Studies have shown how important French-language education at pre-school level is for retaining students in the francophone system. When Ms. Meilleur was Ontario's minister of education, she told me about the experience in the city of Windsor, where they had created francophone early childhood centres and followed the children afterwards. An impressive number of those students continued to study in French, unlike the students who had not had the opportunity to attend a francophone early childhood centre.
The federal government already gives a considerable amount of money for first-language and second-language education to minority institutions, but that is not very well known. I discovered that it was difficult to find out what the provinces were doing with the money that Ottawa was distributing to them. When I was commissioner, one provincial education minister even told me that, when he received a federal cheque, he did not read the covering letter. That was tongue in cheek; his officials certainly read it. However, the provinces have a way of thinking that they decide how to spend the federal money they receive.
The fathers of Confederation decided that Ottawa would be responsible for major matters like the economy, or international activities, and that minor, less important matters, like health and education would be in provincial jurisdiction. For some time, Canadians have not agreed with the fathers of Confederation about the relative importance of those topics. Often, the conflicts between the feds and the provinces are about the major questions of education and health. They have always been thorny issues.
Take university chairs as an example. The federal government has succeeded in playing an extremely important role in university research, even though education is clearly a provincial responsibility.