Official Languages committee  No, I mean the whole program.

Official Languages committee  Yes, that's right.

Official Languages committee  We work mostly with parents, and they represent a wide variety of backgrounds. They come from a variety of countries and professional backgrounds. There really is a great diversity within our organization.

Official Languages committee  The question should be put to the post-secondary institutions. They're the ones who could tell us how much money they need to improve programs, offer more of them and encourage young people to continue their studies in French. As for parents, I'd like to see more investment in this area.

Official Languages committee  I strongly disagree. The more we fund post-secondary programs in French, the more young people will be attracted to them. There's not enough choice, and that doesn't encourage them to continue their studies in French. If they don't want to become nurses or teachers or go to eastern Canada to take the program they're interested in in French to become, say, lawyers or engineers, they're forced to continue their studies in English in western Canada.

Official Languages committee  The funding works the same way. However, with the money for francophone programs, we have to do twice as much, as compared with anglophone programs.

Official Languages committee  That's a good question. I'll let Mr. Racine, executive director of the commission, answer it.

Official Languages committee  I am one of those parents myself. My husband is an anglophone. He doesn't speak a word of French. We've been together for 20 years, so he doesn't exactly pick up French quickly. As a result, the entire task of raising our children in French in a minority setting rests on my shoulders.

Official Languages committee  Our organization has members from every province and territory in Canada. These members represent their local francophone parents. We have a representative from British Columbia, who is the treasurer of the CNPF executive. Everybody shares stories and talks about what's going on where they live, and I can assure you that the same thing is happening across the country.

Official Languages committee  I don't know exactly how the funding is divided up between the federal and provincial governments, but the four francophone school boards in Alberta are funded like the anglophone school boards.

Official Languages committee  Yes, that's right.

Official Languages committee  I'm talking about our French-language school back home. For example, a guidance counsellor comes in once a week. The school board has five high schools, so she spends one day a week in each of the schools. Since the funding comes mainly from the province, the school boards are responsible for identifying needs and making the necessary investments to meet them.

Official Languages committee  In my community, there's a teacher shortage, no matter the language. We don't have enough teachers, period. Of course, we're here to talk about French in minority situations. That being said, in my opinion, to solve the labour shortage problem in the education sector, we need to find a new strategy to encourage young people to choose a career in education.

Official Languages committee  Any effort to retain teachers in our schools would be most welcome. I have found that teachers are resigning from our schools because there's a high level of competition between school boards. If we compare English‑language school boards with French‑language school boards, we can see that it almost always pays more to work for an English‑language school.

Official Languages committee  I have every confidence that it can. The more money that goes into our post-secondary institutions, the better it will be for our young people. I do a lot of work in the community. When I ask francophones if they know that there are 22 Canadian francophone post-secondary institutions outside Quebec, they're surprised.