Thank you, my honourable colleague.
Let me begin by thanking my counterpart Mr. Hussen for how well he spoke French. You're right about the importance of bilingualism on the Hill, which we see in action with Mr. Hussen, who is currently taking intensive training.
I'm very glad you all received the report. I would remind you that, during the consultations carried out by the previous government, the report wasn't made available until just before the action plan's release. Our government wants to do things differently, so it has sent the report to you months in advance to give you time to review it carefully before we submit our action plan.
As far as the new official languages vision is concerned, what most definitely happened in recent years was that the responsibility for official languages was, slowly but surely, restricted to the Department of Canadian Heritage. Our government wanted to show leadership and reaffirm the importance of official languages across the entire government.
We've done it in numerous ways. Consider the following examples: in defence, by restoring full university status to the Royal Military College Saint-Jean; in immigration, to which my colleague will be able to speak further; in infrastructure, by investing $80 million in community infrastructure over 10 years; in justice, by reinstating the court challenges program and nominating a bilingual judge to the Supreme Court; in early childhood development, by collaborating on a memorandum of understanding with my fellow minister, Jean-Yves Duclos; in the official languages regulatory review, by working with Minister Scott Brison, President of the Treasury Board; and in public safety, by making sure the RCMP has bilingual officers on Parliament Hill. I could go on.
We did all that in 18 months, which is why I am so proud of everything we've been able to accomplish during that time. Naturally, when the plan is released, we will continue to show leadership in a very meaningful way.
I hope to continue working with you, my fellow members on the Standing Committee on Official Languages, because the terrific work you do is clear every time I work on the official languages portfolio.
I will now hand things over to my colleague Mr. Hussen.