Mr. Speaker, I am not sure if the member was here for my whole speech, but because this concern had been brought up by a previous speaker, I outlined the specifics of the funding. However, I will repeat them.
The funding is already taken care of in the most recent budget with a massive increase of $330 million over the next five years and $117 million after that.
However, after the next five years, a future government could emasculate the program and the effectiveness of the bill by not providing funding. Therefore—and this does not happen often—we put a statutory requirement in the bill, paragraph 5(d), which reads, “establish measures to facilitate the provision of adequate, sustainable and long-term funding for the reclamation, revitalization, maintenance and strengthening of Indigenous languages”.
Therefore, by law, all future governments would have to continue the funding that is necessary to implement this bill.