Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to share my time with Ms. Lapointe.
I want to thank you again for all we've heard.
I have two specific points and questions that I'd like to get to.
On the first one, I'm coming back again to the source of frustration that Mr. Shea previously mentioned. Is part of it that you feel that the Conférence ministérielle sur la francophonie canadienne gives a lot of input into official languages and that Quebec's official language minority is not present at the table, and therefore the views of the Quebec English-speaking community are excluded in that regard, and that there has to be some way for you guys to provide input into that?
My second question relates to funding to Quebec. Quebec uses an opt-out and runs its own program in parallel to the federal system, which transfers powers to Quebec. I know one of the sources of frustration is the fact that the English-speaking community feels that monies that are supposed to be directed toward the English-speaking community do not necessarily arrive at the English-speaking community, or alternatively, that there is no provision that requires the Quebec government to provide parallel English-speaking services that the federal government would have been supposed to provide. I know the previous Conservative government started introducing this issue into its ententes.
Let me give you an example, and then I want to hear especially from Ms. Maccarone on educational funding.
I just found out recently, after complaints from many of my constituents, that the Canada student loans program allows you to go to any university in Canada and be funded with loans, including universities in Quebec. If I'm an Ontario student going to McGill, I can be funded. However, medical students from Quebec cannot be funded to go to any medical school outside of Quebec other than the University of Ottawa, which disproportionately affects English-speaking Quebeckers wanting to go to medical school because we only have one, McGill University. Therefore, people going to the University of Toronto, Dalhousie University, or wherever cannot get any loans, even though it's federal money going to that program.
I'd be very happy to hear feedback from you on those two questions, maybe first on the loan issue and the educational funding and the diversion.