Official Languages Committee on April 8th, 2014

[Jean-Pierre Corbeil]

Yes.

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

That would be shared among statistics gathering with StatsCan and also the province, and maybe more coordination among the two bodies.

[Jean-Pierre Corbeil]

It's not only statistics gathering, it's analyzing the existing information.

To give you an example, we have a portrait of the French-speaking population that was released in 2010, but we don't have such a report for the English-speaking immigrant population in Quebec.

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

Do you have the capacity at StatsCan to undergo such analysis and research?

[Jean-Pierre Corbeil]

We have developed over the years many partnerships with our colleagues in other federal departments. Yes, we've had some discussions in this regard and will certainly continue the discussions.

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

Would you make that as a recommendation to this report, that this sort of analysis would be beneficial to the anglophone community in Quebec?

[Jean-Pierre Corbeil]

Actually, the Senate committee has looked at such studies, not on the English-speaking immigrant population, but has stated that this kind of analysis was really useful and really instrumental in understanding the challenges that face the English-speaking population in Quebec.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

We'll go to Mr. Daniel.

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you, witnesses, for being here.

I had the opportunity to visit the aerospace corridor late last year, Bombardier, Pratt & Whitney and Bell Helicopter, etc. One of the things they were concerned about was the fact that their industry is expanding at quite a high rate, something like 30% they expect it to increase this year. One of their biggest concerns was about getting enough engineering staff to maintain this growth level.

I notice from your chart, Madam, that there is a very limited opportunity for engineering courses in terms of the numbers of organizations that are doing these courses in French and going to the higher levels. Do you have any information on how many graduates are coming out of these courses each year? How many of them are likely to end up working in these francophone industries?

[Jocelyne Lalonde]

I do not have with me the number of graduates by program. I could provide you with that information later. There are very few programs in French. There are programs in French in Quebec. I could find out the number of graduates by year for programs outside Quebec. However, it would be more difficult to find out where they are working.

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

Are there any stats that are held on that?

[Jean-Pierre Corbeil]

As you've pointed out, it is quite clear that this industry sector is well concentrated in Quebec. Certainly the minister of education in Quebec has a lot of statistics on that type of information. A lot of this information is available on their website, but for sure we could have access to these data.

We have information in terms of the national household survey data on the specific age groups by specific sectors, where they work and their main field of study. So certainly there is an analysis that could be done to understand in terms of the growth for these specific sectors and in terms of the labour force. Certainly that information could be available.

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

Presumably some of that information can be used to actually tailor courses, etc., at some of these organizations to make sure that they are supportive.

[Jean-Pierre Corbeil]

Absolutely.

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

Okay, thank you very much on that.

I think in every community, young Canadians, when they are seeking post-secondary education are more likely to leave home so they can actually taste the world in a sense and learn about other things. I don't think it's one community or the other. How many students of this size return to their communities once they've completed their diplomas or degrees?

This question is for Stats Canada.

[Jean-Pierre Corbeil]

I don't have these data, but we could try to find a way because it's very difficult. We have the information about the provinces in which they were born, for instance.

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

Right.

[Jean-Pierre Corbeil]

We know where they live right now. We know where they lived one year or five years ago. We would have to do some kind of work to try to understand these kinds of patterns. But we could certainly try to use the actual database to explore this.

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

Madame Lalonde.

[Jocelyne Lalonde]

I can give you information from the Consortium national de formation en santé.

We are following college and university health programs in order to determine the number of students who return to their area of origin. At present, approximately 78% of students return to their area of origin after being educated elsewhere.

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

I would certainly suspect that if there isn't a job in their field of study, the chances of going back to that community are relatively small, but they would go where the jobs would be. Right?

Stats Canada, have you prepared any socio-economic portrait of immigrants living in the official language minority communities? This is kind of a multi-question. Is it different from the socio-economic situation of immigrants that do not live in official language minority communities? Is it possible to gauge the impact of immigration on OLMC economic development?

[Jean-Pierre Corbeil]

Thank you for your question.

As I mentioned earlier, in 2010 Statistics Canada performed a study in collaboration with Citizenship and Immigration Canada on the French-speaking immigrant population. We have produced an update with the 2011 data, which we are about to deliver to Citizenship and Immigration Canada fairly soon. So yes, we have that kind of information.

We know for instance that the French-speaking immigrant population is very well educated, but despite the fact that this is the case, they have challenges in finding a job and integrating into the labour market. All this information could be available to you after we have delivered it to CIC.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much.

We're now going to Madame Perreault.

[Manon Perreault, NDP, Montcalm, QC]

Good morning to the three of you.

I have a lot of questions to ask you and I took lots of notes. However, every time I thought of a question, someone else asked it first.

I will ask Ms. Lalonde a question.

According to the Réseau de développement économique et d'employabilité and the Community Economic Development and Employability Corporation, or CEDEC, studies on the economic development of OLMCs are few and far between.

Do the universities that belong to your network conduct research on the economic development of official language minority communities?

[Jocelyne Lalonde]

I cannot tell you how many studies are being carried out, but some research is being done on the economic development of our francophone communities. There are researchers studying this. It would be good to work with RDÉE Canada and the other organization that you mentioned in future. We could contact our university researchers in order to address our communities' needs with respect to research on economic development.