Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to thank the Commissioner of Official Languages for his presentation.
Mr. Théberge, our committee recently heard testimony from language rights expert Guillaume Rousseau, who has just published a fairly comprehensive book in which he discusses language policy models around the world. In his view, just about every expert agrees that language policy models founded on the territoriality principle can be effective in protecting minority languages and vulnerable languages, but models based on the personality principle, such as the Official Languages Act, are ineffective in protecting languages in a minority setting.
The Official Languages Act came into force 52 years ago. After all these years, one cannot help but notice that it has indeed been ineffective. The assimilation rate for francophones outside Quebec has been steadily increasing. Even within Quebec, French is declining.
I would like to hear your comments on this.
Should we also be amending the principles underlying the Official Languages Act?