I'm going to start from the recommendation and go backwards, if that's possible, as opposed to explaining why, because I know Mr. Dion wants to get the recommendation.
Again, I want to reiterate that we didn't come here to ask for resources. When you mentioned resources, I didn't think that was the mandate here, so I don't want to sort of tie the recommendation idea to a request for resources. But if there's one thing I could focus on, it would be—whether it's us or other organizations with which we work—to try to strengthen the network of people and the francophonie who work to promote a knowledge of history.
Now let me go backwards. Julie mentioned earlier that we alternate our national history conference between an anglophone conference and a francophone conference, which is not the way I had hoped it would happen. My initial hope was that we could have anglophone and francophone teachers together, historians together, and we could translate the whole thing and it would work. But three years ago—and I hope I do this in a way that doesn't offend anyone I've worked with in the past—when we were doing our conference with the history teachers' association, because that's who we work with in provinces, in Ontario it was a big struggle to get them to have any French at the conference.
Thankfully, that's changed, and now they're working with a group of francophone historians, but it was a struggle. They didn't think there was value in incorporating that particular piece because their teachers were largely anglophones and they didn't feel the interest was there.
I am very determined personally and professionally to make sure that piece is there, but now that is happening in the conference we're doing shortly in Niagara Falls.
It would be really important to strengthen the network of francophones who teach history at the high school level throughout the country, not only for young francophones in those schools who need to find out about their history, but also for those who outside of those schools also need to learn the history of the country and the important place linguistic duality occupies at the heart of it.
A lot of immigrants who arrive in Canada—and I don't mean that this is a matter of immigrants or non-immigrants, you have to be careful—also need to know, even if they don't learn French in British Columbia or elsewhere, that the support provided to our minority francophone community is an essential element of our history and is guaranteed in our country.