Good afternoon.
Thank you for inviting me. I am very pleased to share my observations and recommendations on the modernization of the Official Languages Act.
I will begin by setting out a series of principles and providing our vision of the current state of official languages.
I am very proud to be part of the bilingual community in Canada. There are just over 6.2 million of us. My wife, four children and I are proud members of this bilingual community and we are looking for other members. We welcome all those who wish to be part of it with open arms.
Since the 1970s, Canada has been clearly undergoing a demographic revolution. This is largely due to immigration, but also to changes in the birth rate. The country we currently live in does not look exactly like it did in the 1970s. I know that because I was there. I remember the fabric of the country. There has been a significant evolution.
There have also been changes in discourse and policy on bilingualism issues. I remember that, after the Official Languages Act was passed, Canada's multicultural policy was implemented in 1971. I guess some of you remember that too. We have always talked about multicultural policy in a bilingual context. Then changes occurred and, in the 1980s, the focus was more on multicultural diversity, which is part of linguistic duality, the two official languages, and less on bilingualism.
We don't talk as much about multiculturalism within the bilingual framework but more about multiculturalism within the context of language duality, or with the predominance of two official languages. We've seen a shift in that area in large part, I think, to line up against our changing demographics or uneven geographic distribution of French and English speakers, and the degree of bilingualism to which that unevenness has given rise.
Just over 80% of our population... I'm sorry, it's probably a nightmare for interpreters when I switch from one language to another. I'm sorry, but that's how—