Thank you, Julie.
I would like to quickly talk about the results of the surveys we have conducted on various aspects of identity issues in Canada, including bilingualism, official languages and the public's knowledge of Canada's history.
Since time does not permit me to go into detail, I will only make a few comments, and let you look at the presentation and the survey results, including those related to linguistic duality. My comments will deal with the survey on the knowledge of Confederation.
If you take a look at the results of our survey, you will see that there is a major need to make Confederation and its many aspects better known, as well as to picture Confederation's dimension of duality as a key aspect of the 150th anniversary celebrations.
Let me just mention one of my own concerns with the surveys that we conduct. We are going to celebrate the 150th anniversary, and I hope that the celebrations will have a far-reaching impact. However, I feel that people should be more familiar with the topic, so that they can understand the reason behind these celebrations.
If I may, and consistent with our duality, I'll offer some personal duality. It would be extremely important, I would think, in any commemorative activity around our 150th to improve our knowledge of the Confederation arrangements.
I think our surveys that we've shared with you this morning, at least in the paper version you have, illustrate that there is a gap in terms of the degree of knowledge. In the same way, if you want to do a 200th anniversary commemoration of the War of 1812, which we are currently in the process of doing, you want to ensure that one of the principal elements of doing it is that people know more about the War of 1812, hence the various ads we see around us that are building such knowledge. The work done by various organizations—like the organization that my colleague is responsible for—and the work we do is very geared toward improving that knowledge. My principal message here is in fact that we need to do more in that area as we go forward to build that knowledge. That's illustrated in our surveys.
Now, to be fair, our surveys also indicate that 78% of the population want to focus on what we've accomplished over the 150 years, and 63%—not in this survey—want to talk about our challenges and problems and so forth, so there's a greater desire amongst Canadians to focus on what we've accomplished rather than focusing on the things that were challenges and problems over the course of our 150th anniversary. Some 63% want our priority in our commemorations to be on the role of the French, British, and aboriginals in the founding, if you like, and the evolution of Canada. Those are I think important aspects illustrated in our surveys, as I've mentioned.
There's another thing, though, that I'll note. I'll say this in closing. On the language duality issue, while Canadians in general—65%—do support bilingualism, and while in fact around the globe most people you ask would probably say that they have no objection and are very supportive of their children or their population knowing more than one language, the other dimension of our survey, which is a bit more of an area of concern, is the extent to which people say they don't feel enriched by our linguistic duality.
Notably, that's the case among a lot of English Canadians. In other words, they'll value the idea of learning the second language, but they don't feel the enrichment from it, I think in large part because they don't have contact with it. When I look at our surveys and at the relationship between those who say they do have contact with francophones and those who say they very often have contact with francophones, amongst English Canadians they have much more, if you like...they have a greater inclination to say that they benefit from our duality.
So there is an important link between the frequency of contact between anglophones, francophones and allophones, and the level of enrichment these people say they get through the cultural contribution from francophone or other communities.
I do not think it is enough to have documents and speeches translated in the context of the 150th anniversary. It must be done; I'm not saying not to do it. However, we must go beyond translation. We need to ensure that people truly have contact with the various fundamental aspects that enrich our country, culturally speaking. It is critical that the importance of linguistic duality, which is at the very heart of Canada, be a central element in everything we do as part of the commemoration activities, as I mentioned.
I know that you can read the documentation and ask questions afterwards. So I will end there by saying that, in all the commemoration activities that we will have, we are certainly going to pay attention to the importance of understanding the raison d'être, the justification and the origins of the event we are commemorating, in every way possible.
I will end there. I'm certain you have questions for us. I am available to provide more clarification.
Thank you.