Official Languages committee  Good morning, Mr. Chair, and members of the committee. Thank you for the invitation to appear before you today. My name is Peter Sylvester, and I am the Associate Deputy Minister and official languages champion of Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Joining me today is Yves Saint

Official Languages committee  I will start to answer your question and then I will invite my colleague to continue. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, we set up a steering committee as part of the strategy. Several departments are represented on the committee, including ACOA. There are also representative

Official Languages committee  In fact it is approaching five months. I am new to this area.

Official Languages committee  When it comes to the broad directions taken, the steering committee meets once a year to set priorities at the national level. Then, in the committees in the regions, on the ground, there is also discussion among all the participants about the priorities or strategies to be pursu

Official Languages committee  Yes, indeed. When I was assigned to this file, I had an opportunity to review and identify the major issues and the parameters of the file. Since the report was public, it was appended to the file. So I had an opportunity to go through it and familiarize myself with it.

Official Languages committee  From what I have here, the report was obviously released, so I would think that people were preparing to reply to the report. That would be logical.

Official Languages committee  If I may, Mr. Chair, I would like to point out that replies to things like this are tabled by the government.

Official Languages committee  Under the Strategic Plan to Foster Immigration to Francophone Minority Communities that was adopted in 2006, it was decided that it would take 15 years to achieve the 4.4% target. That is why CIC adopted the target of 2023. In the meantime, under the roadmap, there was a request

Official Languages committee  I would perhaps like to add...

Official Languages committee  These are draft replies that would be covered by cabinet confidences. So I hesitate to say anything about that.

Official Languages committee  I am not certain that polarization results from those figures, no.

Official Languages committee  It may be the premise of the question that I do not accept. I do not know whether polarization necessarily results from the figures in that way.

Official Languages committee  Yes, I saw that recommendation in the report.

Official Languages committee  Mr. Chair, the answer I would offer is this. As you well know, we have a somewhat limited pool of potential francophone immigrants, first. Second, we are competing rather heavily with Quebec, which is also trying to attract a fair number of francophone immigrants. So, logically,

Official Languages committee  Other factors could be added to the answer, Mr. Chair. The provinces, and Manitoba, set their percentages, not CIC. The provinces reserve the right to decide what a reasonable immigration target would be.