Thank you.
I remember an opportunity that I had when I was 16. It was through the summer work student exchange program, which is a federal government program. I'm not sure if it still exists; I know that its funding was on the line. When I was 16, it allowed me to go to a very small community in New Brunswick for six weeks and work in a summer camp. It was a community that was entirely French speaking. I did not know until that point that communities like that existed in Canada.
Having that six-week opportunity where they took me out of my comfort zone, out of my downtown Toronto life, my anglophone life, and threw me into a minority community, a French community, really changed my perspective on where French was used and how French was used in Canada, and how French could benefit me in the future. I think more opportunities like that.... They did the reverse for my cohort. They took her out of her small village and brought her to Toronto. She was working on her English. More opportunities like this within Canada, where we're exchanging languages with other communities and seeing different realities, can really make an impression on someone at a young age.