Mr. Chair, committee members, good afternoon.
I'd like to thank you for inviting me today.
As you know, the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada, or FCFA, is the national voice of 2.8 million French-speaking Canadians living in minority communities across nine provinces and three territories.
In 2021, the FCFA became co-organizer of the États généraux sur le postsecondaire en contexte francophone minoritaire. This major national consultation exercise, which we conducted jointly with the Association des collèges et universités de la francophonie canadienne, or ACUFC, was necessary, given the precarious, even fragile, situation of our post-secondary institutions. It was important to find coherent, systemic and sustainable solutions to consolidate the post-secondary sector, which is extremely important for the Canadian francophonie. The FCFA became a co-organizer of this national dialogue because colleges and universities are much more than educational institutions. They are part of the francophone community, places where people can live in French, places where young people can learn about francophone leadership, and research hubs that benefit the francophone community. In short, when we consider support for post-secondary education in French, we must do so from a holistic perspective that takes into account all the contributions that colleges and universities make to the vitality of communities.
I could spend hours describing the wealth of testimony we gathered during the national dialogue. I'd like to talk to you about the interruption that too often occurs in the French-language education continuum between high school and post-secondary education. I will tell you about the advantages of small institutions such as the Université de l'Ontario français or the Université Sainte-Anne. I will tell you about the immense value that international students bring not only to their college or university but also to their host communities. Finally, I will talk about the importance that the FCFA places on the completeness of the provision of French-language post-secondary education, which would come from increased collaboration between institutions.
The sheer volume of information collected and the massive size of the final report we published with the ACUFC in the fall of 2022 attest to the importance that the francophonie places on post-secondary education in French and the many roles that colleges and universities play.
I imagine this won't come as a surprise, but funding is but one of the major factors in the survival of these post-secondary institutions. This issue was at the heart of the raison d'être of the national dialogue, which brought to light the fact that it generally costs more to provide post-secondary education in French, whether because of the size of the institutions, the age of the infrastructure, the relative scarcity of French-language educational resources or the difficulty in recruiting human resources. Achieving substantive equality of access to post-secondary education cannot be achieved without acknowledging this fundamental asymmetry. This type of asymmetry illustrates why it was important to state clearly, in the modernized Official Languages Act, the importance of taking into account the specific realities of French and English, and of taking measures to protect and promote French.
If we're to achieve this substantive equality between the two official languages, the government must take into account the realities of our communities and provide the necessary resources so that every francophone wishing to pursue his or her post-secondary education in French can do so without facing obstacles that a student in the majority would not have to overcome. That doesn't mean you have to have a francophone university or college in each community. We could, however, consider providing mobility grants for francophone students—