I will begin and then my colleagues can follow up.
Almost all the political parties, and even some members from a certain political party which did not feel it was appropriate to vote in favour of Bill S-3, made the decision before the election campaign to make the bill a priority and to vote in support of it.
Given that the bill is a priority for members of Parliament and given that there is the political will in the House, if the President of Treasury Board must make budget cuts, he should do them somewhere else because we have already suffered enough cuts. The numbers show that there has been an erosion of our income from the federal government. There is a firm will within all political parties — or the majority of them — to ensure that Bill S-3 will be voted on by the House. That political will has to be reflected in funding. Otherwise it is nothing but lip service.
Under the previous government, there was funding set aside in order to support the social economy. Discussions took place with the provinces. For various reasons, there was an agreement with Quebec, some things happened with Ontario, but that is all. We began discussions, negotiations and consultations with the previous government, specifically with the parliamentary secretary to the Industry Canada minister, Ms. Bakopanos, who was responsible for this file.
Community radio stations are designated as non-profit cooperative organizations or as non-profit organizations. In that capacity, they contribute to the social economy. They support the development of communities and are social economy businesses. We also wanted to be designated as such so that if there were federal funds set aside for the social economy, then our members would be able to benefit from that. Our approach is to focus on the various programs of the federal government and to ensure that our organizations benefit from them.
In answer to your question, there is no connection between the social economy and official languages.