Official Languages committee  When you say action plan, what action plan are you referring to? The action plan...?

Official Languages committee  I must honestly say that we're not lacking the manpower, the will or the expertise. We're lacking money.

Official Languages committee  Yes, sir. We absolutely need to have a pan-Canadian program, a plan that's not for one year, not for two, but for a minimum of ten years, which is properly funded, not project funded, because project funding doesn't work. It starts and stops; it starts and it stops. We need a cor

Official Languages committee  They don't work.

Official Languages committee  The worst part with a project is that you start it and it's a six-month project and then it's over. Then you have to make up another project. In the meanwhile, it all has to do with something that helps literacy. You start a nice program, you get everything going, money runs out,

Official Languages committee  Careful.

Official Languages committee  It flips every time. If we have submitted a project for funding and we hear an election is coming, all we do is pray that our funding will come through before the election, because if there is a change in government, it takes far longer. If there is a change in minister, it takes

Official Languages committee  In the province of Quebec we had a special entente with the federal government. It was the interprovincial entente for literacy. All the money came and was distributed to the province's different literacy organizations. That was one way of being funded. The other way we were

Official Languages committee  That's exactly it, and remember that the umbrella organization does all the training. The training is huge, because a regular teacher cannot teach a literacy student; it requires special training. The umbrella organization is the one that does the training. The umbrella organizat

Official Languages committee  May I respond?

Official Languages committee  Yes, there is a problem, and I agree 100% that the school system somewhere isn't doing its job. That's a provincial jurisdiction, and I'm not going to go there because it's provincial. But I also think we have to look at what happens to literacy. Literacy is an economic problem

Official Languages committee  Look beyond that. Why are these 35-year-old parents illiterate? Because their parents were illiterate. This isn't a problem that will be solved in one or two generations. The same thing applies to people who are on welfare. The attitude doesn't change in one generation. It takes

Official Languages committee  Twenty seconds?

Official Languages committee  I can do it quickly.

Official Languages committee  I can do it very quickly. We have to have a national program where all the 10 provinces and the federal government sit down and have a national plan that is not underfunded, that is funded to the point where they can have results. In the last 10 years, 20 years, adult literacy ha