Thank you.
I hope you heard what I said about the “Boréal guarantee”, our way of guaranteeing our graduates a job.
First, we request an enhancement of the official languages in education program, funding of which has been frozen since 2003. As a result, our college has received exactly the same core funding under the program since 2003, 21 years ago. Considering the cumulative increase in the cost of living, that reduces our capacity to act by 70%, which is enormous.
In 2021, the government promised to increase funding for francophone and bilingual post-secondary institutions to $80 million a year on a permanent basis. We therefore request that our funding be raised to $80 million a year, as was promised in 2021, rather than maintained at $32 million a year.
Second, we request that a new scholarship be introduced for studies in French. We know that the Department of Canadian Heritage offers $3,000 scholarships to students enrolling in a francophone program. However, that scholarship is offered solely to students from anglophone school boards who have completed an immersion program. Consequently, students from francophone school boards are denied access to that scholarship.
Here's where the concept of cumulative assimilation becomes an issue, and this is a problem for us at Collège Boréal. Some 50% of students in francophone school boards decide to study in English rather than take the same program offered at Collège Boréal in French.
Consequently, it's vital that students from francophone school boards be offered scholarships to continue their studies in French.
Third, we request that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada be reformed. According to forecasts, francophone immigrants—we hope—will constitute 8% of total immigration by 2026. However, recent decisions will in fact exclude international students wishing to enrol in study programs critically important for our communities in the fields of early childhood education, technology, and electrical engineering in particular, and training programs for heavy machinery technicians. Those students will no longer be eligible for study permits in Canada.
It is therefore essential for the francophonie that programs to encourage international students be expanded because that would make a very rich contribution to the francophonie across Canada.
That's all I had to tell you for the moment.