Yes, certainly. I am neither a doomsayer nor the bogeyman. I was the first, and almost the only, analyst to point out that having a French-speaking school system, alongside with day care services, all the way up to university, was yielding results in New Brunswick. Outside Quebec, it is the only province where Francophones have succeeded in reducing the rate of anglicisation among young adults. The rate was 12% in 1971 and 9% in 2006. So, there is also some good news in the statistics, and I try to make people aware of that.
You referred to management of independent school boards in Ontario. However, that right was secured long after the achievements of Mr. Robichaud, in New Brunswick. As early as 1969, an official languages act was passed. That is not a bad thing. It supports the communities; it gives them more independence and certainly influences the way in which things evolve.
At the same time, there is one region where we would like to see greater development, and that region is Ottawa, which includes Eastern Ontario. I am basically referring to the metropolitan Ottawa region, which includes more than a third of Ontario's Francophones. It is highly concentrated. In a way, it is like a small version of Acadia, with several hundred thousand Francophones. Using round figures, it is comparable to the entire French-speaking population of New Brunswick. And yet we are not seeing positive developments in Ottawa, which is not an officially bilingual city. No districts outside Quebec have been declared bilingual, as was recommended by the Laurendeau-Dunton Commission.
That was the cornerstone of the policy it was advocating in the sixties, and it was adopted in the first Official Languages Act of 1969.
But that was never implemented. It was set aside by the Trudeau government in about 1977, probably because it would have provoked a backlash. In Windsor, in particular, just such a backlash occurred when there was talk of declaring it a bilingual district. At the time, the rate of anglicisation was about 65%. Now it is more than 70%. Since the Official Languages Act came into effect, the rate of anglicisation among young adults in Ottawa has doubled and continues to rise. What can I say? If the news is bad, do not shoot the messenger.