I do want to say that the FCFA has worked for more than 15 years with Citizenship and Immigration and that as a general rule our relationship has been good. I am a businesswoman and I have a company. Before I launched it, I prepared a comprehensive business plan to maximize its impact. This is the type of coherent strategy that would allow us to use the funds even more effectively, and that is what is lacking.
As for the roadmap, since the department already had the $120 million allocated to language training, it is difficult to determine what the impact would be on francophone communities. How many francophone newcomers have had access to these funds to learn French? The funds were already there. This is not a new investment.
As for the $30 million or so aimed at strengthening capacities,
it's not, “if you build it, they will come”. They need to know we are there.
I am sure you will agree that when you visit a Canadian embassy in a francophone country and you hear about French Canada, the first thing that comes to mind is Quebec. So if there is no promotion of francophone communities to emphasize the fact that there are also francophones outside of Quebec, no one will go to those regions. It is all well and good to strengthen settlement and integration services, but in order to use them, there have to be people. It is in that sense that a global strategy is missing.