Very briefly, I visited the Maurice Lamontagne Institute. People were very concerned. This was before the decision was announced. When the decision was announced, we received a number of complaints. We are investigating those complaints. When there was the closure....
Let me take a step back. In all of the discussions leading up to the deficit reduction action plan, I repeated over and over to ministers, to deputies, to this committee, that I was concerned there might be unintended consequences of some of the cuts, and the reference that I made was what happened in 1995 with the closure of the collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean. Almost 25 years later, you can still see the negative effects that had in terms of recruitment, in terms of officer training, in terms of the ability of the Canadian armed forces to live up to its obligations under the Official Languages Act. It is a preoccupation that I had, even before the announcement of some of the particular actions. We are investigating those actions, and I will not comment in detail on any of those specifics.
In terms of enabling teachers to engage in exchanges, I think that would be terrific. I've always thought it difficult to understand why it is easier for a teacher in Ontario to have an exchange with a teacher in Australia than it is to have an exchange with a teacher in Quebec.
There is an ongoing program that is very successful, in which a teacher in Australia and a teacher in Ontario, and I suspect other provinces as well, will exchange houses, exchange teaching positions for an academic year. All it really costs is the airfare. I find it incomprehensible why it's not possible to have a similar kind of person-to-person use of the linguistic resources that we have among teachers across this country to support the teaching of a second official language.