One of the new priorities of the provincial government in Quebec is, of course, investment in early childhood education, so one of the changes that we've recently seen in our schools across the province is school starting at four years old. We are bringing our children into our school system earlier. That is wonderful news for us because it gives us an opportunity to work on our graduation rates, and we understand that early intervention is very important, but this could certainly be translated to our day care systems, whether it's a day care system that is merged into our schools....
From a minority community perspective, it does give us an opportunity to assist in the growth of our communities, so funding that would help us to support that by attaching them to our schools would be welcome.
As we mentioned, it's not only Bill 101 that has created the minority situation that we're facing now and why we continue to decline. We often have to refuse many of our francophone counterparts who would like to have access to our schools, but regrettably can't, because of the law. This gives us an opportunity to capitalize on the families who don't understand that we are actually offering a premier education.
The nine English school boards in the province of Quebec are all in the top 10 in the province, out of the 72 school boards. If we can get them in earlier by working in partnership with our day cares through support from our minority communities, it would be great for the regions, especially the rural regions, because it gives them access as well to services in mostly disadvantaged areas. This would be of great assistance to those families and give them access to early education, which we know has a significant impact on our graduation rates.