Evidence of meeting #15 for Official Languages in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was communities.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
The best time to learn French is when we're young. I learned French as an adult, and it was very difficult.
9:30 a.m.
President, Fédération acadienne de la Nouvelle-Écosse
You speak well. I wouldn't know—
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
Is the program available across Nova Scotia?
9:35 a.m.
President, Fédération acadienne de la Nouvelle-Écosse
That program, Grandir en français, is being implemented in all the francophone schools of the CSAP.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
9:35 a.m.
President, Fédération acadienne de la Nouvelle-Écosse
We're having an enormous success with this project. We're not having as much success with our French-language schools because it takes a lot of time to establish those schools. Our school has been under renovation for 10 years now. We now have 203 students, but the school, once renovated, will be able to hold only 125. We're enjoying major success with this program, but we have other problems.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
You mentioned that a lot of your programs had been successful as a result of the Roadmap. Could you give us some examples?
9:35 a.m.
Executive Director, Fédération acadienne de la Nouvelle-Écosse
The successes have been in the field of health services. Under the Roadmap, one project enabled an anglophone organization in the Annapolis Valley to provide services in French. What is interesting, in the case of this example, is that it makes it possible to maintain a dialogue with anglophones and anglophone groups and to give them a clear understanding of the needs of that community. In health, we're also talking about speech therapy services provided in early childhood. It is very difficult to find speech therapists in Nova Scotia. However, the Roadmap has enabled us to develop speech therapy services to assist children in the schools. There are other examples of this kind, in particular the Grandir en français initiative, which is very significant.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
You mentioned that 81% of your communities or your associations—
9:35 a.m.
Executive Director, Fédération acadienne de la Nouvelle-Écosse
I was talking about our member organizations.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
There are 29 of them, and 20 of them responded to your survey. And 81% of those respondents felt that the Roadmap was an asset.
9:35 a.m.
Executive Director, Fédération acadienne de la Nouvelle-Écosse
I believe that 73% of the organizations have received funding and have thus been able to carry out their mandates more effectively. Obviously, they will say it's an asset. Given the successes experienced by the province, that I've just mentioned, we can obviously only say that the Roadmap has value.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
There's something I haven't understood. You said that 17% of students 15 years of age and over had problems, that they were not at the same level as anglophones.
Could you give us more details on that situation?
9:35 a.m.
Executive Director, Fédération acadienne de la Nouvelle-Écosse
Of course.
The level of literacy of those people is not equal to that of the anglophones. So they have to catch up in order to achieve the same level as the anglophones.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
9:35 a.m.
Executive Director, Fédération acadienne de la Nouvelle-Écosse
There are historical reasons related in particular to education and access to education. As regards the economic aspect, our regions exploit certain natural resources. In the fisheries, for example, youths 15 or 16 years of age leave their studies to become fishermen or to work in the plants.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
Lastly, I would like to know what percentage francophones represent of Nova Scotia's population.
9:35 a.m.
Executive Director, Fédération acadienne de la Nouvelle-Écosse
They represent 3.4% of the population.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Bernard Trottier Conservative Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thanks as well to our guests for being here this morning. I'm very pleased to hear the French Canadian voice. I've lived in a number of regions of Canada, and now I'm living in Toronto. I've also lived in London, Ontario, in Alberta and, for a certain time, in Montreal. I see a major difference in the needs of francophones across the country.
Based on your comments, we can see that your assessment of the Roadmap is quite positive. It has resulted in changes, despite it's chaotic withdrawal in 2008. You talked about that earlier. I'm also hearing some constructive criticism, among other things the fact that certain matters should be clarified and that a stronger connection should be established between Roadmap investments and results. You also talked about the need to establish better performance measures, particularly as regards client satisfaction.
Can you tell us how we could better measure client satisfaction in your communities?
9:40 a.m.
President, Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada
The member organizations of our federation work directly in the field. It is easy for us to survey the matter, but we have to have the time and resources to do so. As in the case of any business that wants to progress, be efficient and improve its service and performance, I believe it is important to measure the level of satisfaction and to see how we have served citizens. That could be done through a survey or a study in the field in cooperation with the government or even by the government. It's essential for us to be able to measure the efficiency of the services we provide.
