I am versatile.
Given the limited time that we have, I plan to introduce the Association for Canadian Studies, to briefly explain what we do, to give you a few survey results and, finally, to talk about the reasoning behind our recommendations.
In a nutshell, the Association for Canadian Studies will celebrate its 40th anniversary next year, in 2013. Our grand mandate—you have more details in the presentation—is really to enhance the knowledge of Canadians. Although we have a small international component, we basically really focus on the mandate I described. There are three parts to it. Those parts will allow you to better understand why we wanted to be here to talk about linguistic duality.
We have two quarterly publications: Canadian Issues and Canadian Diversity. They are both bilingual.
In addition, we organize an annual national conference on teaching history. One year it is in English, and the following year it is in French, so as to truly reflect this duality. The conference in French is a way to help us build a francophone network with history teachers, because no such network exists. That is very important to us.
Finally, we also have one-time research projects that seek to increase our knowledge. Let me quickly say that our projects are also bilingual. We would like to develop a bilingual teaching guide on the War of 1812. We have a website on the War of 1812 and the Canadian francophonie, so that we can reach francophones in this way. We are also waiting for funding for a guide on French-Canadian history.
All that goes to show that we are immersed in linguistic duality on a daily basis. Linguistic duality is at the heart of our concerns, and that is why Jack is going to present our survey results and our recommendations to you today. We feel that we can contribute to ensuring that linguistic duality will be a major part of the 2017 celebrations.