Mr. Speaker, yesterday in the official languages committee, the Minister of Canadian Heritage stated that there was no assimilation of francophones outside Quebec, despite all of the statistical evidence to the contrary.
If assimilation does not exist, as the minister claims, what explanation is there for the fact that, since the adoption of the Official Languages Act in 1969, the percentage of francophones now using English in the home has risen from 15 to 24 per cent in Ottawa, from 55 to 65 per cent in Hamilton, from 17 to 30 per cent in Sudbury, and from 42 to 52 per cent in Winnipeg and St. Boniface?