Thank you for your presentations.
This is the first time that the committee has travelled to meet you on your home territory. This took place while our party is in power; it's important.
I thank you for having shared with us your challenges and this information. This meeting also gives us an opportunity to provide you with some key information. Our government would like to support and promote the vitality of your minority language communities. I would like to give you a few examples. We have just announced a number of initiatives, including a billion-agreement between the provincial and federal government to promote official languages.
I noticed that there are many accomplishments within your education systems. You have 143 schools at each level, perhaps more today. It is a major accomplishment and I congratulate you on it.
Among other initiatives for communities, we announced a $120 million-agreement to work directly with your communities to keep them vital, which represents an 11% increase.
As for literacy, although there have been cuts, we are going to spend $82 million on literacy over the next two years. You therefore have our support, and we are going to spend that amount on these programs.
You represent several associations and organizations and you informed us today of a number of needs. How do you work together to set priorities? It is easy to have numerous challenges, but it is really important to have priorities. In New Brunswick, what are the five priorities?
How are you going to work together to talk about all the challenges and set the priorities?