I'm also referring to funding earmarked for the provinces for post-secondary education, those that are identified in that way.
The Department of Canadian Heritage needs to target community development more directly, which goes back to what Mr. Surette mentioned. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, or IRCC, and Employment and Social Development Canada, or ESDC, for example, could also be involved.
We really need to make sure we can see the big picture in terms of education, research, innovation and infrastructure. Education doesn't exist in a vacuum. If we cast a broader net, then we're also talking about the Tri-Council research funding. There's innovation, and there's also infrastructure.
The second recommendation is as follows:
That the federal government fund the establishment of a mechanism to measure progress towards substantive equality of post-secondary education in francophone minority communities.
This builds on the first recommendation that deals with investments. We need to develop a new mechanism to measure real progress. Such a mechanism would allow us to collect data on the different dimensions of post-secondary education and determine if the federal government's investments are having the desired effects.
The way things are happening now is that funds are handed out, but their results are neither measured nor assessed. Are these funds having the desired effects?
The approach to developing this mechanism would recognize the particular social, cultural, scientific and economic contexts in which post-secondary institutions operate in francophone minority settings. As you know, Pointe-de-l'Église and Toronto have slightly different contexts.
The third recommendation is as follows:
That the federal government support the creation of a collaborative structure involving representatives from the Department of Canadian Heritage, provincial and territorial governments responsible for post-secondary education, post-secondary institutions in francophone minority communities and other sector stakeholders.
When this recommendation was made, IRCC hadn't yet announced any measures. Other stakeholders involved in specific fields could also participate in this collaborative structure in more specific cases.
So it's fairly clear that we need—