Official Languages committee  That is something.

Official Languages committee  Under the Publications and Newspaper Support Program, the money used to be transferred every week from Canadian Heritage to Canada Post. The purpose was to reduce postage for newspaper delivery. Now, the money will be given directly by Canadian Heritage to the newspaper at the beginning of the year, which is all right.

Official Languages committee  We call on the various departments as often as we can. Obviously, there is the difficulty that arises from the fact that these are always special projects. Special projects do have some advantages, but there is also a disadvantage: not all development activities begin on April 1 and finish by March 31, requiring no further attention.

Official Languages committee  Fine. Lastly, another project we're working on and that we find very important for the development of the APF and our Quebec anglophone counterpart concerns an on-going survey and marketing structure. We call it official language minority media performance evaluation. We have been working on it for some years now.

Official Languages committee  Thank you for the invitation. As you know, the APF is an association representing French-language newspapers that work in official language minority communities. Our members are in nine provinces and two and a half territories. We were supposed to appear before the committee in December.

Official Languages committee  I would say that there is no end in sight. This goes back to the Action Plan for Official Languages, and even before that. Under Part VII of the Official Languages Act the government is required to support francophone communities in various areas of activity, such as health, early childhood education, and others.

Official Languages committee  So my time is up then?

Official Languages committee  As I stated earlier, newspapers benefit from community vitality. For community development organizations, it will have an impact if they have adequate funding for basic infrastructure and funding which allows them to generate a host of new initiatives for community development. I think we've seen it, the positive effect it does have on newspapers.

Official Languages committee  I'll say it again, I think we were surprised, because you have to think of the environment we're operating in. We work with satellites. There is no mention of communications; yet, we live an era of communications. You want to enhance the development of minority francophone communities, but you're disregarding the fact that communications play a huge role in our daily lives, from a personal and public standpoint.

Official Languages committee  We would of course like communications to be included under the action plan, as one of its pillars. We have initiated discussions and established an issue table on communications with the Télévision française de l'Ontario, the Alliance des radios communautaires du Canada and the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada, the FCFA.

Official Languages committee  I have nothing against special projects as such. They make it possible to do many innovative things. However, we do need some basic infrastructure, as Mr. Bélanger said, so that we can invent projects, generate new initiatives and be in touch with emerging needs. Without basic resources, we become far less effective in some respects.

Official Languages committee  Fine. As far as the Publications Assistance Program is concerned, I would like to point out that it is a subsidy for the mailing costs of newspapers and magazines. Normally, the papers are sent to subscribers. In the case of several of our papers, it's the only solution in terms of distribution.

Official Languages committee  I would like to thank you for giving me this opportunity to talk to you about the concerns of the Association de la presse francophone, as well as its views on the vitality of communities and the Action Plan for Official Languages. The Association de la presse francophone is made up of weekly and by-monthly francophone newspapers in minority situations from across Canada, with the exception of Quebec, obviously.