Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I would like to thank the witnesses for their presentations. I will address you in English because my English is better than my French.
I think I'm the only person on this committee who was born outside the country—well, probably not—but I come from a trilingual country in which Hungarian, Romanian, and German are spoken, and I appreciate very much the bilingualism of Canada.
I can tell you also that it is one of my roles to promote the French language in my riding, which is divided between the cities of Pickering and Scarborough. In the city of Pickering, we have had the privilege of raising for the first time the Franco-Ontarian flag. In my riding we also have a French immersion school, which was just established. It is very important for me to see that the celebration of the 150th anniversary of Canada reflects this duality and these two languages of our country.
I'd like to ask you how we are involving the provincial and municipal levels, all three levels of government, in these celebrations. I know that at the federal level we have the Official Languages Act, which says that we must respect the French and English languages, but what are we doing with the provinces? The celebration of 150 years is not only a federal government celebration, but a celebration for all the country—all three levels of government—and it is an act that is very important for our country.
I'm asking you how you see, as an example from my point of view, the association of Franco-Ontarians being involved to promote all the events in the two official languages. This is a need.
In my riding, for example, people came from Quebec to the city of Pickering 40 or 50 years ago for various reasons, and they love the French language, despite the fact that they are anglophones or something else.
How do you see us being able to capitalize on the cooperation of all three levels of the government for this?