Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for your presentation and the information you provided.
I would first like to commend you, and it isn't every day that I congratulate someone for the work they do for minorities. At least you paid attention to the situation last year. As you know, members of this committee are very frustrated with the unacceptable lack of success we have been seeing over the years. Major changes were needed. We see that such changes are being made and that is good.
I want to come back to my friend Mr. Choquette's question about the lottery. I will tell you a quick story and then I will share with you the solution that I would like you to incorporate into your strategy.
Thirty years ago, when I began teaching, I was teaching in an anglophone community. Four of my students were Acadians who did not know how to speak French. Since they were learning French with me, I encouraged them to apply for a scholarship to take French classes over the summer. All four submitted an application, but none of them were chosen. Since Nova Scotia's population is 96% anglophone and only 4% francophone, the probability of an anglophone being chosen was huge. These assimilated francophones did not receive a scholarship to learn French, but anglophones were given the resources to do so. We therefore established two programs.
I am not saying that you should do the same. However, we have a francophone immigration target of 4.4%. I would suggest that, once 80% of the names are drawn at random, you stop the process and determine how many francophones have been chosen at that point. If it is 2.4%, then there is still 2% missing. In that case, the next names that are drawn could be drawn only from the pool of francophones in order to fill that missing 2% or until a minimum of 4.4% is reached. Then the process could resume as usual and the remaining 8,% 10% or 12% of names could be drawn at random. That way, you would still be holding a lottery but it would be in keeping with the francophone immigration target of 4.4%. That is my suggestion, and I hope it will be implemented as of tomorrow morning.
There is another important issue that I talked about with the minister earlier today and over the past few days. The government has invested funds in order to bring francophone immigrants to minority communities. It is done for and by one group in the province. It varies from one province to another. Some provinces are doing better than others. Things are going fairly well in Nova Scotia, even though the success rate is not the greatest. Investments are being made in welcoming immigrants and helping them to integrate, but funding for employment is not getting to the right organizations. At least that is what is happening in Nova Scotia. I can't speak for the other provinces. I am talking here about the Conseil de développement économique de la Nouvelle-Écosse, or CDENE, in my province and the Réseau de développement économique et d'employabilité, or RDEE, in francophone communities in other provinces. Since these organizations specialize in employability, they are the ones that should be receiving the funding for employment. I agree with the choice of organizations for other aspects of integration, but these are the organizations that should be given funding to help immigrants find jobs. They have asked for money to create such a position, but they have not yet managed to secure it. We would like them to be given funding for that.
My last question has to do with annex agreements, which I love. You have already met with departmental representatives from across Canada. Annex agreements were developed for New Brunswick and Ontario. Do you intend to talk to the ministers in the other provinces to develop annex agreements?
Thank you.