Hon. Julie Miville-Dechêne: Welcome, minister. As we know, many of the services offered to francophone minority communities depend on their demographic weight, which is declining. Francophone immigration is probably the most effective remedy. However, Bill C-13 merely states that the future immigration policy is one of the factors that contributes to maintaining or increasing the demographic weight of the francophone and Acadian communities.

Minister, isn’t this vocabulary too weak, too vague, to ensure that we have an ambitious policy, considering that, for more than 20 years, Canada hasn’t met the targets set in this area at all? The current rate of francophone immigration outside Quebec is only 2%, when we would need a target of 8% just to maintain our demographic weight.