Thank you very much.
This is a population that has increased 50% in the past 20 years. It's remarkable.
We're concerned about the entire spectrum. Early childhood services feed the nucleus of our communities, the schools. The problem in Alberta is that the government has a very strict stance on jurisdictions. It resists agreements requiring economic sharing and contributions. It did so recently for the day care centres, but it was tough.
What I should say is that we lack French-language services. If francophones can't access child care services, particularly in the remote regions, there will be fewer of them in our schools. The federal government can contribute to funding for those services through the official languages in education program, or OLEP. That would be a very good mechanism for doing more in this area. The same is true of child care services. The province has entered into an agreement that applies to all other sectors, such as health and mental health, and that makes it possible to do business directly with the organizations.
In short, as regards Alberta, if you decide to include language clauses and the government doesn't accept them, that will make the situation worse since it already refuses to accept the conditional funding offered to it. You have to bear in mind that you have to do business directly with community actors like us, ACFA. We need these services to continue serving our community and to combat assimilation.