Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
It is a delight to see some of my fellow Albertans on the witness list today. It's very nice to see you both. I wish you could be here in person.
I'm also, of course, extraordinarily proud to represent Edmonton Strathcona, which has the French Quarter in it and such a dynamic French community, including Campus Saint-Jean, where I am studying French.
I have to say that when I started this job, I didn't speak any French at all because of the failure of the education system in Alberta to provide French immersion training opportunities for me. I have been studying at Campus Saint-Jean, so I'm going to ask some questions in French. I will ask you all for your forgiveness, because I am still very much a learner.
I've had many meetings with representatives of the Association canadienne-française de l'Alberta, or ACFA, and I know they've clearly demonstrated the enormous discrepancy between the number of available spaces at francophone schools and the number of school-age children living in francophone homes in Alberta or whose Albertan parents want them to receive a bilingual education.
My riding of Edmonton Strathcona has five French-language schools that are part of the Conseil scolaire Centre‑Nord.
My question is this: How many schools should there be, and how many other French-language schools should there be in Alberta to meet the demand?