Official Languages Committee on May 1st, 2008

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Good morning everyone. While the committee members take their seats, we will begin our meeting.

First, I want to welcome representatives of francophone communities from across the country. There are two from the Prairies, two from the Maritimes and one from Nunavut.

Before we begin, we have a motion prepared and moved by Mr. Lemieux on our agenda.

Good morning, Mr. Lemieux.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Good morning, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Before the motion is presented, I would like to advise committee members that we have received confirmation from two witnesses. Radio-Canada has confirmed it will attend the May 27 meeting. We will talk about the CBC. We will have the coast guard on May 29.

Mr. Lemieux.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you very much. You have the motion in front of you. On May 26, 2008, we will be visited by a Finnish delegation headed by the Honourable Pär Stenbäck, former minister for the Swedish-Finnish Cultural Fund. The purpose of the delegation's visit is to learn about Canadian official languages legislation, at both the federal and provincial level, and about the education systems for the official language minority communities.

Mr. Chair, I would like to move that we, as a committee, take part in a lunch here on the Hill. There have also been some discussions with the official languages commissioner. He too is interested in attending this luncheon. The motion seeks to ask the clerk of our committee to make the necessary arrangements for a lunch with the Honourable Pär Stenbäck.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Excellent. Is the committee ready for the question?

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

With no further delay, we will now turn to our witnesses. I had the opportunity to take part in the inauguration of the Festival du Voyageur along with Mr. Boucher, just a few weeks ago. This morning, as I indicated, we have five witnesses. There is a lot of material. I invite the witnesses to get to the heart of the matter, so that we can allow our parliamentarians to learn more about your presentations through exchanges.

With no further delay, I give Mr. Boucher the floor.

[Daniel Boucher, President and Executive Director, Société franco-manitobaine]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you all for having taken the time to meet with us here today.

I'll be quite brief, as the chair has asked, so that we can move on to questions. I think that we could talk about the various issues a little later.

You asked a few questions, when you invited us here. I think that, generally speaking, the communities had a good experience with the Canada-community agreements, nevertheless, various quite serious problems remain with regard to the way those agreements are managed, particularly with regard to some of your questions.

I have held this position since the first agreement was signed, in 1994; I saw the evolution. I was around even before the agreements, so I remember how things worked previously. I can tell you that there has been progress, but, at the same time, not enough of it, for example with regard to funding. I know that this issue is often raised, money really does make the world go round. I think that there are very significant challenges with regard to funding of the agreements. Our communities need funding that is not forthcoming in order to fulfil demands and implement initiatives.

I think that organizations feel a little bit like the air is being squeezed out of them. Currently, due to a lack of funding, we don't have the capacity to innovate, to expand or keep our staff. We know that this is a very significant issue. As you know, we feel that we're doing important work for Canada and for our communities. We are present in each of our communities, which is very important for our provinces and territories. To this end, we need financial support.

I would go even a little further and say that, in our communities, we represent the heart of the francophonie, but we also welcome a new and different francophonie. For example, in our region, we are seeing more and more francophone immigrants. We need resources to take in these immigrants. We are getting some from the Canadian government, but mainly from the province of Manitoba, in our case.

We also need money for people who are learning French in Manitoba. For example, there are 105,000 people who speak both official languages. We must be able to present our culture to these people, to provide them with services and programs, among other things. All these things are very important and are related to the funding our organizations receive.

With regard to accountability, red tape remains and has been around for years and years, and centuries and centuries. Frankly, there are no more excuses for it. It is now May 1 and we still haven't heard about our funding, which started on April 1, and we don't expect to hear about it for some time. We feel that this situation, which has existed for quite some time, is not normal.

With regard to all the reports that we have to write, once again, they take resources and expertise. We want to do professional work. We believe in being accountable and all that it entails. In our opinion, it's extremely important to be accountable, but we need resources to do so.

As far as managing our priorities, I think it is important that there be more coordination with regard to all the agreements in our communities. We are talking here about the Canada-community agreement, but we also have other agreements, such as the Canada-province agreements. We need to be much more strategic with regard to our agreements. We need to keep the bigger picture in mind. The community must be able to have the bigger picture, both to be effective and to ensure long-term planning. So, in our opinion, managing priorities means taking into consideration all these factors and ensuring that we have a real place at the table. We don't just want to be consulted, we want to be part of the decision-making process in relation to all these agreements, be it in the area of education, the Canada-province agreements or the Canada-community agreements. So we feel that managing priorities is extremely important.

Finally, we recommend to the committee that the next agreements be truly negotiated with each of the provinces and territories so that those agreements meet the needs of each jurisdiction instead of having a one-size-fits-all or a cookie-cutter approach.

In our opinion, it's extremely important to have agreements that truly meet our needs on the ground. However, this will require additional investments in some regions for all kinds of reasons: be it that there are more needs, that those needs are greater, etc. I think that we have to address that issue in that context.

On that note, Mr. Chair, I want to thank you and I will now give the floor to my colleagues.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Boucher.

We will now move over to New Brunswick, a place where people are getting their feet wet. Let's hope that they dry off rather quickly. Let's welcome Ms. Simard, President, Société des Acadiens et Acadiennes du Nouveau-Brunswick and Mr. Godin. I invite you to make your presentation.

[Marie-Pierre Simard, President, Société des Acadiens et Acadiennes du Nouveau-Brunswick]

Mr. Chairman, members, first of all, I want to thank you for your invitation. Before elaborating on the matters of concern to us, allow me to recall some of the history of the organization I represent.

The Société des Acadiens et Acadiennes du Nouveau-Brunswick, which was founded in 1973, is a provincial organization dedicated to the defence and promotion of the collective rights and interests of the Acadian community of New Brunswick. It acts as the official political mouthpiece of New Brunswick's Acadian community.

The Acadian community's community sector consists of 33 provincial organizations represented within the Forum de concertation des organismes acadiens and is divided into five spheres of action: the arts, culture and communication; the economy; education; the socio-community sector; and the socio-political sector.

Of course, many regional and local organizations that are not members of the Forum also work for the development and vitality of the Acadian community and may receive funding under the Collaboration Accord.

For the years 2007-2008 and 2008-2009, we have $1,952,000 under the Collaboration Accord annually to support our programs, whereas demand is in the order of $2,900,000. As regards support for innovation, we have $488,000 a year. For 2008-2009, demand equals approximately $900,000 for the first round of projects, and we expect nearly the same amount for the second round. The situation was the same last year.

It is easy to understand from these figures that, since the groups do not have the bare minimum in which to operate, they're cutting back their initiatives and the services they offer to their members. In general, this situation is slowing the overall sustainable development of our community.

Due to a lack of financial, technical and human resources, most groups are already unable to engage in development or to deliver the required services to the community and to their members. Without enough skilled and well-paid professional resources, the organizations cannot design, plan, deliver and evaluate the services they provide. The first services that have already been cut are the regular updating of websites, information-sharing and the creation of tools to develop community skills.

The chronic underfunding of support for action undermines the energy of volunteers and employees, who in many cases must work over-time without pay simply to find basic funding and to organize funding activities. As a result of the lack of marketing and communication professionals, expected resulted are not being achieved. In addition, the private sector is highly sought after in funding campaigns organized by institutions. Companies, of which there are a limited number, also have limits on the resources they can use to provide financial assistance to the groups that request it.

It goes without saying that this underfunding of support for action dangerously undermines sectoral and intersectoral consultation efforts and forces groups to scale back their work efforts. This situation prevents them from taking effective action to achieve the results contemplated by the two signatories of the Collaboration Accord.

To achieve, in spite of everything, the results contemplated by their members and the community, groups rely to a high degree on funding for innovation. This is how major activities have seen the light of day.

The organizations are thus caught in a vicious circle and are faced daily with unresolvable dilemmas. Heritage Canada cannot forget that these organizations were created to meet the needs expressed by the public or that they offer a host of services that no government could deliver based on current funding levels or without the contributions of the many volunteers working for them.

All of this obviously has a very negative impact on the stability and efficiency of the organizations, which face significant staff and volunteer turnover. A number of initiatives requiring long-term work in order to achieve results will never be completed. Many ideas and tools developed for structural projects will stop and be lost as a result of a lack of resources.

This situation also prevents new initiatives from being created and developed. Since budgets have already been exhausted, for both action and innovation, many groups do not file applications, knowing there is no money to fund them. When funding is granted for support for action to an organization that has not yet received any or for a new project, the funding granted to other organizations is reduced because the budget remains the same.

In our constantly changing minority community, that seriously undermines the ability of the local community and populations to take charge of their full development.

This situation was moreover the reason for a request to increase funding for the Acadian community sector under the Canada-community agreement, made to the former minister of Canadian Heritage, Ms. Beverly Oda, and to the present minister, Ms. Josée Verner. I hope that you will be able to support us in this effort.

The figures on this matter speak for themselves. Since the first agreement between the Government of Canada and the Acadian community of New Brunswick, in 1994, the Acadian community, which represents 25% of the minority francophone population, has received only 10% of budgeted funding earmarked for the agreements with the various provinces and territories. On a per capita basis, New Brunswick stands in second-last place among the provinces and territories, with $10 per francophone. Only Ontario, with $9 per francophone, receives less funding. This situation must change. I invite you to consult the table in the appendix at the end of this document.

I would add, on this funding issue, that the word “indexing” has never been part of the language used in dealing with the funding of the organizations of the Acadian community sector in New Brunswick. It is therefore strongly recommended that multi-year funding be extended for the term of the agreements. With respect to accountability, the Acadian community sector has long had to provide extensive justification of the way in which it allocates its revenue to the various expenditure items, which is normal. However, we find the governments' requirements of the community sector excessive to say the least. The groups' administrators must often file two or three reports on how they use each grant received, regardless of the amount in question. Furthermore, each funding agency has its own evaluation forms and, more often than not, requires detailed performance indicators. In addition to that is the fact that, every time there is a staff change at a funding organization, accountability factors are subject to new interpretations to which the organizations must adjust.

In the context of the renewal of the Canada-community agreements, it would therefore be appropriate to review the frequency of reports that must filed and to prepare a standard list of performance indicators as well as a standard form in which they must be presented.

With regard to the management of agreements, in the early 1990s, before the Canada-community agreements were put in place, the Acadian community had already observed that the funding granted to it by the Office of the Secretary of State—which has become Canadian Heritage—under the official languages program was inadequate to meet its development needs. A number of sectoral organizations were also established at that time, as a result of which the number of grant applications increased for both basic and project funding. It was also at that time that major reductions were made to the program as part of the budget cuts ordered by the federal government.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

I just wanted to point out that you only have about two minutes left, Ms. Simard.

[Marie-Pierre Simard]

To support its commitments to the implementation of the Official Languages Act, the federal government made financial resources available to the minority communities to support community development and vitality-enhancing efforts.

Following two rounds of Canada-community agreements, new institutions were established and institutional networks strengthened. In March 2003, the Government of Canada adopted the Action Plan for Official Languages, which in fact renewed the Canadian government's commitment to linguistic duality.

Lastly, as noted above, the Acadian community of New Brunswick has been financially supported since August 2005 by a Canadian Heritage contribution agreement designed to support its development and vitality. The organizations benefiting from past agreements have been in a better position to plan their action strategies and to ensure the implementation and funding of community development activities.

The amounts that we have obtained have been managed in a sound and transparent manner, even though the last collaboration accord funded only 45% of financial needs.

New Brunswick's Acadian and francophone community must absolutely open up to francophone immigration and to cultural diversity in order to offset the declining birth rate and exodus of its population to regions of the country that are experiencing a sustained economic growth. However, the programs at Citizenship and Immigration Canada, which are aimed at settlement agencies, are hard for community groups to access. And yet success in the area of immigrant integration relies on greater awareness on the part of the host community and the reinforcement of francophone intake structures.

In the current state of affairs, even though many organizations are aware of the importance of these issues, none can assume, on a full-time basis, the complex responsibilities stemming from the desire of the two levels of government to increase francophone immigration in the minority communities.

All the organizations agree that it is fundamentally important for them to know how long they must wait for a decision after filing an application for financial assistance. Too often organizations must manage with interim funding and all the stress and anxiety associated with waiting times. A few examples of this are given in the text.

In addition, as a result of these lines of credit and additional interest charges, a large portion of the organization's grant revenues are used to finance the banking system, out of public funds. Other federal agencies, such as the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, have established operating rules concerning the time periods during which Canadian taxpayers must wait for a response. The organizations should be entitled to the same treatment.

In closing, we repeat that it will be necessary to increase the budget for the next collaboration accords in order to enable us to consolidate what we have already established, to achieve equity with the other provinces and territories and to counter inflation.

Thank you for your attention.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Ms. Simard.

Let's turn immediately to Canada's far north and Mr. Lamoureux.

[Daniel Lamoureux, Assistant General Director, Association des francophones du Nunavut]

Good morning.

My testimony will be more subjective than objective, in that it will be based on my own personal experience.

In 1994, I negotiated the first agreement for the Northwest Territories, where I lived for 10 years. It was a pilot project that Canadian Heritage had instituted, at the time, without Treasury Board's knowledge—as we learned later—and which lasted until 2001. The federation is the umbrella organization comprising all the francophone community groups in the N.W.T., and it managed the agreement. In fact, the project was self-managed. The federation received the cheque and was responsible for all expenditures and for allocating funds based on the needs of the community and of each group. It worked very well.

In 2001, Canadian Heritage changed its approach to results-based management, and all of a sudden, we went from being partners to clients and got caught up in an unbelievable administrative muddle. For example, proposals had to be signed by the chair of the board in blue ink, the chair's signature had to be authenticated by a witness and a copy of the board of directors' resolution had to mandate the chair to sign the proposal. Things have gotten a little better since then.

The worst thing about this change in approach was, undoubtedly, the way the agreements' objectives had to match those of the Government of Canada. The government supports its francophone communities on the proviso that they share the government's objectives. And that leads to a whole lot of problems. For example, communities have to adapt their overall development plan and make it fall in line with the government's interests, which does not always mean that the communities are getting their real needs met.

Perhaps we could emulate Quebec. In Quebec, there are 48,000 not-for-profit organizations including 8,000 community action organizations. Of these 8,000 organizations, 5,000 get financial support from the Quebec government totalling about $670 million annually, and it is divided into three forms of funding: service agreements, projects, and overall mission support.

The great thing about the overall mission support is that it makes up 60% of the $670 million. And those funds are allocated to 4,000 autonomous community action groups. They are autonomous because they are not in a dependent relationship with the government. The groups are not funded on the basis of what they do, but on the basis of who they are.

In Nunavut, we claim that the francophone communities are Canada. Clearly, the Canadian government manages their growth. It is said that there is a lot of vitality in our francophone communities, but their vitality waxes and wanes with the injection of funding, or lack thereof. If funding should dry up all of a sudden, our schools, our associations, our newspapers, and so on and so forth, would close.

Right now, we have the sense that we are just getting by. And that's not a very good impression to have. Francophone groups are still coming to terms with the overwhelming red tape, a bureaucracy which, in my opinion, is overzealous. These groups still have to tweak their overall development plans to fit the government's interests. Every year, pages and pages of reports have to be blacked out. As someone said this morning, that puts a strain on our precious human resources that are there to respond to real needs, so this is being done at the expense of these communities' development and vitality, and that of Canada, because in our opinion, their needs are one and the same.

In conclusion, I would be pleased to elaborate during the question and answer period.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Lamoureux, for your succinct presentation.

We will now hear from another representative of the Prairies, Mr. Denis Perreaux, Director General of the Association communautaire des francophones de l'Alberta.

[Denis Perreaux, Director General, Association communautaire des francophones de l'Alberta]

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and honourable members, for giving me the opportunity to speak today.

I have been director general for a couple of weeks, but I have been a manager of the Canada-community agreements in Alberta for four years. Before that, I was a public servant for four years at the Department of Canadian Heritage. So I have had the opportunity of seeing the management of these agreements from both perspectives.

Our association interprets the origin of these agreements by going back to the Supreme Court of Canada Mercure ruling and the subsequent abolishing of the language rights of Franco-Saskatchewanians and Franco-Albertans in 1988. At that time, the federal government attempted to meet these communities' needs by way of an agreement between the federal government and the communities, since their respective provincial government had no statutory obligations in this regard. And this is what led to the first agreement in Saskatchewan in 1989 and in Alberta in 1992.

Today, in Alberta, there is about $3 million in total funding. However, we annually receive funding applications from community organizations to the tune of $5 million. About 80% of this funding is spent on the day-to-day operations of these community groups, and 20% is dedicated to projects and innovation. The envelope funds about 40 community associations, the majority of which are regionally based, with the other half being either provincially or sector-based. About a third goes to the arts and culture.

In the early days, the Canada-community agreements constituted a real partnership between Canadian Heritage, as the federal coordinator for official languages, and the ACFA, as the mouthpiece and lead association for the overall development of the francophone community in Alberta. Concretely speaking, that means travelling throughout the entire province, looking for consensus, identifying the communities' needs and priorities, overseeing the decision-making process which precedes funding allocation, and being part of intergovernmental, interdepartmental collaborative efforts.

For us, in Alberta, the community organizations funded through these agreements are crucial in ensuring that the provisions under sections 41 and 42 of the Official Languages Act are met. I am speaking specifically about community development and vitality and promoting equality between French and English. The agreement really was the catalyst for several projects, including the most important in recent years, such as the first ever bilingual health care centre in Alberta, which will open its doors in a couple of weeks, the early childhood centre network, the performing arts network, community centres and about 25 service centres for francophones throughout Alberta.

This agreement led to a kind of symbiosis between the federal government and the community. Without the community, the federal government's ability to act is severely hampered, and without the funding under the agreement, the community is disempowered. And our ability to act is also hampered. So there really is room for a true partnership.

When it comes time to address official language issues at the Olympic Games, we call on these communities to be a springboard for action. When it comes time to ensure that section 23 education rights are implemented, once again, it is the communities we call upon. In our province, early childhood services, reception, settlement and employment services are all vitally important. And ultimately, the communities are the ones to develop these services.

I had intended to talk about four principles, but I limited myself to two, at the chair's request. I want to talk specifically about communities being responsible for their own development and for intergovernmental cooperation.

When a community is responsible for its own development, which is what we often also call governance for and by the community, that really is an example of the natural progression between priorities, resources, and the capacity to act. It is at that point that taking responsibility really counts. Why is it so important? Well, to begin with, it is practical.

When programs and services are imposed on minority communities like ours, it becomes much harder to entrench services which will be used across the entire area concerned. When communities establish their own service priorities and—for us, this includes early childhood, reception and settlement services—they end up using these services. The reason why there has been a veritable explosion in the number of people using these services in our region is that the services addressed real needs and priorities.

The other reason it is so important for communities to take responsibility for themselves, is out of respect. At the ACFA, we are putting together a comprehensive development plan including 9 action items across 14 regions in the province. In 2003, 38 advisory meetings were held and there are 15 to 20 meetings that take place annually to determine communities' needs and priorities.

There is a committee which looks at all that, makes funding allocation decisions and which forwards this information on to the department. So, we do the job we have to do. Now in the past, under the former system of agreements, the next step was to reach joint decisions with the department. So what actually came out of our committee meetings was a series of recommendations for the department on funding issues.

Currently, under section 157 of our accord, it is left up to Canadian Heritage to focus on that. So, this is a far cry from the communities being responsible for their own development, and I think that this frustration is at the heart of the communities' current dissatisfaction. The amount of funding is also very important, and I don't want to minimize that. But our main source of frustration is not having our communities' top priorities adequately funded.

At the grassroots level, we try to overcome this obstacle by way of good working relations, but as you can imagine, with the massive turnover of staff, things are very short-term, and so we can't really depend on this for the long term.

The second point I wanted to raise with you was intergovernmental and interdepartmental cooperation. There are clauses in these agreements encouraging us to work with the official languages federal coordinator, Canadian Heritage, with the province, and also with the other federal government departments.

The reason I'm raising this is that in Alberta, we don't have any legislation or policy concerning services provided in French. In fact, the current legislation states that Alberta's official working language is English. So in light of that, any progress made in Alberta is really based on what we could call an Alberta-made solutions model and on common sense. When there is a call for a service and it just so happens that it fits the government's priorities, then we're able to work together and implement it. But while we wait for these services to come on line, we rely on the Canada-community agreements to fill the gaps, whether that be in terms of reception and settlement services, early childhood services, or any other area. In fact, even education was dealt with in that way for a century. When the provincial government declared French-language education illegal, the ACFA and religious communities made sure that French-language education was available. And that is more or less the model that we still have in our communities. We meet unmet needs by relying on this grant and we would encourage intergovernmental cooperation so that we can have long-term funding at our disposal.

Let me give you an example, and this is really the crux of the matter, in some respects. At one point in time, the federal government negotiated early childhood agreements with the provinces. Under these agreements, there was a clause which simply referred to—and it was very modest, only a couple of lines—ensuring that Alberta's minority official language communities' needs were taken into consideration. That little clause was worth its weight in gold. For us, it meant that we could go and knock on provincial governments' doors and work with them to set up services. The great thing about the system thereafter was that when the agreement was amended, the province continued to play its role.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

You have one minute left.

[Denis Perreaux]

The province has continued to fund these services. So there is not only the issue of federal funding, we also need access points. These measures are essential.

In closing, I have four suggestions to make to improve the current system.

First, more money is needed in the current envelope, and, as was mentioned earlier, we need gradual, incremental funding, not only a lump sum over five years, because there are emerging needs and growth is very difficult to manage.

Second, management by a third party, such as a community foundation, is, in my opinion, a winning formula that ensures that we are accountable to taxpayers while giving us decision-making powers over the allocation of funding. I will be pleased to answer questions on this topic if there are any.

Lastly, there is the issue of provisions concerning official languages in the entire federal-provincial agreement. I cannot emphasize this enough: it is important to open the door to communities so that they can work with the provinces. It works for us, even in Alberta, where sometimes, federal-provincial cooperation can lead to tension. Those are my closing remarks.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Perreaux.

We will now turn the floor over to Ms. Thorne, who is Director General of the Société Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin or the Société acadienne de l'Île-du-Prince-Édouard.

[Lizanne Thorne, Director General, Société Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin (Société acadienne de l'Île-du-Prince-Édouard)]

Thank you for having us here today and allowing us to present our viewpoints.

I will begin by explaining the situation in Prince Edward Island. The Société Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin was founded in 1919. Its main mandate is to preserve the French Acadian culture and language in our province through education. In 1950, with the merger of small schools, Prince Edward Island lost all of its French schools, except in the Évangéline region. This had a negative impact on the preservation of the French language. We are said to have lost some 35,000 francophones, because they were assimilated into the English-language education system.

For us, the agreements are an essential tool. I will speak to you about our concerns, but I do not want to go over the same points that my colleagues have raised.

Is funding adequate for us? We have a fixed budget envelope over five years. However, in five years, many things can occur to change the situation. In Prince Edward Island, in 1999, there were only two French schools, whereas in 2003, there were six. This change occurred very rapidly, but the budget envelope has not increased. We must thus provide services to four more schools and four more communities with the same amount of funding.

Prince Edward Island is experiencing extraordinary growth in terms of official language knowledge. With a bilingualism rate of 12.7%, our province currently ranks third in Canada, after Quebec and New Brunswick. Between 2001 and 2006, the bilingualism rate increased by 0.76%, whereas the national trend declined.

This means that requests for services are increasing and needs are becoming more pressing. The number of French schools is climbing while the number of English schools is dropping. Despite this, we have the same budget, which prevents us from properly meeting the needs of our community.

Our employees and volunteers are becoming exhausted trying to meet these growing needs. We are passionate, resolute and dedicated. The study that has just been conducted shows that on average, our employees in the community network receive one-third of the salary that is paid in the public service or in the private sector for the same skills and the same work. In addition, they work an average of 15 hours more per week, unpaid, to offer quality services and continue to do their work. Our volunteers sit on an average of three committees or more, and do an average of three times more volunteer work than our English-speaking counterparts.

In terms of accountability, since the programming envelope under these agreements continues to be inadequate, we are increasingly forced to deal with several departments and granting agencies, which is not necessarily a bad thing. However, as my colleagues have said, departments and granting agencies have very different and complex requirements.

As concerns our priorities, once again, the program funding provides leverage and ensures a certain stability for employees who oversee the diversification of our funding. However, every time we submit an application to a department, we must adapt our results and our priorities to the framework of the targeted funding.

The cooperation agreements have allowed the community of Prince Edward Island to maintain an ongoing dialogue with Canadian Heritage. We would have liked to negotiate an agreement that included the Canadian government, and not only Canadian Heritage. All the departments have an obligation, and it would be a way for us to simplify the approach and set things straight for all sectors and all departments. A joint trilateral plan would also help cut down on red tape. The Société Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin is currently devising a comprehensive community development plan that includes both the provincial and federal governments.

As my colleagues have said, the disadvantages of the accord are as follows. Instead of giving responsibility to the community, it strips it of certain powers. The funding evaluation and recommendations committee appears to me to be more of an advisory committee. It is no longer a decision-making committee like it was before. We are lucky, because there is a director at Canadian Heritage who clearly understands the needs of our community. However, the staff can change any time and influence the way things work.

I, too, would recommend the establishment of a mechanism that includes more than one department. The next phase of the action plan and the subsequent collaboration accords must include the provincial and territorial governments as well as the other federal government departments. They must take part in the process as full-fledged partners rather than simply holding summary consultations.

The federal government's actions in the area of official languages must be felt on the ground. The fact remains, however, that certain areas of intervention that have a direct impact on the vitality and lot of our communities come under provincial jurisdiction. We recommend a trilateral collaboration model. For the past six months, we have been working with both levels of government in order to develop this type of collaboration model, which should result in joint planning and empowerment. This mechanism will allow for the provision of a plethora of institutional and community services so that citizens can live their everyday lives in French.

Under this model, governments would assume their obligations towards the Acadian and francophone community in all sectors. Furthermore, the community would have the partners it needs to ensure its full-fledged development and vitality.

In closing, governments must recognize and showcase, in a tangible fashion, the work done by community development organizations on the ground. To do this work, communities need stable, adequate and foreseeable funding in order to meet the growing needs of the regions effectively.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you very much, Ms. Thorne.

Thank you to our witnesses for this overview of the issues relating to Canada-community agreements throughout the country.

Without further ado, we will now go to our members of Parliament, who are very eager to ask you questions.

We will begin with Mr. Pablo Rodriguez.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for being here today. It's a pleasure to welcome you and to discuss matters with you. You spearhead the development of French in francophone communities throughout the country. I congratulate you on your courage, determination and the work you do.

I would like to ask a general question and hear a very brief answer from each of you.

In each of your provinces or territories, is the community doing better or worse than it was a few years ago?

[Daniel Boucher]

I can begin...

[Marie-Pierre Simard]

I would like the question to be more specific.

What do you mean by “doing worse”? What are your criteria?

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Is the community doing better in terms of structures, operation, access to education, services and daycare? Is the situation better or worse than it was a few years ago? It's a general question.

[Daniel Boucher]

In general, thanks to the work of the community, it is doing better, yes. If we had the support we needed from governments, it would be doing much, much better, but it is not doing too badly.