Evidence of meeting #95 for Official Languages in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was young.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:10 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal René Arseneault
All right.
Mr. Thériault, what town in New Brunswick are you originally from?
9:10 a.m.
Board President, Fédération de la jeunesse canadienne-française
From Grand Falls, New Brunswick.
9:10 a.m.
Conservative
9:10 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal René Arseneault
It's not that far from home.
I've had the unfortunate task of having to cut short a lot of questions and answers because I have the eternally unruly here. They're also passionate about the language, and want to talk longer than their allotted time.
Dear witnesses, this has been really fascinating. Please feel free to write to us with any additional information you'd like to share.
I won't ask you to write a doctoral thesis on one of Mr. Samson's speeches, but it's true that Mr. Samson's reflections on the fact that we can't dissociate post-secondary education from early childhood appeal to all of us around the table.
In fact, how is it that after so many years, when there are more and more francophone schools outside Quebec, post-secondary institutions are having difficulty filling their classes and receiving enrolments from francophones?
9:10 a.m.
Liberal
9:10 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal René Arseneault
It is true that that can't be answered in five minutes.
Witnesses, thank you again for your participation. Please forward any additional information to the clerk. The clerk will then distribute it to all committee members. This will form part of our analysis when we draft our report.
I temporarily suspend the meeting to bring in our next witnesses.
9:15 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal René Arseneault
We are back in session.
We now welcome the witnesses who have been invited for the second hour of the meeting.
We have with us Ms. Bouffard, rector of the Université de Saint-Boniface.
Ms. Bouffard, I believe this is your second appearance before the Standing Committee on Official Languages. Welcome.
9:20 a.m.
Sophie Bouffard President, Université de Saint-Boniface
This is indeed my second appearance.
9:20 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal René Arseneault
We also have with us the Quebec English-Speaking Communities Research Network. I think your acronym is QUESCREN. It's your first time, I think, and we're glad to have you here at this committee for the first time.
How it works is that the first round of questions will be interactive, with questions and answers, and with six minutes for each political party.
9:20 a.m.
An hon. member
Vous parlez anglais?
9:20 a.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
9:20 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal René Arseneault
So that's how it's going to be. Before that, we'll give each witness a chance to make a presentation of no more than five minutes.
I'm really very strict about speaking time. Keeping to the time limit will allow us to have two rounds of questioning. This will allow members to ask more questions.
Ms. Bouffard, you have the floor for five minutes.
9:20 a.m.
President, Université de Saint-Boniface
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I thank the committee for welcoming me and for conducting this study which is important for the sustainability of francophone communities in minority settings.
My name is Sophie Bouffard, and I have the privilege of being the rector of the Université de Saint-Boniface, or USB.
The USB is the only French-language university in western Canada and the only French-language post-secondary institution in Manitoba. It is also Manitoba's smallest and least expensive institution. A hybrid institution, with a dual mandate of college and university training, the USB is the last rung on the educational continuum for French as a first and second language in Manitoba. This educational continuum is the backbone of Manitoba's francophonie. The USB works in synergy with the community and its network of community organizations.
The USB offers nearly thirty programs of study, and welcomes close to 1,450 students, 79% of whom are Canadians or permanent residents and 21%, international students. The Continuing Education Division offers non-credit courses, for which there are over 4,000 registrations.
In Manitoba, USB is the supplier of bilingual professionals needed in fields such as education, health, the public service, community organizations and the private sector. The institution also contributes to its community through research and other activities, and is part of the larger francophone immigration project.
The États généraux sur le postsecondaire en contexte francophone minoritaire confirmed the particular additional mission that a minority institution like USB must take on, namely to maintain the language and preserve the culture, in addition to ensuring a strong francophonie and the advancement of bilingualism within Canadian society.
My brief is intended to highlight the federal government's responsibility and the urgent need for action on funding. At USB, we must emphasize the significant lack of economies of scale due to our small size. It is extremely difficult to maintain a balanced budget and remain competitive in a high-inflation environment in order to preserve our quality programs, offer services tailored to students, equip ourselves with modern work tools and overcome the increasingly costly challenges associated with aging and outdated infrastructure.
In 2023-24, recurrent federal funding for the Official Languages in Education Program, which had been frozen since 2008, now represents just 5% of our annual operating budget. Our purchasing power has therefore declined significantly over the past 16 years.
For the past several years, available federal funding has essentially been in the form of one-time funds, which poses major challenges, since post-secondary education is a long-term endeavour. Accountability for these funds is cumbersome and our very small teams are terribly overburdened, not to mention the difficulty of securing a provincial match.
If time permits, I could talk more about the educational continuum, the equivalent of which doesn't exist on the English side, and the enviable fact that our recruitment pool is growing significantly year on year, success that is nevertheless undermined by a devastating dropout rate. There's nothing inevitable or irreversible about this situation. It only highlights the fact that we are underfunded, and that the development of French-language education in a minority context cannot be left to chance.
We need to be able to improve program offerings as well as the range of student services, have the means to act to counter language insecurity and more in order to achieve real equality. A development plan for USB with stable and predictable funding is necessary if we are to begin to correct the dropout rate we are experiencing within the continuum, and if we are serious about Canadian bilingualism. The challenge is systemic, and the USB is well positioned, along with its educational and community partners, to propose innovative and sustainable solutions that will offer a better return on investment in education, with multiple positive spin-offs for Manitoba's and Canada's francophonie.
In Manitoba, as you can imagine, USB is the only post-secondary institution that systematically produces and seeks to produce graduates with a professional level of bilingualism. This is a major contribution. Our programs of study are therefore of strategic importance.
We support the recommendations that the ACUFC and the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne, or FCFA, have presented to the committee. However, I would like to reiterate the ACUFC's recommendation, which in my opinion is the most pressing element, namely that the federal government make a commitment by investing $80 million per year in additional recurring funding for post-secondary institutions in the francophone minority.
We're not asking for charity. We are the community development tool through which it will be possible to ensure the sustainability of the Canadian francophonie, the keystone on which bilingualism in this country rests.
Thank you for your attention.
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal René Arseneault
Thank you, Ms. Bouffard.
From QUESCREN, we have Lorraine O'Donnell, senior research associate and adviser, here with Patrick Donovan, research associate and adviser.
I don't know who is going to speak for the five minutes. Is it Ms. O'Donnell?
9:25 a.m.
Dr. Lorraine O'Donnell Senior Research Associate and Advisor, Quebec English-Speaking Communities Research Network
I will, yes.
9:25 a.m.
Senior Research Associate and Advisor, Quebec English-Speaking Communities Research Network
Thank you for the invitation to appear today.
The federal Official Languages Act calls on the federal government to support OLMC vitality. Research is essential for actors and stakeholders to make evidence-based decisions that ensure OLMC vitality.
As the the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages stated, “The vitality of a community emerges from the assumption that it takes charge of its own development.” Must not this empowerment be based on better knowledge of themselves?
Today there are about a million Quebeckers whose first official language is English. This OLMC population, which makes important contributions to Quebec and Canada, is largely bilingual, well integrated in Quebec and committed to linguistic duality and bridging solitudes.
Nevertheless, research shows that this OLMC faces significant vitality challenges, including poverty, unemployment, high youth out-migration, barriers in access to services and being perceived as a threat to the vitality of Quebec's francophone majority. Research-based evidence is required to support our OLMC's vitality. To this end, the Quebec Community Groups Network recently recommended that the federal government invest in university-based research on English-speaking Quebec.
For francophone OLMCs, there is a large and complex research ecosystem. It includes approximately 13 research centres, including the Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities, which was established in 2002 through a $10-million federal government endowment. The CIRLM used to provide $25,000 in annual funds to QUESCREN, funding that ended this March.
The ecosystem on francophone OLMCs also includes approximately 24 research chairs. This said, we acknowledge—and witnesses have said today—that the research ecosystem focused on francophone OLMCs faces challenges, including, of course, a predominance of English in academic scholarship.
The research ecosystem on English-speaking Quebec, on the other hand, has a different structure and challenges. For one thing, as a recent study by my colleagues Patrick Donovan, who is here today, and Shannon Bell indicates, the whole Quebec university sector is underfunded.
They also identified a misconception that Quebec's English-language universities receive more provincial funding than French-language ones. This misconception represents an obstacle to fruitful discussion about funding.
Also, supporting research on English-speaking Quebec has been less central to Quebec English-language university mandates. There are no research chairs on English-speaking Quebec, and there is only one research centre, QUESCREN. Housed at Concordia University, QUESCREN promotes the understanding and vitality of English-speaking Quebec through research, knowledge mobilization and other activities. Support for it comes from the Secrétariat aux relations avec les Québécois d'expression anglaise of the Government of Quebec, from Canadian Heritage and from Concordia.
Challenges to QUESCREN, which is the sole centre for research on English-speaking Quebec, shed light on challenges to the entire research ecosystem on the topic of English-speaking Quebec. Our challenges include limited funding that is also annual as opposed to continuing.
QUESCREN calls on the federal government to provide increased and sustained funding for both university-based research and the post-secondary research ecosystem that is focused on our OLMC. By doing so, the government would support both knowledge production and the infrastructures, such as universities and colleges, that are essential elements of a vital OLMC in Quebec.
Thank you.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal René Arseneault
Thank you very much, Dr. O'Donnell.
We will now begin the first round of questions. Each political party will have six minutes to ask questions and get answers. It will be interactive.
I'm very strict about time. I'm being told that I will have to let you know when you have 30 seconds left.
We'll begin with the first vice-chair of the committee, Mr. Godin, from the Conservative Party.
Mr. Godin, you have the floor.
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Joël Godin Conservative Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to thank the witnesses for being with us this morning. We appreciate that.
My first questions will be more for the representatives of the Quebec English-Speaking Communities Research Network. I will ask them all at once.
Dr. O'Donnell, do you recognize that French is in decline across Canada?
9:30 a.m.
Senior Research Associate and Advisor, Quebec English-Speaking Communities Research Network
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Joël Godin Conservative Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC
Do you recognize that French is in decline, even in Quebec?
9:30 a.m.
Senior Research Associate and Advisor, Quebec English-Speaking Communities Research Network
That's a very complex question.
If we're talking about the number of speakers whose mother tongue is French, French is indeed in decline.
As for the use of French in Quebec, according to a recent study by the Office québécois de la langue française, or OQLF, it remains stable. It's very complex, and I'm not an expert on that.
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Joël Godin Conservative Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC
Thank you, Dr. O'Donnell.
However, we could say that French is not on the rise in Quebec.
Is that correct?
9:30 a.m.
Senior Research Associate and Advisor, Quebec English-Speaking Communities Research Network
I have good news on this point, since more and more anglophones have become bilingual—
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Joël Godin Conservative Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC
I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I don't have a lot of speaking time.
Is it safe to say that French in Quebec is not on the rise?
