I'd simply like to cite a brief and very concrete example of the importance of having an authority that supervises the situation and coordinates everything horizontally.
Let's talk, for example, about the definition of a francophone. On October 15, there was a meeting of the Citizenship and Immigration Canada-Francophone Minority Communities Steering Committee. The Official Languages Secretariat did some research at the committee's request to determine what the definition of the term “francophone” was in each of the departments. The government does not operate on the basis of one single definition of what a francophone is. And the differences among the departments are quite significant.