As we see it, many of the activities that take place within post-secondary institutions come under federal jurisdiction. We think a permanent fund of this kind could apply to those activities, one of which is francophone immigration, a shared responsibility. The federal government wants to play a lead role on that. A new permanent fund would be one way to take action on that front. For example, what would enable post-secondary institutions to boost their capacity to bring in, retain and train international clients?
The Government of Canada has set targets for individual bilingualism. Studies clearly show that the rate of retention for French is better among people who attend francophone post-secondary institutions, so let's make sure there are post-secondary institutions that function in French. That's one way to help people maintain and function in French in a professional context once they exit post-secondary institutions.
Those are just two of many examples. There are other federal jurisdictions in which the government wants to take action. For example, it wants to do something about the teacher shortage. Canadian Heritage has programs for that even though it's a provincial responsibility. The federal government defined it as a provincial responsibility, but there are probably other areas where that kind of action could be contemplated.