Official Languages committee  It's a nice long drive to come here and speak to you folks. I have a document here. I'm just going to summarize this because this would probably run on a little bit more than five minutes. When we deal with people who work in the arts, there's often a lot of misunderstanding ab

Official Languages committee  When I said that, I got the same sort of reaction at the summit, and suddenly, barriers were broken down and people said, yes, that's exactly the same reaction I've had. I've been sort of living this closeted anglophone life for many, many years, not wanting to make waves, and in

Official Languages committee  Good, there's plenty of time. Everybody knows the PICLO agreement, which is IPOLC in English. We had it for two years, and it was largely through this IPOLC agreement that the funding was established between Canadian Heritage and Canada Council. They needed an oversight group to

Official Languages committee  Thank you, Chuck. The policy framework devised some key priorities for the Cultural Development Fund. There were three. The first was visibility. English-speaking artists in Quebec seek greater visibility, of course, within the English-speaking community. Because there has been

Official Languages committee  Tom Cruise is an old friend of mine.

Official Languages committee  Especially after his anniversary last month.

Official Languages committee  I mean, 50% of anglophones have married francophones. Partly that's because of love and partly it's kind of strategic. If you want your kids to stay in Quebec, they have to be bilingual, so having a francophone spouse is a very good advantage. I'm one of the traitors who's raised

Official Languages committee  I have thought about that.

Official Languages committee  Fifty percent of anglophones are married to francophones.

Official Languages committee  There's a problem for us in Quebec in that we're a region, so everything goes through the Quebec office. So there is a disconnect between all the national envelopes, the national programs. We have a problem being pigeonholed into the region. We have a different relationship to Ot

Official Languages committee  He's written a couple of letters saying what he didn't intend to do, which makes no sense at all.

Official Languages committee  I alluded to that earlier on. ELAN, in particular, does a lot of national work. We spend a lot of time consulting about policy and programs. It is time consuming. Currently, our organization is not funded for that kind of work so we do it in our spare or volunteer time. We have v

Official Languages committee  The road map itself has worked quite well. It's other departments within Canadian Heritage that are not part of...well, the Cultural Development Fund, for example, a direct road map program, worked very well.

Official Languages committee  I think the L'actualité article demonstrates that we're the cusp. The response to that article has been almost entirely favourable towards the English-speaking community, recognizing the efforts we've made, how we're being integrated. As to whether this investment will be in perp

Official Languages committee  Prior to the Cultural Development Fund, there was the IPOLC-PICLO program, which was very beneficial. It was the best thing in arts and culture—it came via the Canada Council, but it was focused on professional arts. The Cultural Development Fund is invested in the link between a