We have these investments and we want to make sure the programs are established.
I have to say that this is an example where the government can set up programs and the government can make investments, but I think what's most important--and this is where the role of the politicians comes in--is to tell the story about the importance of Canada's official languages and to encourage people in this country to enrol their kids in education.
I've told this story a few times, and I have to bite my lip sometimes when I tell it, but I have to say that my dad agreed with Pierre Trudeau on a couple of things. One of them was--and I still hold this view--that the government doesn't have any business getting involved in the personal lives of people, to the extent most possible. That's number one. Number two was the idea that Canadians becoming bilingual was good for the country and good for the individual, so he enrolled us.
Having leadership and encouraging people to learn both of Canada's official languages is good for Canada. I want to do this as best I can, and you can do that, and we can all do that in our own way. When I was studying political science as an undergraduate and graduate student at the University of Northern British Columbia, a new university established in 1992, you could learn German and Spanish, but there were no French courses.
As a person studying political science in British Columbia at a university that is well thought of and gets good scores in the Maclean's surveys and so on, as a person studying political science but not being able to study it and listen to the speeches of René Lévesque, of Bouchard, and of Chrétien in 1995 in their own language, it meant not being able to listen to those debates, not being able to understand the passion, and not being able to understand the people in French as they were discussing the future of this country, the future of Quebec, the history of this country, and what that meant to people in regard to their sense of identity. In not being able to do that, you lose a sense of what this debate has always been about in this country.
So we want to make those kinds of investments, but we want to encourage families and kids to get involved and to learn both official languages.
On the provincial side, to go to your next question, of course we have agreements on K-to-12 education. The reality in New Brunswick is that New Brunswick has their own education formula. They announced it in September of last year, I think, so they have their own reality. Obviously the Province of Quebec has its own reality. Different provinces have their own focuses. So when we do these agreements, we obviously do them with an open mind, respecting provincial jurisdiction and respecting the fact that provinces are tackling their own budgetary and demographic concerns. But we want to sign agreements that have this view to the future of having as many kids as possible speaking both of Canada's official languages.