Thank you very much for your question.
Two years ago, when we started planning the university, we had to bear in mind that the funding framework would be different. The university funding framework established in Ontario is based on differentiation, not on duplication of supply. We had that in mind at the outset.
Some people in the francophone community definitely would've liked to have a university equivalent to McGill University operating in French in Toronto. However, McGill University has an annual operating budget of more than $500 million. We couldn't work on that basis. We had to do it progressively.
We're striving for excellence. We're in an academic ecosystem characterized by excellence, where existing universities are world class in that regard. If our francophone university proved to be of poor quality, we wouldn't have any students. We had to join that network of excellence.
We therefore designed a small university that would grow with time. Bill 177 enables us to design programs in all fields, and we can do that, but we have to start somewhere. We thought of bachelor's degree programs that are offered at other universities. Having regard to the existing market, we targeted a specific niche we could build on.
The planning council consulted 300 persons throughout the province and across the country for 6 months and continues to do so. A student council is working with us, and some 30 volunteers signed up on our website to help us.
To develop our programs, we recruited some 100 consultants, who are among the best university professors in their fields in Canada.