Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, committee members, it is a pleasure for us to be here in the national capital. It is an honour and a privilege to be speaking with you today. On behalf of the AFY, I thank you for inviting us. As you can see, I am here with Régis St-Pierre, who is regional co-executive director of our association. Together we will show, in our presentation, that the Roadmap is having a positive impact on our community and that it should be renewed.
Today we have been asked to provide our evaluation of the Roadmap and its actual impact on and within the Franco-Yukon community. We will be focusing on two priorities. The first, which is a long-term priority, is to build a strong, viable and inclusive Franco-Yukon community supported by a number of partners that contribute to the Yukon's development, a community based on values such as accountability, respect, joint action, openness, innovation and creativity in order to contribute to the vitality of Canada's linguistic duality and of our two official languages.
The other priority, which concerns application in action, is consistent with the objectives of the strategic investments by the federal departments in the needs of Yukon's citizens. We believe that those investments are providing effective, efficient and concerted support for the needs of the Franco-Yukon community. Through those investments, we are taking an active part in the linguistic and cultural vitality of this community. We also believe we are complying with the current priorities of the Government of Canada.
So the idea is to analyze everything through two types of lenses. The first, which provides us with an overview, is entitled The Road to the Future, and the second, which informs us in more targeted fashion by area for action, is entitled The Road of the Present.
As Prime Minister Harper said in launching the Roadmap for Canada's Linguistic Duality 2008-2013: Acting for the Future: "Our federation was born of a desire by English- and French-speaking Canadians to share a common future."
To have a clear idea of where we are headed, we must know where we are coming from. The Franco-Yukon community wasn't born yesterday. We have been around since the territory was first colonized, since trading began in the Yukon, that is to say since the Hudson Bay Company was established. The Franco-Yukon community has developed in particular through the establishment of strategic institutions. We have seen that, without institutions in the territory, many francophones have quickly been assimilated. It's even been said that the assimilation rate reached 100%. However, as a result of federal government investments, the Franco-Yukon community, that is the francophones of the Yukon, have been able to develop, grow and enhance the vitality of the entire territory.
If you visit Yukon today, you will see a strong francophone presence and a contagious vitality that is producing convincing results. With the growth of the past 35 years, we've seen the Franco-Yukon population triple. The number of persons using French in the home across the territory has risen by 68%. French-English bilingualism is increasing in Yukon. Twelve per cent of our population today is bilingual.
Our community is dynamic. It has experienced very interesting developments in recent decades, including a francophone school, a francophone school commission and economic and cultural development tools. That is the result of strategic planning established in cooperation with our federal and territorial partners.
To tell you more and to delve more deeply into the subject, I invite my co-executive director to tell you about our community's achievements in the various sectors of activity.
Thank you.