Official Languages committee  These two things are a bit different. The $228 million is attached to the bilateral agreements. Under those agreements, every province and territory receives financial support from the federal government that must be matched in order to meet certain objectives.

Official Languages committee  Absolutely. I don't want to take a position on that, but I can tell you that Quebec is currently an active partner in the renegotiation process. The results frameworks, the performance areas are developed in full agreement with the government of Quebec. I think that will essentially enable the government of Quebec to achieve its own strategic education objectives at the elementary, second and postsecondary levels.

Official Languages committee  You're welcome.

Official Languages committee  The difference between what Quebec invests in the second language and what the other provinces invest in the same field is not enormous.

Official Languages committee  I would like to recall, for those who can hear us, that administration of the MOU is what CMEC does. It is on behalf of all the provinces and territories that CMEC signs the MOU with the federal government. Once again, we're talking about a relatively small amount. Out of the $100 billion invested, this is an amount of $258 million a year.

Official Languages committee  I can tell you that, in the case of the last MOU, federal investments, from Canadian Heritage, corresponded to approximately 60% in the minority language area and 40% in the second language area across the country. I'm telling you this very clearly: the federal government is saying the same thing as you right now.

Official Languages committee  We appreciate that the federal government, in the very difficult economic circumstances we are experiencing, made a commitment in June of last year to maintain its funding at the same levels as in 2007 and 2008. That's a very significant commitment in the current context.

Official Languages committee  The purpose of the Destination Clic program is precisely to enable minority francophones to further develop their language skills.

Official Languages committee  You're welcome.

Official Languages committee  I'm going to draw a distinction with regard to what I said earlier. The federal government has committed to maintaining its funding under the Roadmap. As it concerns us, we're talking about $258 million a year over the next four years.

Official Languages committee  That's correct. That's what I meant, essentially. When we talk about money, we're talking about a major commitment, but the total amounts allocated to instruction and education in Canada are not gigantic. To a certain point, it's commensurate with the federal government's jurisdiction in education.

Official Languages committee  Cross-Canada discussions are underway. They are focusing on the official languages, but also on academic fields, to establish equivalencies and correspondences between a grade 6 math program in British Columbia and the equivalent in Nova Scotia.

Official Languages committee  CMEC is continuing its initiatives by bringing to the table the various stakeholders responsible for curriculum and test development across the country. How will we gradually go about raising the bar? Of course, pilot projects are being conducted to see how we could, for example, analyze the implementation of the European common framework, which essentially establishes a language learning standard for the entire country.

Official Languages committee  You're entirely right. That's indeed an issue. You've described the drop in the number of core French instruction and French immersion programs. We, on the other hand, have observed a significant and promising increase across Canada in the number of graduates who have taken not only a core French program, that is to say a second-language introductory program, but also an immersion program.

Official Languages committee  The Council of Ministers and the Secretariat are two separate things. I am going to talk about the Secretariat because the administration of the Protocol is really handled by it. There is a team that essentially administers the agreements, the national scholarship program and the language assistant program.