We agree that a large portion is allocated to Quebec, because we have the good fortune, under the act, to have two education networks: one anglophone and one francophone.
But there is about $26 million a year that is designated to community initiatives that are absolutely essential. As the president mentioned, the CLCs are one of them. One of our main reasons for being here, first of all, is to give you a “yes” in capital letters to the absolute urgency for the road map to be renewed. If it is not, it is our view that the meaning of sections 41 to 43 of the Official Languages Act is evacuated. Federal oversight is absolutely essential, and the Official Languages Act and subsequent decisions say there has to be an active offer and protection of services, so the road map has to be renewed.
We're getting our share of the money, with some real accountability difficulties at times, but under the current regime—and we want to make sure that regime remains—there are at least two pillars that are essential. One is that for the money that is not simply put into the general coffers for the delivery of a two-language education system, there is a defined, clear, and transparent consultation process during which we get to recommend the kinds of services that are not equitably offered under the Quebec regime on its own. Those include community learning centres. They include all kinds of support and training for teachers and students. They include adaptations to programs that fall through the cracks for us.
We can give you an example just very quickly. The major expenditure we've seen over the last number of years is on lowering class sizes in Quebec. Because of the dispersed nature of our schools and the small populations, eight of our nine school boards have not benefited by getting a single additional class, despite an expenditure of over $400 million.
We fill those gaps by virtue of the money we receive through the Canada-Québec Entente, so it is absolutely essential to us.