Good morning, everyone. Thank you for being here today.
My name is Darrell Samson. I am the only elected Acadian in Nova Scotia—a title of which I am proud—though I have a colleague from New Brunswick.
Before I was elected, I was the executive director of the French-language school board in Nova Scotia for 11 years. Before the French-language school board was established, I worked for the English-language school board, where I was responsible for immersion and core French. At the time, there were still no French schools. We managed to establish a strategy that worked very well. However, it may not correspond to your situation; it may not be how things work for you. You said that 80% of the teachers are not comfortable with the French language. That was not the problem for us. Our problem was that those teaching core French felt that they had less support and greater teaching challenges to deal with than immersion teachers.
The union didn't like me because, to solve the problem, I gently forced teachers who could to teach both languages. Immersion teachers were required to teach two core French courses and core French teachers were required to teach two immersion courses. This completely changed the teaching, because for the first time it wasn't just the students who were seen as the elite, but the teachers, too. Core French teachers quickly learned how to teach, because it's easier to teach in immersion. That was just an aside.
Mr. Lewis, I have very good news to announce. I haven't checked with my colleagues, but I'll still share the good news. In fact, you have the right to enrol your future children in French school. You won't have to put their names on the waiting list for immersion. You are from a French-speaking family; your mother was francophone, if I'm not mistaken. However, that doesn't change anything because your sister or brother attended French school. If a child is a rights-holder, the whole family becomes rights-holders too. For the next 100 years, all children will be included in the definition of rights-holder.
Mr. LeBlanc...