Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to welcome all the representatives of these organizations.
I have to say—again, being the newbie—that I'm a bit concerned, a bit disturbed, at what I'm hearing. Canada is an English/French, French/English country. When I hear words like “equality” and “minority” within the French and the English communities here, I'm bothered. For me, a minority language in this country is Jamaican patois or Creole. Those are minority languages.
So for me, when we use terminology like that...and I think it's evidenced by the fact that we have to have something like the road map to support so-called minority languages across this country. For me, French is French is French.
I think one of the mistakes we're making is that we are looking at it in a linguistic context. Our visitors from the University of Ottawa are talking about how students are coming to learn a language, which is wonderful; it's great. I spent a year in South Africa, which has 11 official languages. Watching a newscast in Cape Town is a really exciting experience. But that's learning a language.
I think what we're talking about here—and I'm repeating myself from my previous meeting—is culture, with language being an extension of those cultures. That's what I believe the English community is fighting for—for lack of a better way of putting it—within Quebec. The French communities outside of Quebec are doing the same thing.
Mr. Trottier mentioned how we can get people to love the other language. I think the issue is taking the fear factor out. We have two groups here that are representing two supposedly minority languages, and what I'm reading is fear—fear about survival. The Acadians, who have always been members of Canada, are fighting for survival. The anglophone community in Quebec is fighting for survival.
I think we need to take it out of the context of simple language and really start dealing with the culture and the messages that are sent. When, for example—and I hate to put the partisan hat on, but I'm going to for 30 seconds—a unilingual Supreme Court judge or Auditor General is hired, it sends a message to that community that they're not important enough.
I'm going to stop, get off my soap box a bit, and ask each of you to respond to that, if you will, starting with our colleagues from Ottawa.