Official Languages Committee on Dec. 5th, 2006

[Dr. Denis Vincent]

Each province organizes its health care system differently. I think that the funding plan that was set up for all the networks across the country perhaps did not take into account the fact that things work differently in different regions.

In Alberta, the health department has delegated many responsibilities to the regional health authorities. The province is broken up into many smaller jurisdictions, and our francophone communities are scattered among all the regional health authorities. When we go to see the health department, to meet the minister, the deputy minister or officials in Edmonton, they tell us that our action plan is very interesting, but that the decision is not up to them. So we have to meet with each regional health authority in the province, since they are the entities we need to work with.

Our team consists of one person, and there are many people to meet with. Obviously, repeating the same message nine times to people who do not know us very well is quite difficult. It is relatively easy to deal with people in Edmonton who are more exposed to the realities of Canada, but it is something else to meet with people in Fort McMurray or southern Alberta. It constitutes a major obstacle for us in carrying out our work on an ongoing basis.

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

Can something not be done to change that situation? Could changes be made to how the system works?

[Dr. Denis Vincent]

We need a more generous travel budget because we need to go to different places. We need to meet with these people regularly so that they get to know us. Our message is clear and convincing. Every time we explain what we have to do, people say that it is good and it works. They learn how things are done in other provinces.

We succeed in building a relationship, but if we visit each region only once a year or if we communicate only by phone or e-mail, that is not enough. We know that in the public service and other areas, there is staff turnover and the people change. We need to be able to get out and meet these people regularly.

[Jean Johnson]

I would like to add that it is not always a lack of provisions that is the problem, but rather that programs and projects are not taken seriously even though they are in keeping with the federal government programs.

To come back to your specific question, when you talk about specific clauses, we often find ourselves, as representatives of the francophone communities, dealing with officials who are worried that we are trying to make Alberta bilingual. Our efforts are geared to the promotion of the two official languages. The only way to do that without making them feel threatened is to have a dedicated space somewhere, so that our needs can be respected and we can provide services to the community under the agreements. When things are written in black and white, people tend to take them more seriously.

I will let Joël make another comment.

[Joël Lavoie, Director General, French Canadian Association of Alberta]

A good example is all the money that is transferred for infrastructure. Western Economic Diversification Canada sends money to the province, which passes it along to the municipalities. Since that money goes through three levels of government, we need to lobby all three levels in order to have our infrastructure needs recognized. If there were a provision that covered that, it would help us a great deal.

Four or five years ago, the Government of Canada asked us to identify our top priority with respect to infrastructure. We said that it was the Saint-Thomas Health Centre, and we are still waiting for federal government assistance. Health Canada tells us that it would not give us any assistance, since infrastructure is a provincial jurisdiction, and Canadian Heritage tells us that it does not provide health funding.

So we have come up with a priority that has a five-year timeframe. The political will seems to be there, and everyone seems to be in agreement on this project, but officials are telling us that it is not aligned with their programs. They do not want to create a precedent and therefore they do not want to help the communities.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Yvon Godin]

Thank you.

Mr. Blaney, you have the floor.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for welcoming us here in French. That is always enjoyable.

I am replacing Daniel Petit, but I will pass your message along to him.

Yesterday we were talking about education. Mr. Arnal, you work at the postsecondary level. Can you talk to us about supply? Do your 650 students come from outside or is there a network in Alberta that enables you to recruit new candidates?

My second question is more general in nature. How do you see the future of the francophone community in Alberta, and how can the Action Plan for Official Languages help you develop that vision?

[Marc Arnal]

Most of the 650 postsecondary students come from Alberta and British Columbia. We do a lot of recruitment in British Columbia and some in Saskatchewan. That is our main recruitment pool.

The difficulty in recruiting students from Quebec is the tuition fees. It costs $5,000 a year here, but only around $2,000 in Quebec. We need to find a way to bridge that gap with funding. But where we really have difficulty is at the international level.

I would like to see plans developed—and I have talked about this with the people at Immigration Canada—to make it easier for international students to come here from countries in the Francophonie, despite the bilateral agreements that exist between Quebec and those countries.

As you know, Tunisian students can study in Quebec for less than it would cost someone from Alberta. That is the reality. It costs $17,000 a year for an international student to study here, and $2,000 in Quebec. Obviously, that makes it hard for us to recruit students from abroad.

I believe that bilateral agreements between the federal government and certain provinces would be helpful, with a view to making it easier to recruit international students. It would strengthen the linguistic character of our institution and enrich our current population.

Many students here have spent time in Montreal or Quebec City, but especially in Montreal. They have come out West because of the job market. In particular, there are many francophones from Congo and Rwanda who do their postsecondary education with us. Our student population is very diverse, even among the francophone. However, much more could be done with respect to students from abroad and from Quebec.

Concerning the vitality of our communities, I will ask Jean, as the spokesperson for francophonie in Alberta, to answer that part of your question.

[Jean Johnson]

Could you please repeat your question?

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

We are basically talking about health and education this morning. You mentioned the importance of including infrastructure in the agreements.

How would the Action Plan for Official Languages help you achieve your objectives for the Franco-Albertan community?

[Joël Lavoie]

I think that francophone communities in Canada will have to adapt to new demographic realities. There is a huge migration of people to the West, to Alberta, and these people are settling in the towns and cities.

So rather than trying to continually struggle to unite francophones in rural and traditional areas, we may need to work to find ways to accommodate them in urban areas and provide them with institutions around which they can develop their identity and be good citizens.

This is something that has not been included in the plan up to this point, and I think that we need to talk about it. The funding and strategies are going to need to adapt to these demographic changes rather than trying to fight them.

[Jean Johnson]

We have talked about the cities, but I would like to add that people in more remote regional centres, in rural areas, also have needs. The immigration strategies that Manitoba has implemented have turned out to be very successful. In order to invest in particular regions, they have managed to bring people from France and other countries.

I think that we could do a number of things of that sort in post-secondary education. We could prepare people to go back to their rural communities. If we do nothing, I think that my colleague, Donald Michaud, who heads up a francophone school board in northeastern Alberta, will worry about the francophone population declining in his region. We could take steps attract people to the region. It is important not to think just in terms of urban areas.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Yvon Godin]

Thank you.

I usually sit at the other end, but since I am chairing the meeting, I will ask my questions and make my comments from the front, where I am sitting in as vice-chair.

The Olympic Games are an important issue for us, but we did not make the trip here for that reason. However, since we were in Vancouver, we asked questions about the Olympics. I think that we will have time to ask you questions about that, since the Olympics will take place in 2010. So we will certainly have time for detailed discussions on that issue, and we may even invite witnesses to come to Ottawa. That decision will be up to the committee.

Mr. Arnal, you mentioned Bill S-3. Do you agree that it no longer exists and that it is now the law? Section 41 of Part VII has become law. So we need to stop talking about Bill S-3 and say that the act stipulates that federal institutions must provide services in both official languages; otherwise, they are breaking the law. People can complain to the Commissioner of Official Languages as well as to the government and the committee. That is now the law.

[Marc Arnal]

It is the law, but I am not sure that everyone understands it. It is an opportunity for me to influence the perception that Canadians have about our linguistic duality or common languages.

Something that I feel very strongly is that these issues have evolved. There is clearly a need for a legal framework in order for that to happen, but we do have that. This bill that was adopted and that amended the Official Languages Act is the most recent step. In 1969, people used to say that we were shoving French down their throats. Things have changed since then. When David Crombie proclaimed the new Official Languages Act in 1988, it was another milestone. Then Senator Gauthier almost on his own but with a lot of support, developed the concept of linguistic duality. We are now at the point where there is not a Canadian to be found who does not acknowledge our linguistic duality to be one of the key components of our Canadian identity.

When will the public service begin to act like this is a fact? When will well-intentioned public servants who want to study French be able to do that in part during their hours of work? I can assure you that many government workers in Edmonton—especially young people and those at lower rungs in the hierarchy—sign up for French courses given at night and on weekends. They rarely get any help from their departments. For example, someone I know quite well started with no knowledge of French and she now has her B level. That person is Stephanie Robinson. She now manages quite well in French. She did it all herself, at her own expense. What is the public service waiting for? When will the hundreds and even thousands of Canadians who must have gone through immersion be able to practise their French? Why do they not practise their French with the help of the public service of Canada? That is a good question.

Instead of being required to provide services, the public service could become a promoter of Canada's linguistic duality. Psychologically, that changes everything.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Yvon Godin]

With respect to the Action Plan for Official Languages and the communities, we have been told elsewhere that the amount of money getting to the associations is a problem because of the increase in the cost of living. It seems that the funding has not increased in line with the cost of living.

Mr. Johnson, I would like your comments on that.

[Jean Johnson]

I can tell you about the situation in Alberta. Right now, we are in a very fortunate position, and that is why we are able to deal with these challenges. Because of the economic boom in Alberta, this is where everyone wants to move. People are coming here in droves. When I talk to my friends in Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick and Maritimes, I tell them that I would not like to see us steal their population and how these people return home anglicized in 10, 20 or 25 years. We want to protect these peoples' culture, but the population is growing so quickly that we are unable to welcome and integrate these people into the francophone community, and they disappear. These are major challenges for us. We need an adequate increase in our financial resources. I do not like to start by talking about money; I prefer to talk about principles and vision, but there has to be adequate funding to back that up.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Yvon Godin]

Thank you very much. We will now go to Mr. Murphy.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all the witnesses for your presentations.

I come from Moncton, New Brunswick. I am an anglophone, but the community of greater Moncton is well known for being a bilingual community. Over one-third of the population there is Acadian. So it is easy for me to understand how to find health care in French in my own region. It is more difficult to understand how I could find those services here in Edmonton. Imagine that I live in Edmonton and I am part of a minority. Since I am a Liberal, I may be part of a different minority.

[Some Hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Yvon Godin]

We forgive you, Mr. Murphy.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

It is always New Brunswickers against the Néo-Brunswickois.

Suppose that I am sick, not because I am a Liberal, but because I am sick.

[Some Hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

No more jokes, Mr. Chairman. We need to be serious.

So I am sick and I am a francophone. There are over 20,000 francophones in Edmonton, which means that the francophone population is higher than in Fredericton, the capital of New Brunswick. In Fredericton, New Brunswick, it can be hard to find a family doctor that speaks French. What is it like here?

We heard from people yesterday who were talking about the health care system in British Columbia. They talked about how they managed to find French-speaking doctors. Could you please tell us how someone in Edmonton can find a doctor or some other type of health professional who speaks French?

Where health care is concerned, it becomes even more important to be able to express your needs in French, because that is essential when you are sick.

So, Mr. Vincent, can you explain to me exactly how this works?

[Dr. Denis Vincent]

I am a family doctor myself. I share an office with an associate at the Cité francophone in the francophone area of Edmonton. In my case and that of other doctors, we established ourselves here and decided to serve francophones in the Edmonton region because we wanted to and we cared about the population.

I also spent 10 years working as a physician in the Peace River region. I was the only bilingual doctor in the region, where there is quite a large francophone community.

Obviously, the linguistic and cultural side of health care services is not something that Albertans... They will say that there are so many cultural groups in Alberta that services should be given in English so that no one will complain. Generally speaking, no one will complain, because everyone will be treated equally.

But we know that there is a strong interest in the Ukrainian, Chinese and German communities for having... But every community is making its own efforts.

What professional area have francophones traditionally gone into? Teaching. We have a lot of French-speaking teachers. They are everywhere in the schools and universities, in English and French schools. It is as if our calling as francophones is to become teachers.

In the health care sector, there are not many francophone professionals. For example, there are a few francophone family physicians in Edmonton, but there are a large number of francophone specialists. There are five francophone anesthetists in Edmonton, but anesthetists do not talk very much. The same is true of radiologists.

It is difficult, and it is a problem in the whole health care sector. What do we need to do to encourage doctors and nurses to study primary care rather than become specialists? A well-known fact in Canadian francophone communities is that primary care needs to be given priority because the need for that type of care is much more prevalent than it is for specialized care.

When they need to see a doctor, many people, such as those who have just come to Edmonton, come to the Cité francophone, to the reception centre, because there is a practising physician there. News gets around by word of mouth. That is generally how it works in the area of primary care. I have a cousin who has just arrived here. He asked me if I could be his doctor. Of course, we try to accommodate as many people as we can.

We have an Internet site now. It is surprising how many bilingual health care professionals there are. We have a list of over 1,000 on our Internet site. The problem is that it is not up to us to organize where these people work. There are many bilingual nurses, but it is not up to us to decide where they will work.

It is a challenge. To start with, it is a matter of networking, and that is why we first need to get to know one another. I am at a point now where I know a lot of bilingual specialists. If I have a patient needing specialized care, I already know who I can refer him to, and people know me.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Yvon Godin]

Thank you, Mr. Vincent and Mr. Murphy.

Ms. Boucher.