I'm happy to begin.
First, of course, we're an independent institute politically. I'm not here to speak to overall policies of the government.
I certainly think that 2017, in the linguistic area as well as in other areas, does offer much to celebrate. But I'm also not here to say that Canada has had a perfect history in any of the activities that have been undertaken over time.
I think 1969 marks the declaration, as I recall, of official bilingualism in Canada. I think that would be one of the things to celebrate.
I would also tell you a couple of things in terms of our activities at HDI. Not only do we not pretend to be the definitive source of all things historical in this country, but rather, we always make a point, for example, of saying that in our 66 Heritage Minutes, the best-known feature that we have produced to date, we discuss largely the triumphs of this country in many different areas. We also do discuss failings. Certainly we've had programs that have dealt with the treatment of Acadians over time, and we've discussed that.
I will also tell you, for example, that in the citizenship area, where we discuss the experiences of new Canadians coming here, longer-established Canadians, and otherwise, we routinely have people who have recently arrived or, again, whose forefathers arrived here, who had a very difficult time when they arrived. They go into schools and they talk about that experience. That program is now being expanded to include in fact francophones, and specifically francophones from outside of Quebec, as well as members of the various first nations.
We don't tell those people what to do. We receive requests from schools or other community groups saying they'd like someone to talk about this, and then we bring someone over. Inevitably, and I know for a fact, a number of our speakers will go out and say they've had a very hard time here, that it hasn't been what they'd hoped it would be. They came here and they had great difficulty. Sometimes they'll say they surmounted it; sometimes they'll say it hasn't been what they wanted. That's the human experience, and that's what we're here to reflect as well.
So there are the warts, the flaws, the blemishes, and there are also the triumphs. I will say that in our perhaps haphazard manner we do represent all of those.