Thank you very much.
First, I would like to thank you for your presentations. They were all very interesting.
This seems to confirm something that we already knew and that was brought to light when representatives from the Department of Canadian Heritage appeared before the committee, and that is that you really want the community to be deeply involved in choosing the direction that the celebrations held in each part of Canada will take. I hope that your message will be heard.
I would like to come back to the issue of linguistic clauses because it concerns me a little.
You spoke about the importance of making events accessible to everyone. I would imagine that the goal is to try to encourage dialogue and a better understanding among the different founding nations. One of the communities in my riding is the community of Shannon, which, in the past, had a large Irish population. That is an important heritage to showcase.
However, I am wondering how we can provide access to all linguistic groups in every corner of the country without a mandatory linguistic clause. Earlier, it seemed to me that some of you were not certain that such a clause was necessary. I would like to know how you foresee achieving this type of accessibility if some sort of obligation is not imposed in this regard.
Mr. Thompson, you can start.