Mr. Commissioner, welcome to you and your team. It's a pleasure for me to see you again.
As parliamentary secretary for official languages, I am very proud of our government and its Roadmap for Linguistic Duality, which we're discussing this morning. In addition to its Roadmap, our government offers regular programs. It is spending approximately $350 million for that purpose. We're continuing to meet our official languages commitments and we will definitely uphold those commitments. At the end of the 2008-2009 period, we will have invested approximately $180 million. I want to assure you that the money is already flowing and will continue to do so.
I would like to hear what you have to say about the Roadmap. It's very important for me, coming from Saint-Boniface, and for my fellow citizens to continue developing programs in French to acknowledge linguistic duality. I'm very proud of the Chartier Report, which was prepared in Saint-Boniface, under a provincial Conservative government. That's something of great interest to me.
With regard to our Roadmap, funding will be allocated to two sectors. Funding is being allocated in a balanced manner between essential services, education and health. Other amounts will also be allocated to other sectors, such as culture and economic development.
We've conducted a lot of consultations, as you have. Are we headed in the right direction, particularly with regard to the offer of essential services in the communities? Do you believe we're meeting our communities' priorities?