All three are important. First, the federal government and all its institutions have to send the following message to universities: the federal government, the biggest employer in Canada, needs bilingual employees and it is their responsibility to provide learning opportunities to students. The engineering or architecture firms also have to clearly tell engineering and architecture faculties that they need employees who have received certain kinds of training.
It is also important that deputy ministers, who are, in a way, the main headhunters for their institutions, go to job fairs or send individuals. They have to send a clear message that it is the responsibility of universities to provide that learning. To that end, universities have to send high school students the message that they prefer students who would have taken second-language programs and more demanding programs.
Immersion students told me that their teachers had suggested that they not do the immersion exam but rather the core French exam because it was much easier. They would get better marks. They said that marks were the only thing that universities took into account.
The situation is getting better. The universities that I mentioned are now very aware that immersion students form a pool of high-quality students who have demonstrated their perseverance by undertaking their studies in a second language. I think that those qualities have to be acknowledged by both universities and the federal government.