Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning everyone. I would like to begin by thanking you for having invited us to appear today in connection with your study on the vitality of official language minority communities. I would also like to congratulate you and thank you for having taken the time to go and meet francophone and Acadian communities to hear what they had to say about issues of vitality, the action plan, etc.
As most of you know, the Summit of Francophone and Acadian Communities to be held in June 2007 will give francophones from across the country the opportunity to think about key issues and to work together to define their vision of the future. The vitality that is under discussion today will be among the issues to be discussed at the summit. Among other things, it will be an opportunity to take stock of our strengths and accomplishments and to identify strategies to address existing shortcomings.
Today, however, what we want to do is explore with you a number of ideas about what is meant by community vitality what the ingredients of this vitality are. There is often a tendency to define the vitality of francophone and Acadian communities in terms of numbers. However, this definition does not always give enough consideration to the dynamism of communities, whether at the social, cultural, economic or other levels.
We feel that there is a very important link between a community's ability to live and develop in French and the vitality of that community. That is why what is often called institutional completeness is for us a very important ingredient. By institutional completeness is meant the ability of a community to have a complete infrastructure of services in every sector of activity that affects its development, whether in health, education, culture, the media, immigration or elsewhere. Even communities in which the population of francophones is small can demonstrate a high level of vitality if they are provided with a range of services that allows them to live in French. This direct connection between completeness and vitality in communities becomes the key to successful community development efforts.
That leads us to discuss the government's strategy for supporting francophone and Acadian communities. The Action Plan for Official Languages introduced, as part of the government's strategy, a comprehensive approach based on close interdepartmental cooperation, for the development of these communities in a number of priority areas. Several strategic initiatives were implemented in various sectors, including immigration and health.
Generally speaking, I believe that the people you met on your visit to the West and in Moncton mentioned health and immigration as major successes.
With the Action Plan for Official Languages coming to the end of its term in 2008, the question that comes to mind is what comes afterwards? For a year now, the new Part VII of the Official Languages Act has required all federal institutions to adopt positive measures to support the development of the communities. This alone would require a government strategy to continue beyond 2008.
One of the goals that this new strategy will have to focus on is searching for a way to lessen the impact of the government budget cuts announced in September on the vitality of the communities. The cuts to literacy, the elimination of funding for the Canadian Volunteerism Initiative, the closing of several Status of Women Canada regional offices and of course the elimination of the Court Challenges Program show clearly that there will be a real impact on the communities.
Corrective action is required. The renewal of the government strategy should make it possible to capitalize on the momentum that we have at the moment with respect to the development of these communities in key sectors, among other things by ensuring that the action plans that have been developed thus far, whether for immigration, health, literacy, education or other areas, can be implemented.
But this strategy will also have to address other issues. We need to make sure that francophones everywhere in Canada have facilities where they can become educated, play, and obtain information, in short, live in French.
I will be finished in a minute, Mr. Chairman.