Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Good morning to the committee members. I'm pleased to be here with you today.

I'd like to begin by underscoring the fact that we are meeting today on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.

With me today is Timothée Labelle, the director of intergovernmental policy and programs at the official languages branch of the Department of Canadian Heritage. He's the director responsible for negotiating education agreements with the provinces, as well as funding to provide assistance in minority-language and second-language learning.

Thank you for inviting us to appear further to the appearance of the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages, Mr. Randy Boissonnault, just over a month ago in connection with the study of federal funding for minority-language post-secondary institutions.

You are already perfectly well aware of the fact that ensuring access to quality post-secondary education in the minority language is a crucial issue for our communities. Beyond instruction and teaching as such, post-secondary funding has even broader positive outcomes, including community development and better employment prospects, which of course help to offset the workforce shortage.

But you know as well as I do that many Canadian minority-language post-secondary institutions are experiencing funding problems. This issue was referred to in the media by stakeholders during the 2022 cross-Canada official languages consultations in connection with our action plan, and during the estates general on francophone minority post-secondary education.

That's also why the federal government supports the post-secondary sector in various ways, and will continue to do so. For example, there is the funding of up to $128 million over four years, starting this year, to support minority-language post-secondary education. Under the action plan for official languages, funding for the 2023 to 2028 period was announced at the end of last year. These investments, it shouldn't be forgotten, are in addition to the $30.4 million that had been announced in the 2021 budget for the 2023–2024 period.

Furthermore, the federal government is working very closely with provincial and territorial governments, even though education falls under their jurisdiction, and they play a leading role in creating vital and stimulating places to live in minority-language communities.

Furthermore, the federal government is currently negotiating new bilateral agreements, as well as the protocol for agreements for minority-language education and second-language instruction, with the provincial and territorial governments to support our official language minority communities.

Thank you for having us today. We look forward to answering your questions.