My thanks to the members of the committee, and thank you, Mr. Chair. In order to maximize the time for questions, I propose to provide a brief overview of the presentation that has been circulated to you. Without further introduction, I will begin.
The first page of our presentation provides you with a reminder of the legal framework that governs minority language and second language education. Section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is also mentioned. This section defines the right of Canadians to have their children educated in their first official language.
We also mention that a provision of the Official Languages Act requires the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages to take the measures deemed necessary to assist the provinces to offer English- and French-speaking Canadians in minority situations an education in their own language and to provide young Canadians with an opportunity to learn their second official language. Those, therefore, are the bases on which the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages may become involved in education matters, in collaboration with the provinces.
The next page tries to put things into context and to provide a little clarification on the existing mechanism that produces the agreements that we have with the provinces and territories on education matters.
The first thing to mention is that this collaboration has been in place for about 40 years, and it proceeds in two steps. The first step is to have an overall multilateral agreement with all the provinces and territories and the federal government to establish the baselines, to establish the allocation of resources, and to establish the key parameters collectively.
After that, as a second step, we have bilateral agreements that we negotiate with each province in turn. For these we have discussions with the respective provinces or territories to try to capture their objectives in terms of their education system and what they want to focus on in the coming term—