Thank you, Mr. Chair.
To reply to Ms. Rioux, who is unfortunately no longer with us, I would like to say that the point is not to put forward a partisan approach or to put anyone on the spot.
The Immigration Act, which was amended in 2002, has linguistic provisions in it. I would like to be sure that the decisions made under this act are in compliance with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We are talking here about the equality of French and English as the official languages of Canada. That is a fact, a vested right.
Earlier we talked about shared responsibilities. We have this in Quebec. Since I have a riding office, I know that Quebec frequently accepts people Canada refuses for various reasons.
In her text, the commissioner said only 11.7% of immigrants were francophones, whereas 32% were anglophones. There seems to be quite a wide disparity between francophones, anglophones and allophones among the immigrants who arrive in Canada.
The allophones make up 80%, and they speak neither French nor English; do they all adopt English, or is it fifty-fifty? One thing is certain, and that is that the choice belongs to them.
I would like to know how newcomers break down along linguistic lines, based on the data from the studies.