Senator Lankin: I know in terms of the two official languages yes, she is; but we have many people who occupied these lands before us who speak a variety of Indigenous languages, such as Innu.

I also think that we are in a moment when we both need to revitalize and build sustainability for the French language, but we need to recognize that we’re in a moment of reconciliation as well, and this is such a significant appointment.

I enter this discussion wanting to think of this as a special, significant and really important appointment, and I accept the commitment to learn English here. However, I pose to you — and this is not a criticism of your bill; you’re trying to deal with something now — that we probably would be better in the long run in this country if we dedicated more time for all Canadian students to be proficient in both official languages. Do you have comment about that or are you interested in pursuing those kinds of recommendations or intervention with provincial education systems?

[Translation]

Senator Carignan: Yes, definitely. Obviously, when I said she was unilingual, I meant that she was not bilingual in terms of our two official languages. I commend the Governor General’s ability to speak other languages, including Inuktitut.

We must promote the two official languages, and we should encourage the idea of sending the best messages possible and funding everything to do with education in both official languages across the country as much as possible. I have children who became francophones outside Quebec. I’m not a grandfather yet, but I hope that my grandchildren will have the opportunity to continue to speak French and that they will be able to learn French even if they are outside Quebec. I hope that enriching experience will be available to them. Obviously, I do agree with that.

Hon. Frances Lankin: I’m very interested in the arguments that you make and very open to being supportive of this. I cherish this about our country, but my general approach to these things is, where possible, don’t try and fix it at the end. Let’s try and fix it at the beginning.

For me, that means maybe a group of us should get together and take a look at how we could build recommendations to influence provincial education systems to give appropriate language training in both official languages and bring our students through.

I certainly didn’t have access to quality training as a young person. I did in-place training in Quebec.

You said a number of times that we have a unilingual Governor General. I just want to point out that she’s not unilingual.

[Translation]

Senator Carignan: Yes, you are correct.

[English]