Obviously, this is important. If we look at the previous envelope, we can see that we managed to obtain a small increase. For example, 15 years ago, we were at 56¢ on the dollar and we are now at 67¢ on the dollar. Given the inflation of recent years and the increase in the number of employees, we're probably already back to 56¢ on the dollar. When the agreement expires, we will be getting even less. Our funding does indeed need to be massively increased.
You mentioned the census. This is important for us, because funding for francophone schools is constantly declining.
It's a vicious cycle. Because we don't have a lot of students, we don't have a lot of funding, we don't have a lot of infrastructure. However, because we don't have that, we don't have the rest. It is therefore important to be proactive in the area of francophone education. Estimating the number of francophones through an enumeration process is extremely important.
In fact, the act says “estimated,” but for a statistician, it's still an estimate. Therefore, it is important to make an estimate using an enumeration process. This allows us to monitor population changes and to call for more schools, more funding and more investment to ensure that we identify all rights holders across the country and meet their needs.
I was saying earlier that there are places that don't have schools. If we don't know that there isn't a school in a certain place and if we don't know that there are enough francophones for there to be one, the enumeration can tell us that. That's why this enumeration is so important.