Official Languages Committee on Nov. 6th, 2006

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Yvon Godin]

Therefore, it is thanks to the Court Challenges Program that this was done.

I would like to ask my other question of Mr. Watt. Earlier, you talked about your newspaper and the fact that in order to sell advertising, one needs to have a lot of readers. The people who buy advertising want to get their money's worth, they want to have a broad readership. I believe that is how it works.

It is sometimes said that asking a question is to also give the answer, but in this case, I do not have the answer and so I will ask you all the same. Before the sponsorship scandal in Ottawa, there was the Sponsorship Program.

Did your newspaper receive money from the federal government for government advertising? Has that stopped over the last few years?

[Steven Watt]

I started working at the paper approximately three and a half years ago, just before the scandal was launched. I therefore have limited knowledge of the program, but as far as I know, we had little or no demand for advertising under the program.

However, we regularly published campaigns for various federal departments, which has disappeared with the launching of the scandal. The purchase level for government advertising has not recovered since. It is beginning to re-establish itself, but we will have to wait a year in order to really assess the situation, because the buying level varies from month to month. We have seen an increase in the last few months, but we will have to wait in order to see if the trend continues.

The moratorium on federal advertising was a decision taken in the wake of the scandal that did not really affect us. The purchase of federal advertising started to decrease immediately following the ad scam, and that trend has continued.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Yvon Godin]

I have another question regarding the Action Plan for Official Languages, which received $700 million in funding.

Has the action plan produced concrete benefits? Has it made a difference?

[Cyrilda Poirier]

That is one of the questions I do not have a clear answer on.

In the province, the greatest beneficiary of the action plan has been the school board. I cannot speak to the impact the program has had on the community, because that is one of the aspects I have not yet had time to study. All I know is that the school board benefited from the program and will continue to do so.

Last year, the school board was able to fund the project that it called the Francochoralies, which was an incredible success. This year, a mobile team made up of expert teachers among others is touring the three communities. But I cannot say for sure whether or not the action plan has had direct benefits for our communities.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Yvon Godin]

So no one is following up on it? Is that because it is not your responsibility?

[Cyrilda Poirier]

I cannot say because I am missing some information. The Director General left quite quickly and we have not been able to follow up on several issues, of which the action plan is unfortunately one. That is why I cannot answer your question.

I regret that; I should perhaps have done some research, but time constraints did not allow me to do so.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Yvon Godin]

My time has expired.

Mr. Simard, you have the floor.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Thank you once again.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Yvon Godin]

What about a 5 or 10 minutes break?

We will reconvene in 5 minutes.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Yvon Godin]

We will continue with the second round of questions.

I would like to inform the witnesses that they may table their documents with the clerk at the end of the meeting, so that we can have then translated. The members of the committee would appreciate that, as it will assist them in the drafting of their report.

Mr. Simard now has the floor.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to come back to the action plan. If there is anything that the committee should do, it would be to recommend to the government—whether it is the Conservatives or ourselves, although we obviously would have a preference—it will be to renew the action plan. It is crucial.

When we developed the action plan, $750 million seemed like a lot of money to us, but the needs were and continue to be great.

In reviewing the said plan, we realize that the emphasis was really put on education. Indeed, more than 50% of the funds were dedicated to the education. That worked quite well. In terms of health, it worked very well. However, there were shortcomings in the areas of immigration and culture: there was not enough money. We often assume that culture will take care of itself.

Could you comment on that?Should the action plan be renewed, which sectors, in your opinion, should be emphasized here in Newfoundland?

[Cyrilda Poirier]

All the sectors.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Where are the shortcomings?

[Cyrilda Poirier]

They actually exist in all four sectors. I am unable to tell you which one I would prioritize over another. As I was saying earlier, as far as education is concerned, we know that there was an injection of money, that it is working and that it is being well used.

In terms of health, the project has already been launched, but we are about to enter the concrete phase of its implementation. I apologize, because I do not always use adequate parliamentary and legal language. However, it is clear that health is an area of jurisdiction that the provincial government considers as its domain. As a result, it is always rather reticent in this respect. The Provincial Ministry of Health supports us, and our cooperation with it is certainly excellent. I would absolutely not want you to think otherwise. But the fact remains that we are obviously always in competition with the anglophones.

If, through the action plan, the money was directly allocated to the francophone community, that would of course be an incredible benefit for us.

Immigration, as far as we are concerned, is a very delicate issue. As I said during my presentation earlier, we have a problem: there is a labour shortage. Everyone knows that our workers, our youth and our labourers, are going to Fort McMurray or somewhere else in Alberta. Our population is aging. We have problems within problems, and not only are we suffering, but anglophones are suffering as well. We are trying to make up for the shortage of labourers through immigration. That is our first proposed exploratory mission. We will get off the beaten path, we will not be recruiting in France; we will be recruiting in Eastern European countries, such is Rumania, etc. We have already established some connections in this regard.

As far as the cultural sector is concerned, I will repeat it once again, that is my case, it is somewhat my pet cause, and I really want it to work. I spoke to you about the distances we have to cover. Imagine a theatre group wanting to travel with their sets. They cannot do so. We have to be content with an artist playing with one guitar. I would really like to see something else, some other form of art and culture travelling to my area. The problem is not necessarily some issue of production delivery, but rather one of the programs themselves: we must have enough funding so that the artists can travel both inside and outside of our province.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Mr. Watt, earlier, you talked about communication. Obviously, getting our message out to the public is important. You said that the francophonie here in Newfoundland and Labrador is concentrated in three regions or three centres. Your newspaper is delivered to those three centres. It is a weekly newspaper and you said, if I am not mistaken, that it is a biweekly publication. Also, community radio stations seem to be working very well in the rest of the country. Our region hosted the annual general meeting of Envol 91 last week. It had a rocky start, but it is very successful now and it is extremely popular with francophone listeners.

Is community radio something being discussed here? Is this one of your projects?

[Steven Watt]

Yes, our provincial newspaper is published 21 times per year, on a biweekly bases, except during the three summer months and at Christmastime, when the newspaper is published only once a month. Subscribers received the newspaper in the mail. Since francophones are concentrated in three major areas, our subscribers are located in three major areas: here, in the Port-au-Port Peninsula, and in Labrador City. I also want to add that because the newspaper is not based in one particular region, it has the major advantage of reaching francophones who are not necessarily integrated into a community network or who live in even more isolated regions. For example, a number of newspaper are sent to Goose Bay, Labrador, where there is no francophone community organization but where there is, nevertheless a school and several francophones.

There is also enormous potential, that we are more or less successfully taping into, which is reaching the bilingual anglophone population and providing it with a window on the provincial francophonie. An attempt to reach this audience is to provide it with something in French on Newfoundland—and it is almost the only French publication in Newfoundland—but it is also to provide this window. They are very interested in information about a community organization and events.

As for community radio, to my knowledge, the only one in existence is located in Labrador City. I don't know very much about it because it is located in Labrador City, however it does exist and many volunteers worked there.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Yvon Godin]

Your time is up.

Mr. Lemieux.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Good morning. I would like to ask Ms. Poirier a question.

You answered another question about federal spending here in Newfoundland and Labrador. I just reviewed the action plan and I noted that, our government is spending a great deal here in Newfoundland and Labrador. We have invested $1.4 million in francophone communities and $2.9 million in francophone schools, for a total of $4.3 million.

I would like to know whether you have a system to collect data on community associations and organizations, in order to know when the federal government directly supports associations with funding.

I am asking because additional agreements have just been announced. For example, in education $1 billion has just been announced, a four-year agreement, for the period ending in 2009. This is a 44% increase. Some $64 million will be spent on services, a 25% increase. Communities will receive $120 million, an 11% increase. I would like to know whether your associations have a system to determine how the federal government provides them with financial support.

[Cyrilda Poirier]

That's a good question. As I said earlier, I don't have all the answers. In a couple of weeks, we will be updating our overall development plan on the basis of the condition of our community forum. We plan to establish follow-up mechanisms. That said, I don't necessarily want to say that the assistance was not there, it's simply that I don't have the information. That is why I don't want to venture too far here.

I know that this summer we started taking a look at all our organizations, focusing on results-based management. We asked them exactly how much money they had received and what results they had achieved with that money. In June of last year, I began this initiative, which arose from a request by the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada. I made a commitment to implement this mechanism, and to ensure that the process is applied every year. These are statistics we do need.

Perhaps my predecessor kept all those figures in his head. However, I am more the visual kind and I have to see them on paper. We will get them.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

That's good, because personally I would like organizations to be aware we are helping them. If no one is aware we are helping, people will think the government isn't taking care of them. However, if the government does take care of them, then it would be useful if associations could share key information among one another.

[Cyrilda Poirier]

Naturally, we will indicate all the amounts received when we submit our annual report. Normally, community and provincial organizations also submit annual reports. I am sure we will be able to compile those reports and present the figures. However, at present, I have no chart that provides an overall picture.

But I can tell you that if you ask me the same question next year, I will have an answer for you.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Yvon Godin]

Mr. Watt, you have the floor.

[Steven Watt]

Private organizations, and particularly local organizations, know perfectly well that we receive government assistance. We simply don't exchange figures enough at the provincial level. However, we do not necessarily know under what federal initiative we receive assistance. We know we receive a funding from Canadian Heritage, but we don't know for certain under what initiative the funding is provided. Is it under the Action Plan for Official Languages — or should I say the inaction plan?

[Some Hon. Members]

Ah ah!

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

That's good, because my question did not go that far. What I meant was that, if the government is involved and provides assistance, that should be made known.