One of the pillars we have is advocacy. We meet with the provincial government, because it's so important, and Canadian Parents for French is supported by the provincial government as well. We receive money from our department of education to do our programming.
There is a great amount of support, both for our organization and for the French second language programs, and the programs continue to grow. In the core French program—French as a subject—the numbers in the province were going down from the very beginning, but that's also because there are more programs, other programs, that people are putting their children into. Our French immersion programs are growing. Intensive French, which is a strengthened core program, is growing. Enriched core French is growing. There's the addition of late immersion as well. Also, enrolments in the francophone community are growing as well. There are a lot of other options.
The government is very supportive of the programs, but I think we are in a situation that is occurring across the country. There's such growth, and there's competition between provinces for teachers. There's competition between the francophone school board—the CEF—and French immersion for teachers. There's such growth in the program that it's hard to meet that capacity.
Also, I think a part of it is about the resources that are available to teachers in French immersion. Often they have to translate. They have to find resources in English, translate them, and then present them to their students. The availability of resources in French is limited.
I guess it's also a numbers game. There's a lot in English, so the resources are cheaper. When you go to French resources, it's just more expensive because of the lack of volume. That's what they tell us, anyway.
Also, there's turnover of teachers. Teachers are not staying within the profession. Teachers in general are not staying in the profession. I believe that for the teachers, it's five years. Even English teachers are leaving. I believe that Great Britain is now heading into a shortage of teachers, period.
Here's what I think happened. My understanding of the situation is that the colleges were putting out a lot of teachers and teachers weren't finding a lot of jobs, so enrolment went down and fewer teachers were graduating, and now.... As I said earlier, it takes several years to create a qualified teacher, so now I think we're coming upon a perfect storm of a situation. There's a lack, and French teachers also are leaving the profession.