Thank you for the question.
It’s clear that’s the most important point for the University of Ottawa and the Canadian francophonie. We have to find a way to make the provinces accountable and ensure that the work is really being done and is going in the right direction to support not only special projects, but infrastructure as well. Indeed, supporting programs involves costs.
At our university, there are fewer francophone students. For programs offered entirely in French, groups have about 30 students instead of 60 or 70. That means they cost more, and so does maintaining them. I’m all in favour of collaboration, but establishing collaboration and implementing new projects, which the federal government is emphasizing more and more, that requires staff.
I will give you an example. We currently have 25 digital pedagogy specialists to support our French and English programs and courses. If we were to collaborate with other institutions, we would have to allow those institutions to access our digital pedagogy specialists. That means we would need more of them and we would have to manage those resources. So that involves costs. What I’m saying is that it’s not just out-of-pocket costs, it’s also infrastructure costs. Those are the types of costs that must be supported.