Thank you very much, Mr. Blaney.
Good morning gentlemen.
The agreements between Canada and the communities, which became collaboration accords, were born of the upheaval created by the Meech Lake Accord. One will recall that the Conservative government of Mr. Devine in Saskatchewan had decided not to go forward with school governance, even though the federal government and Mr. Mulroney had deposited the money. This had become known in Quebec, and the Conservatives and the federal government had to find a way to show Quebeckers, who were thinking about signing the Constitution, that they were loved anyway even though terrible damage was being perpetrated on francophone communities.
Following that, the first agreement took place. It involved a little over $4 million for Saskatchewan. In fact, that was the first community to benefit from an agreement. Then Mr. Chrétien's government arrived and reduced the agreements by 37%. I know that it was 37% in Saskatchewan. They wanted to cut 52%, but people were up in arms. I was there back then and so were you. The Liberal government, which has always had a tendency to take francophone minority communities for granted, was a sort of double-edged sword for these communities.
You will recall the Schneider report which proposed to make a clean slate of it with all francophone organizations and the agreements in question. This is when the ACFC became the ACF and the provinces had to fall into step. It was the same thing in Ontario with the ACFO. They had to follow and restrain themselves and yet the fundamental goal of each of these organizations was to fight assimilation.
The study by Roger Bernard of the Fédération de la jeunesse canadienne-française was tabled in the 90s. It stipulated that I don't know how many billions of dollars had to be invested simply to achieve the equity that existed in 1951. Indeed, these communities were more lively back then than they are today, as assimilation has caused terrible devastation. The agreements, which were of a completely political nature in the Quebec debate, became a constraint whereas they were supposed to provide assistance.
The Fédération des Acadiens de la Nouvelle-Écosse preferred to do without the agreement because it was less constraining, and they still obtained support. My wife worked over there in the schools of the Acadian communities. She was fired by the federal government and then reinstated by the Department of Canadian Heritage. In all this upheaval, certain things were clarified for the Acadians and showed them that not having an agreement was less onerous. Today, annual agreements force the organizations that don't have the necessary money to pay decent salaries to have a very high number of employees. We have to tell it like it is.
There's also the interdepartmental work. It should not just be the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Standing Committee on Official Languages that has to answer to the Canadian francophone minority, it should be up to all departments and to the entire federal government to do so. But that is not the case. We talk about it here. The Department of Canadian Heritage must do its share. Sometimes, it makes unilingual English presentations in your communities for francophones. We know the story; this is all very recent.
With regard to human resources, I've just discussed that.
And with regard to accountability, some organizations must produce reports, monthly in the case of some projects, when their offices only have four employees for the entire province.
I took a lot of time to paint the picture, but I'd like you to tell us what the possible solutions are. What could be done in the medium term to recreate authentic aid from the federal government for your communities?