Thank you Chair.
I thank the witnesses for their presentation.
I am from Northern Ontario. The context there is quite different. The francophone community has a strong presence there. There is a good balance between francophone and anglophone communities. Probably around fifty-fifty.
However, each year in September, the competition for young students is quite high because we have four school boards. French public, French Catholic, English Catholic and English public. In my case, I attended an English Catholic school.
The issue of immersion is quite important.
As for the anglophone parents in the north, they know that if their children aren't bilingual, they're not staying, so we are competing now.... All our young people were going to the francophone schools because they knew they had a better future in the north. We offered immersion programs, but often we were not able to fill immersion programs because of the problem of getting qualified teachers and being able to offer core programs.
Is this an issue that you face in Quebec? Certainly, parents are sold on immersion. They don't know the details of it. They don't know how it works. They just want it. But delivering the programs is a lot more difficult than it seems.