I think the financial aspect is really important to address. The envelope was equally split three ways between Laurentian, McMaster and Ryerson, but only Laurentian was required to offer the program in two languages with that very same amount of money.
We recently made a request about a month ago to MCU that we needed an increase in funding at all three sites, but Laurentian particularly needed some additional funding to be able to offer the second language. Our translation costs are about $20,000 a year and our faculty costs for teaching in all four years of the degree adds up to $200,000, so I was making a request for an extra $220,000 to fund being able to offer the program in two languages.
It also points to the disadvantages Laurentian has had for so many years, with the expectation that it be delivered in two languages for the very same money as delivering it in one language. We could not ever get any traction that this wasn't fair and there should be more consideration given. Every single course had two streams, a French stream and an English stream. There was a doubling up right through it for no extra money, but we did it. As I mentioned, all our salaries are covered by our envelope entirely.
In terms of the only two schools, I think I said it in my remarks, there are just two schools less than an hour apart training midwives for all of Ontario. In our classrooms, our courses, we put a real focus on rural, remote and northern in everything we did. They will be receiving the same urban midwifery education as any other student at McMaster and Ryerson, without that special aspect on the teaching.