Official Languages Committee on Oct. 31st, 2006

[Gilles Patry]

As far as your first question is concerned, on the nature of the training, I would say we have a network of distance education, funded by the federal government, with AUFC institutions, representing 90 sites across Canada. It is quite extraordinary. This is done not just in the universities, as you can imagine, but also in secondary schools. We manage this network. This videoconferencing bridge is run by the University of Ottawa. This method of teaching is a source of great pride for Canada.

You talked about methods of teaching and the fact that not necessarily all students are able to adapt to this method. In the framework of the CNFS, only a small fraction of the teaching is provided by videoconferencing. For example, we offer a nursing course that will be received by two or three network sites that the students attend. There is a tutor at the other end, an assistant, who helps these students.

I will give you the example of the Collège universitaire de Saint-Boniface and the University of Ottawa. I am talking about what I know. The fourth year of nursing is given at the Collège universitaire de Saint-Boniface, but it is a University of Ottawa program. In other words, the University of Ottawa has a campus at the Collège universitaire de Saint-Boniface where local professors are hired who are supervised by professors from the University of Ottawa, and where I send our professors to teach for five or six weeks or more. This is a way of providing education there. Sometimes we bring the students here. All this is value added to the CNFS.

You asked a difficult question. We are trying to make CNFS students aware not of their obligation, but of their duty to return. Nonetheless, we do not want to make them feel guilty. We do not want to limit these students to their region. It is a delicate situation. The best way to achieve this goal without making them feel guilty is to offer them employment possibilities, clinical placements and work in community hospitals and settings.

That is where CNFS money, in the third phase, becomes increasingly important. It is a way of ensuring a very warm welcome in the regions. If they are not welcoming, if they do not offer a competitive salary, if they are unable to say there will be a signing bonus or that half or a quarter of the student debt will be relieved—

These people want to start their career on the right foot. The colleges and universities involved in this consortium have a responsibility in this sense, but the regions and the hospitals do as well. I have to add that often students do not return to their region because they are not welcomed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Guy Lauzon]

Excuse me again, Mr. Patry, but time flies. Five minutes went by quite quickly.

We will now ask Mrs. Boucher to ask the next question.

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

Good morning Mr. Patry. I find the image you have painted to be quite interesting. I think it has enlightened us as a government, or as a committee. Given that our government looks ahead, it wants to focus on the future as much as possible, as Mrs. Verner said so well.

Based on what I have read in the annual report and what you said here, I find that training in health has several challenges to deal with at the same time, among others retaining professors and the situation with graduates from Francophone and Acadian communities.

I would like you to tell me, based on your own experience, which of the consortium's plans or policies would best help deal with these challenges.

[Gilles Patry]

Are you speaking specifically about retention?

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

Mostly about the situation of the graduates from Francophone and Acadian communities, but also retaining professors.

[Gilles Patry]

I read in the paper just this morning that I have lost one of my best researchers, a professor at one of the universities in Alberta. I do not think we can retain everyone. We cannot tie people down, but I feel it is our responsibility as an organization to ensure the best possible environment.

I would like to get back to the CNFS and retaining students in our communities. The CNFS is about teaching, training and research institutions, not clinical environments. That is why we need to work very closely with Société Santé en français, hospitals and communities. With respect to the latter, we know that prevention is often the best way to keep people healthy.

We have to improve our networking and ensure that clinical placements are more competitive and more interesting than they have been up to now. Of course, as I said earlier in my very long speech, we exceeded our goal by 100%. That means that 1,400 new students enrolled and that we had about 200 clinical placements. Now we have to increase the number of clinical placements. Obviously, not all first year students do a clinical placement. Whether they do or not, our students need money. What I would like to see is summer placements happening not just in Ottawa or at Laurentian University, but also in the regions these students come from. We should make it easier for these young people to work in their home regions.

Communities are much more numerous and more spread out in the network. That makes it much more difficult to reach each one separately. That is our biggest challenge right now. It is easier to reach hospitals.

We also have to consider students' ability to move from province to province. A nurse or an occupational therapist trained in one province might want to go work in a minority language community in another province. That means we have to make sure that a nurse trained in Ottawa, for example, can have access to that kind of mobility. This is not a problem in nursing, but in occupational and physical therapy, among others, there are interprovincial restrictions. We have to deal with these constraints.

These are the kinds of issues the CNFS is focusing on. I have to say that things are going relatively well. The CNFS is not just about university rectors; it is about a group of professionals who belong to institutions and who work together every day. We are talking about hundreds of people.

Retaining professors is also becoming a challenge. Our professors want to teach, but they also want to do research, so they are trying to network. We developed a network of researchers, which makes it easier to retain professors in our institutions. The CNFS does not fund research, but it funds collaboration. I think that networking is one of the best ways to ensure that Moncton researchers stay in Moncton, Laurentian University researchers stay where they are, and Collège Saint-Jean researchers stay where they are.

[The Chair, Conservative, Guy Lauzon]

Thank you, Mr. Patry.

Mr. Godin will ask the last question.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Government spokespeople say they are future-oriented. Is the CNFS concerned about the future of the organization? I say “organization” because it includes professors and other people. You say it is a success and that the organization has reached its goals.

The current government cut funding for the court challenges program, a program that exceeded its objectives for francophones. The goals for status of women were never reached. There is still work to be done since we cannot yet say that men and women are equal in our country. In the case of literacy, the situation is a little shameful—even embarrassing. Approximately 62% of francophones in New Brunswick are illiterate. That is bad news. Again, these are francophones. Funding for the students' program was cut in half and programs for students in the international sector were also cut, and you are talking about the future, the challenge and your concerns.

[Gilles Patry]

I have a two-part answer. First, am I concerned? I should not be concerned because I have worked on several federal government-funded projects over the past few years, so I feel qualified to say that the CNFS is one of the most successful of those projects. The CNFS speaks for itself and I have no reason to be concerned. I think its funding should be secure for a good long time.

Am I concerned? I do not know. I cannot say right now that we have received any positive signals. We have not received any signals at all, although we are definitely looking for them. That is clear and that is why we are taking action. We came here to make all political parties aware of the CNFS's success and to make sure you are aware of and understand our important achievements. Training is what we do.

I said a little earlier that you are killing two birds with one stone. First, you are trying to solve a critical problem in Canada: training health professionals. Second, you are trying to solve problems for francophones in minority communities.

Today we are talking about the French situation, but there is a similar anglophone situation. The CNFS does health training in French. Am I concerned? I am cautiously optimistic, but I think we need to build more awareness—

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Look toward the future, right?

[Gilles Patry]

We have to make everyone more aware. We have to make all of the parties more aware. You all have a responsibility to make this project happen.

So I hope there will be no hesitation and that we will get the funding we ask for. You have not asked me—

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

How much will you be asking for?

[Gilles Patry]

The CNFS is now in its fifth year. Just to fulfill our existing commitments, we need about $85 million. We will probably submit a proposal for about $125 million to $130 million over five years. I think that amount is fully justifiable. We intend to submit the proposal with much interest and enthusiasm sometime in March or April 2007.

[The Chair, Conservative, Guy Lauzon]

Thank you, Mr. Patry and Mr. Godin.

Thank you for coming here today. I think we have heard a lot of very important information. We will suspend the sitting for two minutes and resume in camera.

Thank you.

[Proceedings continue in camera]