Thank you very much for having me.
Mr. Arseneault, I also want to mention that my wife is from the Madawaska Valley, so I agree with what you said about the great things that Edmunston and that part of New Brunswick have to offer.
Someone said earlier that French is a difficult language. My wife, who is a speech therapist as well as being from the Madawaska Valley, would disagree with that statement. She would say that English is actually harder to learn than French because of the many identical sounds that are written very differently. The argument that French is a tremendous challenge to immigrants as compared to other languages may not be entirely true.
I want to say three things. First, you might be wondering what an economics professor has to say about language. Economists have in fact been interested in the field for about fifty years. For economists, language has two components: first, it is a cultural feature, something that very often partially defines who we are. Above all, though, it represents human capital, which is the most important thing to us.
Human capital equates to what you have. Most of you have postsecondary education or fairly specialized training. You have acquired skills in the labour market or in politics. That is what we mean by human capital, but in 99.9% of cases, language is what allows you to make that specialized human capital accessible to buyers in the market and to other people you interact with. If you don't know the required language, it doesn't work. My first observation is that it is a person's human capital that interacts with the human capital of other people.
My second observation, perhaps more interesting, pertains to the research conducted recently in Switzerland by professor François Grin regarding multilingualism. In Canada, people are bilingual, and in Switzerland, people are bilingual or even trilingual. That research showed that the more languages a person knows, the greater the diversity, and the greater the person's originality and ability to contribute in areas that benefit society.
In other words, there are benefits to having more bilingual people and promoting French more widely, for minorities and the anglophone majority alike. Those benefits affect the economy indirectly, to be sure, but it makes us more mentally alert. People have always said that bilingualism helps protect against cognitive decline, but it also seems to benefit young people and give rise to interesting thinking.
My final observation came to me while I was listening to the last witness, who asked the federal government for more money. In this regard, I would point out something that is very obvious to an economist: spending wisely is important, but not spending in every case is equally important.
So if you make recommendations, try to think of how the money can be invested as effectively as possible. Is it by increasing the demand for services offered by francophone businesses? Is it by increasing the supply of francophone workers in order to offer services in French? It will depend on the circumstances.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't think I have gone over my time limit.