It is often my job to try to explain to people what we do. The Council of Ministers of Education of Canada is a corporation which was established in 1967 and brings together all Ministers of Education in Canada, from the primary, secondary and post-secondary levels. Unless I am mistaken, we currently have 19 Ministers of Education in Canada.
The CMEC manages a series of programs. It is responsible notably for administering official languages programs for the Department of Canadian Heritage, more specifically second language study grants and official language monitors programs.
We have groups that are responsible for research and statistics, we have a partnership with Statistics Canada called the Canadian Education Statistics Council. We are also responsible for primary and secondary level matters, including French teaching in minority environments. We develop tools, etc.
The role of our organization is to support the work of the Ministers of Education in Canada. Through the chair, we often hold meetings with the federal government, for instance on international activities or in the course of negotiating official language protocols. This program has been in existence here for almost 30 years.
So that is what we do. That being said, it is up to the provinces to manage their systems. It is up to them because it is a provincial area responsibility. We offer the ministers a forum, because education is a provincial area of responsibility in Canada.