Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
First, I want to thank all the members around the table who agreed to let me return to the committee on a permanent basis. Second, I want to wish my Ontario colleagues a happy Franco‑Ontarian Day, an extremely important day.
My questions are for the representatives of the Fédération nationale des conseils scolaires francophones, but before I ask them, I want to tell Ms. Forest that I really liked her comment that Canada is a model for immigration, but certainly not for francophone immigration. I thank her for raising that, because it's important that we reflect on it as elected officials.
Now, I want to congratulate the federation, but also the school boards it represents, for the great progress we've seen. You mentioned that there were 13,000 students and 73 additional schools. This shows that the needs have truly been there for several years. It's unfortunate that it took until the early nineties for the Supreme Court to confirm the right to manage admissions. This demonstrates that the work is getting done on the ground, but that we still have a long way to go.
I'd like to talk briefly about the official languages in education program, or OLEP. A new official languages action plan has just been released, and you would agree that it provides exceptional investments to support francophone communities outside Quebec. In 2015, the federal government invested a total of $2.2 billion in this area. Today, we're at $4.1 billion, almost double that. It's very important.
Can you very briefly describe OLEP? We know that funding is still not being distributed as fast as it should, despite government policy.