Now, let's address the issue.
These two recommendations seem weak to me, even if they are helpful. You ask that the number of exchanges involving young people be doubled and that much more effort be made with respect to the number of programs giving students the possibility of taking certain courses.
Unless I'm mistaken, the census data released yesterday indicate that, for the first time since the Official Languages Act came into force, the percentage of Canadians who can hold a conversation in French has dropped noticeably. The percentage dropped from 10.8% to 10.2% in four years. That is extremely alarming. But this decrease is due solely to what is going on outside Quebec.
In the past four years, there has been a flagrant lack of leadership from the federal government in this respect. I hope it will adopt both measures. I'm tempted to say “but still”. In the testimony we have heard in committee as part of the report on the roadmap, we heard the following:
That the Government of Canada take the necessary measures to guarantee that Canadians have the right to learn a second official language as part of an educational continuum from early childhood to the post-secondary period.
I do believe that we must take this path. The federal government must show leadership, and allocate funding to this area, not for Spanish, even though it is a very beautiful third language. The funds must be for French. There is also English in Quebec, but things are going very well in that respect for now. It is important to be serious, but they aren't, and the recent results show that. We must demand that the Government of Canada also have a sense of symbols, realities, and that it inform Canadians that it has responsibilities. This means that the positions of responsibility have to be bilingual and that, if young Canadians want to occupy those positions, they must learn French. It's essential.
I'll let you comment on what I've said.