Hon. Paula Simons: Senator Cotter, my question is a simple one. As an Alberta senator newly alerted to this situation, what would Albertans need to do to be party to this initiative? Would there need to be a bill or a motion passed in the Alberta legislature or is the bill before us today one that could be amended?

Hon. Paula Simons: Thank you very much, Senator Moncion. I’m glad you mentioned Campus Saint-Jean, which is dear to my heart.

[English]

But I want to understand exactly how this bill would help an institution like Campus Saint-Jean which is part of a larger university. Federal funding for Campus Saint-Jean; funding levels were frozen in 2002-03. Since that time, the francophone population of Edmonton and Alberta has skyrocketed. I believe at the time the funding was frozen we had something like 3,500 or 4,000 students enrolled in francophone schools in Alberta. Now it is closer to 10,000.

So I’m struggling to understand precisely how this bill would help an institution like Campus Saint-Jean, which is part of a larger anglophone university. It is never going to go bankrupt. It is never going to go out of business. Is there something in the legislation, a subtlety I’m missing, that would compel the federal government to increase funding for francophone universities outside of Quebec?

[Translation]

Senator Simons: Believe me, I am very committed to trying to save Campus Saint-Jean, which I think is a tremendous asset to all of Western Canada and not just francophone Albertans but for all Albertans.

I just don’t know that I see it as the federal government’s role to tell the province how to fund the university when that is a provincial jurisdiction, while at the same time, the federal government capped its funding 20 years ago to a university that has expanded. I can’t help but think the simpler solution here is to get the federal government to fund the university appropriately as it did in the past.

[Translation]