Good morning, everyone. I thank you sincerely for having responded to our call and for being here.
I am also an Acadian MP, but I am from New Brunswick. I am proud to be an Acadian member of Parliament, just as I am also very proud to be a Canadian. I was going to say “but”; however, these two realities are not mutually exclusive. The members of the Acadian community are proud to be a part of a linguistic minority and to be citizens of this country, but they nevertheless face some challenges.
I am a lawyer by training. I dedicated my entire life both to my career as a lawyer and to organizations that defend, protect and promote language rights. I am also a member of the Association des juristes d'expression française du Nouveau-Brunswick. Flanked by an army of volunteers, such as yourselves, on the ground, I work so that the community may live and thrive in French daily. Thank you very much for being here.
Before asking my questions, I would like to say that I am part of a superb committee. Our committee discusses language issues that affect both anglophones in minority situations in Quebec, and francophones in minority situations outside Quebec. We have big ears, we listen and we draft a lot of reports. If you have the opportunity of coming to see us at work in Ottawa, you will see that we are very effective.
Our committee is quite dynamic. We have—and they are quite rare among federal MPs—four francophone members from outside Quebec, one Franco-Ontarian member, and members from Quebec. There is one missing because we lacked the necessary budgets, but we understand the reality on the ground perfectly, as Mrs. Boucher said at the outset, and we are extremely sensitive to it.
If you have questions that have not been answered completely, please send them in writing to the clerk. What you say to us constitutes evidence, and we need it to draft our reports. We cannot make use of what we do not hear or do not read. So, if you want to obtain answers to questions, or additional replies to some of them, please send us your comments in writing. Let me reiterate that these constitute evidentiary elements for us that help us to prepare our reports.
Mr. Choquette raised an important issue, and Mr. Samson spoke about the enumeration of rights holders. I am going to raise something else.
How are francophones distributed throughout British Columbia? Is the French-speaking community concentrated here, or is it dispersed north and south?