Thank you for that question.
Before I begin, you must understand that foreign students make a major contribution to our social, cultural and economic life. They form the best possible group of candidates for permanent residence.
Let me be clear: the acceptance rates are similar for anglophones and francophones from African countries. The officers who review their applications rely on a number of criteria.
I feel it will take me too much time to get to your point. There is a challenge here, but it's not necessarily based on differential outcomes between anglophone and francophone applicants. The challenges seem to be common to different regions of the world, based on other criteria that are applied on a case-by-case basis.
I'm interested in capitalizing on the opportunity, because I believe that embracing linguistic diversity is really good for our communities. There's a huge competitive advantage. I was in Calgary, meeting with an organization that promotes economic development in francophone communities last week, and we had an exciting conversation about what we could do to embrace the economic opportunity by attracting francophone newcomers from all over the world.
If there are suggestions from this committee to overcome some of these challenges, I want them. I want to be the minister who increases the number of francophone newcomers to Canada, not just because I think it's the right thing to do—which it is—but because I think it's going to serve our self-interest to an enormous degree.