Official Languages Committee on Oct. 30th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

That is an excellent question, Mr. Beaulieu, but we will have to wait for the next round to get an answer. I'm sorry, but it is my job to enforce speaking times.

We will now be transported to northern Manitoba, where the snow has certainly fallen this morning.

Ms. Ashton, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

There is indeed a lot of snow. Here, it's normal for there to be snow on Hallowe'en.

I want to thank today's witnesses.

I would like to ask you some questions about challenges affecting economic development in general, starting with immigration. Some of my colleagues have touched on this.

As we know, the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne argues that we need to have very ambitious targets for francophone immigration in order to solve the labour shortage in our communities and slow the decline of French. The FCFA says that there has to be an ambitious, higher target for francophone immigration, which would be on the order of 12%.

Do you agree with that percentage? Do you agree that the targets should be much more ambitious if we want to admit francophones from other places?

[Yan Plante]

I imagine that the question is meant for me.

The 12% target does seem to be fairly widely recognized in the ecosystem of organizations in the Francophonie. In our organization, that is also the one we use.

We want to be ambitious, we want to set ambitious targets, but I think the important thing is for the government to take steps in the right direction. I will never hesitate to congratulate the government or the Minister if they go ahead and they succeed in bringing in more francophones. With that said, we have to be realistic: we can't go from 4% to 12% in two years. It is not going to happen.

It is fine to set ambitious targets in the medium and long term, but I think we also have to recognize the efforts being made on a day-to-day basis.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

I have another question to ask.

We know that lack of access to childcare and early childhood services is one of the barriers to economic development, whether for entrepreneurship or for entering the labour market. I have talked about this on several occasions in this committee.

We are well aware that there is a labour shortage in early childhood services in French everywhere in Canada. So that means that there are fewer opportunities to send your children to a childcare centre where French is spoken. For some women who want to work, that presents them with major challenges.

Do you think we should invest in early childhood services in French, particularly to mitigate the labour shortage? Would that contribute to economic development?

[Yan Plante]

Yes, very certainly.

Investments have already been made and a program has been put in place. RDEE Canada has played a role that has produced results: childcare spaces have been created, people have created their small businesses to set up childcare centres, and children have been able to spend 40 hours a week in a centre where French, rather than English, is spoken. That is all a good thing, and we obviously support it.

Where things change a bit is that since that first program was set up, the government has announced major investments for childcare spaces anyway. So in the communities, people are looking at what that means going forward.

Some needs seem obvious, in any event from what I hear since I have been in the job, and they involve facilities, the infrastructure needed for creating spaces.

Ms. Abdi Aden, do you have anything to add?

[Roukya Abdi Aden]

Certainly there are labour shortages. However, there are also targeted recruitment initiatives, such as the one Mr. Plante was talking about. Destination Manitoba is a great example of collaboration between Manitoba and Côte d'Ivoire that enables the province to recruit francophone early childhood workers.

As you know, some provinces and territories have regulations governing recognition of diplomas and what courses have to be taken. Manitoba has also established ties with an educational institution in Côte d'Ivoire that it is working with to facilitate recognition of diplomas so that the translation can be made very quickly.

Nonetheless, there are needs in terms of labour and creating the infrastructure to accommodate all these children and these employees.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

Thank you for talking to us about this example of success.

Because one of our committee's purposes is to submit recommendations to the federal government, are there any you would like to tell us about, whether they relate to immigration or early childhood services?

What could be done to support economic development in our communities?

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

You have 30 seconds left.

[Yan Plante]

What the members of my organization tell me is that there are not enough properties available for creating spaces. If there were adjustments to make in the existing programs, it would be to invest in that, essentially.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Mr. Plante.

Thank you, Ms. Ashton.

The next questions will be asked by Bernard Généreux.

Mr. Généreux, you have five minutes.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Abdi Aden, gentlemen, thank you for being here today.

If I understood correctly, Mr. Beaulieu said that Mr. Buck's organization had received $43 million since 2005.

Mr. Plante, are you able to tell us how much money your organization has received since 2005?

[Yan Plante]

Not since 2005, but I could send the answer to the committee in writing.

In general terms, however, our base funding, which we receive from Employment and Social Development Canada, is in the neighbourhood of $2 million per year. We can calculate the number of years, but that is our base funding.

We also receive five-year funding from the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, which also comes to about $2 million. That funding is expiring shortly, but a new round of tenders is in preparation. So watch this space.

In addition, we generally have access to a third source of funding intended for managing national projects, that provides funding for one-time projects once they are created.

However, you have to be careful when you analyze those projects, because some of them are managed by an intermediary. That happens when funds are granted on behalf of the government. However, in the case of some of these projects, we cannot even get administrative expenses. So we are not able to bill the government for much of anything.

In reality, the money goes through us, we can hire people, but it is not as if we made any profits, either. So it is important to understand that.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

I understand.

You were not the executive director at the time the RDEE white paper was published, but it contains a general recommendation that a government plan dedicated to the economic Francophonie be implemented.

Was there ever a plan in the past such as you are proposing?

[Yan Plante]

From memory, no. However, I was present at the National Summit on Francophone Minority Economies.

When the white paper was published, I was not part of RDEE Canada, but I recall the discussions very clearly. In fact, the people at the mic said that to governments, it was as if economic development had no language, no matter what level of government or what party it was. To governments, a good project is a good project and a bad project is a bad project, whether the sponsor be francophone, anglophone or allophone. It is not really a criterion that is considered.

Alongside that, the participants at the mic pointed out that yes, there are programs, but they are scattered among all sorts of government departments that do not have the same level of accountability. I think people would like there to be a kind of single window, and for francophone economic development, they would like to be directed to a single place.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Have you done an overall estimate of the cost to the government of implementing that recommendation?

[Yan Plante]

I do not have the figure in my head, but what was particularly wanted was to establish a kind of consistency or coordination relating to economic development. Obviously, it would mean millions of dollars, but I am not able to tell you how much, today. However, what I felt from the people who were at the mic, and correct me if I am wrong, Ms. Abdi Aden, was the desire that there be some sensitivity to economic development in French and a strategy for that. The Action Plan for the Official Languages, the APOL, and the other initiatives are all excellent measures, but they do not necessarily promote economic development by and for francophones.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

I have read some of your publications about the tour you have started, from one end of Canada to the other. What francophones are achieving despite the language barrier, particularly in minority communities, is quite exceptional.

To borrow a popular saying, what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. That is kind of what you suggested when you said that francophones create jobs for anglophones, just as anglophones create jobs for francophones in OLMCs.

Ms. Abdi Aden, you spoke earlier about international recruitment. Are there countries where it is harder for you to look for people, or regions in the world that are more problematic for francophone recruitment, in particular?

[Roukya Abdi Aden]

At the moment, no, but I know that some countries will not let us recruit on site, such as Algeria, for example. Elsewhere, we have not yet undertaken recruiting, given that the only recruitment event at the international level at present is really Destination Canada, which often takes place in Paris, Belgium or Morocco.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Ms. Abdi Aden, but Mr. Généreux's time is up.

Ms. Fortier, welcome to the Standing Committee on Official Languages.

You have the floor for five minutes.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Hello. This visit takes me back 26 years, because I had the privilege of being one of the founding members of what was, at the time, the National Committee for Canadian Francophonie Human Resources Development, which became RDEE Canada.

After all these years of investments, largely from contributions by the federal government, has RDEE Canada managed to acquire structuring services or models that mean you are able to do business promotion or employability everywhere in Canada, in both rural and urban locales?

[Roukya Abdi Aden]

Thank you.

When it was put in place, 25 years ago, we had a blank page. It had to be built up from nothing. A number of structuring models have been put in place. I am thinking, in particular, of all the employability services that did not exist before. They have evolved, growing from basic services to much more professionalized services for putting people in contact with employers. Now, people go to direct placement services, which were not part of the services offered. These are models that need to be explored.

I know that at present, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, or IRCC, funds pre-departure services, at the initiative of RDEE Canada. This program did not exist before. We started to implement it in 2015. So I am very happy that the Francophonie finally has pre-departure services that are managed by La Cité collégiale and other partners. It is also a very good thing for entrepreneurship, which, in my opinion, is kind of the poor relation of economic development, because it all comes down to base funding. We have to do entrepreneurship in all the fields possible with just the base funding we receive.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

I would like to go further and talk about the expertise that RDEE Canada has developed over the last 26 years. It has shown that French, or bilingualism, in Canada, especially outside Quebec, represents added value. You have that expertise. There is no need to work with other businesses or with anglophone chambers of commerce to show that French contributes to the prosperity of Canada.

So although the federal government has made a number of contributions, and continues to do so, is there no way of showing that this expertise is for sale now and you can get a better return for offering more services in Canada? I am thinking, for example, of francophone tourism and the packages that are available from one end of the country to the other.

Is there no way of making more of it, through the investments that the federal government has made over the years?

[Roukya Abdi Aden]

Yes, certainly. In fact, we are in the process of doing a study in order to market these services and create services that could operate on a membership basis: services offered to businesses that they could pay for afterward. We are in the process of showing all that for the tourism industry.

Yes, the expertise can be sold, but we first have to use the funding we receive to meet the client's needs, even before trying to make the services profitable. We know that some contributions are tied to a clear prohibition on selling services, so as not to duplicate the service offered by the government.

That being said, it is in the process of being set up for tourism.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

On your website, it talks about Passeport entrepreneurial Canada, or Business Passport.

Is that program working well, particularly in rural communities? That is one of our big concerns, because there is such a wealth there. In 15 seconds, can you tell me about Passeport entrepreneurial Canada?

[Roukya Abdi Aden]

The Passeport entrepreneurial Canada project involves four activities, including the liaison tour, which facilitates international recruitment to mobilize francophone and anglophone employers in order to demonstrate the possibility of recruiting bilingual employees. You were talking about remote regions. The beauty of doing things virtually is that it enables employers located in very remote regions to meet a candidate in 12 minutes, to see whether they match the profile wanted.

In connection with Passeport entrepreneurial Canada, we also do...