It was good that you did.
Mr. Fraser, one of the few interesting things that happens in this committee is our occasional meetings and debates with you. I appreciated your first mandate very much. My party and I are very much looking forward to working with you in your second mandate.
But allow me to offer one criticism. I find that you have succeeded very well in boosting people's confidence in the face of a lot of negativity. But, as the price for a certain clarity, I find that your annual reports contain too much sweetness and light. A lot of things are going on.
I was looking at your list of priorities and they are the right ones. But we have to have numbers in front of us and Statistics Canada gives us more numbers than you do. I am sure you will say that that is what they do, but I would like to see them in your reports. If you really want to promote linguistic duality in Canadian society, we have to see the real state of the linguistic duality.
Let me give you some worrisome figures. The last time we spoke, you told me that I had to look at numbers, not at percentages. Fine, but, with all the people coming from all over the world, the percentage of francophones is going down. But let's talk about the numbers. How is it that, in an educated country like Canada, we have gone from 2,561,000 outside Quebec able to carry on a conversation in French to 2,584,000 in four years. That is an increase of about 20,000 people in four years. We are standing still, and that is extremely troubling.
Let's talk about the young people, those whom we are counting on to be our great hopes for the future. I am going to talk about young people outside Quebec, because, inside Quebec, of course, the anglophones are very bilingual and the francophones are learning English at a rate that, while not yet high enough, is at least increasing. Outside Quebec, according to Statistics Canada, registrations in immersion programs are up by 23% but the number of students in regular French programs is down by 23%. In real terms, that means that the percentage of Canadians learning French as a second language outside Quebec has gone from 53% to 44% in 20 years. There is a huge problem and the commissioner has to address it directly.
I will stop there because my time is running out and I would like to hear your answer.
It is all very well to boost people's confidence, but they have to be made to face up to the challenges in front of them, and that has to be done as clearly as possible.