The groups that benefit from these funds, including our school boards, often say that delays cause a major challenge. This is also a problem we experience with our own provincial government. Furthermore, certain parameters do not provide them with the flexibility they require. I'll give you an example.
If we talk about the community learning centres, they are a tremendous success and a lifeline to some of our smaller schools in allowing them to become hubs in the community. Occasionally there have been requirements under the federal agreement that we open up additional ones while the funding for existing ones is drying up. Now, these community learning centres are not going to become profit centres. They will probably always require some extra government support in order to continue operating. The results are tremendous where they are.
The current agreement makes it difficult for those centres to continue to be funded on an ongoing basis. Occasionally in a rather artificial way we have to scramble to open up new ones when it's not what the real objectives of the program might have called for.
I guess the other thing we would just point to without being specific is the great care and vigilance we take in ensuring that a very solid Canada-Quebec minority language and second language agreement is signed. We are deeply conscious of the current political situation in Quebec. We would underline that we have built a very transparent and excellent relationship with the current minister of education in Quebec, and we're optimistic. But there's no doubt this will be a sensitive process and that bilateral agreement is not signed yet.