Canadian Heritage Committee on Nov. 20th, 2006

[Pierre Bélanger]

It took us by surprise. From one year to the next, we couldn't foresee it, because you have to apply for grants and justify every penny that's spent. There was no way to predict what would happen in that regard. Let's be serious, my friends: what could we get with $30,000 in 1998? Not even a cheap car. We could buy a vehicle with seats and an AM/FM radio. But we're an organization trying to work with for the advancement and vitality of a community in a given area. Honestly, we don't cost a lot for the work we do. We're not asking for the moon. We're not talking about millions, but rather hundreds of thousands of dollars.

[Maka Kotto, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Can you summarize the major effects that you've felt as a result of those cuts?

[Pierre Bélanger]

Starting in 1993, we had no more permanent staff. Try to imagine what it means to run an organization, whatever it may be, without a full-time secretary, without a general manager or without a full-time project officer. We work during the day and in the evening we try to hold meetings. We try to do things, but it's very difficult to discuss matters, for example, with the municipalities, with the officials of the various departments or with community stakeholders when we're at work during the day and unable to establish good contacts. We did what I call extreme volunteerism. And believe me, it is extreme volunteerism.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

We'll go to Ms. Boucher.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Good afternoon, Mr. Roy and Mr. Bélanger.

As I'm also a member of the Official Languages Committee, I've had the opportunity to meet Ms. Roy, but unfortunately not Mr. Bélanger.

[Pierre Bélanger]

That's because we're farther north, three and a half hours from Sudbury.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

I'm pleased to meet you today, since this has enabled us to understand your demands, in the field, and to observe the community's vitality and so on. All this has proven to be very interesting for our committee.

You referred to the importance of working at the grass-roots level, with the people in the community environment. We know very well that the needs of the communities are very diverse and very different from town to town. Even though they are located side by side, their realities may be quite different.

[Pierre Bélanger]

In the north, towns are always 150, 200 or 300 kilometres from one another.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

In sectors such as health, manpower training and education, what are your relations with the other stakeholders in the Francophone community and with the leaders of the Franco-Ontarian community? Do you work in cooperation with them in other areas of activity?

[Pierre Bélanger]

Yes, we've done that on a number of projects. For example, in the case of the Garderie Clin D'oeil project, we worked with the school board people and with the various women's groups because it was they who had this need. It's complex and tragic when you live in a minority setting. If both parents have to work, they want to ensure that their children can experience their childhood in their mother tongue so that they don't lose it. This is a good example of working in a partnership. The problem is that we're both the strong link and the weak link. It isn't the school board's job to subsidize us and to always be helping us with $2,000 or $3,000 at a time. That's not its fundamental purpose. Its purpose is to educate our children as well as possible. That doesn't mean that we can't work together on projects. We have worked on training projects so that our Grade 12 students can acquire work experience and put that experience on their CVs when they want to find a full-time job.

It's hard because we operate after hours in class and hours at the office. We're always the game leg. We nevertheless get extraordinary support from people. You know how hard it is today, with the crazy life we lead, to find people who want to sit on boards of directors. You also lead crazy lives, because you're in politics. I don't know how you do it. It's extremely difficult. If we had a little permanence somewhere, we could be much more effective than we are now. We wouldn't have problems with communication or delays. We wouldn't have to take three months to do something that we could do in one or two weeks. That's what was the toughest. We went through the period before the cuts and the one after the cuts. It was extremely difficult. Without the support of people in our community—they also have jobs to do and they're involved in various committees—and their good intentions, we wouldn't have done it. Now we're at the end of our rope, and its very tough. The bags under our eyes are there for a reason.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

How can government stakeholders, whether it be at the federal, provincial or municipal level, promote the vitality of the official language minority communities? What is their role in that regard? Do you have the support of those stakeholders?

[Suzanne Roy]

At the municipal level, it's very complicated in one way. The municipalities aren't subject to Ontario's French Language Services Act, and that's a problem for us. In addition, the municipalities aren't officially bilingual. That's another problem for us. We have to be able to rely on the good will of our municipalities. Over the years, our municipalities, Sudbury among others, have boasted about their bilingual labour force in order to attract people. However, we have to work with them. If we want to attract people and businesses, we have to be able to provide them with a good quality of life and thus to offer them good municipal recreation programs. We have to be able to give the community a good standard of living. For us, in the field, it's an everyday struggle. We have to work with the municipality to obtain every small service, every little advance, and sometimes there's even a regression. Since we've just had a municipal election, we have to start the work over. At the provincial level, there's an openness, but there's very little money for that. Cooperation is probably better in Sudbury because it's a major centre, and people in the field see the people from the various departments.

It's problematical.

[Pierre Bélanger]

It's very problematical because changes in municipal administration can change the situation from black to white. We saw that in Timmins.

At one point, we had a municipal council that was very open, and we worked on a number of issues. We worked very hard on a tourism file in partnership with Témiscamingue and Rouyn-Noranda. After the election, it all fell through because the new administration didn't consider that a priority. It may wait until it's too late. The forest industry is completely in crisis. We're in a mining boom, but you know that, with globalization, Canada has to carve out a place in new technology. We need a hyper-skilled labour force because we can't compete with China. It's time we worked together. This is a new way of looking at things. People have always worked in isolation. Now the federal government, provinces, municipalities and community organizations must work together. This is a culture that hasn't spread everywhere. Where it does exist, in Moncton, New Brunswick, for example, there has been extraordinary success. There are places where people have decided to take the bull by the horns, and that's produced good results. We haven't gotten there yet. We always have to go again, hat in hand, to convince people, always to show that we aren't dangerous dissenters, who want to contest for the pleasure of contesting.

Our concern is economic development. I'll give you an example. In Timmins, we're fighting for a Francophone college and a trades centre because 30% of our population has no training. This group will miss the technological conversion and will depend on government. We don't want these people to depend on government. We want them to have the necessary training to function in thetwenty-first century. We want these people to be citizens who pay taxes, start up businesses, and make northern Ontario a place with a healthy economy. We now have an opportunity to do that in the forest industry crisis. We must do primary, secondary and tertiary processing. We think we can play a role in that, a catalyzing role, a leading role for our communities, so that they can get the services that will enable them to train and to turn the corner of the twenty-first century. This is an eloquent and specific example of the kind of role we want to play.

I have nothing else to add on the subject.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

I'm going to ask, in order to do this right, that we go for one full round. But I want to keep the questions short and the answers short.

We'll go to Mr. Bélanger, then Mr. Abbott, and then Mr. Angus.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Chairman, I want to go back over a number of things, but I'm going to limit myself to one.

With regard to health, I understood that there were four networks in Canada, including one in the Near North and another in the High North of Ontario. Are Timmins and Sudbury in the same network, or is one in the Near North network and the other in the Great North network?

[Suzanne Roy]

They're in two different networks.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Roughly speaking, how does that work? I had a chance to sit on the Standing Committee on Official Languages when the people from Société Santé en français testified before it, and I got the impression that the French-language health network was working well in Ontario. Is that the case, in your opinion?

[Pierre Bélanger]

That's not the case in Timmins, but it is in Hearst and Kapuskasing. We didn't have a community health centre. We were supposed to have one, but we didn't get it. It's working well in Témiscamingue. We suggested to the government that we join forces with Témiscamingue. We don't want to spend money for nothing. But, since we don't have the basic infrastructure, the network doesn't reach the 19,000 Francophones in Timmins.

[Suzanne Roy]

It's a bit different in Sudbury. I can give you another viewpoint because ACFO is the network's trustee. The network is doing big things, but it's barely starting to be perceptible in the field. To date, it's done studies and other things of that kind.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

I have a suggestion to make to you, with your permission. When I introduced my bill, the purpose of which was to add a sixth principle to the Official Languages Act, a principle concerning health, I had the opportunity to visit a number of places in the country. In Timmins, I met with the people responsible for the network of halfway houses; there are 11 of them. I asked whether at least one of the 11 houses operated in French, and I was told no. I made a suggestion. I was told that they would consider the matter, but you're suggesting by shaking your head, Mr. Bélanger, that there is still no halfway house for people suffering from psychological or psychiatric disorders that operates in French. These are great centres for assimilation.

[Pierre Bélanger]

That's what we have to fight day after day. If we had the time for it, we could easily work together with the networks.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Perhaps we could put that challenge to the Ontario High North network.

[Pierre Bélanger]

Yes, and if we're given the funding, we'll be able to meet the challenge. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Mr. Abbott.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Thank you for being here.

I have just a little housekeeping. I think we should always try to be as efficient as we possibly can be, and I noted that the official languages committee had travelled to Sudbury. That could have been last November 9 or 10. Were you aware of that meeting and that they were coming?