Official Languages Committee on May 6th, 2024

[Pierre Zundel]

Certainly.

We receive core funding from the province to provide our essential services, as well as project funding that allows us to invest in educational or technological innovations. We also receive capital funding. The Collège communautaire du Nouveau-Brunswick is unusual in Canada in that it's a Crown corporation, which means that the physical infrastructure belongs to the province, not the college. The college also has to follow different rules than institutions in other provinces for things like collective bargaining and salary increases.

Having worked in other provinces, I know that the way New Brunswick does things is a little better for the college than the way other provinces do things. For example, unlike in New Brunswick, colleges in other provinces may not be required to increase base salaries in accordance with collective agreements.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Do you think what you've received so far is enough? If not, how could the federal or provincial governments do better?

[Pierre Zundel]

Tuition fees have increased significantly with the arrival of more international students, so the core funding we get from the province is enough to cover our essential services. However, as my colleague Ms. Chouinard and I indicated, we really have to move away from an ad hoc funding model to a long-term funding model.

Under the circumstances, it's no secret that it's harder to find staff to deliver programs and take on projects. It's even harder when the projects last only a year or two. If we were guaranteed long-term funding, we could plan better, and it would be easier to recruit the staff needed to implement the programs.

One of the problems we had—

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Mr. Zundel. That's all the time we have, because I have to move on to the next member. I hear the bells ringing, and I want to make sure that everyone gets a chance to ask questions at least once.

Mr. Beaulieu from the Bloc Québécois and the second vice-chair of this committee, you have the floor.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses.

Ms. Chouinard, when you appeared before the committee in 2021, you stated that post-secondary education in Canadian francophone communities was in crisis. Do you think the situation has improved or deteriorated since then?

[Stéphanie Chouinard]

I think the situation has deteriorated.

In 2021, Laurentian University was going through a crisis and the Ford government had decided not to fund the Université de l'Ontario français. The second matter was finally settled. However, now we have the issue of international students that Mr. Zundel raised. This is a challenge that is widely discussed behind the scenes and has worsened the erosion of programs that we were already seeing at the time.

When we look at the background of these students, who fall off the institution's radar after their admission, we see that the vast majority of them were not enrolled in francophone institutions, and even fewer of them in francophone minority institutions. That's a fact.

Université de Moncton and Université Sainte‑Anne, two institutions I am personally more familiar with, cherish their relationship with international students. They want to keep track of them and guide them toward success. They don't see them as people who are invited to come to Canada only to lose track of them. The decision by the Minister of Immigration not to make exceptions for such institutions, which already have a much harder time recruiting students than anglophone majority institutions, is fundamentally undermining their success.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

It seems to me that it would have been entirely possible and desirable to put in place measures to increase the number of international students at francophone universities, especially outside Quebec.

[Stéphanie Chouinard]

Yes, absolutely. Under part VII of the new Official Languages Act, the minister had every power to create such an exception. This would take into account the fact that a francophone minority institution—even before the minister's decision to cap the number of visas for international students—needed twice as many applicants as an anglophone institution in order to end up with the same number of actual students in its classrooms.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

When we look closely, we see that, at the same time, there is a decline in French in Canada, especially outside Quebec.

There is a kind of sloppiness and indifference on the government's part. Sometimes it has good intentions, but it does not do enough to counter that decline. Shouldn't its rhetoric be more critical of what is happening?

At the same time, the concept of providing a service when the number of people warrants it somewhat forces francophone Acadian communities to inflate their numbers in order to get more services. However, if those figures are inflated, it sends the message that everything is fine and that, at the end of the day, we don't really need to reverse the trend.

[Stéphanie Chouinard]

I have two points on that. The application where numbers warrant comes from section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which deals with primary and secondary education. It has no impact on post-secondary education, first of all. If you look at—

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

I was talking about the conclusion.

[Stéphanie Chouinard]

Okay.

When you consider the number of rights holders in each province, you realize that minority institutions actually have access to a much larger pool than they currently capture. The numbers already warrant it, so that's not where the challenge lies.

The current challenge for our institutions is to be able to compete with majority institutions, particularly in situations where, as is the case in Ontario, tuition fees have been reduced and frozen since 2019. As a result, some institutions are being choked.

To stay afloat, majority institutions turned to international students. However, the competition is unfair, especially since the Department of Citizenship and Immigration is overwhelmingly rejecting francophone students from Africa. This is not the first time you've heard this. I'm repeating what you already know. As a result, francophone minority institutions do not currently have access to the same lifeline as majority institutions.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

You talked about the Laurentian University debacle, which revealed the weakness of bilingual institutions and the fact that the government is not really acting in the interest of minority language communities.

You also mentioned Sudbury, but in terms of universities “by and for” francophones outside Quebec, things don't seem to be heading in the right direction either. With respect to the University of Ottawa, we hear that an agreement has been reached. What are your thoughts?

[Stéphanie Chouinard]

If we want to talk about “by and for”, Laurentian University does not meet that definition since it was a bilingual institution.

When it decided to reduce its number of programs because of a real financial problem, it did not try to maintain a balance by saving francophone programs. These programs had fewer staff and students, since it is a minority language community, but they were fundamental to the survival of the community.

Laurentian University decided to eliminate programs indiscriminately, with the result that a hundred francophone professors were laid off and some 30 francophone programs were eliminated—two thirds of the university's programs, if I'm not mistaken.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Ms. Chouinard.

Ms. Ashton from the NDP, you have the floor for six minutes, which should take us to about five minutes before the vote is held in the House of Commons.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome to our witnesses.

Mr. Zundel, I would like to begin by saying that you are the only representative of a college to appear as part of our study on post-secondary funding. Therefore, your perspective is very important.

In previous committee meetings, representatives of academic institutions have emphasized the fact that stable and sufficient funding is essential to their work. What are the implications for francophone colleges of not having access to stable funding?

[Pierre Zundel]

Stable funding is obviously important for any post-secondary institution. Every one of these institutions undertakes long-term activities that require investments in highly specialized personnel, and expensive and complicated infrastructure. Having secure and adequate core funding is therefore essential. That is clear to everyone.

Universities, which have a greater number of permanent employees, rely more on secure core funding, but the fact remains that this funding is important for everyone.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

Okay, thank you.

I want to come back to the importance of welcoming international students and the role of the federal government. Given that 28% of your college's students are from overseas, what impact will the new IRCC rules on international students have on your college and the communities in your region?

[Pierre Zundel]

It's important to understand that, because of our demographics, 40% of New Brunswick's job vacancies in the next 10 years will have to be filled by immigrants. The foreign student program is the best way to attract those immigrants. Any change to limit the number of international students will have a direct impact on our communities. Those are the graduates who will one day be working in our emergency rooms and on our construction sites. They are vital, so it's hard to imagine how we're going to meet the new immigration targets and our labour market needs without the ability to increase the number of foreign students we bring in.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

The committee talks a lot about the education labour shortage, including in early childhood education. Francophone and bilingual communities here in western Canada are very familiar with that reality. We know that one of the programs your college offers is early childhood education, and that's very important.

Can you talk a bit about how important the program is? Also, given the labour shortage, how important is it for the federal government to support early childhood education programs and education training overall?

[Pierre Zundel]

First of all, early childhood is the stage of life when language skills develop most. In the education cycle, the earlier the child starts, the greater their ability to learn French.

Second of all, federal funding has supported the programs we offer in two ways. On one hand, we received direct support for early childhood education programs, and on the other, we received investments that helped us move towards skills training, as I said earlier. Thanks to those types of programs, we're able to build the skills of early childhood educators more quickly.

Without that federal support, it would have been a struggle to develop our new programming and offer so many programs.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

With your early childhood and other training programs being so important, I imagine it reinforces the need for stable, long-term funding.

[Pierre Zundel]

Absolutely, and the funding needs to be predictable as well. To hire the people to teach those programs, we have to be able to convince them to come and work for us, and that means assuring them that they will have a job for years to come. That is the way to hire the people we need and keep them.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

Great.

Is my time up, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

You have 20 seconds left.