Evidence of meeting #13 for Official Languages in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was services.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
Joe Daniel Conservative Don Valley East, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair
Thank you, ladies, for being here.
Following on the same topic, I have a few questions about your funding as well. How much money do you get every year from all your sources?
9:20 a.m.
Executive Director, Association franco-yukonnaise
On average, our association's total budget is $2 million a year, including all sources of funding, and we have about 25 employees. As you have been able to see, we provide a number of services.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
Joe Daniel Conservative Don Valley East, ON
That's very good.
What activities are your organizations undertaking, in particular for young francophones who would more than likely leave the area to find jobs, etc., in other locations? Given that your community is based on a number of small- to medium-sized businesses, there can't be a huge number of opportunities coming through for youth. Can you elaborate a little on that?
9:20 a.m.
Executive Director, Association franco-yukonnaise
Keeping young francophones in the Yukon is a challenge. We find it difficult to keep young francophones in our high school. They leave the francophone system for the anglophone system. Not only that, because there are no French-language post-secondary institutions in the Yukon, students leave to study in Ottawa, in Montreal or in other places. Some come back four years later, but others settle elsewhere. It really is a challenge.
We are doing some things to remedy the situation. But really, we are not doing much because we do not know how to solve the problem. Nor is there any funding for it. We have an employment assistance program and we go into the school, which works with us. The Association franco-yukonnaise has a youth service, but it tends to be focused on cultural identity or leadership.
We work together with the school to reach those students so that we can encourage them to be proud to be francophone. But once they have left the Yukon, it is very difficult to follow them wherever they may go. We still have a lot of work to do to find solutions.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
Joe Daniel Conservative Don Valley East, ON
So most of them leave the territory before higher education?
9:20 a.m.
Executive Director, Association franco-yukonnaise
Most of them leave the territory to study outside. But some stay in the community. A first generation of true Franco-Yukoners is emerging, French-speaking Yukoners who were born in the Yukon. The first generations are now living their lives. We do not have a lot of statistical data on it because it is an ongoing process. It is certain that students coming out of high school, whether they have been in English or French immersion, are leaving the territory to study somewhere else. More and more of them are coming back, but I could not give you a percentage.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
Joe Daniel Conservative Don Valley East, ON
We've heard from some of the other committees that the dropout rate from high school is very high in some of the remote areas and the territories, etc., particularly with indigenous people. Do you have a track record of what's happening in the francophone schools in Yukon?
9:20 a.m.
Executive Director, Association franco-yukonnaise
There are not a lot of dropouts at the French-language school. However, according to recent statistics, 10% to 15% of students in regular schools have special needs. In the French-language school in the Yukon, it is 37%. Does that mean they will drop out? I don't know. That is one of the reasons why the school board is fighting so hard to get that funding, so that it can help those students.
There is another problem: those students do not have a very good command of French. Their parents may be francophone, or they may have come from an exogamous situation, but, for all sorts of reasons, they did not choose to speak to their children in French from the outset. As a result, the school has a lot of catching-up to do and a number of challenges to meet.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Joe Daniel Conservative Don Valley East, ON
Since most of these youth will end up going into anglophone higher education, what are you doing to prepare them for that?
9:25 a.m.
Executive Director, Association franco-yukonnaise
At the school that offers a first-language French program, students study English as their first language. In fact, the francophone school prepares them to graduate in both languages. When they graduate from the francophone school, they graduate in both languages. That does not mean a bilingual diploma; their transcripts show English as the first language.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Joe Daniel Conservative Don Valley East, ON
Given that you're spending some $2 million a year, do you think it's possible to measure the economic impact of the francophone community in Yukon?
9:25 a.m.
Executive Director, Association franco-yukonnaise
We want to be able to measure that impact. We have not yet managed to do it.
The Association franco-yukonnaise employs more than 25 people each year, even more when we have special projects. We have a lot of activities that bring people to our association. We do a lot of work with the tourism industry in promoting tourism.
There is certainly a way of evaluating the impact, but we have not done it for the moment.
February 27th, 2014 / 9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Corneliu Chisu Conservative Pickering—Scarborough East, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much to the witnesses for showing up today, a very snowy day.
I want to concentrate on the economic issues. What are the priorities of the francophone community in Yukon in the area of economic development? You also mentioned that from April 1 you will be able to help entrepreneurs to open and develop a business and so on.
9:25 a.m.
Executive Director, Association franco-yukonnaise
As of April 1, we will not have the funds to help someone who wants to set up a business. That is a whole different area. Funds for it are being reduced in the Yukon because fewer and fewer people want to start businesses, given that there are jobs. When we started our employment assistance service, the unemployment rate in the Yukon was 13%. Now it is around 5% or 6%. That is a very considerable drop. Fewer and fewer people are interested in setting up businesses.
That said, a number of entrepreneurs are already in business and need some help. For example, say they have a product and they want some translation if English is not their first language. So they need support for translation. Today, we are not able to help them because we have no funds for that. They may need other resources. I do not have a specific example to give you. From now on, we will be able to help them. For example, if they need to do a feasibility study for a new product, we can be with them through that process, and we were not able to do that before.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Corneliu Chisu Conservative Pickering—Scarborough East, ON
In which businesses is the francophone community mostly involved?
9:25 a.m.
Executive Director, Association franco-yukonnaise
It is mostly in tourism.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Corneliu Chisu Conservative Pickering—Scarborough East, ON
Tourism is a very important area of development. We have many free trade agreements all over the world so how can you contribute to attract tourists to Yukon from different francophone areas, for example, from Europe? A lot of people in Europe don't know too much about the beauties of Yukon and I know one thing: the French community in Canada, generally, is more prone to take risks outside Canada or the North American continent to do business.
9:30 a.m.
Executive Director, Association franco-yukonnaise
In terms of tourism promotion in French-speaking countries, in France, for example, we are working more and more collaboratively with the territorial government. Our employee in charge of tourism participates in some tourism fairs in the Yukon. We also welcome the media who come from Europe on familiarization tours in order to sell the Yukon in Europe. We use our networks for promotion. We worked with Nunavut and the Northwest Territories on a campaign for all the territories, creating a tourism campaign in French to be the equivalent of one that had been done for the territories in English. So basically, we are working to promote tourism in French in the Yukon.
In recent years, the number of French-speaking visitors to the Yukon has increased. I do not have that number at my fingertips, but I can get it to you if necessary. There has been an increase in recent years. Certainly, there is greater interest on the part of the territorial government in promoting tourism to the Yukon in French because they realize that there is potential. So they support us and get us involved in their promotion campaign.
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Corneliu Chisu Conservative Pickering—Scarborough East, ON
What are the successes, for example, of the francophone community in business? Can you give me some successes obtained by businesses in the francophone community?
If you can, give a couple of examples of achieving great success in the community, in business, and so on.
9:30 a.m.
Executive Director, Association franco-yukonnaise
Let me give you an example of how just two individuals, two French-speaking immigrants, have achieved a lot of success.
The two people met the Association franco-yukonnaise at a Destination Canada fair in Paris. They were entrepreneurs who really wanted to leave France. They sold their business in France and came here. Initially, they wanted to buy a tourist lodge that they had found on a visit to the Yukon. When they arrived in the Yukon, the Association franco-yukonnaise welcomed them and provided them with assistance because they found themselves in a tricky situation: the lodge was no longer for sale. That was quite a problem. The project was the reason they had emigrated from France. They had to turn on a dime, so to speak. The AFY was with them through a series of steps.
Finally, they decided to build their own lodge in the middle of nowhere. I encourage you to pay them a visit. It is called Takhini River Lodge and it is magnificent. They built a high-end product. It is quite expensive to stay there, but the service they provide is unique. They offer tours to see the northern lights, dogsled trips, and all kinds of different services. You can sit at your table and watch the northern lights.
They have a francophone clientele, specifically from France. They designed their own website. They are really successful today. We were with them right from when they started their business and through all the steps they took.
9:30 a.m.
NDP
Jamie Nicholls NDP Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
You mentioned social finance and you talked about your concerns about this new way of funding. Could you describe this new concept in detail and tell us what it means for francophones in the Yukon?
9:30 a.m.
Executive Director, Association franco-yukonnaise
I will try to explain my understanding of social finance clearly and intelligently. I admit that I am still confused by it. I will give you an example. That will be the best way for me to explain it to you.
Let us take employee training in a company. Let us say that the Association franco-yukonnaise was in a position to train 100 people for a given job. The program could perhaps be funded by a private investor who might decide to accept the risk and to invest, say, $200,000 in the program. If the Association franco-yukonnaise was able to prove that it had achieved the desired results, that is, it had trained those 100 people, if that was the objective, the government would then put in some money. That is to say that they would reimburse the investor for part of the investment plus an additional percentage. In a nutshell, the investor assumes the risk, but he is supposed to get money back.
As far as I understand, there are different models, but essentially, the government would not be the only investor in some areas. The government would like private investors to take the lead in what would become a kind of collaborative venture. Then a third party would deliver the service.
What does that mean for Franco-Yukoners? It means that not a lot is going to actually happen, because there are not a lot of investors.
Anyway, the government is still talking about it, but they are not yet sure about how it will work. It is based on models developed in England and Australia, where, of course, there are no official language considerations. The government is quite well aware that it is not going to be as simple. So they are evaluating the possibilities. They are also talking to private investors to see what their interest might be.
Francophones aside, it will be very difficult for a system like that to operate in the Yukon territory. Private investors do not see why they would invest in a community of 4,000 people. What is in it for them? It is quite a concern. However, it is not yet in place.
Two pilot projects are underway with Employment and Social Development Canada. One is in Manitoba and I do not remember where the other one is. They basically have to do with adult skills. At the moment, the government is principally interested in adults acquiring skills and in training adults.
9:35 a.m.
NDP
