Official Languages committee  An improvement was made to the mechanism that may lead to an even greater improvement. As it stands, an amount is released in the first quarter of the fiscal year. So normally we receive an amount. The Association franco-yukonnaise is different because it is diversified. Canadian Heritage agreements represent less than 25% of our annual budget.

Official Languages committee  There is only one such school in the Yukon Territory, and it is located in Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon. Fortunately, most of the francophones live in the capital, and most anglophones... Whitehorse and its surrounding area encompasses 85% of the total population of the Yukon.

Official Languages committee  Joseph Ladue was a francophone who had a rather interesting background. He was a Franco-American.

Official Languages committee  Historians have difficulty explaining it. I was not there at the time, but—

Official Languages committee  Essentially, they were assimilated. Why were they assimilated? That is a good question.

Official Languages committee  Honestly, I don't engage in comparisons. My children were born in the Yukon. The francophone population in the Yukon has doubled. More and more people are maintaining their language and culture and flourishing. Our community is so unique that I could not even compare it with the Acadian population in the Maritimes.

Official Languages committee  We did use the program in the past. Presently, we are using it by scraping the bottom of the barrel, and we would use it in the future. It is an essential program for francophone communities. The program has been successful and has helped us. We did not go to court. Why? Because people, advocates, pioneers in the Maritimes, in Ontario and in the west did the work for us.

Official Languages committee  It is an essential program. It is more than important, it is essential.

Official Languages committee  Yes. I said that it was one of the most important partners. The federal government has bipartite agreements, including two major ones. The first is the Yukon Languages Act, with the languages being French, English and the aboriginal languages. This act was adopted in 1988 and has the federal government financing 100% of the cost of developing services in French in the Yukon.

Official Languages committee  Many things are working. It would be even better if the agreements were more flexible, if there was less bureaucracy and a little more understanding. The AFY signed its first agreement in 1983, and sometimes we feel like we are being treated as if we were still on our first agreement.

Official Languages committee  It is approximately 31,800 people. You can round it up to 32,000 people.

Official Languages committee  There were two aspects to your question. As for the first one, we clearly recommend that the federal government renew the agreements on a multi-year basis in the future. We would also like reporting to be done on a multi-year basis. If we were to sign a four-year agreement, we would not have to redo all of the same procedures, administrative work, reports, and so on, every year.

Official Languages committee  Statistics Canada provides four definitions of "francophone". As I said, according to Statistics Canada, my children are not francophone. There are 3,600 people in the Yukon who speak French. Pure francophones who do not have multi-cultural families make up approximately 4% of the population, which is equal to 1,300 people.

Official Languages committee  There are always challenges. There is no guarantee, but with more funding we generally manage to do more. I will give you a very specific example that will illustrate your question very well. The last round of negotiations for the agreements began in 2004. Consultations were held with a view to concluding the agreements for 2005-2006, 2006-2007, 2007 -2008 and 2008-2009.

Official Languages committee  We have prepared a chart. It is hot off the press, because I have just finished it. It illustrates data that are essential for you, because the federal government is our most important partner. We could simply explain this in words, but we have prepared charts that the clerk will distribute to you shortly.