No, there's no substantive equality. This is why Bill C‑13 is important: it's based particularly on the principle of substantive equality as the principle for interpreting language rights. Bill C‑13 contains a special provision on research in French and acknowledges that French is also a scientific language in all disciplines.
My colleagues Ms. Lapointe-Gagnon and Mr. Forgues have also clearly shown that there's no substantive equality in research. The testimony that you heard last week and that I also listened to confirmed that. It's not by chance that Acfas and the Association des collèges et universités de la francophonie canadienne play such an important role in promoting research in French in the public space. This is an issue that concerns the entire Canadian francophonie, including Quebec.
As our colleague Vincent Larivière has shown, our colleagues in Quebec published in French 10 or 20 years ago, but those same colleagues, particularly at the Université du Québec à Montréal, now publish in English. Why? Because we're told that we have to do everything in English if we want promotions, if we want to succeed and if we want an international reputation. As a result, we do a lot in English. In my case, part of my career is taking place in English. We aren't rejecting English, but, at the same time, some intellectual traditions in Canada are being lost because we aren't able to work in French or promote the transmission of knowledge in French.
Because there are major traditions of research in French across Canada. I'm trying to document them. Ms. Lapointe-Gagnon is a historian and is working on this. We have knowledge to pass on and are currently unable to do so.
We're now in the same situation as the Scandinavian countries, where national languages are being lost at the universities as a result of programs that are solely in English. Students now prepare theses in English only. Even in our universities, francophone students write theses in English only because they're told they have to do everything in English if they want to have a career.
In addition, since our colleagues no longer publish in French, now we can't even teach using French-language materials.