Official Languages committee  Thank you Mr. Chair and respected members of Parliament. You said this was a historic moment, and that is true for me, too. I have not been in this room in nearly 12 years, and I previously appeared here a number of times. There is no doubt that this committee is one of my favou

Official Languages committee  For the time being, I have still not received any formal communication from the government. Like all of you, I have heard the political statement. Our funding is based on the activities underway, which will end around January 15. I am telling you that the situation is urgent. Ou

Official Languages committee  Of course. We don't want to fire our employees, and we don't want to lose our momentum. We know that this decision was made by a new government. In that regard, a bit more time may be needed to remedy the situation. What is important for us is to keep the file alive and to have

Official Languages committee  Well, by tomorrow.

Official Languages committee  The reason why I said January 15—I also said “tomorrow”—is that it is still urgent. We have financial burdens, employees to pay, and we have to cover the university's operating costs. We were still expecting the provincial government to give us what had already been approved for

Official Languages committee  With your permission, I will tell you how the francophone immigration dossier came to be on the radar screen of minority francophone communities. Before I became Commissioner of Official Languages of Canada, I was Principal of Glendon College in Toronto. At the time, I was struc

Official Languages committee  I'm not worried, because the university is already well known. We can count on incredible support in Toronto from English language universities, the anglophone community and francophone ethnocultural communities. To get back to settlement, I would like to remind you that the exec

Official Languages committee  You are quite right.

Official Languages committee  The federal government could fund a lot of things. The francophone hub is one projet and already partners have come forward. We also plan to create a Franco-Ontarian university network with affiliated universities that already exist. The Université de l'Ontario français is in cl

Official Languages committee  Very well.

Official Languages committee  Thank you very much.

Official Languages committee  I am asking the federal government to consider provisional funding. Various approaches could be used. The federal government has several mechanists at its disposal to support the development of communities. Your colleague's suggestion is very intelligent. The francophone hub also

Official Languages committee  Yes, there are some. In some cases, the federal government has created institutions outright, notably the Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities in Moncton. I'm also thinking of the Monfort Hospital. I no longer remember all of the details, but I do remember tha

Official Languages committee  I must say that I am not an expert on all of the federal programs that exist to support economic development or infrastructure projects. You know, you have everything to hand here at the government, such as competent people in all of those fields of activity. Based on my experie

Official Languages committee  Perhaps I did not express myself well with regard to that association. I was talking about the fact that we want to create a network of affiliated, federated universities in Ontario. At this time, we are receiving offers from everywhere. We are receiving some from Quebec univers