The Government of Ontario created a network of colleges in 1967. Certain colleges, including Algonquin College, in Ottawa, and St. Lawrence College, in Cornwall, offer French-language programs. As early as the 1970s, the possibility of creating a 23rd – French-language – college in Ontario was put forth. In 1987, a working group was given the mandate, by the Government of Ontario, of considering the appropriateness of designating certain colleges as organisations offering services in French under Bill 8, the Ontario law on French-language services. The group concluded that the idea of creating a French college should be given priority over the college designation plan. The Minister of Colleges and Universities and Minister Responsible for Francophone Affairs agreed. In August 1988, the Ontario Cabinet approved, in principle, the creation of a French-language college with an exclusive mandate to deliver services in French. In 1989, the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities and the Department of the Secretary of State of Canada arrived at a cost-sharing agreement relating to the establishment of such a college in Eastern Ontario, a college bearing the official name « Collège d’arts appliqués et de technologie La Cité ».