Official Languages committee  Thank you very much. I thank the chair and the members for the opportunity to make my opening remarks. My name is George Zegarac. I was appointed the deputy minister of training, colleges and universities on June 29, 2018. Before I provide some context to the issue, I'd like t

Official Languages committee  The status, as I mentioned, is due to the fiscal condition the provincial government is in. A number of projects have been postponed, not just the French university. We postponed the establishment of three campuses in other locations—in Markham, Brampton and Milton—due to the fis

Official Languages committee  The final design was never approved. That's why we're continuing to have discussions and why I continued to meet with the board over that period of time. In the first year we put aside $8 million. In the beginning, it's planning phase: looking at finding facilities, doing resea

Official Languages committee  I'll go through it. It basically had allocations for leasing costs because the intent was to lease a building, not to purchase a building, so it would cover a 10-year lease, for example. The president of the university is probably in the best position to answer because it was the

Official Languages committee  Absolutely.

Official Languages committee  Our government needs to know, as well, and that's why we work with them around those planning figures. The big variable, quite frankly, is how many students would enrol. We won't know what the student enrolment is until we get further down in that planning process because we don'

Official Languages committee  There's definitely an unknown.

Official Languages committee  What I can share with you is that we have 110,000 francophone students and 200,000 students are in immersion. As I mentioned, we have 22,000 students who currently are engaged, as best we know, in the post-secondary activities.

Official Languages committee  There were studies done by the planning committee that were submitted with government and, as I said, even for the ministry, but the study was more about whether there would be enough demand for those services. As I said, the Malatest study indicated that they believed that there

Official Languages committee  I think the government continues—and our minister has stated she will continue—to work with Minister Mulroney to look at the opportunity to support the francophone communities, as well as the francophone students. There were some studies done in terms of the locations, but I beli

Official Languages committee  I can address a couple of the questions and then, with the Chair's permission, go back to the previous question. There was work done on identifying assumptions around the number of professors that might be hired. Also, we knew that the investment would be in the central or southw

Official Languages committee  We've had no meetings between us and Minister Joly's ministry. We've had meetings on other issues. The ministry, through the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada, have had an outstanding issue of funding that has been frozen under the protocol, and funding for second langu

Official Languages committee  I think there might have been discussions in the media, but I have no documentation requesting a meeting, nor do I have any detailed proposal.

Official Languages committee  I have not, and I think there are opportunities for discussion if we get something to respond to. We have not received anything.

Official Languages committee  We haven't analyzed the offer because we have no details. Nothing has been submitted to us. If we get something submitted, I believe my staff and I would be happy to analyze it.