Official Languages Committee on Feb. 25th, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much.

Madam Bateman.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thank you.

Mr. Thompson, you were on the cusp of saying something, so if you would, and then I'll start my questions.

[Stephen Thompson]

Thank you, Madam Bateman. I appreciate that.

I wanted to mention, does the government do enough? Under the current President of the Treasury Board the government has implemented linguistic clauses in bilateral agreements, which have been of enormous assistance to us in our dealings with the Government of Quebec. I'll give you a perfect example, the Growing Forward 2 bilateral agreement on agriculture. Before English-speaking farmers in Quebec had difficulty accessing services in English. Through programs paid for by Growing Forward, federal money goes to Quebec to pay for them. The English-speaking farmers now have the ability, in partnership with the Government of Quebec and the Government of Canada, to access services in English. It's very important, and we think it's a great initiative.

By the way, clauses are included in the current labour market agreement. Right now in every bilateral agreement between the feds and the province these linguistic clauses are being considered, and we can consider that a big step forward.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

I'm so glad you had a chance to add that because that builds on the line of questioning I want to pursue with you. Certainly we have two official languages and we want

services to be accessible in both languages across Canada.

That's so important, so thank you for recognizing that was a positive clause inclusion by our Treasury Board people.

Your comments on your Canada job grant really fascinate me because it tells me that this structure is making it more possible to access. We keep on hearing that we have jobs without the people able to fill them, and people without jobs and without the skills to get those jobs. I am also on the industry, science, and technology committee. Yesterday we heard there are so many.... A huge company in Quebec can't get the people who are trained to do this high-tech work. Could you speak to me about what is positive about the Canada job grant and what can make it more positive, because as you know it's still being pulled together?

[Stephen Thompson]

The first priority in our community development plan 2012-2017 is access to services in English. You have to understand that we have to preface our comments by saying that we're in a unique space as English-speaking Quebeckers.

The whole mechanism around support to linguistic minority communities in Canada and the Official Languages Act is premised on the idea of a partnership with the provinces in a system that has concurrent jurisdiction. As an English-speaking community in Quebec we are the only jurisdiction in Canada that doesn't have a formal relationship with our provincial government. So before, Madame St-Denis talked about the concept of over the head of the provincial government. We don't quite see things that way. We see that we're concurrently governed by the Government of Canada and the Government of Quebec. The Government of Canada has an obligation toward our community, under law the Government of Quebec does not, strategically. We don't have that relationship.

So our specific challenge in our community is that when the federal government makes partnerships with provinces, as it should under the Official Languages Act, to support the vitality of linguistic minority communities, it's not possible in Quebec because Quebec doesn't have that relationship with us. So it has to have a more direct relationship with our community. So in our community wherever the federal government can have a direct relationship with us, it's better for us because we can access the support and we can help the vitality of our community. That's why we have the position we do.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Okay, thank you.

You talked about how 2% of the English-speaking population is more likely to be self-employed and 5% are more likely to be unemployed. What can the federal government do specifically to address this? We want all people employed.

We want job creation and economic growth.

[Stephen Thompson]

The Canada job grant is an excellent example of where you encourage young Canadians, young English-speaking Canadians in Quebec, who can get the services in English that they need to get the technical training. We've explained the sorts of occupations that anglophones work in. They tend not to be represented in the trades. If you give them the opportunities, they can access employment in their regions, in the province, and they'll stay.

Make no mistake about it, migration is an economic activity. There are other factors that may weigh on a person's decision, but people move looking for other opportunities. There's great research on this that we can certainly share with the analysts. The interesting thing about migration is that when you leave, you tend to do better than not only the people you leave behind but your peers on where you're going. So economic migrants in Canada....

As well, there's an economic penalty for moving back to where you came from, and it doesn't matter where you're from. In general, if you move from Ontario to Alberta, and then back to Ontario, you're statistically more likely to do worse than the people who stuck around. In other words, there's a financial incentive to leave, and there's a financial disincentive to come back. Keeping people there in the first place in terms of the economy is very important—the economy and jobs.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Okay.

I still have a bit of time. Yesterday in the industry committee, there was a discussion. I think it was Pierre Moisan. I think they employee hundreds of people in Quebec City in video gaming industries. This a huge growth opportunity and it's something that many young people.... You were referring, Madam Martin-Laforge, to the kids in the basement. Well, this is what they're doing in the basement. They're gaming.

I'm curious. There's a huge economic opportunity, yet there's a huge disconnect between the qualified people and the capacity to fill the market. Do you have any ideas?

[Sylvia Martin-Laforge]

You asked what the federal government could do. There are the specific programs, but there's also the notion in Quebec—we talked about it in the opening remarks—of an economic development plan for official language minority communities. In 2008 the QCGN, with major stakeholders, prepared a report on economic development in Quebec. I could make this available for the committee. At that time, we talked about a coordinated approach in Quebec amongst us for economic development in Quebec.

At the time, we called it the “Quebec Economic Development Council”. It was a study. We'll make it available. I think one of the things that's important about what's being tried right now is that there is, with the RDÉE and the CEDEC, an attempt to have a plan for OLMCs. In Quebec, we desperately need an economic development plan for OLMCs that brings the stakeholders together, so that we can tell you better what the federal government could consider as programs and what the province could consider as programs as well. We need to work together.

And you know what? One of our groups, the Voice of English-speaking Québec, in Quebec City, is coming tomorrow to visit the Senate to talk about notions of their newcomer program and the connection to immigrants and migrants. In Quebec City, there are tonnes of people coming in for new jobs in that kind of industry. If they are coming in as English-speaking people from the rest of Canada or from outside of Canada, they want to find a community in Quebec City that can help them and their families establish themselves.

So it's about the jobs, but it's about the support that a community can give for economic development in their region as well. It's a kind of offshoot of what's important and how we can help communities thrive and build jobs by these newcomer programs. It's all connected.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you.

Mr. Chisu.

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Thank you very much for appearing in front of our committee. It's always a pleasure to talk to you.

I am looking at the economic situation of Canadian minority language communities. When you look at the economic situation, are you aware of any studies we've done regarding the labour market? This is not only in the English-speaking communities but also in the French-speaking minority communities.

This is the first step. You need to find out the causes of the problems in those communities. I'm seeing millions of programs, millions of beautiful dollars going left, right, and centre, but what is the situation there? For example, how does the economic situation for minority language communities compare with that for the majority communities?

So what is the situation there, what is the economic situation, and what can we do to attract businesses, for example, to make these communities be at eventually the same level as the majority communities? But that is if they are under the majority; I don't know that. You cannot make recipes for things when you don't know the causes of the problems.

[Stephen Thompson]

It's a superb question, and it's one we ask. The people most likely to have the answer right now would be either YES or CEDEC, which we've mentioned.

Having said that, we just finished a very good consultation with Employment and Social Development Canada, or ESDC, in January. There is a sense in ESDC right now that they are asking exactly the same questions that you just outlined. Why are we doing all of this? Where do we need to work? What's working, what isn't, and how do we do things better?

But they're asking that on a global scale. Here's the difficulty from a policy person's point of view: a lot of the data is not available by language. They'll be able to drill down very well regionally or geographically, but the data isn't broken out by language. We keep asking partners like ESDC...and Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation is another fount of knowledge and research.

There are all these little places, and big places, in government where all this information is available, but we need it by language. Then we can start answering, because we have the same questions you do.

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

I have seen several programs in the past that have also been put forward for the future. What are the measures of success? What have we done up until now? How are we measuring success? We're having different programs, with different allocations of money for a certain pull force, so how are we measuring success? What tools are you using to measure success?

[Sylvia Martin-Laforge]

There is certainly higher employment, less underemployment, less poverty, and all of that, but the attribution of the programs to the success of this is very difficult.

For us to start seeing successes, we believe that if we have a coordinated approach and we have collective action on something, and we decided amongst the English-speaking community of Quebec to do some work, for example on youth, something specific on youth, something specific on entrepreneurship, then we could develop our measures of success.

As government and as citizens, we would like to be able to say we did this, and it gave that. It's pretty difficult. Certainly within the community we don't have the resources to make the direct correlation between we did this, and that happened. But we believe, amongst our 41 groups anyway, that we are starting to see the stories come up that they have done such and such, and the youth are staying.

I'll give you an example. In CASA in the Gaspé region they are very worried about the number of youth who are not identifying themselves with the Gaspesian region. They believe that if you don't identify with the Gaspesian region, you're going to go and find jobs somewhere. You won't even look. You won't prepare for an employment opportunity. You won't make a home and a career or raise a family in that region, so they are working on identity issues. They are working to help the young Gaspesians feel happier, more identified with, and more contributing to their region.

In a way that has nothing to do with economic development, but it does, because they are starting to see more young Gaspesians interested in staying in Quebec, wanting to have jobs in Gaspé, and wanting to start opportunities in Quebec.

A few years ago what they did was they went to see Youth Employment Services, and they asked them to prepare a program. That program is now working in the Gaspé.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you.

Mr. Nicholls.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We saw the EKOS poll today that showed that one out of every two anglophones or allophones are thinking about leaving the province. I have worries about the jobs grant hastening that exodus of anglophones, but I'm not going to touch on that.

You mentioned YES, and I think the key is more about giving support to key stakeholders like YES. I've been involved with them for quite a few years. I have seen the services they offer to entrepreneurs. From what I've seen of participants in YES workshops, a lot of them are involved in artistic and innovative companies. The thing I know from experience is this. It's not just an urban enterprise. Our village theatre in the village of Hudson is a great economic engine in the village, and that could be repeated throughout the province.

Would you recommend increases in both the enabling fund and cultural funding for linguistic minorities to spur that economic growth in those sectors?

[Sylvia Martin-Laforge]

I think our network would speak on behalf of the English-speaking community and say more resources are important, more money is important, but I think our network in our community would say let's do it smart and let's do it efficiently.

For example ELAN, English Language Arts Network, is also working around entrepreneurship in the arts. ELAN and YES work together to put these workshops on. They exchange resources and ideas, so that's a good example about how that can work.

There's an interesting piece of work we did recently that we can make available for the committee as well. It was the beginnings of a study on the creative economy that is seen as very important in Quebec, both by the majority community and the English-speaking community. There's tonnes of money of return on the creative economy. The creative economy is not just about arts and culture. It's about all sorts of things, but certainly arts and culture is a good....

So money is important, yes.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

So it would be a smart investment, in terms of a vision for retention of that committee, to put resources into that sector?

[Sylvia Martin-Laforge]

Absolutely.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

The other thing is that a lot of those companies and entrepreneurs are very ecologically minded, so any funding involving ecologically innovative companies would also be helpful to that community. Would you not agree? In terms of the creative economy, that's part and parcel, right?

[Sylvia Martin-Laforge]

The future is there. Absolutely, the future is there.

The youth have that vision and we have to help them put it into effect.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Right, and you recommended direct funding rather than funding through the province, but if we look at a program like Soutien au travail autonome, we know that they offer support longer than the federal government does for training entrepreneurs and giving them help, giving them a leg up.

Given that information, don't you think that the province is doing a decent job in offering more support to entrepreneurs to get a start in the province?

[Stephen Thompson]

Not for our community. In general that may be true, but it does not—

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

What would be the challenge? Are they saying to anglophones they're not going to give them that support, or do anglophones simply not know about the program?

[Stephen Thompson]

It would be an excellent question to ask YES if they get invited to this committee. They can tell you about their first-hand experiences trying to access funds from the Government of Quebec, because they were refused funding from the Government of Quebec because they are an English organization.