Official Languages committee  I think that the EDI initiative is a positive measure that could help support what you said. The program is specifically targeting the development of francophone communities. We had a fair amount of flexibility in terms of development, and we used a lot of research provided by a

Official Languages committee  FedNor certainly wants to encourage development in the longer term. We could cover the operating costs to support an organization temporarily until it becomes self-sufficient. Those costs are in a different continuum when it comes to economic development. It depends on where tho

Official Languages committee  That can happen. When we analyze a project and determine that the organization would not be able to survive in the long term without the government's ongoing support, we might reject it. Our decision would depend on the benefits and on what the organization is asking for.

Official Languages committee  All economic development agencies can cover the operating costs up to a certain extent. The decision to fund the operating costs of a project really depends on the results of the organization and the time it will need to achieve them.

Official Languages committee  FedNor has programs for young interns. So we have youth entrepreneurship programs that assist youth to remain in our communities by offering them employment coming out of their university programs. What we're seeing from results is that the programs are successful and the stud

Official Languages committee  When we prepared the programming for our new EDI plan, linguistic duality became a priority for us, because of examples like the one you just gave us. As a result, if an anglophone company wants to have its documents translated into French in order to open up new markets, FedNor

Official Languages committee  That's right.

Official Languages committee  The entire amount of $4 million is for funding francophone communities in northern Ontario and for supporting their development. Does that answer your question?

Official Languages committee  Yes, the program is specifically designed for the development of francophone communities. FedNor has three programs. First of all, the northern Ontario development program provides funding to cover economic development in its entirety, including francophone communities. EDI, whi

Official Languages committee  For northern Ontario our statistics show that our organizations are behind in what they can do as far as exporting, so it has been identified as a priority for us in the last couple of years in order to help assist that. Our focus is on innovation, on assisting these small busin

Official Languages committee  In northern Ontario, official language minority communities are in rural areas. So they are dealing with the challenges we are discussing. What we are seeing is that these communities are made up of primary industries. They are like single-resource communities. This type of ec