Can you hear me better now? Perfect.
So, I had the opportunity, in response to an invitation by Dyane Adam, who was the Commissioner of Official Languages at the time, to carry out a study on immigration and the vitality of linguistic minorities—the one that Mr. Castonguay referred to. I would just like to mention that, as part of that study I was commissioned to carry out, I also had the opportunity to meet with many leaders of Francophone communities outside Quebec, as well as the Anglophone community leadership in Quebec.
It should also be acknowledged that, at the time, an asymmetric approach was used by decision-makers at Citizenship and Immigration Canada with respect to Quebec, as opposed to the rest of Canada. I would just like to explain what I mean by “asymmetric”. In the case of Quebec, I was told quite clearly during the discussions that there was the McDougall-Gagnon-Tremblay agreement—an agreement relating to resources for immigrant integration—as well as another agreement signed in 1978 dealing with the immigration selection process, responsibility for which had been transferred to Quebec, except in cases involving humanitarian immigrants, or refugees.
Therefore, I was asked to respect that agreement. That is advice that I consider to be very wise and that I want to emphasize here today—in other words, the need to respect Quebec jurisdiction with respect to immigration, while at the same time considering the fact that, outside Montreal, there were communities whose demographic situation was not so positive, and which were even fragile or vulnerable in some cases. I also had to evaluate ways of cooperating with the Government of Quebec to see whether resources could be provided to English-speaking immigrants wanting to move to regions outside Montreal.
Therefore, the mandate I was given, in terms of examining the situation in Quebec based on that premise, was somewhat limited.
That was just to give you a recapitulation of the approach to Quebec vis-à-vis this issue. I'll say rather summarily that, as I said before, going forward in terms of the situation of English speakers living in Quebec, it's very important to respect the two agreements that have been struck with that province in terms of immigrant selection and the resources accorded to immigrants who choose to settle in Quebec whose primary language is English.
That said, I think there are opportunities or other means to honour the commitment the federal government has to the vitality of linguistic minorities, which includes a commitment that extends quite obviously to Quebec with respect to the English language community, in terms of its vitality. Some of you may be aware that the federal government definition of an English speaker in Quebec is based on a derived census variable: first official language spoken. With that variable, or indicator, if you like, the population of English speakers in Quebec is anywhere between 900,000 and one million persons.
The indicator that the Government of Quebec uses is mother tongue. Based on that dimension of the census, you're looking at a population of somewhere around 600,000. So there's a vast gap between the federal definition of who's an anglophone in Quebec and the Quebec definition, if you do the simple math, a gap of about 300,000. Within that gap of 300,000, you'll find a very substantial number of people who were not born in Canada.
So under the federal definition, the English-speaking community looks a lot more vital from the standpoint of numbers, if you're going to measure the quality of the experience of the community on the basis of its numbers, as opposed to the Quebec definition, which will have far less immigration built into the number that it estimates constitutes the English-speaking population.
Within that group, I think my advice again, in the limited amount of time I have and to the extent that I'm treating that issue, is that there are pockets of vulnerability within the group of individuals that the federal government will designate as English speakers and that the provincial government may not designate as English speakers.
There are a lot of statistics to show, for example, that immigrants originating from South Asia, which is primarily English speaking—even if their mother tongue may be Punjabi or various other languages—often find themselves in situations of economic vulnerability. They're disproportionately greater. As much as Quebec has authority over integration—except for humanitarian cases, as I mentioned earlier—and it also has a manpower agreement with the federal government, to the extent that there are opportunities to support those groups that are making an adjustment to Quebec's reality, that would be a useful way in which the federal government could play some role. It would have to do that in a collaborative fashion with the Government of Quebec, given the Government of Quebec's jurisdiction in that regard.
I think that's also true to the extent that outside of Montreal, where again the immigration plays out differently than in Montreal, the federal government can provide the support to those communities, as it has traditionally, and look at the type of support it provides so that those people choosing to become part of the English-speaking community in the Eastern Townships or in Quebec City can access those resources and permit them to be part of the community experience.
All the while, I think it's incumbent on the English-speaking community of Quebec to support the need for the acquisition of the French language,
and the need for all immigrants to learn the French language.
I think it is also important, for the Government of Quebec, that the Anglophone community be involved in delivering that message to immigrants, in terms of the need to learn French. I think that Anglophones in Quebec, particularly the young generation, are very interested in learning French. I want my own children and the children of my colleagues to learn French and, naturally, they speak it better than I do.
So, there is a need to involve Anglophones in Quebec in the process of promoting French in Quebec as well as diversity, particularly within the Montreal community, and to ensure that no contradiction between the two emerges. We often hear this idea that there is a contradiction between belonging to an ethnic community, whatever it may be, and the desire to learn French or English. We see this kind of debate taking place in Quebec, as well as outside Quebec. But I think that if we include all groups in the process, and if they have the sense that they are truly involved in the process, that will better serve immigrants, the Government of Quebec and the federal government's goal of preserving the communities' vitality. So, that is my short speech on Quebec.
As for the rest of Canada… Mr. Castonguay quoted me earlier and said that he agreed with me—which is very rare, so I am not sure quite what to say. Even though he agrees with the figures I published at the time, we each draw very different conclusions.
I agree that we have to work hard to create the conditions, outside Quebec, that will support Francophone communities which, at the time I conducted the study, expressed the desire to receive immigrants. Although there are some issues, as Mr. Castonguay clearly pointed out, in terms of preserving the French language among these immigrants, we also know that there are more general issues of anglicisation within the same communities. We have to work very hard to support these communities and the efforts they are making, rather than criticizing them for being unable to progress or even maintain themselves.
I think we made an historic mistake in the 1960s with the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. We opened up our society to diversity, within our duality, but we did not really consider what direction might be taken by immigrants settling outside Quebec, without the necessary resources to support existing Francophone communities. Had we looked at that issue more closely, we might have discovered that there was an opportunity to attract more Francophones to areas outside Quebec and provide resources to these communities. We made some historic errors.
I would not like to see us taking the same approach as back then. I hope that we can make more resources available to these communities, so that they are able to receive immigrants in French. I know there are community groups here in Canada that have that same desire. I also know, based on the experience of civil society, NGOs and my own community experience, that it is not possible, using numbers alone, to measure the landing experience for immigrants coming to this country. That must also be considered.
Despite policies put in place to promote increased immigration outside Quebec… This morning, when I was on the train, I was looking at Citizenship and Immigration Canada's figures on the number of Francophones, which they define, in this case, as individuals who speak French when they arrive here, as well as people who speak French and English when they arrive. I do not think we have seen any significant increases. We have seen increases in actual numbers, but they reflect an increase in total actual numbers of immigrants in recent years. In percentage terms, however, it is not very significant.
By way of conclusion, I would like to touch on one final point. Last night, I was looking at figures from the U.S. census—the “American Community Survey”. I had nothing to do. It was during the second intermission of the hockey game. I needed some distraction, because I was a little nervous, as you noticed.
It shows that 154,000 French nationals emigrated to the United States. Between the years 2000 and 2008, 42,000 French immigrants settled in the United States.
As you know, the United States does not have a program which supports Francophone linguistic minorities. That does not include Haitians: 522,000 Haitian immigrants currently live in the United States. A significant proportion of them arrived in the U.S. between 2000 and 2008, before the terrible disaster which occurred in Haiti less than a year ago.
The numbers we found are really very small. That does have quite an impact on communities outside Quebec. In terms of their vision of the future, that also gives them a little hope. I understand why Mr. Castonguay says that this is false hope, but I do not want to criticize them. That is pretty well what--