I'll start.
I think it's important because those parents are our allies. I think we're seeing more and more of a change in our Canadian population. We have a lot of immigration. People arrive in Canada and immediately think that Canada is a bilingual country. To benefit from their experience and contribute to Canadian society, they want to be proficient in both official languages. From the outset, when they arrive in the country, they are ready to learn both languages. Immersion gives them that opportunity, since they are not necessarily rights holders. The majority of newcomers also need to be invested in, so that people understand that the opportunity to learn French and become bilingual is guaranteed.
That's what I've been concerned about for 20 years. Mr. Samson said that I have been working in the field for a long time. People who learn French through immersion have no guarantee that their child will have the same opportunity. Some children will have never learned French in Canada. From kindergarten to second grade, they can go to school in English and never learn French. I don't think that should be acceptable. All Canadians should reach a certain level of French.
There's a lot of talk about guarantees. Immersion education could be guaranteed for children whose parents received it. So if a student was guaranteed a place in an immersion school, they wouldn't take the place of a student in a francophone school. If more was invested in immersion schools, fewer people would try to go to francophone schools. The level of quality of education could be raised for them. Let's not have a competitive system; let's have a complementary system.