Official Languages Committee on April 3rd, 2008

[Régis St-Pierre]

The distribution of the budget envelope we receive is specific to the Yukon. We have the community issue table. Federal funding and cooperation agreements are divided into four parts: the community newspaper, youth, culture and my salary. We reduced investments in administration to a minimum in order to increase them for youth and culture. It's not because we're the best in the world; it's simply because the Yukon has a community centre where we take care of the accounting and administration for everyone.

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

It's only one city. I have trouble figuring out how this could be done in Caraquet, Moncton, Edmundston and Campbellton.

[Régis St-Pierre]

You're right, Mr. Godin: the community needs support. The University of Moncton has a research centre on linguistic minorities. Mr. Rodrigue Landry, a researcher and professor, said it bluntly: if there's no balance struck between community infrastructure and health care centres, schools, and so forth, the community will not be able to survive nor flourish. Therefore there has to be investment in establishing community infrastructure. You can't simply open up a school and expect that a youngster will speak French as soon as he walks through the door of that school. When that door is closed, what language will he speak?

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

It goes further than that. We remember that we were told in Sudbury that even if the Collège Boréal, among others, did exist, there was also a need for organizations that support francophones. They managed to get them and we have to continue in order to get the public to participate.

[Régis St-Pierre]

To flourish, you need a balance, you need a strong and viable community structure. The day you stop moving forward, you start to go backward.

My approach is positive, so that we can get more and so that tomorrow morning, when we knock on your door to obtain funding to expand our school which is almost full, we'll get money for the high school.

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

That means that the Standing Committee on Official Languages has done a good job over the last few years.

[Régis St-Pierre]

That means that people have worked hard.

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

With you—

[Régis St-Pierre]

Yes, but they worked hard even before the existence of the Standing Committee on Official Languages—

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

The committee has existed since the act came into force.

[Régis St-Pierre]

I wrote a little brief in the 1960s. When we prepared our first brief, before the Official Languages Act even existed, we stated that we needed strong communities.

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

Excuse me, but there's noise around you. Could you repeat that please?

[Régis St-Pierre]

In the 1960s in Canada there was no Official Languages Act nor any recognition of minority communities. An inquiry asked what was needed to ensure the vitality of these communities. When comes time for us to be accountable, I'm asked to justify our existence for a period of one year. You can't justify the existence of a community for one year; you justify the existence of a community for a generation.

I'm here to tell you that it did work. Indeed, before we were recognized in the Canadian Constitution and when we stopped being told to hide our French books and were allowed to have French schools, there was nothing in the west and the north. My friends in Manitoba had to hide their books. I'm saying that it works for a generation.

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

However, people from the Northwest Territories and Nunavut tell us that none of this exists. They still have a great deal of difficulty. They are not grouped together in a city like Whitehorse; they are scattered here and there.

[Régis St-Pierre]

We're lucky.

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

Yes, you're lucky if you're compared to other communities in the Northwest Territories.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you Mr. Godin.

I allowed a little more time for the witness to respond.

Are there other members of the committee who would like to ask questions?

Mr. Petit, go ahead.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. St-Pierre and Ms. Bourque.

A little earlier, you drew my attention to a point that has already been raised in our history books. You talked about presence and you cited a very concrete example: the French Embassy provides you with support for your francophonie film festival. You explained what this involved in a nutshell. If I'm not mistaken, the French presence is strong in the Yukon especially because of religious communities that worked with the Déné tribes. They were there long before you, the francophones who came from Quebec.

The French Embassy seems to be very close to your organization because it seems to provide you with assistance. Does it help you financially? I'm trying to understand how it helps you. How does the French Embassy intervene? It represents a francophone country, but it's not Canada. You are after all in the Yukon, not in Quebec. I'd like to know if this aid is due to a very strong French presence there. Many religious communities evangelized the Yukon, especially the Déné tribes. I read that in history books. Perhaps you could correct me if I am wrong. Is that why the French Embassy helps you? And how else does it help you apart from the film festival?

[Régis St-Pierre]

There are different aspects to your question and I will start with the last, that is how the French Embassy assists us.

In the Yukon, there is a group of people of French origin who work jointly with us and who help us. For example, the embassy provides us with funding for Ciné-France. They provide us free of charge with films that normally are very expensive to present. So that has a great monetary value. They pay for the annual celebration of the French national holiday. They help us with exchange trips. This year, we're celebrating the 50^th anniversary of Robert W. Service, a great Yukon poet who married a Frenchwoman and who ended his days in France. The French government helps us bring our young people to trace their history in the cradle of the francophonie in North America. There are often exchange trips to Quebec, sometimes to Acadia, as well as to France. This year, the youngsters will go to France. The embassy supports us financially and from a logistical standpoint. The Vancouver office of the embassy even helps us from a commercial standpoint.

We have a lot of tourism enterprises. The Association franco-yukonnaise recently went to Europe to promote the Yukon. We want the French and the Belgians to know that they can come to the Yukon and obtain services in French. If they are sick they can go to the hospital in Whitehorse and receive service in French and they can also receive French-language service at the bank. That's very reassuring for tourists. It's easy to sell beautiful landscape, mountains and Mount Logan. From a commercial standpoint, the embassy also helps us disseminate our brochures. A French tourism guide will be launched in May and the Yukon government has just announced that this year it will translate its tourism website into French. Together with New Brunswick, this will be the exception in Canada. These are concrete gestures.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Now I understand the formula. Being here at the committee, I was able to hear about it. There is now interim financing, as you mentioned. You are given part of what you budgeted for, which means you don't have to wait. I think that it is in the order of 25%.

You stated that you had other sources of revenue. All the francophone groups that seek additional funding very actively take this into account. For example, you talked about the French Embassy. You stated that the federal government provided 25% of your funding and the remaining 75% comes from the work of the community. Did I understand you correctly?

[Régis St-Pierre]

No. I don't want to mislead you. I said that the Canada-community agreements represented about 25% of my budget. For immigration, it's the federal government, in accordance with agreements. There's an agreement with the federal government for economic development. Therefore, there are various sources of funding. But I have to be realistic and obtain funding from the private sector for my newspaper. You can easily place an ad in the English-language newspaper and reach thousands of readers. Therefore it's difficult to obtain funding from the private sector.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Is the current change—multi-year funding—a source of difficulty for you? One year is a lot to begin with, two years is even more, so three years... Is it difficult for your organization to do up a two- or three-year budget?

[Régis St-Pierre]

I have a short answer: no, because you have to have a budget review mechanism. A budget is a forecast. We revise our budgets. What's difficult is that we're being asked to draw up a budget now and we're being told that the amount won't increase. That's not realistic. It's not difficult to draw up a budget and put numbers to things, but our sources of funding are being limited. And then there's the accounting. If I've been a partner for 26 years, met all my goals and always produced good results, it would be nice if I were given most of the money and told that the funding had been approved. What I find bizarre is that I'm told not to worry because the money is in a government account. I would like that money to be in my account.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Chairman, could I ask one last question?

Nunavut has recognized three official languages: French, English and... I don't know how to pronounce it.