Official Languages Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2006

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Is there a problem?

[Daniel Jean]

That is not a question that I can answer.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

I think that you can. You just said that Canadians who attend universities abroad could act as good ambassadors and encourage immigrants to study in our universities. Abolishing this program is therefore a poor decision.

[Daniel Jean]

You are referring to a measure that was adopted last week. You are making assumptions about the impact of this measure could be. There will still be students who will study abroad. As I said, having Canadian students study abroad and talk to people about immigrating or coming here to study is a good thing, but if you consider all of our recruiting measures, this is but a secondary one. It is not really important.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Nevertheless, this is one of the measures that we now have. If this program is abolished, there would be fewer measures.

[Daniel Jean]

We would have to look at what impact that will have on the number of students who continue studying abroad. Usually students who study abroad try to acquire experience or study in a field where being abroad is advantageous.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

You are contradicting yourself. My question is clear. Are Canadian students who study abroad good ambassadors? Could they encourage other people to come to our country, yes or no? Your answer was yes. If we were to abolish the program, we would lose some of the immigrants who come to the regions.

[Marc Arnal]

Mr. Godin, I believe that I can provide you with the view of the University of Alberta, as I am one of the deans there. Our university feels that it is important for our students to acquire international experience. This decision may affect the socio-economic profile of students able to participate in such exchanges.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Consequently, the people from lower-income groups who had an opportunity to get government money to assist them in studying abroad will no longer have this possibility. The children of wealthy families will not have this problem, since they can use their dad's credit card. However, the ordinary student will no longer be able to rely on the program.

[Marc Arnal]

Currently, my eldest son is studying in Japan, and dad's credit card is paying for it. I think that it is difficult to assess the impact of this decision, but your assumption and mine are plausible.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

My next question deals with immigration. What are you doing? I ask this question at nearly every meeting. We do not have much trouble attracting immigrants to the Acadian Peninsula. The problem is that our people immigrate and go to Moncton. That is our biggest problem. In the Moncton region, there are 20 francophones and 46 individuals who speak both languages. We do not have figures for the anglophones. As for the francophones, let us look at what is happening in the Atlantic provinces.

In Halifax, for instance, we are told that there are 18 francophones and 138 individuals speaking both languages. That is not very much for the Atlantic provinces. The francophones do not count for very much. What has happened on the francophone side?

With all due respect, I am proud of that. The figures for Quebec are not even included. I think that we need to have these figures so that we can understand the situation in Quebec. We have nothing about Quebec.

When we visit our embassies abroad, we try to found out what you are doing to encourage francophones to go to Canada. I do not see any mechanisms that have been set up. In some countries, in some of our embassies, there is not even any information available in French. What does the Department of Immigration have to say about that? We have been talking about this matter for a very long time. I personally have been asking this question of Immigration Canada for the past five or six years as part of our committee work.

I understand the people from Quebec. If they go to France, to Africa or certain key areas, they are not going to want to encourage immigrants to settle in Moncton. They will try to convince them to settle in Montreal or Quebec City. Do we have anything to counteract that? One would think that you are satisfied with having Quebec look after the francophones and having the anglophones go to the rest of Canada, to Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg and elsewhere. That is borne out by the statistics.

[Daniel Jean]

First, you have to accept the fact that what we are trying to do is hard. That can be seen from your question. Mr. Arnal described the situation earlier. It is clearly not just a matter of convincing immigrants that Moncton or Saint-Boniface is going to be their destination; it's a matter of convincing them to come and stay there. So it is not just a matter of recruitment; there is also an integration and retention effort involved. That is why this strategic plan covers all of these issues.

In terms of immigration, take the very good example of Manitoba. For years, that province had been dealing with demographic challenges. So why do you think that Manitoba is now managing not only to recruits immigrants, together with the federal government, but also to keep them? It is because they set up reception structures, targeted the type of immigrants who would want to stay in Manitoba and lastly, designed recruiting tools with us and developed some of their own. That is what we have to do. The job has to be done in several stages.

Research shows that if a person has lived temporarily in Canada, as a student or temporary worker, the chances of that person settling and staying in the community where he or she lived temporarily is much higher than for a person coming from a broad as an immigrant, first settling in Toronto, for example, and then deciding to go and live in Alberta because the job market was better there at that time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Guy Lauzon]

Excuse me, Mr. Jean, but I know Mrs. Boucher has a very important question to ask.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Good morning.

I find it a very interesting idea to promote the Francophonie by seeking out francophone immigrants for integration into minority francophone communities. That is a huge undertaking, but I think it could be beneficial in the long run and make the Francophonie what it should be.

Could you tell me how each of the minority francophone communities reacted to the strategic plan when you presented it? What was their reaction?

[Marc Arnal]

We have been working on this for four years. Our approach involves doing pilot projects here and there in the regions. So people see progress being made. They reacted well to the plan because in their view, it provides for more action and more longer term support. So there has been no criticism of the plan in the daily and weekly newspapers outside Quebec, quite the opposite.

Now, I think it is time to deliver the goods. One thing that is felt to be crucial is the establishment of intra-provincial networks so that we can see how things are going. At the same time, something has to be done about the attitudes of people living in our communities, for the reasons I mentioned before. We have to make sure the people come and have a positive experience.

All that means a lot of work. But it looks like the communities are on board. It also entails—and this is not necessarily easy—a redefinition of our communities' identity reference points. It is no longer about the Canadian born, old stock francophones that our communities were talking about 10 or 15 years ago. The Francophonie has changed.

Had nothing been done, there would has been a crisis in Toronto and Ottawa. Indeed the Africans came, largely from Sub-Saharan Africa, and demanded to participate in our communities. Our communities were reluctant to alter their identity reference point. That is happening now, and it is moving at an incredible pace. I think that in 20 years, when people talk about what our communities are currently going through, they may say that they went through their own little quiet revolution.

[The Chair, Conservative, Guy Lauzon]

Did you want to keep going, Ms. Boucher?

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Godin was talking earlier about Quebec, which has its own immigration system. That does not take anything away from the francophonie.

You said that in terms of immigration, there will be readjustments in minority settings. On our side, federally, we have to help these people put in place a reception structure for immigrants.

Francophone immigrants recruited abroad come mainly from the Maghreb, Africa, etc. The main criterion for their integration into our committees is still having French as their first language, right?

[Daniel Jean]

Well, that is what we have been doing over the past few years when we have made targeted efforts with committees in certain population pools. As for immigrant integration, do not forget that when francophones go to work in Manitoba or Alberta, for example, English is the language of work. Not only are we going to help them integrate economically and socially, we may also give them English classes to help them find work.

[The Chair, Conservative, Guy Lauzon]

The first round is over. We will start the second round with Mr. Simard.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome, gentlemen. I am sorry. I always have a meeting at 8:30, which causes me problems. If I ask any questions that you have already answered, do stop me.

As you know, I am from Manitoba and I am fairly familiar with the immigration program and how it works. In Manitoba, we have a policy of broadening the cultural space. We had no choice. Our numbers were dropping and, like Mr. Arnal said, the francophonie is changing in Manitoba. We have always pulled together to defend ourselves against outsiders, but the face of Saint-Boniface is completely changing. You find people there from communities from all over the world. It is refreshing and we have no problem with that.

The challenge is still with the funding. Our reception structure is quite small; there are just a few people working there. People want to come and settle in the francophone community. The problem is that it is very expensive to settle in our community. African francophones have even settled in Winnipeg's poor neighbourhoods where there are gangs, etc. We do not give them preferential treatment, but it still a huge problem.

Some families arrive with 12 or 14 children. Recently, two families arrived in the evening with 22 or 24 children. The situation is a challenge for people working in reception centres, who take them home. We are really at the beginning of the process. There are still some problems, but the main problem is with the funding.

Does your plan deal with that? It could be very expensive.

[Daniel Jean]

All right.

The integration challenges faced by immigrants in general, which are certainly as substantial as ours, as well as certain challenges peculiar to francophone immigrants, led the government to announce a significant increase in funding for integration. Excluding Ontario and Quebec, $77 million in new funding will be invested in the coming years. For Ontario alone, the figure is $230 million.

These funds will be spent on immigrant integration programs. Clearly, some of that funding will promote immigration and help meet the specific integration needs of francophone immigrants.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

You also referred to Manitoba as an exemplary province.

I think provincial cooperation is probably key. The same thing will have to be done in the other provinces. For example, the provincial nominee program has been incredibly successful. The initial goal was 600 people. It has now passed the 8,000 mark, and the goal is to reach 10,000 people per year. It is a very targeted program. People are sought out to make up for specific labour shortages. The program works well.

The province has set a goal of at least 7% francophones, which is higher than the francophone population of around 4%. If we want to maintain our population, we have to exceed 4%.

As you can see, provincial awareness and cooperation are essential. Otherwise, it does not work.

The other problem is finding jobs. People come to our community and it is extremely hard to find them work. Although my office is not an employment centre, I have received some 20 requests for assistance. People who have been here for two or four years still have no work.

In Manitoba, we are seeing a new wave of immigrants from Quebec. Some people come and settle in Quebec first, and then come and settle in our community and elsewhere in Canada. It is a new and interesting trend.

I do not know if anyone has any comments on that, but I know that things are working well in Manitoba. However, our success comes with its share of problems. We are not well enough equipped to receive immigrants.

[Marc Arnal]

What started the whole movement in Manitoba was a mission to Morocco, where presentations were made. The Société franco-manitobaine wound up with some 20 people on its doorstep one fine day, and was not at all ready for them. That is what led to the establishment of structures.

Our problem, to date, is that the funding for these centres is often very ad hoc. In addition, we had to convince people that integration into a minority francophone community and integration itself were two distinct things. In fact, I said so earlier.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Guy Lauzon]

Thank you, Mr. Arnal and Mr. Simard.

We will now go to Mr. Petit.