Official Languages committee  That's right, and the vast majority of francophone immigrants come from Africa. At the moment, the federal government hardly has any presence in Africa, in terms of visa offices. For example, I know that one office in Senegal serves a dozen or so countries. It's very difficult for people to travel across several countries to get to a visa office.

Official Languages committee  Courses should definitely be offered in both official languages. It would allow people who want to learn French to do so. The courses must be offered to them. We still have work to do in that regard. We have two official languages in this country and we need to make sure that people can study in the language of their choice.

Official Languages committee  That is one factor. We still have to find out whether the 4.4% target for francophones outside Quebec remains appropriate. The Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne, the FCFA, is just finishing a detailed study on the issue of targets. The study is based on Statistics Canada data and on the analysis model that the organization has set out.

Official Languages committee  Francophone immigration involves a lot of people from Africa. In that regard, we have a terrible lack of visa offices—

Official Languages committee  The 4.09% was for francophone immigration as a whole. Through the Ontario immigrant nominee program, the Government of Ontario was able to select its candidates and meet its objectives. The 5% objective was even surpassed: they achieved 5.4% in 2018 and 7.3% in the following year.

Official Languages committee  Thank you.

Official Languages committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, everyone. I would first like to thank you for inviting the Assemblée de la francophonie de l'Ontario to appear before you as part of your work on francophone immigration to Canada. As an organization, we represent nearly 744,000 Franco‑Ontarians.

Official Languages committee  We can always do more. We talked about the three welcoming communities in Ontario, which is a first step. We could extend this type of program to other cities. People around the world are learning about this successful initiative, which could bring in even more immigrants, because they know they will be welcome and that we will work to integrate them and have them play an active role in the life of the community.

Official Languages committee  I can't remember how Hamilton, Sudbury and Hawkesbury were chosen, because those are the three we are talking about. These are not cities with millions of inhabitants. I think that one of the objectives was to enable immigrants to learn about places other than the Toronto area.

Official Languages committee  It would definitely be worth checking out. There are other circumstances, economic considerations for example, where there are needs. The entire infrastructure would benefit from programs like these.

Official Languages committee  Through the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne, much is being done in terms of immigration and welcoming new immigrants into our communities. Just over a year ago, the Welcoming Francophone Communities initiative was launched. However, the program needs time to gain a solid footing.

Official Languages committee  Transfers of this kind have occurred in the past. One example is what happened when Cité collégiale was established in Ottawa. Algonquin College had a wide range of programs in French, and these were transferred to Cité collégiale. I think that we can use this kind of model successfully to transfer the French courses to the University of Sudbury.

Official Languages committee  We've asked the provincial government for a one-year moratorium to give us time to do things properly.

Official Languages committee  If the funding required came along with the mandate, that would certainly be interesting.

Official Languages committee  Are you talking about options for accountability or funding?