Official Languages committee  I was director of learning at National Defence for four years. I can talk to you about it at length. When we talk about the development of essential skills for National Defence military and civilians, that's another story; it’s completely different. National Defence invests heavi

Official Languages committee  The budget is not worth a hill of beans.

Official Languages committee  Officially, we have no more staff. Board members from COFA, Pluri-elles, Collège de l'Île and Collège Éducacentre, keep RESDAC alive and hope that it will get a lung transplant to breathe a little more easily. For now, we are keeping the body alive. We do not intend to close it a

Official Languages committee  It's difficult to say because, as I said earlier, we are looking at different solutions. Among others, we are looking at the possible solution of a consortium. We will see where the negotiations we will have with the funding agencies can lead. For now, it's really difficult to an

Official Languages committee  In all fairness, I must say that there are people who are actively listening right now. Personally, it gives me a lot of hope. Then we will see. The government will have to decide what it wants to do. It is not up to us, but we will adjust accordingly. That said, the current dis

Official Languages committee  The survey dates from 2013.

Official Languages committee  We can tell you, for example, that 70% of Greater Sudbury francophones are level 1 and level 2 functionally illiterate. We can tell you that this percentage is 50% in Prescott-Russell. We can tell you what the percentage is in the Ottawa area. We have clear evidence and we can ex

Official Languages committee  Exactly.

Official Languages committee  First of all, we can hardly compare the situation before 2013 to that after 2013, because, as I said, we have changed. We are in the process of adopting a completely different model. Prior to 2013, RESDAC had discussions about best practices. We had research reports on various t

Official Languages committee  When we get funding from Employment and Social Development Canada or the Department of Canadian Heritage, we have mandatory performance measures. Now, when you sign a contract, the funding comes with mandatory measures. For example, in the tourism project I mentioned earlier, 90%

Official Languages committee  We had a reserve, but we have exhausted it. Let me give you an example of what we did. You may have heard of NALD, the National Adult Literacy Database, also known as Copian. It was a database that retrieved all the literature on literacy and essential skills development in Cana

Official Languages committee  Having lived in small francophone communities in Nunavut and elsewhere in Canada, I can tell you that, in all francophone communities outside Quebec, the action is in community organizations. It's clear. Community organizations play an absolutely vital role in the sustainability

Official Languages committee  Absolutely

Official Languages committee  Let me give you an example. In the last international assessment of essential skills, Canada provided the largest cohort of respondents. In fact, 27,000 people were surveyed in Canada, compared to 5,000 in the United States. Data from the international survey showed three overrep

Official Languages committee  They were summer institutes where anglophones and francophones said the same thing about literacy and skills development. We actually have exactly the same problems. The francophones are not the only ones who lost their funding. Our anglophone colleagues did too. In total, 22 fra