Thank you for your question. It's an excellent question.
Before I give the floor to my colleague, Mr. Lepage, who worked hard on these issues, I want to clarify something. Between 2010 and 2012, Statistics Canada published 11 provincial and territorial portraits for a total of nearly 800 pages of analyses on each province. Among other things, we use those portraits to cover demographic and socio-economic situations, languages spoken, and education. For these portraits of each province, there is some very detailed information that I encourage you to consult.
Next week, a video synthesis will be published by Statistics Canada. It will be roughly 30 minutes long and will synthesize these 800 or so pages of analysis.
I must mention that when I appeared as a witness before this committee, I talked a number of times about the challenges involving assimilation into English. You know that outside Quebec, close to a quarter million francophones find that they are more comfortable speaking English than French. There are different challenges.
We might wonder what the current situation is in the communities, but first we must agree on what constitutes a community. There is really a very large diversity of communities. A significant proportion, or 40% of francophones outside Quebec, live in municipalities where they represent less than 10%, or even less than 5% of the population. Is that a community? What distinguishes them from those who live in a community where they represent 40% to 60% of the population?
In fact, when we talk about economic development, it is clear that there are many people who develop from a socio-economic point of view, but that is done mostly in English. You are absolutely right about that.
I would like to give the floor to my colleague.