Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Welcome, each of you, to our Standing Committee on Official Languages, whose meeting concerns the study of the Roadmap.
As you know, the Roadmap has been in existence for a number of years and was extended. The purpose of this study is to determine whether there will be a Roadmap in 2014. We want to know whether you recommend that there be a Roadmap in 2014. These are the questions we have to ask ourselves.
I won't perhaps speak to each group, since some of my colleagues will be putting questions to various groups.
Let's talk about government leadership. Mr. Nadeau, you talked about that, which leads me to talk about it as well because it's a hot topic here in Ottawa. We have a government that has appointed a unilingual individual to a position. However, of the 33 million inhabitants of Canada, there surely isn't just one accountant. With all due respect for the former auditor general, I told her it wasn't the auditor who operated the calculator. They say we need an accountant and that we can't find anyone else but Mr. Ferguson. And yet, an auditor has to take care of the entire machinery. How will an auditor who is incapable of speaking one of the two official languages, who is incapable of speaking to francophones, deliver a report on his findings? Once the Office of the Auditor General has done its job and found the problems and recommendations that should be made, how can the auditor speak to the public?
Mr. Nadeau, you say that the two languages should be learned in the postsecondary institutions and that people should learn them before coming to Ottawa. However, isn't the government, which continues to appoint unilingual individuals to these positions, sending professionals who want to work in the public service the message that they don't need to learn both official languages? The government isn't requiring it. Don't you think the government should show some leadership and show that, in this country, where there are two founding peoples—in addition to the aboriginal peoples, let's not forget—and two official languages, English and French, certain positions simply cannot be filled with unilingual people?