Mr. Chair, committee members and partners, on behalf of the board of directors of RDÉE Canada, the Réseau de développement économique et d'employabilité, my co-manager and member of the board, the Honourable Guy Le Blanc, and myself, I want to thank you for allowing us to appear before you today to tell you about the initiatives and remarkable results of RDÉE Canada and its network, which have been made possible through various federal government contributions.
Following our presentation, the committee will understand that the alliance between RDÉE Canada and its partners has made it possible to meet the Government of Canada's commitment under the Roadmap for Canada's Linguistic Duality by ensuring the continued existence of our francophone and Acadian communities, which has had the effect of promoting Canada's economic development.
Allow me to introduce our network. RDÉE Canada, the national office, works together with provincial and territorial agencies, the 12 RDÉEs across Canada, to support the economic vitality and development of the francophone minority and Acadian communities. The RDÉEs have more than 130 employees, including 100 development officers. As they are non-profit organizations, all those agencies are independent. Some are particularly active in employability development, while others also work in entrepreneurship. Based on the funding the RDÉEs receive, our network's mandate is to reinforce the communities' ability to establish and support a viable and sustainable local economy.
Consequently, community economic development enhances the communities' ability to react and adjust to economic changes. It also fosters the integration of both economic and social objectives in the strategic framework which we established at the outset more than 13 years ago now. That community economic development strategy serves as a backdrop to the implementation of our planning and is based on two themes: economic capacity development and human capacity development.
RDÉE Canada receives most of its funding through the Enabling Fund for Official Language Minority Communities, a financial contribution granted through Human Resources and Skills Development Canada. That fund is one of the components of the strategy implemented by the Government of Canada to reinforce linguistic duality in Canadian society. For Canadians, that represents ongoing support for economic and labour market development in the minority communities. This is done through partnerships, development plans and capacity-building. On average, the Enabling Fund constitutes 54% of our network's total funding, which represents approximately $9 million a year. Other funding comes from WD, ACOA and other federal sources, as well as the RDÉEs themselves and certain provincial and territorial agencies.
Unfortunately, funding must be renewed from one year to the next. This means we have no guaranteed stability. The funding paid by our main funding agency unfortunately does not enable all our provincial and territorial RDÉEs to provide services and support to start-ups or even existing businesses for economic capacity development or to industries or economic sectors. Its objective is to build community capacity in the human resources development sector, in other words employability, which covers only part of the sectors we have to support.
This year at RDÉE Canada, we completed the 13th year of implementation of the MOU between the Government of Canada, represented by a number of ministers, and RDÉE Canada, which represents the francophone and Acadian communities. As you will therefore understand, our national committee is an instrument designed to bring the minority francophone communities and the Government of Canada closer together. Through that committee, RDÉE Canada aims to advise the ministers and departments on government policies, programs and services so that they more adequately meet our communities' economic development and employability needs. The committee should help us diversify our funding sources.
With time and effort, this national committee has enabled us to partly change the culture, strengthen the economic foundations of the francophone and Acadian communities, which is essential to their future, and achieve significant progress in all regions of the country.
It is important to note the role of RDÉE Canada. We are the leader in the economic development of minority francophone and Acadian communities. We offer our provincial and territorial RDÉEs a significant range of services, support and intervention to support their actions.
RDÉE Canada's strategic activities are: joint action, communications, research and analysis, professional excellence, funding and strategic alliance.
In recent years, we have been able to rely on other partners, such as Citizenship and Immigration Canada, which has supported us in the development of an economic immigration strategy.
Our network has therefore achieved considerable success in the francophone and Acadian communities across Canada. Our work is producing concrete and tangible economic development results for the country as a whole. It is also enabling us to show not only that it is possible to do business in French across the country, but also that our communities are economically dynamic.
Our network is working with the Government of Canada for the development and vitality of our francophone communities in Canada and influencing the direction of Canada's economy. You can be assured that we are making economic development a priority in our communities. We hope the recommendations of the Standing Committee on Official Languages will help recognize our network as a leader in community economic development.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attention.
Mr. Le Blanc and I are prepared to answer your questions.