In the 2017 multilateral early learning and child care framework, the agreements included language clauses. On the other hand, in the 2021 agreement on $10 a day child care, they did not.
We need to try to determine the impact of having omitted these clauses from these agreements on funds for francophone communities and the number of spaces set aside for them. I think that this omission will have long-term repercussions on these communities.
In the past, challenges with respect to agreements on education had to be overcome. We have received complaints about this at the Commissioner's office. People wanted to know whether the funds in the agreements related to the official languages in education program, the OLEP, did in fact go to the minority language schools.
There are many examples of how the omission of language clauses in agreements signed in the past led to some discretion, probably too much, left to the provinces and territories with respect to the use of these funds. What people wanted to know was whether the funds really went to where they were supposed to go.