Good morning.
Thank you very much for being here.
I had the opportunity to take English classes from 2006 to 2009. Then I decided to stop taking classes and go to immersion. I went to immersion several times. I made an agreement with my anglophone colleagues; I speak to them in English and they answer me in French. We try to make these types of agreements.
What surprises me are the figures. One hundred and nineteen people are taking French classes and 19 are taking English classes. I find this figure of 19 people very low, because a lot of francophones do not speak English, or speak it very little. At the Standing Committee on Official Languages we fight ardently for the French language in minority communities. I come from Quebec. There are a lot of francophone members who do not take English classes. It's egregious and a little disappointing to see that only 19 people are taking English classes. I find it disappointing that we ask our anglophone friends to understand French, but that it does not seem mandatory for the francophones to understand English. I'm a bit disturbed by this duality.
What was the situation like in the past? Was the number of those taking English classes that low?