Official Languages committee  I believe there will always be Francophones from Quebec and from abroad who are attracted to British Columbia, just there are large numbers of Francophones who are attracted by the climate and the job opportunities in California. We discussed that this morning. That is fine. That

Official Languages committee  Certainly; no problem.

Official Languages committee  The working paper, or the mandate, whatever it was called, that was given to the commissioners was to see how Canada could develop “on the basis of an equal partnership between the two founding races”. Pearson signed that, and that is not the direction that the commission took an

Official Languages committee  Institutions are not enough. I think we missed the boat in the 1960s. We gave the Royal Commission of Inquiry a specific mandate.

Official Languages committee  I can only answer globally, because we don't have time to go into this province by province, or even eastern Ontario versus southern Ontario, and stuff like that. At the level of the whole of Canada, in 2006, assimilation made a difference of three million between the populatio

Official Languages committee  In my study in English I referred to a 2006 survey carried out by Statistics Canada pertaining to a sense of belonging. Respondents were asked with which language group they identify the most. To the francophone group only, mainly to the francophone group, to both groups equally,

Official Languages committee  My point of view is that a type of territorial bilingualism would be more appropriate for Canada, much as in Switzerland or Belgium, or Finland for that matter, or other bilingual or multilingual countries.

Official Languages committee  English is my mother tongue. My father was Ernest Napoléon Castonguay, and we never spoke a word of French together. I called his mother, ma mère, as I thought that was her name, like Florence or Edith. I called her ma mère until I was 20 years old, when I realized that meant ma

Official Languages committee  Of course. Well, anyway, it is my mother tongue and I express myself better in that language. I'm sorry. I just think it fits Canadian reality. The bilingualism and biculturalism commission, the Laurendeau-Dunton commission, thought in that direction also. If you are wondering w

Official Languages committee  Okay. To answer Mr. Weston, 90% of francophones of French mother tongue in British Columbia, born in the province, adopt English as their main home language by the time they're 25 or 30 years old and ready to raise children. That assimilation rate...you cannot graft francophone,

Official Languages committee  I am not the person who simplifies the double and triple answers equally between the declared languages; Statistics Canada does that. It is the originator of that particular work method, and I adopted it, as do most Canadian researchers, Ms. Lamarre. When you refer to your collea

Official Languages committee  I have presented all the statistics. I tried to provide an overview of the situation this morning. It is always possible to get lost in the details.

Official Languages committee  In terms of English mother tongue speakers, the number has grown by almost half a million over the last five years. There is a deepening linguistic imbalance.

Official Languages committee  As I understand it, you are asking whether it is appropriate to scatter what I termed “a precious resource”. I have already clearly explained that this is not the way it is supposed to be. We could talk about this at length, but some basic indicators allow us to ascertain over t

Official Languages committee  The important thing is to put our resources where they will serve us best in the long term.