Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, gentlemen.
In light of the remarks made, and of the complaints you've probably received—the minister said he had received a certain number of them and we've received some as well—we're engaging in an exercise for the purpose of improving the situation of community organizations and, in this case, official language minority organizations. These are organizations that do an enormous job with limited budgets. Our committee has asked in previous reports and studies that the interim funding be increased to 50%.
We should eventually be able to meet with the minister and to tell him that the organizations are receiving their money on time. It's as simple as that: the organizations should be able to receive the money in the spring in order to start up their activities so that, in the summer, for example, when those activities reach their target publics, young people or whatever, they can operate.
In this committee, we adopted a recommendation in June 2008, which stated: “That Canadian Heritage commit to delivering funding within 30 days following the date of the funding response [...] [otherwise] the department be required to reimburse interest charges incurred as a result of the delay.”
Have you begun to study that recommendation, which comes from the Standing Committee on Official Languages, which our colleague Mr. Blaney chairs and chaired at the time, the purpose of which is precisely to assist the organizations that have to pay interest? Have you considered reimbursing the interest that they have paid out of their own funds because the entire grant was not remitted to them?