Historically, Saskatchewan is a separate case. The agreements were established in the context of the constitutional negotiations that had been conducted, and Saskatchewan and Alberta expressed a desire to recognize the official languages. It was not until 1991 or 1992 that we began to look at what were called the Canada-community agreements at the time. The purpose was to have a new way of working with the communities.
Previously, when it was the secretary of state and subsequently Canadian Heritage, since 1993... It was the department that received the applications from the various groups. It conducted analyses and did an arbitrary job. The communities did not participate directly in priority-setting. The communities had to be allowed to get involved in the process of analyzing their priority needs. The Canada-community agreements operated over a two-year cycle. The collaboration agreements were established more recently.