Official Languages Committee on April 1st, 2008

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Good morning and welcome to the 22nd meeting of the Standing Committee on Official Languages. I see that members of the committee were able to rest during the break.

Before hearing from our witnesses, we have a motion on the floor tabled by Mr. Nadeau.

Mr. Nadeau, you have the floor.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Greetings, everyone. I hope everyone had a good Easter.

The rationale for my motion is the following: at our last meeting, we heard from representatives of the Canadian Forces, the ombudswoman and her assistants. I spoke to them about the difficulties I had in my attempts to obtain from the Canadian Forces what I believe to be very basic information, concerning French courses given to newly recruited soldiers who are based primarily in Borden.

In fact, I had sent a letter to the Minister of National Defence, Mr. MacKay, inquiring about the pedological material used, etc. The letter was drafted in both official languages, and was similar to the wording of this motion. National Defence replied by saying it would be preferable for me to make a request through access to information. I was floored; my request concerns a very basic matter. I myself have a background in teaching, and if my schoolboard had asked me what was being taught in my school, I would have been able to submit a very straightforward list of programs that constituted our curriculum.

I would like to speed things up. I also intend to make a request for access to information, but I believe that this request would benefit from the support of all 12 members from the four political parties. It may even inspire National Defence to accommodate us rather than ask us to make a request through access to information, which generally takes time.

It is in that spirit that I am tabling this motion. I would like the Canadian Forces to provide information not only to myself and the Bloc Québécois, but to all members of the committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Nadeau.

Are there any questions or comments on this motion? We will then move to a vote.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Before hearing from our witnesses, we need to adopt the budget for our study on the Canada-community agreements. The clerk's assistant will distribute the document. This is a budget of $31,600. Mr. Nadeau moves that the budget be adopted. We will now move to a vote.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Without further ado, we will now hear from our witnesses. This morning we have representatives from two communities in the Northwest Territories and Saskatchewan.

I invite you to introduce yourselves, tell us about your association, and provide us with your comments on this committee's study.

We will begin with Mr. Desgagné.

[Denis Desgagné, Director General, Assemblée communautaire fransaskoise]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I wish to thank this committee for inviting us to talk about a subject close to our heart, the Canada-community agreements. I have prepared a presentation. I am told that I have 10 minutes to deliver it. It is entitled “Proud to serve our country”. I feel that the title accurately reflects what is happening on the ground. The phrase “proud to serve our country” is often used by the armed forces, and we consider ourselves an army that fights to develop linguistic duality in Canada. I wish to raise four questions.

The first question is the following: do the agreements adequately address the needs of communities in terms of funding, accountability, and priority management? Those are the three main elements.

With respect to funding, it is clear that we need more resources to better ensure development in various sectors and enable multiple stakeholders to work together. We conducted a study in Saskatchewan on how to distribute strategic funds. It is entitled “Le minimum vital”, the vital minimum. I will table a copy of this study with you later on. We sought to determine which organizations play a vital role in community development and to determine the minimum requirements for these organizations to effect change and community development. After this, we were not any further ahead. By giving organizations the minimum, we were still far from the real minimum they need.

There is a second issue pertaining to what I might call a sort of incompetence in planning human resources. We conducted another study on this subject and determined that staff turnover was approximately 60% at the regional level and 40% at the provincial level. Therefore, employees do not stay in these jobs. Over the span of two years, organizations undergo a total turnover of their employees. Organizations are constantly having to retrain people, and ultimately, employees accept to fulfil a role while waiting for something more important, while they train to do so. It is almost as though these people are occupying positions while waiting for something else to come along. Therefore, these people are not trained properly in community development, and come from all sorts of professional backgrounds. Once they have learned the job, they're gone. This is a significant problem that ties into funding.

With respect to accountability, governance suffers from a certain level of inconsistency. This means there is a lack of community governance, as well as inability to build it. There are several levels of governance, such as the provincial governance structure, the community governance structure, the economic governance structure, the cultural governance structure, and the early childhood development governance structure. There are no links to tie these multiple structures together. The Canada-community agreements program distributes funds, but there are other agreements do not relate to these particular structures. Therefore, there is a lack of accountability, or the accountability boils down to a small board of directors and we have still not come up with an overall development plan under which everybody is accountable. Therefore, this adds layers of complexity.

In terms of priorities, time allocated to development has decreased because of the administrative work required under the most recent agreement, appendix F, and so on. All organizations are trying to... Once again, I repeat, there are too few employees. Employees who deal with administration, which is becoming increasingly cumbersome, have less time to devote to development. Therefore, they produce fewer results, and so on and so forth. This is ongoing.

With respect to the agreements, there isn't any major difference between them. There is a sort of one-size-fits-all agreement that is applied all over the country, and you cannot really fine-tune these agreements or their negotiation according to specific contexts. We've invested a lot of energy in this, but there hasn't really been a change.

Therefore, the same question can be raised regarding administration costs. In Saskatchewan, we wonder why we cannot follow the model that is used in Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia did not sign an agreement and has received the same funding, but is not responsible for administration. Heritage Canada is responsible for administration, and the province is responsible for development. Does this address needs adequately? I would say that significant improvement still needs to be made on that front. That wraps up the first question.

I also want to talk about another element. Multi-year funding seems to have flattened out. Current funding has remained at the same level for the last five years. The cost of living and other factors are not taken into consideration. As such we are regressing; our ability to intervene is eroding.

What are the major disadvantages of these agreements? In addition to the elements I have brought forward, a governance without any real power, coupled with the need to ensure accountability is problematic. The absence of accountability and dispersion of resources among stakeholders who are under no real obligation to produce results creates undesirable situations. Incompetence is in a way encouraged. The absence of results has no consequences. Silos are created, resulting in a fear of collaboration, because everyone is clinging to their resources.

We absolutely have to change the perception that community organizations have to beg the federal government for money to carry out their mandate. We absolutely must be seen as partners, and not as beggars. We are asking for resources in order to move linguistic duality in Canada forward.

Administration is immensely heavy. Very often, we have to commit funds before even receiving them. In order to do community development today, organizations have to have some resources at their disposal. Most recently, we received funding from the Strategic Funds. The announcement was made in March, and yet we had to spend the money before the end of March. It is a case of hurry up and wait. It is rather difficult. In addition, we often have to wait for the 10% that only comes in June. Community development requires money. In order to progress, organizations must be able to maintain good relations and negotiate with financial institutions.

It is certain that there are advantages. It has been recognized that base funding is much appreciated, but not all organizations can benefit. Funding, paired with the immensely motivated community stakeholders, has indeed allowed us to produce results. I will table a document with you about the results achieved in the last five years, in spite of everything.

I wish to answer the question about what sort of recommendations should be made to the federal government so that government support to organizations is more effective. Firstly, I wish to refer to a report you already have: Leading by example and putting an end to the paradox. Ideally, Canada-community agreements or collaboration agreements should be tripartite. Saskatchewan, for one, would like these agreements to be entered into by the federal, provincial and community governments. To include the provincial government would be a demonstration of leadership.

The federal apparatus must be involved in community development. We have always signed agreements, which were called at one point the Canada-community agreements; they have since been renamed and are referred to as collaborative agreements. In fact, these agreements were mostly concluded with Heritage Canada. To produce real results, we need to sign agreements with the federal government on economic matters. Therefore, we need an agreement that involves a governance structure and accountability for results achieved. In addition, our communities would be able to benefit from the synergy created.

I'm talking about better collaboration between all parties and better delivery of services to our citizens. To my mind, one way of helping would be to make sure that the Official Languages Act is complied with. How many times have our organizations had to make sure that departments and government agencies complied with the Official Languages Act? How many times did our organizations have to confront the RCMP, Air Canada, and other organizations? We spend a lot of time making sure that the federal government adheres to the Official Languages Act, whether it be part IV, dealing with services, or part VII, that deals with promotion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

You have one minute remaining, Mr. Desgagné.

[Denis Desgagné]

Ideally, we should have multi-year agreements providing for one single fund, and one lump sum payment. This way, we would be able to better manage our affairs. There would not be a payment five times per year, but rather one plan for the next five years. That would make our work easier.

Also, the community governance structure must be respected, and it must be given the power to require accountability. We need the necessary tools to make organizations bound to produce results; ask federal authorities to ensure accountability with respect to development priorities, and make investments accordingly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Desgagné. I want to also thank you for reminding us that the Canada-community agreements are henceforth called the collaboration accords for communities.

We will now move on to our second witness, Mr. Denault.

[Fernand Denault, President, Fédération Franco-TéNOise]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen. I was going to say “ladies”, but I noticed that there are no ladies around the table. Perhaps that is something which could be improved.

The first thing I would like to say concerns the renewal date of the Canada-community agreement. The 1999-2004 agreement expired at the end of March 2004. Our community organizations, with the FCFA at their head, noted at that time that there was an extreme need for more funding, without which our services would be compromised. We had completely run out of resources. We were at the point of no longer being able to meet the needs of our communities in terms of development and support anymore.

This situation came before the new obligation to produce results under the Official Languages Act since the fall of 2005. Many additional reports have been completed since. They show the concrete impact of not renewing the Canada-community agreement. It is unacceptable and inconceivable for us that this agreement was renewed on a piecemeal basis, one year at a time, for the last four years.

The fact that we have not yet established a clear and specific partnership situation or appropriate funding has caused irreparable harm to the entire Canadian francophone minority community infrastructure. Employees are leaving this sector for more stable and better-paying jobs. Volunteers are crumbling under the workload and are bearing the burden of continuity in the area of community service. The burnout risk is high and receiving additional support is critical. The new community services which were brought in over the last few years, and which are being consolidated, are being imperiled by the quasi-permanent uncertainty of the last four years. Major projects in the areas of education, community centres and early childhood education are progressing at a snail's pace. We can only conclude one thing, namely that the government must sign a new agreement with the minority language community. This would be an agreement between partners who respect each other.

Further, funding under the agreement must allow the community to responsibly provide development support and community development services. The Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada has tabled many reports explaining the increased requests for funding and has laid out the consequences of underfunding responsible and efficient services. We believe that the government is aware that it must increase funding significantly over and above the amount needed to maintain minority community services. Simply maintaining the services is not a reasonable option and it is in violation of the law.

It has been shown that only a minimum level of services are provided to minority francophone communities. Our organizations have been forced to find money to meet their basic needs by investing in projects which take up additional resources. It is a vicious circle which creates more and more work for these organizations. It is not a good way to manage resources nor is it conducive to efficient planning and organization.

Because we must produce results, we must apply special financial measures. If Mr. Lord had studied our reality more closely, he probably would have recommended much more funding for us. We suggest that the same principle should apply to the renewal of the Canada-community agreement. All of the spokespeople and representatives of the community organizations have developed a work plan for the next 10 years whose merits have been recognized as representing the needs of the community sector.

The June 2007 summit brought together all the credible organizations which adopted a well-thought-out and forward looking general plan. It also brought together community authorities; it highlighted the needs of our community and recognized the needs on the ground. A real increase in the resources available to our community organizations would also be a recognition of our community, and any project we would wish to undertake in the north would be achievable if we receive enough support from the federal departments and agencies which are responsible for meeting the objectives contained in their mandate, namely to help minority communities develop and flourish.

The community, a responsible and hard-working partner, would like to work side by side with various government agencies to help minority communities. We are proposing that the government consider these communities not as clients, but as partners to be respected. In January 2006 we signed a collaboration agreement whose philosophy of open management and respectful partnership we welcome. The francophone community of the Northwest Territories has insisted on maintaining a process of transparency and community consultation which far exceeds our involvement in discussions with regard to funding requests.

The recommendations of the Table de proposition are indeed submitted to our annual general assembly for study and approval. In the same way, our associate members consulted with each other when additional funding became available, and they decided to prioritize certain projects on behalf of the greater community of francophones living in the Northwest Territories. This transparency in our organization has helped to straighten our relationship with the communities and fostered a better administration of funding applications.

However, within the collaboration agreement there is a restriction which weakens the community's decision-making process. The Department of Canadian Heritage is requesting that the work plans of each organization, called Soutien à l'action and Soutien à l'innovation, be presented for analyses and approval, and the department reserves the right of final say over any amount of funding. In doing so, the Department hears our requests, but retains authority over resources, which means that it does not fully respect our partnership to the end of the decision making cycle.

Further, the quality of our collaboration within our group of associations leads us to believe that a funding model based on centralized management of funding by the lead organization—as was the case a few years ago—could improve the cohesiveness of the organizations in the Northwest Territories and make it easier to meet certain objectives, including low staff and volunteer turnover.

In conclusion, we believe that the community is fully capable of contributing to the planning, evaluation and decision-making with regard to funding, including the breakdown of this funding for all of the organizations which are members of the association. We believe that a respectful partnership between the community and government calls for open-mindedness, and that it is not incompatible with the rules of responsible government.

I would like to comment briefly on the urgency of reducing the paperwork by making forms more simple, by having a resource person within Canadian Heritage available to us, and by making accountability more straightforward. The form, which is much too long, presents technical problems when you try to put in parts of a text. Further, it would be much easier, and involve less paperwork, if we were asked to make applications for funding on a multi-year basis, which would be indexed to the cost of living as based on Canada's consumer price index for the Northwest Territories. It takes a very long time to review funding applications, especially when additional funding is requested. As a result, it is often difficult for official language communities to do good work because deadlines become increasingly short, which makes it hard to meet objectives. These things are not efficient, and the situation might compromise final results.

A solution might be, in cases where the decision to support a project comes too late in the budgetary cycle, to exceptionally grant authority for a project to be completed within three months of the end of the fiscal year, or even at the end of the next fiscal year. Indeed, we have often said that we could have done a better job if we had been given an extra few weeks to finish what we were doing.

We believe that analysis of funding requests must be carried out based on the reality of a region. Community agencies are very familiar with the reality on the ground in a territory, a province or a region. If people are open to the idea of a asymmetry, it would lead to more transparency and fairness in the way resources are distributed to minority communities throughout the country.

We believe, along with our colleagues from other communities, that everyone has the right to receive their fair share from the government. However, fairness might mean different levels of support for different regions. The fact is that we have a high turnover of staff and volunteers, which means that if we are to operate properly, we must permanently reinforce our personnel and administration capacity. We need to hire more people because of the complexity of delivering services to our communities.

Lastly, I would like to address the distinct reality of the territories and the Canadian north. The fact of the matter is that the Canadian government spends a little over a billion dollars to provide services to a population of about 42,000 people in the Northwest Territories, which is just over $23,000 per person. Spending this amount of money is entirely justified. The Government of Canada contributes about 80% of that amount.

Obviously, these data bear no relation to the government funding granted to each individual living in a province. This means that our real needs are such that they justify an approach that takes into account the northern context: long distances; the cost of living; staff turnover, competition for labour with the mining industry, the oil industry and government; isolation; transportation costs; the lower level of competition because of the number of service-based industries, etc. I could continue for hours.

Recognition of this reality would lead one to believe that funding to guarantee equal-quality service in order to ensure the flourishing of our francophone minority would require an agreement between Canada and the community that is adapted to our situation in the north. The application of a principle of appropriate resources allocated during the fiscal year would signify respect for all the regional characteristics of the needs of our pan-Canadian francophone community and of minority citizens.

This summarizes the points we wanted to submit to you. I thank you for your welcome and am of course available to answer your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you very much, Mr. Denault. I've noted that you have provided me with a document, that we will have translated and sent to the members of the committee.

We will begin the first round of questions with five minutes for each of the political parties. That round will be followed by other five-minute rounds.

Mr. Rodriguez.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Gentlemen, thank you for being with us today.

I will start with you, Mr. Desgagné. How many francophones are there in Saskatchewan?

[Denis Desgagné]

The term “francophone”... In Saskatchewan, with the inclusion commission, there are 50,000 of us, but that includes all those who speak French. According to Statistics Canada, about 17,000 people identified themselves as being old-stock francophones. The rest are people who learned French and who self-identified as speaking French as a second language.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

How could one describe the status of French in Saskatchewan? Can one say there have been interesting developments, or is there reason to be concerned? What direction is this heading in?

[Denis Desgagné]

I think that the French-speaking community is probably the most vulnerable, first because of the distribution of francophones over a vast territory and also because of the fact that simply obtaining educational services in French is very difficult. I'l give you the example of the situation in Ponteix, an aging francophone community where there are very few children. It's very difficult to maintain schools in these centres. Providing French-language services to francophones is therefore becoming an ever-more-difficult problem.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Your first comment was to the effect that you were “an army for the development of linguistic duality in Canada”. I found that very interesting. So you're still waging a battle, and there is always a struggle to defend and promote linguistic duality, and the French fact.

[Denis Desgagné]

Absolutely. Saskatchewan is land of innovation. You absolutely have to be in a creative frame of mind to find ways to provide service to these communities. It's not for nothing that we saw things like the inclusion commission, which in a way breaks the paradigm of old-stock francophones and allows some openness that facilitates the delivery of services. It is very difficult to maintain this duality in Saskatchewan. Even French-speakers, including anglophones who speak French, find it difficult to maintain the language, because they have nowhere to speak it and to nourish it.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

At the outset, you said that these agreements were an important tool and afterwards, I felt that you were being very critical until the end. It's an important aspect, but you'd like to see a lot of corrective action, is that right? If I understand you correctly, you say that from a budgetary standpoint in particular, you are below the minimum allocated to each organization. So if I understand correctly, there's no annual indexation. Therefore, the amount we're talking about is the same every year.

Do you have some idea of the percentage by which these amounts should be increased? Would there have to be a significant increase in the envelope?

[Denis Desgagné]

The first Canada-community agreement signed in Saskatchewan was for about $4 million, and today it is slightly over $2 million. The first agreement was signed 15 or 20 years ago approximately. Today, we're getting a little over $2 million. I think that if we were closer to the initial amount of $4 million, we would be more effective in terms of development.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

You stated—and I think that Mr. Denault touched on this as well—that particular characteristics are not taken into account. In your case, you used the expression “one size fits all”. I'd like to hear both of you on how this could be adapted to each community.

[Denis Desgagné]

There would need to be an analysis of the vital minimum, for example. If you're in Manitoba and the community is near St. Boniface where you don't have long distances to cope with, that's an advantage. I think that one of the aspects is the vital minimum in our province.

[Fernand Denault]

In fact, you have an advantage in the north, in the Northwest Territories, because this is an infrastructure, a creation of your Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and an institution of this House. You already have data within your government that allows you to obtain the necessary information on the particular characteristics of the north. In fact, you accept this in all other areas except ours. And your funding in other areas respects these notions, except in our case, because we're stuck in this “one size fits all” mould.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Mr. Denault, you said earlier that you wanted to sign an agreement between partners who respect one another. So to your mind, this mutual respect does not usually exist, that is, you feel that there is no respect on the part of the government for the communities. This is what I take from your comments.

[Fernand Denault]

Our case may be an extreme one. I must point this out so that it's clear: we're putting our cards on the table here, this is no place to hide things. Right now, one of your institutions, namely the Government of the Northwest Territories, which is included in the structure of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, has a Supreme Court ruling against the Northwest Territories for systemic discrimination against its francophone citizens. It's not pretty, but what led to this? You have to look at how the House thinks about these things. Quite obviously, there's some indifference, and we know through testimony that a laisser-faire policy led to this situation. Your group must therefore make an effort to become seriously aware of this in order to correct things. As Denis mentioned earlier, there has to be a valid analysis to really find out what the minimal needs are.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

I only have 30 seconds left.

Did you express your comments to Mr. Lord? Did you meet with him?