Official Languages Committee on Jan. 30th, 2007

[Sandra St-Laurent]

Mr. Tuyishime referred to project-based subsidies. One of the projects recently funded by the Société Santé en français was to plan health and social services in French in our Territories. We sat at the table with the Territories and we talked about a minimum number of services that needed to be provided. The result of this planning exercise has been tabled. We need to implement the services and that is why we are telling you that we need permanent funding.

We also need a five-year health care plan for the Yukon. I am talking about my region, my parish. Since 2003, we have answered all your questions, with statistics to support those answers. They were developed with our communication and we have yet to hear anything.

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

He still haven't heard anything?

[Sandra St-Laurent]

No, we've heard nothing for three years, because this is the fourth budget that will be passed. The file is active and that's all I know.

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

Since when?

[Sandra St-Laurent]

For the past three years. We have been trying to find solutions for a long time. I too would like to know where we are at.

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

You have come to see us, we have invited you, etc. I do not want you to leave here thinking that the meeting was simply grandstanding and that everyone was self-congratulatory

That is the reality. It does not make sense. The act is clear and is not being followed. It's a matter of money or respect for the two founding peoples of this country who joined the aboriginal peoples. It's as simple as that. If what you were saying is true—and I think that is the case—francophone students in the Northwest Territories who attend school don't even have classes in their language when they get to a certain level. They have to attend English school instead of continuing to learn their language. That is a lack of respect for our culture.

[Daniel Hubert]

I would like to answer the question that you have asked us twice. The committee supported the action taken by the Société Santé en français. You adopted an approach and it must be maintained. The Société Santé en français has requested that its budget be renewed so that it can continue its work in the various provincial and territorial networks.

A few days ago, we found out that the minister had provided an official response to our request that funding be renewed to enable us to develop primary health care services throughout Canada. The response was not positive. Funding was suspended. This is important. I would suggest that you obtain some information on that matter.

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

The government said that there had been some conflict during the visit. When was your letter dated?

[Daniel Hubert]

The letter is dated January 17 and we received it on the 22. It is essential that we continue supporting the initiatives of the Société Santé en français, which provides us with the means and the leaders to take action.

What do we do with the money we receive? In Nunavut, we receive $50,000. Ten thousand dollars is spent hiring health professionals, remedial teachers and speech therapists who assess children with difficulties. We look for professionals throughout Canada, but there aren't any. What do we do? We take action and enter into agreements with the Department of Health to recruit doctors. How many doctors speak French in Nunavut? Zero. How long has this been the case? For many years. How many doctors are available in Canada? Currently, there are 60,612 of these doctors. We do not have any. Recruiting is the big issue.

Recently, the current federal government announced a program to recruit health professionals because they are in short supply everywhere. There is a general shortage. A program is now being developed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Guy Lauzon]

I am going to stop you, Mr. Hubert, because your time is up.

We will begin our third five-minute round. Mr. Simard will ask the first question.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I would like to welcome our witnesses.

I would like to correct what Mr. Godin was saying. During the course of the two weeks when we were travelling in the communities, we were able to see that certain aspects of the Dion plan had worked very well whereas others had not fared so well. That is why we are here now.

I have a question regarding economic development. Roger, I think that you have created a monster, in the positive sense of the word. For example, in Manitoba, the CDEM, the Conseil de développement économique des municipalités bilingues du Manitoba, has become indispensable. If we were ever to lose it... We have put all of our eggs in the same basket. Beforehand, we had nothing with respect to economic development, and that is probably more or less the same situation throughout the country. What is of most concern to the people is the long-term funding, which is so precarious.

Moreover, you said that the funding was available until 2008. What are we going to do post-2008? As a result of the horizontal strategy, departments such as WD, for instance, are starting to say that they no longer want to be involved in community development. That concerns us a great deal. If we were to develop a new Dion plan—perhaps we will call it by another name—should the funding be provided by one department, such as, for instance, Heritage Canada? We would therefore have funding for economic development. Otherwise, should we continue the horizontal strategy or ask the Department of Health or the Department of Industry to fund certain initiatives?

[Pierre Bélanger]

I will ask Mr. Lavoie to answer in my place. I appreciate your question. Unfortunately, I miscalculated my time this morning and I have to attend a very important meeting that is starting at 10:30 a.m. They are going to be waiting for me. I really do apologize. I am enjoying the discussion and it is very important for us. I am not saying that everything is perfect or that nothing needs to be rectified. But we do also want to talk to you about the wonderful economic development accomplishments that have occurred in francophone or Acadian communities. We are really coming into our own. We need to see and recognize what is going on in Manitoba.

May I ask the committee members' permission to have Roger answer for me? I really do apologize, but I miscalculated my time. Thank you for your time and attention. Roger is a very good lawyer and a good advocate for economic development.

[Roger Lavoie]

Thank you Pierre.

If I may, I would like to answer the question, Mr. Chairman. For the past 15 years I have been working with francophone and Acadian communities and the government in the area of economic development and if there is one thing that I have learned it is that the government is complicated. It is very, very complicated. Should we have one policy or one program? I don't know.

We have to look at the whole issue of horizontality on its vertical axis. We talk a great deal about horizontality but, as far as we are concerned, in the economic sector where I work, we can identify the important players within the federal and provincial governments because the provincial governments also have a role to play.

So we have to take into account the current programs that can meet the needs of francophone and Acadian communities, now that they have been identified. We then have to see how we can change and modify these programs and policies to meet the needs of the communities.

In other words, we should do what we did with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada: we identified a program, we took it apart and then suggested that such and such a comma or word be changed, that this or that be changed, so that it could meet the requirements of the francophone and Acadian communities.

I don't know if that answers your question.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Yes, thank you.

As far as health is concerned, Mr. Hubert, if I am not mistaken, you or Sandra said that negotiations had taken place over a three-year period, that you had reached an agreement, but that you have been waiting for more than a year for this agreement to be signed. Is this in fact the program you are talking about?

[Sandra St-Laurent]

The report was tabled in October 2003, and for the past three years, the community has been trying to find out where the file is sitting.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

You received the answer a few days ago.

[Sandra St-Laurent]

No, that is something else.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

They are two different things? I would like to understand what is going on.

[Sandra St-Laurent]

The five-year health services plan for the Yukon was developed in accordance with the transfer of health and hospital programs from the federal to the territorial level. When these transfers occurred, in 1993 and 1997, the agreement did not include any linguistic clauses. That gave the territorial governments a pretext for not providing health services in French, whereas in fact this is an obligation to all Canadians, regardless of whether they live in a territory or province.

At that time, we met with the government, which then assigned a resource person to work with us, and we prepared a plan to determine the minimum level of services in French that would be acceptable for francophones in the Yukon.

Prior to that, in 2002, we had done a study on health care needs for francophones in the Yukon.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Is my time up?

[The Chair, Conservative, Guy Lauzon]

Yes, your time is already up.

I will now ask Mr. Nadeau to ask another question.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Hubert, earlier, did you have something else you wanted to say before you were told that your five minutes were over? Please continue.

[Daniel Hubert]

I was in the process of explaining what you could do from your end. One thing that the committee can do is to continue drafting well-written reports analyzing the situation. A well-structured analysis can help people who want to understand how the Official Languages Act is being applied.

Secondly, there is vigilance. You must be vigilant, because that is your role. I will give you just one example. If ever there was an important problem, it certainly is the scarcity of human resources in the health sector. We are fighting—and this is our daily hell—to find personnel, to try to sign agreements, etc. The government wants to take action in this area, we have programs, and an initiative is underway to recruit health personnel outside of Canada.

If this program description includes a condition specifying that, in recruiting personnel, the requirements of the various communities need to be taken into account, what do we do? We will also recruit francophones. That will make our job with the territorial government much easier because we will be able to say that a portion of this $300,000 must be used to recruit francophone staff.

You could compare this to a lever. The fact that this is an essential issue must be acknowledged. How else can we ensure that francophones are also going to benefit from part of these initiatives? We need a doctor, a nurse and a social worker to form a team. That isn't very much, is it, but we don't have it. We have to go out and get it.

You need to be vigilant with respect to health care initiatives. It would help us a great deal if we had minimum conditions to strengthen health care initiatives by ensuring that the linguistic aspect was given consideration. This is not the only item, but it is important.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

I would like to point something out. I also see that you need tools to ensure that the government understands certain things. Indeed, the Canadian government does not respect its own Constitution and does not support you as it should. I was talking to some Conservative colleagues before the holidays, and some of them were confusing the Court Challenges Program and legal aid.

I spoke to Mr. Rioux, the president of the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada. I told him that we needed to educate government members and teach them the difference between these two programs. The Court Challenges Program is not used only by crooks in prison. The disabled have used it as well, and it enabled them to get changes making it possible for them to enter buildings, for instance, or move about. Had this program not existed, we might still be in the stone age as far as that is concerned. This is important.

In addition, we need to be very persuasive. As you know, the current Conservative government includes in its ranks ministers such as Mr. Baird, Mr. Flaherty and Mr. Clement who were part of the Harris government. They are the ones who wanted to shut down the Montfort Hospital. That was an incredible fight. Gisèle Lalonde and company, as well as the Franco-Ontarians, had to stand up and keep standing. They had to draw upon the assistance of the entire North American francophonie in order to show this government—after four years—that it didn't even recognize the Canadian Constitution by disrespecting these rights. Perhaps you do not have enough critical mass, but you are citizens of a country that is supposed to help you in that area. You have our support, at least.

I would like to know something. Anyone can answer, be it Mr. Provencher, Ms. St-Laurent, Mr. Hubert or another colleague, Mr. Lavoie or Mr. Jean de Dieu. When you talked about community development, you talked about the relationship between the family, school and community. I would like to know if something is missing from the picture. Communities are very broad things, but we still have the base forming this community: the family, the opportunity to speak French, the use of French as the language spoken at home, the ability to do business in French, securing schools right up to the secondary and post-secondary level, as well as scholarships. Where are we as far as that is concerned? What aspects are still missing?

[The Chair, Conservative, Guy Lauzon]

Mr. Provencher, you have about 15 seconds because Mr. Nadeau used up all of the time.