Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to share with you some thoughts on how immigration could help stabilize Canada's linguistic duality most effectively.
Low fertility undermines both official language populations in Canada. The fact that francophone and non-official-language minorities are being assimilated into the English community offsets the low fertility of the anglophone majority. However, assimilation into English weakens Canada's francophone minority, and its inability to assimilate its fair share of non-official-language immigrants even more so, including in Quebec.
As a result, the weight of the French-language minority is constantly declining overall across Canada, outside and even in Quebec, since the turn of the century. All these trends are expected to continue for the foreseeable future. Consequently, it's high time we changed the linguistic ground rules in Canada.
Using immigration to reinforce Canada's francophone minority might be a partial solution. The best way to do that would be, first, to increase the percentages of French-mother-tongue immigrants and francotrope non-official-language immigrants who are likely to be assimilated to French rather than English. Second, those groups should be directed to regions of Canada where the francophone minority is still strong enough to integrate them successfully. The most appropriate regions for that purpose are, in descending order of effectiveness, Quebec, New Brunswick and eastern and northern Ontario.
It clearly isn't enough merely to promote francotrope and French-mother-tongue immigration to regions outside Quebec. According to the most recent census, 2.5 million non-official-language immigrants outside Quebec had assimilated to English. Those 2.5 million immigrants included several hundreds of thousands of francotropes. By contrast, a minuscule 14,000 immigrants assimilated to French. Censuses have even revealed that, outside Quebec, New Brunswick and eastern and northern Ontario, most French-mother-tongue immigrants assimilate to English starting in the first generation.
Canada's francophone minority now represents no more than 20% of the total population. To help stabilize that number, at least 20% of immigration to Canada should consist of either francotropes or French-mother-tongue speakers. Furthermore, as Quebec comprises 90% of the country's francophone population, Canada should encourage 90% of its francotrope and French-mother-tongue immigrants to settle in Quebec. That's the only way immigration has any chance of effectively helping to stabilize Canada's linguistic duality.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.