Official Languages Committee on Nov. 28th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Guy Lauzon]

Mr. Grenier, I have to stop you here so that Mr. Potié can have a few minutes to respond.

[Francis Potié]

Fine. As far as the Publications Assistance Program is concerned, I would like to point out that it is a subsidy for the mailing costs of newspapers and magazines. Normally, the papers are sent to subscribers. In the case of several of our papers, it's the only solution in terms of distribution. For example, in Vancouver, we do not include our newspaper in the Publisac which goes out to everyone living in Vancouver. That would be a prohibitively expensive way for us to reach our readers. So we have no choice but to send our paper directly to our readers, namely to those who specifically asked to receive our publication.

Minority newspapers are more strongly affected by certain changes because they do not have any alternative solutions. It is difficult for them, for instance, to adapt to a significant increase in postal rates or to find another method of distribution. Further, the papers which are sent to subscribers operate in areas where there already are other publications. In Eastern Ontario, for instance, several papers are distributed to every resident because of the population pool. However, in British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, in the north and in the Atlantic provinces, papers are sent out by subscription. In these places, people are always on edge, because they are never sure that they will have enough resources for their paper to survive.

Le Gaboteur, in Newfoundland, and L'Eau vive in Saskatchewan, had to cease their operations several times and could only publish again with the support of the community, and, it must be said, with grants for francophone communities. However, there is very little leeway. Will another paper close down? It's hard to say. The fact remains that this situation does not make life easier for regional papers, which are already experiencing many problems.

I agree with what Mr. Grenier said. Canada Post's contribution has been reduced by $15 million. But, in fact, there should be a $15 million surplus due to the dividend Canada Post will realize for the government at the end of the year. Either way, there is no difference for the government.

[The Chair, Conservative, Guy Lauzon]

Thank you, Mr. Potié.

Ms. Barbot.

[Vivian Barbot, Bloc, Papineau, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here via teleconference. I would have liked to have you here in person, but this is the way it is. In certain situations technology enables us to communicate.

As far as the funding of communications is concerned, I have noted some things which, in my opinion, are absolutely horrible. It is almost impossible to believe that communication was not included in the plan which was developed, given that the government bears significant responsibility for the vitality of francophone communities outside Quebec.

Further, I would like to point out that there is federal intrusion in areas of provincial jurisdiction. The government has chosen to fund areas such as health and education, which fall under provincial jurisdiction. Further, the funding given to companies such as Rogers and Transco, amongst others, is much more significant than the funding given to local organizations. These organizations have lost all of their subsidies.

Mr. Bélanger, you talked about how important stable funding was. That's quite understandable: it applies to every organization which receives funding. You also clearly stated that funding was the main problem. However, I would like to know whether you manage to find competent people for the positions you have been forced to fill with volunteers.

[Pierre Bélanger]

There is no doubt that in our community there are competent people who want to work for francophone community organizations. The only reason we cannot hire them is because we cannot pay them. These people have the right to work full-time and to lead a normal life. In some cases, we benefit from their expertise when they work for us on a volunteer basis, but the fact remains that without adequate funding, it is almost impossible to benefit from their services on a full-time basis.

As Mr. Grenier said so well, we always have to create new projects. In these conditions, we might turn to people who are in training. In some cases, this involves very competent people, but the fact remains that without stable funding, we cannot pay these people on a regular basis. Consequently, we do not have the best choice. We cannot advance issues or be as effective as we would like to when we do not have any full-time staff. But people are the key to any organization's success.

[Sylvain Lacroix, Executive Director, Alliance de la francophonie de Timmins]

Mr. Chairman, I would like to add a few words. I have been the executive director of the Alliance de la francophonie de Timmins since 1995. Since 1998, I have worked on a part-time basis because the alliance could not afford to pay me full-time. During the day, I work for the school board, and in the evening, I sacrifice my time with my family because I believe in the cause and I am fighting for this association as best I can. Is it acceptable, in a society like Canada, to have organizations that defend the Franco-Ontarian nation struggle with so many problems that they have to count on people like myself, who work part-time, and like Mr. Bélanger, who works on a volunteer basis? I believe that we live in a cutting-edge, progressive society, and we must ensure that our francophone organizations have the will and the duty to flourish.

The Dion plan provided support for existing infrastructure, such as school boards, colleges and health care institutions, but it actually undermined working organizations. There was nothing in the plan to help people working on the ground trying to fix the problems in our francophone communities.

[Vivian Barbot, Bloc, Papineau, QC]

I acknowledge your concerns and I can tell you right now that we will table a motion with the committee to that effect, because there are serious problems. I myself have worked extensively as a volunteer. Volunteering is all very well and good, but at a certain point, governments must live up to their basic responsibilities. I find what is happening to you unacceptable .

Mr. Bélanger, you said that Heritage Canada should provide you with basic funding in the order of $60,000. As well, you talked about a funding study. I imagine that you are referring to a study on long-term funding for your organization.

Can you tell us a little more about this?

[The Chair, Conservative, Guy Lauzon]

You will have to give us a very brief answer, Mr. Bélanger.

[Pierre Bélanger]

I will make my answer as brief as possible. Core funding of $60,000, you know... What we need is $86,000 to keep up with inflation and have the same purchasing power we had in 1985. We wanted to be realistic, but when I heard what Mr. Grenier was saying earlier, I don't think that was realistic. I am convinced of the same thing as he is: namely that the federal government has to give us proper resources. Proper resources would be $86,000.

As you know, the agreements, the interdepartmental document and sections 41 and 42 require federal government departments to help us develop projects. We should not be required to know the workings of the public service like the back of our hand, we should not be required to be familiar with every program. We do not have the resources to do that. We should be able to work much more easily with departments such as Service Canada and others to set up projects in our communities.

With respect to the third item, we would like the funding formula to take into account the number of francophones served as well as the communities in which the associations must operate. In some communities, there are no newspapers, community radio stations or other media in French. Community development is a huge undertaking, and the people involved in it should have more funding. I certainly liked what Mr. Grenier suggested earlier. If equality is our objective, we are automatically at a disadvantage, because we do not have the infrastructure that exists in major centres to do community development work.

[The Chair, Conservative, Guy Lauzon]

Thank you, Mr. Bélanger.

I would now ask Mr. Godin to ask the next question.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am pleased to have an opportunity to ask our guests a few questions and to make a few comments myself.

You say that francophone communities are slowly dying out, and that concerns me in the long term, because that is the direction in which we are heading. The reason the francophones outside Quebec have made progress is thanks to the work of their organizations. I'm thinking of organizations such as the Société des Acadiens et Acadiennes du Nouveau-Brunswick, the SAANB, the Société nationale de l'Acadie in New Brunswick, and ACFO in Ontario. These organizations worked with their communities. I cannot imagine a community moving forward and succeeding when its members get up in the morning, go to work and come home at the end of the day feeling they are isolated. I do not see how we could survive like that. Although Ms. Barbot says that we should not call ourselves a minority, that is the fact of the matter.

We need only look at the scandals that have happened here in Ottawa. The Auditor General said the programs themselves were not bad, but that they were poorly managed. So we should not be punishing everyone. We should not be punishing those who were helped by these programs by cancelling all of them; we should be managing them better. This opens the door to the government, which now says that there are some programs in place but that it cannot manage them. So it is abolishing them and using the money to pay down the debt. In 15 years, the net debt will be eliminated—whether it is net debt or whatever, I really don't care—and we are going to pay the price of this. There will be a terrible price to pay. It is like trying to pay off a mortgage in two years but deciding not to buy any groceries. That is what the government is doing.

Organizations are suffering from all the cuts in programs such as the Court Challenges Program and various literacy programs. The current government does not seem to believe that organizations of this type should exist. It is following the American model and is giving individuals some money and telling them to look after themselves.

I would like to hear your comments on this question. Should the government not be reviewing this entire matter? In its report, should the Standing Committee on Official Languages be questioning the decisions made by the government and telling it that it has taken the wrong tack by taking away from our communities the organizations that they need to get people working together and to set up programs? In Sudbury, we heard it clearly: the Collège Boréal said that without ACFO, it simply would not exist. The same is true of the francophone health network in Ontario: without ACFO and certain other organizations, it would not exist. No one will do this work for us. In your presentation, you said clearly that you needed money to do this work. It cannot be done with volunteer labour.

I would now like to hear Mr. Pierre Bélanger's comments.

[The Chair, Conservative, Guy Lauzon]

You have the floor, Mr. Bélanger.

[Pierre Bélanger]

You are quite right, Mr. Godin: we have to get our priorities right. We have to ensure that there is proper funding for community organizations. We suffered a great deal because of the sponsorship scandal and the fact that some programs were poorly run. To some extent, we became suspect. We were blamed to some extent, even though we had nothing to do with the problems, because we were very transparent in the way we ran things. The public money we spend is justified by the many efficiency reports we have to submit. It costs us about $2,000 in accounting fees every year to ensure that every penny got from Heritage Canada or the federal government through various programs was spent properly.

That is what is happening, and this is a major crisis for grassroots community organizations. I very much liked what Mr. Grenier and Mr. Potié had to say. The situation exists in that area as well. Heaven knows we need a healthy francophone press, because when we cannot talk to each other, it is difficult to get the younger generation to take up the torch. It is hard to fight assimilation. All the tools that were put in place have to be used. The money must be available. Francophones outside Quebec are not merely referendum material. People love us a lot when Quebeckers are making a decision about their future. However, between referendums, our funding is cut off, and we are unable to do our work. The work we do is very important because we know what the needs of our community are. We ensure that government funding is spent effectively and properly.

I will now turn the floor over to Mr. Lacroix.

[Sylvain Lacroix]

I would just add that with the new Official Languages Act and Bill S-3, I think francophone organizations will have to start taking action against the government if it does not provide the funding we require and does not serve us in keeping with our rights. We are not a minority. We are part of an official language community. We are founding people and the Franco-Ontarian nation starting now demands its rights.

[The Chair, Conservative, Guy Lauzon]

There are 30 seconds left.

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

The other aspect has to do with newspapers. There is Canada Post as well. It may have suited the government, perhaps it spoke with Canada Post. Cutbacks of 25% have been announced. As you said, it looks like rebates are going in the same direction. Funding to organizations is being cut. The government is cutting everywhere to pay down the national debt.

[Réjean Grenier]

I think that there are, clearly, some easy solutions. I would not want to get onto the slippery slope of government policy; I will leave that up to you. You are very good at it. But I do think there are some easy solutions. For example, Canada Post could offset what has been done with respect to French-language newspapers outside Quebec, because there is a legal framework for this. Canada Post Corporation could say that it would buy advertising in our newspapers in an amount equivalent to the amount it cut in subsidies. That would be a very simple solution, and the corporation would make a great deal of money by discontinuing its subsidies to large organizations that may not need it. I do not want to speak for Canada Post, but I know we need help, and there would be an easy way of providing it.

Another easy thing to do would be to change Treasury Board regulations to ensure that there are specific criteria for francophones outside Quebec that take into account their uniqueness and their difficulties in all federal advertising and federal programs. The same rules must not apply to everyone. I'm thinking, for example, of the apprenticeship program to which I was referring earlier. I think that would be a very clear example. If a magazine is published only every two months, but a government ad campaign lasts only one month, it is just too bad, it falls between the two months when the magazine is published. In that context, the only business magazine in French Canada cannot benefit from government advertising. And yet, we see the advertisements in English in other publications.

[The Chair, Conservative, Guy Lauzon]

I must interrupt you, Mr. Grenier.

I would ask Mr. Lemieux to ask the next question.

[Réjean Grenier]

It is important to listen to the answers, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Guy Lauzon]

We only have five minutes, and it is now Mr. Lemieux's turn. Everyone has important questions and answers.

[Vivian Barbot, Bloc, Papineau, QC]

Could we at least let him complete his thought, just this once?

[The Chair, Conservative, Guy Lauzon]

No, I have to treat all committee members equally.

You have the floor, Mr. Lemieux.

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

It is hard to start after all that.

Good morning. I would like to thank you for your presentations. As a member of Parliament, I am very aware of issues facing Franco-Ontarians, because there is a very significant, dynamic Franco-Ontarian community in my riding. The total population of my riding is 100,000, and 65,000 of them are Franco-Ontarians.

I would like to talk a little about the community associations. Last Saturday I attended ACFO's annual meeting in Prescott-Russell, in my riding. Yes, the Prescott-Russell branch of ACFO is in a crisis at the moment. I would like to talk about subsidies a little. In a presentation I have here, there is reference to program subsidies rather than subsidies for operational costs. In my opinion, program subsidies produce results. That is important for the government, for taxpayers and for all the communities. In my community, we think it is important to see concrete results.

At the moment, one of the challenges facing the Prescott-Russell ACFO is to determine the level of support it has within the community. Will this organization continue to exist? What mandate will it have?

I would like to ask Mr. Bélanger the question: How do you assess the support your association has in your community?

[Pierre Bélanger]

In our case, that is quite easy to determine, because we organize activities and carry out projects that we ourselves developed. Whether we are talking about the Clin D'Oeil Child Care Centre or our newspaper, Les Nouvelles, we have worked very hard to do the feasibility studies, to get funding and to get the process going.

Let's talk about results. At the end of the 1980s and at the beginning of the 1990s, we were still receiving adequate funding. The basic grant we had was enough. I would like to emphasize that we were very effective. A basic grant does not mean that people stay in their offices drinking coffee and doing nothing. With this basic grant, we had some full-time employees. We worked with the community to set up projects that met our needs.

There are two ways of measuring the support we have from the community. First, the community used our services. The Clin D'Oeil Child Care Centre is now prosperous, because it met a genuine need. It is growing, and serves hundreds of families. We established this program in Timmins, in partnership with the school board. It is a success.

ACFO's annual general meetings are always followed by many francophones, despite the fact that life is not easier in Timmins than in Ottawa or Toronto. People do volunteer work for many organizations. Their workload is not getting any lighter; in fact it is getting heavier. There are always people at our annual general meetings and at the cultural activities we organize thanks to certain programs. People also use organizations that we have established and sit on their boards of directors, for example. Our organization works extremely well in partnership with other community groups.

Our basic problem is this. After 10 years of cutbacks, we are no longer able to hire full-time staff to continue the outstanding work we have done, for example with the child care centre and with the anti-violence squad we established with the City of Timmins. This program allowed us to offer services to francophone seniors to work against fraud and to provide training for young francophones. This project was carried out in partnership with the Timmins police.

We no longer have the resources we need for these programs. We are not opposed to having the federal government establish programs, but if they are to be developed and we are to have innovative, community-oriented projects, we need a minimum amount of funding, and that we no longer have. We need full-time employees, a stable office, a place where we can go to pay the rent, to have access to a computer and a telephone that works all the time in order to carry out these projects.

[The Chair, Conservative, Guy Lauzon]

Thank you, Mr. Bélanger.

Would you care to comment, Mr. Potié?