Evidence of meeting #21 for Official Languages in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was province.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Cyrilda Poirier  Interim Director General, La Fédération des francophones de Terre-Neuve et du Labrador
Josée Dalton  Coordinator, Réseau de développement économique et d'employabilité de Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador
Steven Watt  Editor and Director General, Le Gaboteur
Marie-Claude Thibodeau  Director General, Fédération des parents francophones de TNL

11:25 a.m.

NDP

The Vice-Chair NDP Yvon Godin

Mr. Petit, you have the floor.

11:25 a.m.

Conservative

Daniel Petit Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good morning Ms. Poirier.

11:25 a.m.

NDP

The Vice-Chair NDP Yvon Godin

I am sorry, Mr. Petit. This might be one of the questions you wanted to ask.

At this point I would like to welcome Ms. Marie-Claude Thibodeau, director general of the Fédération des parents francophones de Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador. There was a death in the family and she has only just arrived.

Before you put your question, perhaps we could ask her to give us three minutes. Your time will then begin. You might want to ask her questions.

Ms. Thibodeau, allow me to take this opportunity to welcome you to the Standing Committee on Official Languages.

11:25 a.m.

Marie-Claude Thibodeau Director General, Fédération des parents francophones de TNL

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Forgive me for being late. I am truly sorry. There was not only one death but two, in a plane accident.

Thank you for having me and for giving me the opportunity to speak to you. I have only been working for the Fédération des parents francophones de Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador for six months. The most important area we have been working very hard on is early childhood. Last year, we had the privilege of opening the first francophone daycare here, in St. John's. We now like to open more, whether home daycares or daycare centres.

As Ms. Josée Dalton stated earlier we have problems retaining staff and finding staff who speak French. It is extremely difficult. We need to establish partnerships with other provinces that have resources. The problem is keeping these people. These are big challenges. My feeling is that we need considerable support from the provincial government, from Heritage Canada, and from the school boards. It is truly fantastic to see the effort the whole community is making to give our children access to francophone and anglophone cultures.

11:25 a.m.

NDP

The Vice-Chair NDP Yvon Godin

Thank you, Ms. Thibodeau.

Mr. Petit, you have the floor.

11:25 a.m.

Conservative

Daniel Petit Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome, Ms. Poirier, Ms. Dalton, Mr. Watt and Ms. Thibodeau.

I read a document given to us by our research staff and entitled “Francophone community profile of Newfoundland and Labrador”. My first question is: how does the francophone population compare to the anglophone population, or vice-versa, in my province?

This document states that many French-speaking people work in the service industry. Almost 45% of the population works in the service industry. According to the same document, your average salary is 50% higher than the province's average salary. Therefore, according to this document, you represent a francophone community that is rather successful in terms of employment, income, etc.

I believe Ms. Poirier referred to the question that I would like to ask you. Perhaps you have also referred to this. I am interested in immigration in minority situations. I am aware that there have been agreements.

Could someone tell us which agreements currently exist and what kind of immigrants you are recruiting? Are they coming from the province of Quebec, or from Saint-Pierre et Miquelon? I am not sure whether it is Ms. Poirier or Ms. Dalton who referred to this earlier.

11:30 a.m.

Interim Director General, La Fédération des francophones de Terre-Neuve et du Labrador

Cyrilda Poirier

I will begin and then perhaps Josée can expand on my answer.

If you are wondering what kind of relationship exists between francophones and anglophones in a province or a city, just take a taxi. The taxi driver will tell you exactly what he thinks and will happily take charge of the conversation. Here, when taxi drivers hear you speak French, they all tell you that they have a bilingual child, niece, grandson, brother, sister or sister-in-law, and they are very proud of the fact. There is openness and there is a very good relationship. In the 22 years that I lived in Newfoundland, I have maybe met — and you will always meet one — one or two anti-francophone individuals. When that happens, you move on. What this shows is that there is a very good relationship.

In terms of immigration, we do not currently have a reception system for immigrants in our communities. That said, this does not necessarily mean that we do not welcome them or that there are not any; we simply have not got into that stage yet. I am sorry, this was something I wanted to look into but I was rather tired yesterday. If I understand Citizenship and Immigration Canada's legislation, a certain number of immigrants are allocated for each province. I believe that 300 immigrants have been allocated to Newfoundland. We have five sets of statistics that show that over the past few years, immigrants have not come to our province, even within the anglophone communities. And yet, going by what people say, we are very welcoming. The problem lies not so much in how we welcome people, but rather in the fact that we do not necessarily have as much to offer as the other provinces. For example, immigrants who come from African countries and who speak French will go to Quebec and will find their community. In the same way, the Chinese go to Vancouver because they can find their community there. We still have a very homogenous population. We do not yet have that support — and I do not mean from a racial point of view — we do not yet have that mix that people can identify with. As I stated earlier, we will be focusing on this through our projects: the exploratory mission and the host project that will begin next April.

11:30 a.m.

Conservative

Daniel Petit Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC

Fine. Thank you.

11:30 a.m.

NDP

The Vice-Chair NDP Yvon Godin

There are 30 seconds left. Would you like to add something, Ms. Dalton?

11:30 a.m.

Conservative

Daniel Petit Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC

I am sorry, Ms. Dalton.

11:30 a.m.

Coordinator, Réseau de développement économique et d'employabilité de Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador

Josée Dalton

You referred earlier to the FCFA document that talks about education levels, francophone populations, etc. I simply want to clarify that. We are finishing up a community profile on the Port-au-Port Peninsula. We are applying the old saying “Know thyself.” We are currently doing a detailed study of each of the three francophone regions in order to determine what the needs are. At this point we have found that the francophone population from the Port-au-Port Peninsula has a lower level of education and income on average than the anglophones there. I wanted to clarify that. It is not quite the same situation as in St. John's, but still.

We also wanted to determine community needs. As Cyrilda mentioned, we are not yet at the point of developing an immigration strategy. For my part, I would like to see us identified the needs in our communities. In Labrador, for example, although we do need lawyers and doctors, what we really need are blue-collar workers. We need working people to go there. We will need skilled workers, engineers and people with more technical specialties to work in management at the mines. That is the policy that will apply. Last year, we took part in consultation with the provincial government, which wants to develop an immigration strategy. We will continue to cooperate with them to try to attract people that are suitable to each region. As I said, we need more blue-collar workers in some areas and more white-collar workers in others. This is always done in consultation with the province.

11:35 a.m.

NDP

The Vice-Chair NDP Yvon Godin

Mr. André, it is your turn.

11:35 a.m.

Bloc

Guy André Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC

My question is for all of you. I do not know who will be able to provide an answer.

Our federal services — from Canada Post and other institutions — are they really available in both languages, in keeping with official languages? Can you talk a little bit about that?

I have seen some reactions, so I will let you answer.

11:35 a.m.

Coordinator, Réseau de développement économique et d'employabilité de Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador

Josée Dalton

In some areas, in some departments, such as Canadian Heritage and Service Canada, we are lucky to have two French speaking program officers, not just bilingual but francophone, working here in the province. There is also the RCMP, Citizenship and Immigration. I am trying to go over the list. I think that they are twelve. In some cases, I would say that the situation is very good, but that is not the case at Canada Post, where it was terrible last year, and it is even worst at the immigration service. There was one incident that created quite an outcry. I believe that it was three or four years ago, and it involved a member of the community who wanted to be served in French when she went to renew her passport. She went to the office, spoke in French and was answered in English. They understood perfectly well what she had said in French, but it seems that they were not able to answer her in French because the supervisor refused. If she allows the service to be given in French, that will create a demand, and they did not want to get into that.

Do you see the kind of challenges that we face? It was the same type of situation when the customs service at the airport was run by the federal government.

When all of you go back to the St. John's airport, test the service for yourself. You will see the little sign that indicates that service is available in English and French. Speak in French. Some of them will certainly understand, but they will always answer in English. That is one example. I want to turn the floor over to Cyrilda, Steven or Marie-Claude. They may have other examples for you. But as I said earlier, we always need to be vigilant and seek our rights.

11:35 a.m.

Editor and Director General, Le Gaboteur

Steven Watt

In some instances, although a given federal entity is supposed to provide service in French, in light of the small French-language population base... The thresholds are often set at 5% or 20% of the population, percentages that we could never reach in Newfoundland and Labrador. In other words, there are nation-wide official languages programs that could never be run in Newfoundland and Labrador. Nevertheless, I would like to draw your attention to a success story. It concerns a pilot project that Service Canada launched in the Stephenville-Port-au-Port region. Although there are francophone communities in the region, they are not sufficient in number to meet the five or 20% threshold. By converting to an traveling service, they were able to be classified in a region with a higher percentage of French-speaking persons.

The Stephenville office now has a staff member who works two or three days a week in the Grand'Terre and Cap St. George region, which is around an hour's drive from Stephenville. This is the sort of flexibility I was talking about earlier; it allows us to run programs in special circumstances, such as those found in Newfoundland and Labrador.

11:35 a.m.

Bloc

Guy André Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC

Did you want to add something, Ms. Poirier?

11:35 a.m.

Interim Director General, La Fédération des francophones de Terre-Neuve et du Labrador

Cyrilda Poirier

No, but I would like Josée to talk to you about ACOA, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.

11:35 a.m.

Coordinator, Réseau de développement économique et d'employabilité de Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador

Josée Dalton

I did not really want to get into this.

11:35 a.m.

Bloc

Guy André Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC

As far as I'm aware, ACOA provides services in both official languages.

11:35 a.m.

Interim Director General, La Fédération des francophones de Terre-Neuve et du Labrador

Cyrilda Poirier

I brought it up because it is a fairly unusual situation. I especially want Josée to tell the committee what ACOA staff said.

11:35 a.m.

Coordinator, Réseau de développement économique et d'employabilité de Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador

Josée Dalton

ACOA takes advantage of the fact that we do not have the critical mass to meet the 5% threshold. There is only one French-speaking ACOA officer in our province. The officer in question is a bilingual English-speaking person. When I went to meet with officials at the Moncton headquarters to seek an explanation on certain matters I was advised — very politely — that while they respected us and recognized the contribution made by the French-speaking community, they were perfectly at liberty to conduct both written and oral communications with us in English. They basically said that it was because we were in their good books that they deigned to communicate with us and provide us with services in French.

Furthermore, the federation was recently sent a survey by ACOA's president, Monique Colette, with whom the RDÉE has met on several occasions. The survey, evaluating the quality of services offered by ACOA, was done in English. It is somewhat ironic that a service quality survey would be sent out to us in English. I got in touch with those in charge, who sent me out a French version, but the return date had been and gone before it got to me. I filled it out nonetheless. In my opinion, some departments — and as was the case here, some agencies — depart from their official language responsibilities. That is why we always have to be on our guard. Although I do not want to return to the militancy of yesteryears, we have to remain vigilant.

11:40 a.m.

NDP

The Vice-Chair NDP Yvon Godin

I think that we will have time...

11:40 a.m.

Bloc

Guy André Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC

Did you file a complaint with the Commissioner of Official Languages? Did it get you anywhere?

11:40 a.m.

Coordinator, Réseau de développement économique et d'employabilité de Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador

11:40 a.m.

Bloc

Guy André Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC

Did you file a complaint?