I'm pleased you're here because this is an important subject. However, there are serious problems on the ground. You mentioned the 40th anniversary of the Official Languages Act, the Roadmap for Canada's Linguistic Duality, the Music Showcases Program and the Olympics. We're here to talk about cash disbursement problems. You read some quotations; I'll do so as well.
The President of the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada, Marie-France Kenny, told us this when she testified before the committee:
In total, 72% of respondents had to use a line of credit or a loan, and, since April, at least 14 of these organizations incurred $500 in interest on those lines of credit. We're talking about at least $7,000 going to banks and not to developing services in French for our communities.
She also said this:
I am also thinking about the long-term impact on human resources. In some cases, employees had to use their personal credit cards to pay for expenditures or give up their salary or their expense account. Furthermore, 37.5% of respondents were unable to renew an employee's contract, while 19% said that they had to let permanent staff go.
So there's a structural problem.
I'm also interested in what you have to say about everything else, but what are you going to change in this regard?