Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon everyone.
I can only recognize the success of anglophone school boards with immersion programs.
A Statistics Canada representative presented an overview to us of French, English and bilingualism in Canada. The French-English bilingualism rate increased by 0.1%. It went from 17.4% to 17.5%. That 0.1% comes mainly from Quebec, where the bilingualism rate increased from 40.6% to 42%. You are therefore part of that success.
Currently, we can't separate our study on immersion from the bigger picture of bilingualism in Canada. The question I am asking myself, concerning the roadmap, is the following: should we invest in immersion in Canada or should we reinvest in second language learning?
Perhaps you can help me gain a clear understanding of this subject. The number of young Canadians who attend immersion schools went from 267,000 to 329,000, which represents an increase of 23%. However, the number of registrations in regular French-as-a-second-language programs went from 1.8 million to 1.3 million.
In 1996, 15% of young people aged 15 to 24 could carry on a conversation in French, but that percentage is now 11%. We have invested a lot in immersion, but fewer students are enrolled in French-as-a-second-language programs at school. The number of young people who are able to speak French is declining, at least in the rest of Canada.
So my question is this: are we making the right choices?