I feel that it is important to discuss economic development all across the country. But, in terms of my riding, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, we can talk about Mariette Mulaire, who is the CEO, or the assistant chief of operations, of the World Trade Centre in Saint Boniface. The centre is set up in the former Saint Boniface city hall, on the main street, Provencher Boulevard. It is the only bilingual world trade centre anywhere in the world that I am aware of. It is extremely impressive when you consider that francophones make up 20% of the population in Winnipeg. They are doing extremely important work, impressive economic development. They are organizing a Centrallia conference that will take place in Winnipeg at the end of May. People will be coming from all over the world. It lets companies have speed meetings, so to speak. They conduct business, international trade, and the words “world trade” say it all. It would be good to talk to them.
Also in Saint Boniface, there is the Association of Manitoba's Bilingual Municipalities. It is run by eight bilingual municipalities in Manitoba, including Saint Boniface—Saint Vital. The Economic Development Council for Manitoba Bilingual Municipalities, or CDEM, does nothing but economic development all over Manitoba. It is located in Saint Boniface too. People like that are doing really wonderful things, including a lot of ecological projects. If we go to Saint Boniface, we can certainly meet them all. We could also invite them here.
Immigration is extremely important for my region as well. Of the three universities in Manitoba, the Université de Saint-Boniface is the fully francophone one. It attracts a lot of francophones from around the world, particularly from Africa. In Winnipeg, and in Manitoba in general, we are building on immigration a lot. I see that immigration in francophone minority communities is a major topic for the Minister of Canadian Heritage.
The francophone significant benefit program, which was designed for francophone communities, was not renewed after September 2014. That penalized our francophone minority communities a lot. I do not know why funding for that program was stopped. These are good questions to ask and to study.