Throughout our history, the federal government has always been there when language crises occurred. It may not always have done so in the right way, although, in recent decades, it has definitely gotten involved. It did so during the language crisis in Manitoba in the late 1980s, and in other language crises across the country. The federal government made its presence felt by funding the Court Challenges Program, other activities, agreements between Canada and the community, agreements between Canada and the official languages community and the Official Languages in Education Program, OLEP.
The federal government still has a role to play. I'm not saying it should grant a specific amount of money. That's not for me to say. However, in this case, the Government of Ontario tells us it's facing a $15 billion deficit and simply can't provide the 0.07% of the funding the Université de l'Ontario français needs to start up. It's asking the Ontario government for $84 million over 10 years, which amounts to 0.07% of the $6.8 billion total required to create the university.
If the federal government could take part in the debate, tell the Ontario government it will be there and ask it to discuss whether the problems are only financial, I think that would demonstrate a beautiful aspect of cooperative federalism that all Canadians would like to see.