Official Languages committee  The report isn't completely finished.

Official Languages committee  In my presentation, I forgot to say that I'm working with other people on preparing two briefs, which will provide examples of questions. The briefs will be submitted to your committee by February 21.

Official Languages committee  I agree with Jean-Pierre Corbeil regarding the complexity of a census. However, I don't think we need the 10 questions from the post-census survey.

Official Languages committee  I think we can ask synthesis questions. I've started giving it some thought, and I think we can find the essential information using very few questions.

Official Languages committee  You'll receive it. The briefs are quite long and they contain examples of questions. We certainly don't want to prepare the questions in the place of Statistics Canada.

Official Languages committee  Like Mr. Corbeil, I have a great deal of difficulty contemplating this, but for different reasons. As I said, many rights-holders are very misinformed about the impact of attending a French-language school. In one province, up to 64% of parents believed that, if their children attended secondary school in French, they would lose their knowledge of English and they would not be able to attend university.

Official Languages committee  It's not an exorbitant cost. I'm speaking more about the analysis of the results. It's one thing to collect data. However, if no one analyzes the data and sends it to the people who work in the field, then the collection will be in vain. I was the director of the Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities.

Official Languages committee  The data is acquired through the census. We analyze the results of the census. We aren't the one who collect the data.

Official Languages committee  The goal set in the action plan was 80%.

Official Languages committee  I'm 100% convinced. The action plan for official languages was replaced by the roadmap, and I've read all the roadmaps. The roadmaps don't contain goals for anything. They indicate the money that will be spent here and there. What I found impressive in the Dion plan was the very good demographic analysis conducted.

Official Languages committee  I was referring to the census.

Official Languages committee  I think the census, as it stands, underestimates the number of multiple responses to questions that exist for the reasons I mentioned. The other two questions provide for multiple responses. The question concerning the mother tongue, which comes immediately afterward, does not provide for multiple responses.

Official Languages committee  I think the questions can be changed. I know that Statistics Canada will be opposed to this, since the organization can no longer compare the new data with the old data if a question is changed too much. However, there are ways to do this. Keep in mind that, until 2001, there was only one question on the language spoken at home and it concerned the language spoken most often.

Official Languages committee  Yes, and also to learn English well.

Official Languages committee  I have even shown that through research.