village of Hawkesbury". People from there responded by saying that there were now five traffic lights in Hawkesbury. So I said "in my home town of Hawkesbury" because I didn't want to be stoned that day. There's also the aspect of the proximity between Montreal, Quebec, and the region east of Ottawa, which I would say is the basic ingredient that very much shapes the sense of identity. Acadians have that pride; they have a national identity of their own, which is a major strength.
That said, we are talking about linguistic aspects here, about the French fact, about the francophonie, but are we also talking about the ethnolinguistic aspect, about the cultural identity that is that of francophones? You mentioned it. Someone may say: "I'm a francophone, but I consider myself an anglophone."
The other aspect is religious practice. Some people come from the Maghreb, from North Africa, for example, where there are francophones, or even from Europe. We've seen, in the history of Quebec, Huguenots, that is Protestants, denied access to Catholic schools and having to attend English schools. That's ancient history, but it happened to people of my generation and older than me.
According to your statistics, do the francophones who arrive in a place where certain aspects of this francophone reality do not meet their cultural, religious and identity aspirations stay in that environment for a long time, or do they tend to head toward the major centres where they can find a nucleus?