Thank you for inviting me, particularly at this sombre moment: the Montreal Canadiens have just fired their trainer. So there are more pressing problems elsewhere.
Nonetheless I will try to answer your questions. I am going to make my presentation based on the document you have received. I hope that it will tell you what you want to hear this morning. It was not entirely clear to me what you want to examine, exactly, but we will be happy to answer all your questions and tell you what we can do, as an association and institution, to meet the needs of the Canadian public with respect to bilingualism and linguistic duality.
I am François Charbonneau, the Director General of the Association des universités de la francophonie canadienne. Our association consists of 13 institutions that deliver education entirely or partially in French in minority communities in Canada.
The network of universities in Francophone Canada has a presence in six provinces, with a total of 21,000 people studying in French. The students are not merely learning French as a second language; they are also taking mathematics and geography courses in French.
The mission of our association, which has existed since 1990 under various names, is to promote university education in Francophone communities. Obviously, the AIFC is pleased that the committee has decided to look into opportunities for learning a second language at Canadian universities and the contribution made by Francophone universities to the development of official language minority communities.
The two objectives must not be confused. They are separate and, in part, complementary. Obviously, learning a second official language is extremely important for the Canadian public as a whole, and for Canada. It is important from an individual perspective, in terms of career prospects, and so that Canada will have a bilingual population that can build bridges between communities.
That is in fact why, and I put great emphasis on this, Canadian Francophone universities have long made a strong contribution to helping Anglophones in Canada experience genuine immersion, by studying alongside Francophone students, often near where they live, while learning French in special programs, taking several classes a week. Some of their classes are given in French. As well, special programs are offered, such as intensive summer programs. These programs have been operating for a very long time.
Our institutions are doing more than their share to enable young English speakers to improve their knowledge of French, and the Francophone universities of Canada obviously intend to continue offering an environment where French can be learned in many parts of Canada. However, I would note that the primary purpose of the vast majority of our institutions is to serve Francophone communities by offering them an opportunity to acquire a university education in French.
Francophones in Canada have taken the importance of bilingualism seriously. The 2006 post-censal survey tells us that Francophones outside Quebec are by far the most bilingual segment of the Canadian population. But obviously that is not the issue. The main issue is to determine whether it is possible to live in French in Canada outside Quebec. To live in French, you have to be able to go to school, you have to have access to theatre and legal services in French, and so on. Obviously, that calls for a solid university network to train teachers, actors, lawyers, etc.
The universities offer courses in French that are absolutely essential to the vitality of Francophone communities in Canada, and on that point, the Association des universités de la francophonie canadienne produced a document last year that is available in both official languages, concerning the impact of our institutions on their regions. It is essential reading. I will submit it.
In spite of that undeniable positive impact, we must acknowledge that the universities are to some extent the orphan children of the institutional fabric of Francophone Canada. We have some concerns regarding the manner in which funds are currently being invested in postsecondary institutions to meet the objectives of linguistic duality, and in particular in the knowledge economy, because it could exacerbate the disparities between minority institutions and majority institutions.
I am therefore talking about the two investments, the investments in linguistic duality in postsecondary education. Your committee should be asking some questions about this. I will then come to the question of larger investments in the knowledge economy, in which recent governments have been very eager to invest.
The federal government's investments in recent years, the investments laid out in the action plan or announced in the roadmap, are obviously welcome. It is very difficult to quantify them, however. We have been asked to do that, but it is very difficult, in fact, to be frank. This summer, we tried to determine exactly how much money was going to postsecondary institutions for second-language learning, and also for teaching in French at the university level. It is very difficult, given the way that money is invested in the provinces under the federal/provincial/territorial education agreements. Essentially, the funds are incorporated into the provinces' budgets.
Except in the case of one-time, specific projects, where there is a special agreement between the federal government and a university, or in cases where there is only one Francophone postsecondary institution in a province, it is very difficult to know how much money comes from the province and how much comes from the federal government, and how much the total envelope of money goes to the postsecondary level. We tried to get the answer to that question, but it was very difficult.
What is certain is that the 2003 action plan adopted the express objective of improving access to postsecondary education in French, that is, "expand the range of French-language programs in Francophone or bilingual colleges and universities". After the action plan was adopted, the universities that belong to the AUFC adopted their own action plan, of which I have a copy here, to see where it would be most useful to invest, and in particular to improve their programs and ensure that access to programs in French in Canada was available for local populations, obviously, but also for students coming from immersion streams. In some institutions, immersion students may account for a third of enrolments. But the institutions' action plan was not funded. The roadmap adopted this summer says virtually nothing about the postsecondary level, except for very specific fields. There are questions that need to be asked in this regard.
Moving on, we come to the funds invested in the knowledge economy. For several years, the federal government has chosen to invest in the knowledge economy by adopting numerous initiatives to help Canadian universities stay competition during a transitional period for Canada's economy. This doesn't have to be explained. The universities in Francophone Canada are very pleased that the government is choosing to invest in Canadian universities, and we agree with the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, which is overjoyed with the investments recently announced.
However, the manner in which the funds are invested often creates a risk of exacerbating the gap between Francophone majority institutions and Anglophone majority institutions. I can give you one example, but I have an entire list. The Vanier scholarships that were recently announced are intended to reward excellence in research. There are 500 doctoral scholarships of $50,000 per year for students in Canada or abroad. This is excellent news, and in fact it makes me regret that I did my doctorate several ago rather than now. However, the distribution of the scholarships by the councils funded is based on the sum of the three-year rolling average used for the last Canada Research Chairs' calculations, that is, the funding that was received for the 2003-2004, 2004-2005 and 2005-2006 fiscal years. I would point out that the number of Canada Research Chairs was also allocated based on the institutions' ability to obtain research funding from the main funding bodies. While Quebec Anglophones can count on one of the most prestigious university research institutions, universities in Francophone Canada are most often, and not always, but in a large majority of cases, small institutions that do not have doctoral programs or do not have a tradition of obtaining research funding. Those institutions are put at a disadvantage by the present system. The obvious consequence is that the large institutions become more attractive to students in the major centres where there is not always the opportunity to study in French.
To conclude, I will say that the efforts made by the Government of Canada may have slowed the brain drain to the United States, which was the objective in the early part of this century. However, they have the potential of starting an internal brain drain, a brain drain from the regions to the major centres, and also from the minority institutions to the majority institutions.
While I don't want to be fatalistic, I would note that the idea is not to question the principle of investing in the knowledge economy. The government must support excellence. It is to be expected that the institutions in major centres will come out ahead of institutions located in places that are less suited to cutting edge research. However, we must pay attention to the impact of those investments on Francophone communities, which may end up worse off.
For example, the government could create compensatory programs that would apply to minority language institutions, but also to small institutions in the regions, because this is also important for them. The objective of the programs would be to enable the institutions to expand the programs they offer and improve their research capacity, and provide opportunities for pooling resources, among other things.