I would like to add something for committee members. Last year or the year before, we visited western Canada. Statistics show, as Mr. Généreux can attest, that bilingualism is stagnating among English speakers outside Quebec and New Brunswick. In many anglophone communities, people want to send their children to immersion schools. In my opinion, based on everything we have heard, that is the most practical solution to having people become bilingual if they wish to do so but do not have the tools. I am saying that as an example. There are other tools and other ways, but a study needs to be done on that to see what the demands are, what the tools are, what infrastructure can be offered to them, how it's done elsewhere, and vice versa in Quebec.
Quebecers and Acadians are fairly bilingual. Quebec anglophones are very bilingual compared to the rest of Canada's anglophones. We still need to conduct a Canada-wide study. This is about Canada's Official Languages Act, which deals with two minority communities, one outside Quebec and the other within Quebec.
I understand my colleagues' reluctance with respect to the 10 days, but nothing in this motion's current form prevents Mr. Beaulieu from asking the same questions of witnesses. At the end of the day, I think we are going to end up with the same motion. If we eventually need to go further and focus on something more specific at Mr. Beaulieu's request, we will have the opportunity to do that. There will be a lot to study. The Standing Committee on Official Languages has no shortage of ideas.
I think that it is important to keep the bilingualism provision as it is written.