Good afternoon.
As my Assistant Deputy Minister said, one of the important jobs we do when it comes to rural areas involves data, the statistics. The goal is to have a better understanding of the needs of OLMCs in rural areas, from an economic point of view, but possibly also in terms of infrastructure.
This year, our priority is to work with Statistics Canada on this data. We are also continuing to work with our partners, including RDEE, two representatives of which appeared before you on Monday. We are working with partners nation-wide so they can tell us what rural communities and their members need.
As my Assistant Deputy Minister said, we have monitoring committees. With the regional development agencies, we can transfer the knowledge we receive from our partners, RDEE for example, and discuss what has to be done for rural areas. On our part, this mainly means strategic planning. Our priority this year relates to statistics and our collaboration with Statistics Canada on the subject of rural areas and OLMCs.