Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank you, at the outset, for listening to us. We officially invited you in April, when I was with Mr. Barry and another colleague from the board. Thank you for accepting our invitation. It feels good to know that our elected representatives sometimes listen to us. It's reassuring. Thank you very much.
First, let's look at the action plan and the funding you have begun to allocate.
As you can see, an initial amount is allocated to Canadian Heritage, which is quite promising for our community. I'm talking here about a 20% funding increase. That has already helped to improve all our programming. It's a good start. As my colleague Mr. Simard said earlier, it's a start, because I have to say we have a lot of catching up to do.
Given the situation and the IBC, we still have a long way to go even with that 20% increase. We are still underfunded. I can see it in my organization. We still provide services that are not adequately funded. Sometimes we provide services that are not of the desired quality. We are unable to provide services of quality equal to that of the services provided by the majority. We still offer lower-quality services to the minority. How can we continue to attract our families and clients in these circumstances? We aren't playing by the same rules. We can't operate this way.
If the government doesn't continue increasing funding for our services, we'll still be here talking about it in 10 years. We'll still be in the same situation, by which I mean that parents will assisting the community's efforts because they believe in the cause, not because we are providing something of quality. It would be unfortunate for matters to come to that.
At least I can congratulate the Department of Canadian Heritage for its receptive attitude toward the idea of services provided by and for the main persons concerned. That is a sign of respect for our community. We've been having regular discussions with the department's representatives for two weeks now and have witnessed this openness and respect. They want to try to understand how they can grant funding based on our situation on the ground. I tip my hat to the Department of Canadian Heritage for that. It's showing real openness.
However, we can also see that perhaps it should stop scattering money left and right to please everyone. One day or another, it will have to determine the lower threshold at which organizations should be funded.
Let's look at the numbers. An organization must have management. In many cases, it hires an assistant. There are normal operating costs. You may calculate minimum funding of $60,000 or $70,000, whereas the government instead provides $20,000 or $30,000 in funding to organizations, hoping they can prepare high-quality programming. That's not logical. Perhaps it should establish a lower threshold that organizations are guaranteed so they can offer something of quality.
That's a finding that all managements have made, and we'll have to take a look at it. This is directed at the Department of Canadian Heritage, but all other organizations as well.
We were with IRCC once again this week. The situation was the same. We aren't underemployed. We also have to have decent salaries. If our organizations want to retain labour, they must offer high-quality services and good salaries. Our organizations have very high turnover rates as a result of their underfunding. We can't go on this way.
In addition, the action plan allocates $20 million to support childcare services. That's another very promising amount. The federal government has allocated a new amount so we can open new childcare spaces quickly, together with the provincial government. This is a tripartite effort that we're making with RDÉE Canada, the Association des collèges et universités de la francophonie canadienne and the CNPF.
Now I'll ask our association's administrator to say more about that.