Official Languages committee  Are you talking about the one in 2006?

Official Languages committee  In 2006, it was a survey—

Official Languages committee  A complete census of the population was conducted in 2016, and will be done again in 2021. The 2006 survey was a post-census survey, meaning that a sample of official languages minorities was drawn from the 2006 census. Still, it was a sample, and the questionnaire was very long.

Official Languages committee  I am not saying that we do not ask questions. I am saying that questions that appear simple can turn out to be a whole lot more complicated.

Official Languages committee  That is an excellent question, but, as you know, it is not as simple as that. It can be a double-edged sword. Let me give you an example. Of those outside Quebec whose first spoken official language is French, about 40% of those surveyed, including for the 2006 survey, stated that they were more comfortable communicating in English than in French.

Official Languages committee  Yes, absolutely.

Official Languages committee  There is an important distinction to be made between French immersion programs and minority schools. Previously, we were asked why we did not ask people if they were francophone. I can guarantee that, sometimes, you would not really want the answer. Honestly, you can get certain information from the way in which those questions are interpreted.

Official Languages committee  No, but I can answer another way, by giving you an example from health care. It's an area we have been doing a lot of work on. People say that, in 2006, we had a picture of the demand, but we do not have a picture of the real demand. In terms of asking people if they want services in their own language, we actually did gather that information, but it is not so simple.

Official Languages committee  Absolutely.

Official Languages committee  After the census tests, of course, Statistics Canada's senior management evaluates all the results and recommendations very carefully. Then there are discussions with the various government departments.

Official Languages committee  That is one option. In the past, we managed to ask questions and to get the provinces to add that question to their basic questionnaire and their administrative records. That was conclusive. That is the reason why—

Official Languages committee  Statistics Canada has received letters from the ministry of education in British Columbia saying that they support francophone minorities in the province in their goal of obtaining a fair and exact enumeration of rights holders. If the provinces provide such support, I assume that it should not be extremely difficult to get support from each province and territory in order to look for information pursuant to the requirements in paragraphs (1)(a) and (1)(b) of section 23 of the charter.

Official Languages committee  No, that's what it is. But we do have to specify that we are talking about francophones outside Quebec. If you project that figure onto a population of basically one million, and you include primary and secondary aged children, that's the count of those between 5 and 17. That is perfectly within the norm.

Official Languages committee  Actually, that is an important question because immigration is clearly being relied upon to make more and more of a contribution to francophone communities outside Quebec. The main problem is that many of those immigrants do not have French as their mother tongue. So, they do not necessarily meet the conditions of paragraph 23(1)(a).

Official Languages committee  —which is, for all practical purposes, a test survey, includes different versions of the questions. It is really based on the recommendations, the review of the issues, and the ability and possibility of asking this or that question. In addition, people need to fully understand those questions.