Official Languages committee  Thank you, François. First, we must remember that barely 10 years after the start of a 1965 experimental project led by two McGill University researchers at an elementary school in Saint-Lambert on the South Shore of Montreal—a project that gave rise to immersion programs across

Official Languages committee  First of all, the number you mentioned is higher. Indeed, 1.4 million students outside Quebec are enrolled in regular French as a second language instruction programs. As I mentioned earlier, approximately 57% of young people today have no contact with French-language instruction

Official Languages committee  I do not know whether they never have any contact with French, but—

Official Languages committee  That is true at school.

Official Languages committee  I will not offer an opinion on that.

Official Languages committee  Are you talking about the decline of 400,000 persons, from 1.8 million to 1.4 million?

Official Languages committee  I am going to take this opportunity to do a little advertising. On May 28, Statistics Canada will publish a study on the evolution of bilingualism over the past 50 years. Immigration, in particular, is a factor. However, it must be understood that education is a provincial juris

Official Languages committee  Yes, absolutely. That information, which many people are interested in, is available in the data from censuses prior to 2011. It can be found in the National Household Survey, from which income information will be published in August. It is possible to determine average income b

Official Languages committee  The research quite clearly shows that the environment in which the person lives and, of course, contact with that language are the principal factors involved in maintaining second-language proficiency. Studies on the first immersion programs have clearly shown that the support an

Official Languages committee  Of course, everything depends on valuing the language. A purely instrumental perception of the use of languages is very different from one in which a person values language learning and considers it an asset. Language is not just a means of communication. As my colleagues mention

Official Languages committee  When we published the census data on October 24, there was very little information on the evolution of bilingualism. Many people are increasingly interested in the factors influencing the evolution of bilingualism over the years. I think that is somewhat the purpose of this study

Official Languages committee  I agree with you. In recent years, people reacted when we noted the decline in bilingualism among young people in Canada. Some people may have been inclined to think that immersion programs were not working. The statistics we presented today show quite clearly how interest is inc

Official Languages committee  Yes, that is not impossible.

Official Languages committee  That is why I said earlier that this shows how important it is to study the matter in greater depth. We have figures showing that we should investigate further to explain what distinguishes those who maintain their skills from those who do not. Of course, the environment and work

Official Languages committee  I think that confirms the need to study the matter in greater—