Official Languages Committee on Nov. 7th, 2006

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Godin, since we're in New Brunswick, in your province, and you've passed your turn, I'll give you the three minutes allocated to me.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Yvon Godin]

Thank you, you're very kind. Then we're going to take two minutes and 50 seconds.

We're coming to the end of the meeting because we'd like to stop before 10:30 and resume at 10:30.

I'd like you to give a fairly brief answer to the question I'm going to ask you.

What are the main challenges the community will have to face in the coming years? What are you asking for? What do you recommend to Parliament?

[Jeannita Bernard]

There's one thing that wasn't mentioned here this morning.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Yvon Godin]

That's what we want to hear: things that haven't been mentioned.

[Jeannita Bernard]

In our Francophone community, we don't have any sustainable economic development, as a result of which our community is dissipating. You have to be present at all times in order to seize all opportunities. We talked about literacy. Education is what feeds the population, but we have to find the thing or the machine that will give us a sustainable economy and enable us to establish a health system and an education system.

If we need assistance, it will be for that.

[Rodrigue Landry]

As regards the main challenge, I hope the federal government will exercise leadership and work with the provinces, territories and communities in the true spirit of Canadian linguistic duality to establish a genuine action plan. If Canada manages to establish a well organized plan that includes the provinces and territories, as well as the communities themselves, which will become accountable as a result, instead of merely scattering money here and there, that could be an example to the world. If we manage to do that, a lot of other issues could be resolved.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Yvon Godin]

I'd like to thank you sincerely on behalf of the Standing Committee on Official Languages.

The committee will suspend its proceedings until 10:30. At 10:30, we'll be hearing the witnesses from Nova Scotia.

Thank you very much and have a good trip home. Good day.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Yvon Godin]

Now we'll hear from our guests from Nova Scotia. Welcome. Since you were here this morning at the start of the session, you're already familiar with the purpose of the meeting. So I won't waste your time by repeating myself. We're going to begin.

Will Ms. Nicole Inamura be present?

[Paul d'Entremont, Coordinator, Réseau santé Nouvelle-Écosse]

She told me yesterday that, if everything went well, she'd be here, but since she had a backache, she didn't know if she could make the trip today.

However, she didn't send a message that she wouldn't be coming.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Yvon Godin]

We've asked you to limit yourselves to three minutes, but since there are fewer guests, we could give you 10 minutes. I'm sure you have a lot of things to tell us. So if it's not too hard for you to adjust, you can take advantage of that additional time. Mr. d'Entremont, having seen you at work, I know that won't be a problem for you.

You may begin.

[Alphonsine Saulnier, Chair, Réseau santé Nouvelle-Écosse]

In fact, I'm going to begin.

Thank you very much. We very much appreciate being able to meet with you and to discuss certain concerns affecting Nova Scotia.

My name is Alphonsine Saulnier, and I'm the Chair of the Réseau santé Nouvelle-Écosse, which has been in existence since 2003. From what I understood this morning, you're quite familiar with the Société Santé en français, the national network, and the 17 networks across Canada. Since I'm going to be speaking for 10 minutes, I'm going to tell you a little about Nova Scotia's Acadian community and its concerns. Incidentally, we filed a brief containing the full text this morning.

The Acadian community of Nova Scotia dates back to the seventeenth century. You're undoubtedly familiar with the history of Grand-Pré. Today, the province's Acadians and Francophones represent approximately four percent of the total population, some 9,000 inhabitants. The community's numbers have been stable for 50 years, but have been declining as a percentage of total population. Although our demographic weight is small, we are concentrated in fairly homogeneous rural communities, which gives us a certain political weight. For example, in Argyle and Clare counties, in southwestern Nova Scotia, Acadians form the majority. There are also two Acadian and Francophone concentrations in urban areas, the metropolitan region of Halifax-Dartmouth and in Sydney, Cape Breton. Acadians form more than 15% of the population in four of our counties.

In Nova Scotia, the longstanding absence of provincial legislation and policies on French-language services is the reason why French-language health services are so inaccessible. Where they do exist, it is as a result of the hard work of individuals and community organizations. Progress in the delivery of French-language services is very often the result of chance, and the community fears it will lose those services. The comments gathered in our eight Acadian regions during the consultations of the Acadian and Francophone population in 2002, 2003 and 2005-2006 attest to the fact that French-language services are not very accessible.

However, we have every hope that the legislation on government services in French, which was enacted in the fall of 2004, and subsequent regulations will encourage the regional health authorities to take measures in that direction. Implementation of the act and regulations is planned for December 31 of this year. The regulations were posted to the government Web site yesterday. A two-week period has been scheduled for community consultations.

Nevertheless, some regions receive very few services in French. I could cite the example of the Chéticamp region, which has a Francophone majority. The board has agreed to require that individuals in the health care system who have direct access to the clientele be bilingual. This requirement is now part of the hiring process. That's a rare exception for Nova Scotia.

In the other regions, services are largely inaccessible, although a number of Acadians and Francophones work in hospitals and other health services. Offering services in French is currently out of the question, but it goes without saying that the new regulations will change matters.

One of the biggest authorities in the province, Capital Health, is located in the Halifax area. It has been given responsibility for tertiary and specialized care. These services, which are provided in the centre of the province, are rarely accessible in French. In addition, citizens must travel to the offices, which involves a three-hour drive. I'm thinking in particular of the women from the regions of Cape Breton and southwestern Nova Scotia, who don't have access to specialized services, except in the metropolitan area.

Now I'd like to tell you about Réseau Santé Nouvelle-Écosse, which is devoted above all to the accessibility of health care services and better living in French in Nova Scotia. Our network was founded in 2003 as a result of a consultation project led, in 2002, by the Fédération acadienne de la Nouvelle-Écosse, called French-language health care services in Nova Scotia. Through the financial support of Health Canada and Canadian Heritage, FANE, together with its partners, consulted the Acadian and Francophone community, health professionals and health leaders and decision-makers on action strategies for health care services in French. To do that, a public consultation tour was conducted in eight regions of the province.

By describing the situation in each of the regions and calling on the expertise of health professionals, participants clarified the issues, problems, concerns, existing initiatives, intervention needs and strategies that could improve access to health care services and well-being in French. The proposed initiatives promote the reinforcement of community capabilities through strategies and policies for the delivery of health care services in French.

At this point in my presentation, I'd like to emphasize the good will of our province's Ministry of Health. With the support of the Office des affaires acadiennes de la Nouvelle-Écosse, it hired a French-language health care services coordinator in February 2004. It was the first to hire a person specifically responsible for services in French. In addition, for three years now, the ministry has been implementing a cultural sensitization and awareness program, focusing on minority groups living in the province and the importance of the language and culture of service users. This cultural diversity and social inclusion program was designed for all recipients of primary health care services. As regards the success of these initiatives, we have obtained a commitment from the provincial government, through its Department of Health, and of a number of major partners. It is now up to the Government of Canada to do the same.

For a few years now, Health Canada has shown a desire to open up to this question. In September 2001, the Consultative Committee for French-Speaking Minority Communities filed its report with the Department of Health. That report quite specifically describes five levers that must be created and used in order to ensure the development of French-language health care services in minority communities. We support the proposed action plan to facilitate community initiatives and improve access to health care services in French.

Since then, Health Canada has shown more good will by providing tangible support for the following initiatives: networking until March 2008; the primary health care adjustment fund, which enables us in Nova Scotia to benefit from the implementation of five projects to improve access to health care services in French, including a directory of health care professionals who can provide services in French, a health program for youth and seniors and the development and adaptation of educational, promotional and prevention material. In addition, we have just completed another project, entitled “Setting the Stage”, which has enabled us to plan a strategy for improving access to primary health care and to make recommendations to the provincial Health Ministry, the regional health authorities and agencies responsible for the delivery of health care services on the subject.

Obviously, in order to provide health care services in French, we need health care professionals in the regions. As you have heard, the situation in Prince Edward Island is not at all different from our own. Training shouldn't be limited to family medicine, although we consider it the top priority, but it must include the professions in the rehabilitation sciences and interdisciplinary teams responsible for providing primary health care services.

In closing, I'd like to reiterate the importance of the role that the federal government must play in French-language health services. As the protector of official language minorities, it must make an obvious contribution to their development.

We remind it of its responsibility for health and we count on your support.

I would like to offer you the following two recommendations, which you could pass on to the federal government.

First, we propose that the federal government create a joint federal-provincial program comparable to the Official Languages in Education Program, to support the development of French-language health care services in minority communities. Such a program will guarantee partnerships and continuity. Second, we suggest that the federal government add a sixth principle concerning linguistic duality to the Canada Health Act.

With your permission, I'll reiterate the following points. On September 31 of this year, we, the Réseau santé Nouvelle-Écosse, like all our fellow networks across the country, will lose the government's financial support for organizing health services in French. The importance of financial support for the organization of services in 2007-2008 and the long term is established.

Through the keen support of Société Santé en français, we'll be able to continue focusing on two issues until March 2008. However, that's only two issues: training for health professionals, the main issue involving the Consortium national de formation en santé, with which we're working in close cooperation, and networking, through which we have consulted and involved our partners in the initiative to improve access to health services in French. We have established very important and very effective partnerships with the Office of Acadian Affairs, the provincial Department of Health and other organizations, including the CNFS.

If I may draw an analogy, I'd say that the plane has left the runway but that, without sustained federal support, it could crash.

Thank you very much.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Yvon Godin]

Thank you, Ms. Saulnier.

Mr. d'Entremont.

[Paul d'Entremont]

Before discussing the Fédération acadienne, I want to add to Ms. Saulnier's remarks.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Yvon Godin]

All that in 10 minutes.

[Paul d'Entremont]

Yes, it's very brief.

She said we hadn't had any support for ad hoc projects since the end of the stage this past September. That's true. Although it's not official, since the minister hasn't yet announced it, we're preparing to carry out two projects until March 2007. After that, there's nothing tangible yet.

Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the President of the Fédération acadienne de la Nouvelle-Écosse, Mr. Désiré Boudreau, and its Executive Director, Jean Léger, both of whom are in Quebec City today, I thank you for this opportunity to provide you with the perspective of the Acadians and Francophones of Nova Scotia regarding their issues and the major challenges they must face as official language communities of Canada.

In addition to the group that is in Quebec City today, another group wanted to be here, but the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages is in Halifax, which was chosen as one of the four cities where our study is being conducted on the vitality of a minority community in an urban centre. We pass on the apologies of those individuals, who can't be here with us today.

Here are a few points. First, as you know, and as Ms. Saulnier said, our community consists of more than 35,000 Acadians whose mother tongue is French. We can't wait to see the figures from the last census, to determine where we stand in that regard. In addition, we have a large immigrant community whose mother tongue, which I often call a “second mother tongue”, is French, mainly in the Halifax-Dartmouth urban area.

FANE plays the role of mouthpiece of the Acadian and Francophone communities and has 23 member organizations representing most aspects of society. In addition to those organizations, FANE handles a number of issues, including the Community Access Program, CAP—until it stops—and immigration issues, in partnership with the Province of Nova Scotia and Immigration Canada.

Our Acadian and Francophone communities are scattered over a number of regions across the province. If I have to travel from where I live, in West Pubnico, to Sydney in the far north of the province, I have to drive 10 hours. The Province of Nova Scotia is very small, but it's nevertheless quite big if you take into account the province's Acadian and Francophone communities. The challenge of distances is a significant one, as is community cooperation.

However, we manage with various tools to organize that cooperative effort and enable the community to develop and grow to a certain degree, as a result of our work using whatever resources are available. We nevertheless have very well organized and structured groups, which have a lot of development objectives, but often very little in the way of resources to achieve them.

We must still continue our efforts for the survival of our communities, as the status quo for our community currently means a step backward. It is important that the federal government support us throughout this development process with values of openness, innovation and respect.

As you know, in recent years, the federal government has been the key to this maintenance and survival, and it is thanks to funding from the Department of Canadian Heritage, through the Canada-community agreements, that our regions have acquired a minimum level of community infrastructure. This federal effort and support must continue and be reinforced and improved.

The ultimate priority of our communities is to enter into framework agreements or collaborations with the Government of Canada to ensure implementation of our action plan and of our overall development action plan, which is the road map for development of our communities and is regularly validated by the communities. However, our communities have not yet renewed their agreement with the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Any uncertainty could kill the initiative of volunteers and employees, thus leaving our communities in a tenuous situation. In our view, the main reason for our situation is the government's lack of openness to the idea of developing new development approaches with the communities.

We therefore ask that these agreements be renewed as soon as possible in a manner consistent with the needs of the communities. The communities' priorities must be the priorities set out in those agreements, and the necessary resources to achieve them must be stated there.

These new agreements should therefore be based on the communities' priorities, not on those of government officials or, in certain cases, of politicians.

For a number of years now, we have had this overall development plan to develop our communities, but the government often finds reasons to fund only a small part of what can ensure the vitality of our communities.

We even want the federal government to sign with our communities—as it has done with the Aboriginal communities—specific sectoral agreements, as we've just seen in the case of the national health and economic sectors. This should also be done at the provincial level, in order to really give the communities the boost they need to encourage and monitor development.

In recent decades—Rodrigue Landry talked about this—French has lost ground in the Francophone communities outside Quebec. Why is that occurring, when the federal government says it is establishing programs and policies to support those communities? Aren't the communities the ones that know what they need?

Established policies and programs very often cannot ensure long-term development and do not receive adequate funding. They are always established on a temporary, virtually uncertain basis, which has a major impact on volunteers and employees. It exhausts those two groups. Some programs have also been cancelled. There was some discussion of that this morning, and I won't go back to that point for the moment.

We have to find a better way to ensure regular, constant and respectful dialogue between the two parties, in order to do what is good for the communities. We cannot pass over in silence the challenges related to the administrative requirements of the various programs. This is often a very slow and arduous process that differs from department to department. And yet they all receive directives from the Treasury Board. I see this in health and in other areas: the requirements are not always the same. In addition, decision-making is slow when it comes to announcing that a project has been approved.

Let's mention some other points. The Community Access Program has been cut. This is a major loss for the communities. In addition, we want to reiterate that it is important that an adequate community consultation process be established immediately so that there is no down time between plans, that is the Dion Plan or the Action Plan for Official Languages and the communities' plans.

In closing, we also want to publicly support our national organization, the FCFA, in the matter of the application for judicial review recently filed concerning the federal government's decision to cancel the Court Challenges Program. We join with all the other Canadian organizations in condemning the recent budget cuts affecting our communities, the Canadian Volunteerism Initiative, Status of Women Canada, literacy and so on.

With that, I thank you for listening to us.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Yvon Godin]

Thank you, Mr. d'Entremont and Ms. Saulnier.

Now we'll start our first round of questions with Mr. Simard.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to our guests for travelling here this morning from Nova Scotia.

Mr. d'Entremont, this morning we heard from the people from Prince Edward Island say that there were 6,000 Francophones on the island, but 16,000 French speakers. Back home in Manitoba, there are 45,000 old stock Francophones, but 110,000 French speakers. These figures are starting to get interesting. We've invested, under the action plan, more than 50% of the funding for education, immersion and so on.

I'd like to know whether efforts are being made in Nova Scotia to better integrate people from the immersion sector and those from Canadian Parents for French into the community, to invite them to take part in your activities. Is an effort being made in that area?

[Paul d'Entremont]

Yes, an effort is being made, not only with the people from Canadian Parents for French, but also with the immigrants association, because this concerns French speakers. I said earlier that there were immigrants for whom French is their mother tongue or second mother tongue. In the census, those people aren't counted as French speakers. That's why I was happy to see that the second question in the last census was a little clearer. We often have to address our major challenge with these people who tell us that they spoke French, but that they didn't receive their education in French. What do I say to that?

Yes, there are Canadian Parents for French, immigrants and other organizations. The idea, increasingly for these groups, is to work in cooperation in order to build a critical mass and become a force.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Where do the Francophone immigrants that go to Nova Scotia usually come from?

[Paul d'Entremont]

Many come from Lebanon. We received one who arrived as a doctor. After leaving his country, he went through France and then apparently worked in Denmark for a number of years. He wanted to come to Canada, and Nova Scotia was the most welcoming province for him in the entire process of immigrating to Canada. He settled and, in one week, his practice was full. [Editor's note: Inaudible] plus 80% French speakers in the Halifax urban community.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

I find that interesting. Yesterday in St. John's, the people from Newfoundland told us that their target market for immigration was Eastern Europe. Back home, it's Francophone Africa, and where you are, it's Lebanon.

[Paul d'Entremont]

Right now, it's the Lebanese community first, then the Arab community.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

That's interesting that it's as varied across the country.

[Paul d'Entremont]

Ms. Saulnier talked about the Capital Health Authority of Greater Halifax. French speakers and Arabs are there now, on equal terms.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Ms. Saulnier, with regard to health, is there a French-language health centre in Halifax?