Official Languages Committee on Nov. 27th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Normally, documents are distributed to committee in both languages.

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

Mr. Chairman, I do not want to waste time with a point of order, but I can tell you that witnesses cannot distribute documents if they are not in both languages. I am submitting evidence, and nowhere in the rules does it say that committee members cannot submit evidence... I cannot translate evidence, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Is it a newspaper article?

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

It is something taken from the National Defence website. The French document that you have contains the word “and.” It is on page...

Point of order, Mr. Chairman.

[Luc Harvey, Conservative, Louis-Hébert, QC]

There is no way to follow along. You are saying things, but we have no idea what you are referring to. It is understandable that we have questions, Mr. Godin.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Mr. Godin, I would ask you to wait until the document is distributed before continuing.

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

Is the clock stopped?

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

It is standard practice for committee members to provide bilingual documents and I think that is a desirable practice. I accept the point that Mr. Godin wants to make this morning, for example in the case of a newspaper article, but I do call on the goodwill of parliamentarians to submit their documents in both official languages, when possible, in order to set an example for our witnesses.

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

Mr. Chair, it is evidence, and I cannot translate it without destroying it. Instead of the word “and”, you should read the word “et”. I would also like to point out that I had asked the clerk whether my document was acceptable, and he told me that it was. I followed the rules of the committee.

On a page in French, you can read the words “Canadian Forces image gallery”. To me, that is not French, Mr. Commissioner. You can also see the words “Click Image to download”. That is not French either.

Do you agree with me that the example should come from the top? Things like this are an insult to the community. Once again, National Defence is violating the Official Languages Act. We are not talking about large sums of money, such as those at stake in the war in Afghanistan, but of small efforts. In my own Acadian French, I would say it takes “petit stuff sur le terrain” (“little stuff on the ground”).

[Graham Fraser]

Mr. Chair, I thank the member for the information he has given me, of which I had no prior knowledge . I would like to echo the member's comments with regard to the role played by Ombudsman Yves Côté. I read the statement he made before your committee last week. We spoke yesterday, and I congratulated him. I would also like to point out that we are working together to ensure there is no duplication of efforts, but rather a strengthening of our actions. That is something he indicated to the committee.

Last week, I met General Semianiw and I stressed the importance of leadership in this area. Far from undermining the importance of respecting our official languages, Canada's commitment in Afghanistan strengthens it. General Hillier has already said that the Canadian Forces had been sidelined for the past 20 years. Today, everyone is looking at the work done by the Canadian Forces, and that is increasing its importance.

In addition, the Royal 22^nd Regiment's presence in Afghanistan has moved the issue of language duality and training to the forefront... We have begun to assess the training provided to our soldiers in the Canadian Forces.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Mr. Godin, you have two minutes remaining.

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

On another topic, in yesterday's L'Acadie nouvelle newspaper, I read the following quote from the Canadian Press:

Francophones are running out of steam; the Commissioner of Official Languages has been asked to assess the situation in British Columbia

According to your comments, that is apparently not only the case in British Columbia, but across Canada. In my province, the Société des Acadiens et Acadiennes is saying that they are not receiving their funding. The communities are saying that they are awaiting the money and that they cannot operate for four months without money, and having to tap lines of credit.

Your presentation does not contain anything positive about the current state of affairs. Is the Canadian francophone community in danger? I do not hear any comments about how bad things are for anglophones. There are no website pages in English that are badly translated from French. With all due respect, I must say that there have been no complaints in that regard.

Do you think that the current government is headed in the wrong direction, especially since the minister is responsible for monitoring her own actions, and given that she will be making the decisions?

[Graham Fraser]

Mr. Chair, one thing I noticed when I visited communities and institutions in minority communities across Canada is that the same complaints came from both francophone institutions and anglophone institutions in Quebec. They have the same problem. As is often the case, when they request funding from the Department of Canadian Heritage, their cheques arrive in January or February, and they have to spend the money before the end of the fiscal year. That is a significant management problem. And that is not specific to British Columbia. I have heard the same thing in Quebec and Saskatchewan. I am sure you yourselves heard the same thing during your trip across the country.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Fraser.

We will now continue with Mr. Michael Chong.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Fraser, for your testimony.

First, I have two broad comments.

As a Toronto region MP, I'd like to offer the commissioner my thoughts regarding the intersection of linguistic duality and cultural diversity. I'm glad you're exploring this area, because I can tell you that the country's largest city region is changing rapidly, and more rapidly than most people in this town are aware of. It's something that one academic referred to as the galloping heterogeneity of the new Canada.

It's a region that has, as you know, almost 5.5 million people. It's going to 9 million people in just over 20 years. I don't think most Canadians are aware of how rapidly this region is growing. The fastest growing municipalities in the country are not in the west, in Alberta; they're actually in the Toronto region.

All this growth will be from immigration. If the region is properly represented in the House of Commons, this region, what the province is now calling the GTA, or the greater golden horseshoe, will have more seats than any other province, including the rest of Ontario.

So I think one of the big challenges for the Government of Canada in the coming years will be to balance this diversity with some of our nation's most cherished ideals. In other words, how do you accommodate this diversity while protecting and fostering some of the fundamentals on which this country was based? I think this study is going to be very important, and I'm glad to see you're undertaking it. I'd like to offer you my thoughts on it.

As the son of immigrants to this country.... I think most new Canadians wholeheartedly embrace the ideals of bilingualism, and do so in a way that maybe native-born Canadians won't because they understand the need to speak another language. Most of them are coming from countries where English is not the mother tongue, and they are very open to learning a second or third language. So I think they will wholeheartedly embrace bilingualism, but only if bilingualism is not associated with ethnicity. The minute bilingualism or linguistic duality is in any way, shape, or form associated with ethnicity, you're going to get absolutely no uptake, no buy-in from these new Canadians. From my perspective, that is a very important part of how we can proceed with encouraging greater bilingualism and greater linguistic duality throughout this country.

The second broad comment I want to make is regarding the study you're undertaking with the Association of Universities and Colleges in Canada. As a graduate of the public education system in Ontario, I think I got a very good education, with one exception, and that is the fact that I was never properly encouraged to learn French. I did take high school French, but it was never the focus of the public education system the way it should have been. When the country's largest employer and its public institutions are bilingual, and you come to a town like this and suddenly realize the disconnect between our public education system and the need to speak French in federal institutions....

This is something that needs to be examined further. I guess one way to do it is through the poll method, where you encourage universities to strengthen their entrance requirements to include French as one of the requirements for entrants. The other way is to examine ways that provinces could require French as a requirement for graduation.

I live near Waterloo. If the University of Waterloo or Microsoft was not getting the graduates from high school it needed for engineering positions at Microsoft or for engineering positions at Research in Motion, there would be a hue and cry about it, but when the country's largest employer isn't getting the graduates it needs, there doesn't seem to be any action on it, with respect to universities or high schools and other pre-secondary institutions.

I encourage you to look at that because I think that is a big gap in public policy in this country.

My mother was European, and in Europe after the Second World War there wasn't a person who could speak a language other than their own native tongue. Within 15 or 20 years, most western European countries had adopted a policy of trilingualism. Today it's almost impossible not to speak French or English in your own native tongue in any country in western Europe, because the minute they detect any sort of accent in your use of their language, they flip to your language. There is no reason we couldn't achieve that type of policy here as well.

I don't know if you have any comments on those things.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Please make it a very brief comment.

[Graham Fraser]

Mr. Chairman, all I will say is I appreciate very much the comments the member made, and I appreciate his contribution to the discussion we are undertaking in terms of the challenges of diversity and duality.

I couldn't agree more with the comments he made about the importance of education. It's a theme that.... Everywhere I travel in Canada I make an effort to talk to people, both at universities and in secondary education, about the importance of this, and I appreciate his comments.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Fraser.

And it could eventually be a matter that would be covered by the committee as well.

We will now move to the second round of questioning, beginning with Mr. Jean-Claude D'Amours.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank you, Mr. Commissioner, as well as your associates, for appearing before us this morning.

You spoke about the Court Challenges Program by saying that you intended to intervene before the Supreme Court, because it was an issue of national interest. I would not presume to speak for you, but the words “national interest” mean that this is something that must be considered the same way across the country, given that there are francophones living across Canada and that they must be respected on a par with anglophones. I know that the scope of the Court Challenges Program extended beyond language rights.

You also indicated in your conclusion that you wanted to see results, and action being taken. I find it rather odd that the Conservative government says that it wants to do this and that, but it seems to be taking forever to do something concrete. Furthermore, their actions often have negative consequences on communities, as when they cancelled the Court Challenges Program.

Would you want the Conservatives to stop talking and start taking concrete and positive action, such as reinstating the Court Challenges Program?

[Graham Fraser]

Mr. Chair, I would like to come back to the government's commitment to renew the Action Plan for Official Languages, which was announced in the throne speech.

I was very pleased with that commitment and I said so publicly at the time. Furthermore, I also said something that relates to the member's comments: a throne speech is a menu, not a meal. The government, therefore, has announced its menu, and we are awaiting the meal.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

And we are hungry!

Mr. Commissioner, I agree with you: francophones and minority groups across Canada are hungry. I like your way of seeing things, that was very eloquent.

We will pursue our study of the Court Challenges Program. We have heard people say that the Court Challenges Program did not serve a purpose and had run its course, up to a certain point.

Would you agree that the Court Challenges Program could be useful as long as there is injustice and that minorities have to assert their rights?

[Graham Fraser]

Mr. Chair, our report on the investigation into the 117 complaints received with regard to the September 2006 budget cuts contained a legal study on the potential impact of those cuts. Much of the progress that has been made is due to decisions rendered by the Supreme Court following recourse to the Court Challenges Program.

A network of school boards was created because we went before the courts asking that section 23 encompass the right of communities to control their schools. Are the implications of sections 16 and 23 set in stone? No, of course not. There are grey areas. It is for that reason that we ask the courts to clarify the charter rights.

There is an ongoing dialogue between parliamentarians, citizens and Canadian courts. In many cases, Canadians are represented by the Commissioner of Official Languages in areas dealing with language rights.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Fraser.

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

I have a brief point of order, Mr.Chairman.

Mr. Fraser referred to a legal study, or analysis. Would it be possible to have a copy?

[Graham Fraser]

It is part of our study.