Thank you for your question.
The funding access analysis revealed a weakness in the application of what might be called an “official languages lens” on investments. The $500-million emergency fund was divided into two phases. It was built on existing funding channels. Our organizations on the ground had very little presence in the channels identified for phase 1. The channels that did not exist were the official languages support programs. Obviously, this had the effect of excluding several organizations of the Canadian francophonie from the funding channels, since they were not there.
Fortunately, things were rectified in phase 2. Teams within the ministry worked with us to find solutions. An announcement was made at the end of August, and we received a special envelope of just over $1 million. This allowed official language minority communities and equity groups, among others, to access this funding. If we look at the way the majority of our groups accessed phase 2 funding, we can see that they did indeed go through the official languages support programs. This certainly met a need. Even though this equity objective was superimposed, the fact remains that our groups had to scrabble hard to obtain some funding.
In British Columbia, Ontario and Acadia, some small cultural presenters still do not receive funding because these organizations do not have an exclusive cultural mandate. Among the criteria defined for the funding envelopes, there was a requirement that there be an exclusive mandate in culture. However, this is an uncommon reality in our country. We have organizations in a minority environment, which are in remote areas and have several hats. For example, some cultural centres provide a daycare service with their activities. These players have been excluded from funding. Clearly, the criteria for granting emergency funding ignored some of the unique characteristics of our small groups operating in fragile environments.