Official Languages committee  Yes. In my research in the 1990s, I also examined the situation of children in immersion schools. I even studied a group that was in an immersion program in Alberta. They were anglophones in total immersion. They had the equivalent of a French-language school. From kindergarten to grade 12, they were educated 80% of the time in French.

Official Languages committee  The first question underestimates the number of multiple answers—the fact that people can speak two languages. That's fairly clear. I don't think I have talked about that in my presentation. I probably skipped it. I have all the statistics on that with me. When Statistics Canada asks for multiple answers, it is talking about Canada in general.

Official Languages committee  Yes. I was the chair of the advisory committee.

Official Languages committee  He didn't say so this morning, but I've already heard him refer to about 80%. We must remember what he didn't say, which is that the survey excluded all anglophones and allophones whose first official language wasn't French. This means that all the others who became rights-holders under the other two criteria weren't taken into consideration.

Official Languages committee  Our institute published a book on the vitality of the English language in Quebec, and I did the same survey on anglophones in anglophone schools in Quebec that we did in the francophone schools. It's quite revealing. We published a paper recently showing that the sociolinguistic dynamic is exactly the same among anglophones in Quebec as francophones outside Quebec, except that the proportion of their population and so on has an effect on their véhicule engagé and life experiences in the language.

Official Languages committee  I did not use the expression “positive exogamous person”. We would have to know what that means.

Official Languages committee  No. That's not at all what I am trying to say. I said that this is a major challenge, since the tendency is to prefer the language of the majority. If emphasis is placed on the minority language, which is somewhat of an exception, bilingualism becomes additive and excellent. Unfortunately, not all exogamous individuals do that.

Official Languages committee  I'll lose some of my time.

Official Languages committee  Okay. Thank you. No school programs in Canada produce better bilingualism among children than French-language schools. However, that seems to be a well-kept secret. In the 1990s and early 2000s, our research showed that, according to many parent rights-holders—up to 64% in Nova Scotia—the ideal program for fostering their child's bilingualism would be split 50-50 between French and English.

Official Languages committee  Thank you for the invitation, Mr. Chair. I informed the clerk yesterday that my presentation might exceed 10 minutes, if that's not too much trouble. Still, I'll try to be as brief as possible. My presentation will be in French and will cover seven points. However, I can answer questions in both official languages.