Thank you, Mr. Caron‑Malenfant.
You're telling me that, since the 2021 census, you've had a much more representative picture of reality. I want to acknowledge the work done by the Standing Committee on Official Languages in 2019‑20. It worked hard to convince Statistics Canada to include this question in the census.
You must know that a bill amending the Official Languages Act was passed in June 2023. Unfortunately, Canadian Heritage officials, with the complicity of the government, made sure that Statistics Canada's obligation to conduct a count wasn't clearly written into the bill. Yet you showed the value of this count in the 2021 census, because it provided a far more representative picture of reality.
How do you explain Canadian Heritage's position that the next census in 2031 should provide estimates rather than a count?