Official Languages committee  The federal government has jurisdiction over immigration and it certainly has jurisdiction over official languages. The federal government must work with the provinces to achieve a target of 20% francophone immigration over the next 20 years. This would make it possible to right

Official Languages committee  Yes, absolutely. As I said, I've seen it and lived it on the ground for a long time. The current immigration rates are not enough, even though they help us. When teachers come to us from francophone Africa, we can use them because we need them badly. In some provinces, post-sec

Official Languages committee  That is true. There has never been a new francophone school in Saskatchewan. We were always given dilapidated schools abandoned by anglophones, and we always had to renovate them before using them. In addition, we had to go to court to get each of these francophone schools in Sa

Official Languages committee  Yes, I think this helps justify that argument. I see that it says in Bill C‑13 that this should be interpreted broadly and liberally to right the wrongs of the past. There is a real need for the federal government to engage in the implementation of section 23, even in provincial

Official Languages committee  This is something we have seen in British Columbia, especially in Vancouver. The federal government has land there and should be offering it first to francophones who need to build schools. We had the same problem in the Northwest Territories in the 1990s. The federal government

Official Languages committee  Yes, absolutely.

Official Languages committee  Yes. We absolutely must increase the number of French-speaking immigrants outside Quebec. That percentage has been very low for the last 20 years or so, and we see that assimilation is continuing. Here is what I've observed on the ground. In Saskatchewan, even though we get a fa

Official Languages committee  Thank you for your question, Ms. Ashton. The language clauses should ensure that the money the federal government provides to the provinces and territories is used to build French-language day care centres and schools. The clauses should be crafted in such a way as to really ens

Official Languages committee  It has a few things, but not enough. There absolutely needs to be a federal commitment in the part of the act that deals with positive measures, part VII. The federal government should have an obligation to fund the construction of local schools across the country, outside Quebe

Official Languages committee  What I'm saying is that the agency with the money has to be the one responsible for part VII. Simply giving the Department of Canadian Heritage the responsibility for taking positive measures does not mean that it will get the resources it needs to do so. For that reason, the ce

Official Languages committee  It may not make sense, but it reflects the situation on the ground. Francophones have become so assimilated and the francophone community outside Quebec has so many exogamous couples that when you look at rights holders who want to send their children to French-language schools,

Official Languages committee  I made a number of recommendations in my brief. The one on immigration comes to mind. The Official Languages Act should set a very high standard in order to raise francophone immigration levels because they are much too low. We are still losing ground. The Official Languages Act

Official Languages committee  All right.

Official Languages committee  We have to abide by the Constitution, which states that education is the exclusive jurisdiction of the provinces. The federal government has to find a way to cover half the cost of building schools in Canada's minority language communities and to encourage provinces to put up the

Official Languages committee  Thank you for your question. I think it is important to have a central organization that enforces the Official Languages Act and is responsible for it, because if a number of stakeholders are responsible, no‑one actually is. Mr. Godin, I agree with you. It would be important to