Official Languages Committee on Dec. 4th, 2006

[Paule Brunelle, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Good morning, everyone. This is so interesting, and I have so many questions to ask. You'll allow me to put my first question to Pierre Gagnon. I've discovered a cousin; it's great to see that you have them across Canada.

Mr. Gagnon, we were told that there were delays in getting a trial in French. You also told us about this problem. What are these delays? Ultimately, getting a trial in French is virtually mission impossible. People probably agree to a trial in English so they don't have to wait a year or two.

[Pierre Gagnon]

It's not mission impossible. It's just that it causes difficulties in some cases in British Columbia. One of those difficulties, for example, is that we can't locate the bilingual population and Francophone population. We know where these people are, but we can't identify them individually. So, in 2002, we decided to centralize all trials by jury in the municipality of New Westminster. That works, except that, if a person is charged in Prince George or Fort St. John, for example...

[Paule Brunelle, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

That's far away!

[Pierre Gagnon]

...that person will have to be tried here. So that's inconvenient for the accused and witnesses, who generally live where the offence is presumed to have been committed.

That's one difficulty, and we discuss it in our report.

[Paule Brunelle, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Very well, thank you.

Ms. Rakotonaivo, you say that the identity of Franco-Columbians will no longer be what it used to be. I'd like you to explain to me what you mean by that, although we can guess, given the high immigration rate.

Perhaps Mr. Nawri, who's mainly interested in the immigration problem, could answer my next question. You also told us that there were immigration problems. What do you think of the Quebec model, which enables us to choose a certain number of francophile or “francophonizable” immigrants? Do you think it's a good model? Could you consider that avenue?

Lastly, Ms. Bourgeois, I'd like to hear your comments on the early childhood centres. I'm the Bloc québécois critic for intergovernmental affairs and child care. I believe this is one way of integrating immigrants, which is why it's important for you to tell us more. It's clear that, if we could integrate children from the earliest possible age, that would be effective. It goes without saying that we're talking about child care centres, not about “child parking” centres. These are places of education, where language learning is done at the same time as learning community life. So I'm pleased to see that you've adopted that point of view, and I'd like you to tell us more about it.

[Michelle Rakotonaivo]

Thank you.

First, I'll tell you about identity. We've just celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of the Fédération des francophones de la Colombie-Britannique. We had a very typical image. Sixty years ago, they were all white French Canadian Catholics sitting around a table in a room. Last year, we had a seminar on our identity, and, looking round the table, we saw people of all colours. That image alone may answer your question.

In addition, as we said earlier, we speak 72 languages in our schools. There are immigrants and others who've been here for a long time. That's part of the reality. We're also talking about exogamy. So when we talk about identity, it's not just the fact that of coming from somewhere else, of having another culture; there are other spoken languages as well. So all that together brings about a change in identity.

Lastly, I'd like to emphasize that, in British Columbia, we have what's called the [Inaudible - Editor's note] of the provinces. So we're also looking at what we need here.

Perhaps Mr. Nawri can add something else concerning immigration.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Yvon Godin]

You have 30 seconds, sir.

[Jamal Nawri, Coordinator, Immigration, Fédération des francophones de la Colombie-Britannique]

Thank you, it's over.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Jamal Nawri]

To go back very briefly to the immigration problems, it's true that there are a lot of barriers to integrating immigrants into Francophone communities, because they are taken in through Anglophone organizations. So they aren't as aware as we are of all the French-language services that immigrants can access, such as schools, continuing training centres, Francophone associations, community centres, and so on.

We'd like to adopt some things from the Quebec model. It's already being promoted outside Canada for Francophone immigration outside Quebec, in particular in British Columbia, but we'd also like to keep the model, which enables us to recruit immigrants, in addition to integrating them ourselves, that is to say having our own intake and orientation services in British Columbia, and to do that through Francophone, not Anglophone organizations.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Yvon Godin]

Thank you.

Mr. Lemieux, go ahead, please.

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

Thank you. It's a pleasure for me to be here with you. Thank you for your presentations this morning.

I'd like to emphasize that you have the government's support. We represent the four parties, and, as the member said at the outset, this is our first trip. We'd like to know whether the action plan is working well and, if not, how we can improve it. Your presentations were therefore excellent, because there was a mix of successes and challenges.

I'd also like to emphasize the recent initiatives, particularly as regards education. We've just signed a $1 billion, four-year agreement with the provinces.

I'd like to ask Ms. Bourgeois a question on education. How is it working between you and the government? We respect the provincial government's mandate, and we signed a $1 billion agreement with the provinces, including this one. How are you working with the provincial government here to put specific initiatives in place?

[Marie Bourgeois]

With your permission, I'm going to ask our executive director to answer your question. He's the one conducting the official negotiations.

[Dr. Jean Watters, Director General, Conseil scolaire francophone de Colombie-Britannique]

First of all, we've just signed an agreement with the provincial government. It approved our strategic orientation plan and granted a 15% increase in our core budget, which has never previously been done in this province. That will enable us to implement our action plan over the next four years. That doesn't mean, however, that there won't be any more progress to make.

What currently concerns me—Ms. Boucher heard this in Halifax, but I'm going to repeat it: some issues are an enormous concern for us, including child care centres. What the Conservatives recently signed is working very well wherever there are majority groups. However, for our minorities, where parents don't know where to go or where there are incredible waiting lists for child care, it's not working. It's essential to have infrastructures in place. I've worked in very close cooperation with the Fédération des francophones de la Colombie-Britannique, in Prince George, for example, or with the Fédération des parents francophones de la Colombie-Britannique.

The other factor—Ms. Boucher has already heard this 50 times and she's going to hear it once again—is the cancellation of the Court Challenges Program. It didn't represent a lot of money, but its cancellation has hurt us a lot. If there's one change that the federal government should make, it would be to restore the Court Challenges Program, which is very often the only weapon—pardon that choice of word—that Francophones have with regard to education in this country to advance their rights and efforts.

There's currently an incredible openness on the provincial side. At first, I didn't expect that. Our minister. Ms. Bond, is doing an utterly outstanding job. Our minister of Francophone Affairs doesn't speak French, but he's also doing an outstanding job. So there's support, an openness that we've never previously seen, in my opinion. In that regard, I think that the fact that the Olympic Games will be held soon and that the groups meeting here around the table are working very hard on this issue has opened the eyes of many people to the importance of Francophones in British Columbia.

I'll emphasize one final point on this subject. There are as many people who speak French in British Columbia as there are in New Brunswick: 270,000 persons. That's a fact that should be greatly emphasized, particularly in the context of the upcoming Olympic Games in 2010.

We're very satisfied with the progress recently made on the provincial plan, and we're still working very closely with those people.

Lastly, we need infrastructures in order to make the plans to build our schools, our community areas, child care centres. It's essential that considerable investments be made. Those investments must come from the federal government. The province is already investing. In the past, we inherited left-overs that nobody wanted. So it's essential that the federal government continue investing in the program to build our schools.

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

Does the province consider a child care centre as a day care or is it a preschool educational institution? Is that its mandate, or not?

[Dr. Jean Watters]

It's not even in our mandate as a school board. However, we recognize its importance. That's why, through the Fédération des parents francophones de la Colombie-Britannique, we've made room in our schools for child care facilities. As the chairwoman said earlier, it's important to reach young people right from the cradle, as soon as possible. Moreover, a few years ago, when they approved the junior kindergarten program, we saw a startling increase in registration. If we could get them almost at birth, we'd have a guarantee that assimilation...

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

There's still a challenge. In my opinion, the family is the most important factor. child care centres exist, that's true, but it's in the family that we learn our history, our heritage, our mother tongue.

[Dr. Jean Watters]

I'll emphasize one point, and then...

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Yvon Godin]

No, your time is up. It's my turn.

Ms. Poupart, earlier you mentioned French-language services. Under the Canadian act, you're entitled to French-language services. It's unfortunate to hear that the Chair has become so discouraged that he asks his questions in English. I don't know whether you take measures immediately when that occurs, such as filing a complaint with the Commissioner of Official Languages, sending letters to our committee, but I think all that has to be done. Personally, I've made the following decision: when I call Service Canada, if I don't get services in my language, I file a complaint.

[Marianne Théorêt-Poupart]

The territorial government has had a French-Language Services Directorate since last year. Previously it was the French-Language Services Office, but, in response to repeated requests by the association, it became the French-Language Services Directorate. That change in name is important because the director of that office now has direct access to the Council of Deputy Ministers and reports directly to the minister responsible for Francophone Affairs, who doesn't speak French either, but who's making major efforts.

However, there's currently no remedial body for challenging Francophone rights violations in French-language services. So the French-Language Services Directorate, which was created in the spring of 2005, is working to create a recourse mechanism. The association has been in existence for 25 years, and considerable action has been taken to make it known that we're not receiving French-language services. We constantly have to repeat the same thing. We can't assert our rights by force of numbers: there are only 1,200 of us. That's not going to impress people. When they learn that there are Francophones in the Yukon, that's always their first surprise, but we can't then assert our rights based on our numbers. We assert our rights based on the fact that we live in a bilingual country, but we have a lot more trouble being heard than people living in a place where there are a lot of Francophones.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Yvon Godin]

In a way, I'm pleased you mentioned court challenges without us asking you the question. Perhaps the government can understand that it's a problem across the country.

As regards child care centres, the Conservative government is putting the emphasis on the family, it's true, but I don't think it understands that, when say child care centres, you're talking about families where the parent or parents have to go to work. People may not want to have to use child care centres. Perhaps they would prefer one of the parents to stay at home to take care of the children, but the problem is that both have to go to work. The purpose of taking part in child care funding was to give parents the chance, the opportunity to have access to child care centres. So we shouldn't take any other path to do anything else but respond to the situation. The situation is that governments are responsible for providing child care access, especially to Francophones, because, as Ms. Bourgeois said so well, we should stop speaking like a minority community: we are Francophones, and that's recognized in Canada's laws. Under the Official Languages Act, we are one of the country's two linguistic communities. The goal of our efforts to get child care centres and schools is to be able to bring our children together in a Francophone area so that they can keep the French language. Family is also part of that.

Pardon me, Ms. Boucher, but, on a point of order, I want to tell you that, when you ask a question, I don't interrupt you to tell you that someone is going to answer it. Thank you.

The witnesses heard my question. Now I'd like them to answer it.

Ms. Friolet.

[Yseult Friolet, Executive Director, Fédération des francophones de la Colombie-Britannique]

I'd like to say two things, Mr. Godin. As regards the Action Plan for Official Languages, I'm going to tell you what our community's major need is. There's an obvious deficiency in this action plan, which incidentally is a good plan. It has enabled progress to be made in various sectors.

The Support for Official Language Communities Program wasn't part of the Action Plan for Official Languages. The Support for Official Language Communities Program is the fund managed by Canadian Heritage under which core funding is provided to Francophone associations across the country. This fund was increased by 11% in 2005-2006. So when the plan is renewed, I think we should look at that.

The other major deficiency is that the entire cultural sector was excluded. So we have to think about that.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Yvon Godin]

Pardon me, but I wouldn't want to abuse the time allotted me because I'm going to be told that.

So we'll now move on to Mr. Murphy.

[Yseult Friolet]

I only want to tell you one thing about the education sector. We talked about the school board here, but there's the entire postsecondary sector, which is vital for British Columbia. We have to be able to continue having courses in French at Simon Fraser University.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Yvon Godin]

Thank you, Ms. Friolet.

Mr. Murphy.