It’s right there in black and white on Page 217 of the report.

"In this day and age of migratory mixing, of the Internet and globalization, it is to be greatly hoped that the largest number possible of Quebecers master English, in addition to French."

Get over the notion that English is a colonial language, commissioners Gérard Bouchard and Charles Taylor say.

"The English that should be learned and spoken today isn’t the one that Lord Durham wanted to impose on Lower Canada after the repression of the rebellions (of 1837-38). Rather, it’s the language that leads to all sorts of knowledge and sharing with all the peoples of the world," they write.

On Page 213, the scholars also call anglophone Quebecers a diminished minority who "were the main losers of the new linguistic dynamic that followed Bill 101."

But to reporters yesterday, Bouchard tried to deflect attention from those affirmations, which fell like a bomb in French Quebec after The Gazette reported them in a leak last Saturday.

"What we say in the report about learning English takes up half a page," he scoffed.

"Essentially, what we say is that, in an era of globalization in which English is the international language of communication, it’s obviously very important that as many Quebecers as possible master English," Bouchard said.

"We don’t make it a formal recommendation. It’s a thought we give, in passing."