You will note that one of our assets is this interest on the part of parents. We believe it may be similar to what is happening in French-language school boards where people speak their mother tongue. Given where we live and parents' concerns with their children growing up in Quebec, they are motivated. This is not coercion. Obviously there is everything else that is required when dealing with young students in a school. However, from the start, specifically with respect to intensive French-language or immersion programs, they are motivated.
We would like to mention — from what we gather we are dealing with French-language teaching as a whole, even though French immersion is the focus — one matter that concerns us, a challenge. According to Statistics Canada there is a target in Quebec that one could call
almost an anglophone underclass.
These are regions, or perhaps areas more specifically in the case of Montreal, where parents, often living in poor neighbourhoods, have not had an opportunity to improve their own French and therefore do not necessarily pass on a desire to learn French to their children or an understanding of the need to learn it. These are challenges for us. First off it is a challenge to encourage them to register for more intensive programs and, second, to have them understand how important French is in Quebec. That is where strategies like those mentioned by Ms. Dénommée take on even more importance.