Official Languages Committee on May 1st, 2008

[Bruno Godin]

One of our problems is that we cannot undertake long-term or even annual planning, since the funding is only available five or six months into the fiscal year. It is almost impossible. Moreover, we must constantly be accountable. If a grant arrives in February—

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

It seems to me, Mr. Chairman—

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Mr. Godin—

[Marie-Pierre Simard]

Would you like to stay after the meeting has ended?

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

We wanted to set some time aside to allow members to ask questions. We will now begin the third and final round. Each member will have five minutes.

We will proceed with Mr. Brent St. Denis.

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Thank you Mr. Chairman.

I represent a large riding in northern Ontario. ACFO is a good representative of the francophones in my region. I imagine that the same would apply to other provincial organizations, in other words, each provincial organization represents a number of small local associations. The local associations must prepare the applications for the renewal of agreements, etc. Because of staff shortages, I imagine that it is no easy task to renew agreements, make applications, while at the same time doing whatever it takes to support the community. There is a lot of red tape for small local organizations to deal with.

I would like to hear your comments on the number of people that you need in order to satisfy all of the government's requirements.

[Bruno Godin]

There again, that is something that I could spend an entire week talking about.

[Daniel Boucher]

It is not easy. At home, there is a bad word and it is "Schedule B". That is the schedule in the agreements where we have to fill out our reports. It requires qualified resources. Finding the people and paying them adequately is a problem. It is becoming increasingly difficult because we are always competing with the others, as you know. The smaller organizations come to us for help in this area.

That is a challenge for us, because we have to manage several projects. All of that is not taken into account when changes are made to the system. It has become very cumbersome for us. We prefer direct community development work over filling out government reports, although we do understand why reporting to the government is important. We would like to discuss the best way of proceeding with the government, because furthermore we are involved in activities where the impact is not always easy to measure. It will be measured later. We are being asked to measure the immediate impact of something that we have not yet succeeded in doing. There again, it involves gymnastics. We must think about all of that in order to come up with ways of reporting. It is very complex and it has become very cumbersome. I think that there could be much simpler ways of proceeding, but we need the same person listening to us from start to finish.

[Bruno Godin]

Accountability is important and organizations are aware of that. Money received must be accounted for. We have no problem with that. However, it often changes with the people. If an official changes position, we start over from scratch. Then there is a different interpretation of the rules, the reports, and so on. If it were standardized, there would be a form to fill out and it would be set. If the official were to change, it would not be a problem because the form would remain the same.

Given the circumstances, we must also put in several applications to various departments. When we devote 25% of our time to applications and filling out reports, we are unable to do anything else during that 25% of the time. If an organization has 50 people, it is a minor issue, as five of them will look after the work. But when there are two or three people in an organization and they must devote 25% of their time to filling out those documents, many things in the field are not done.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you very much, Mr. St. Denis. I would also like to thank our witnesses for these clarifications.

We will move on.

Mr. Gravel, it is your turn.

[Raymond Gravel, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Even here people butcher the language. I went outside for a cigarette and there is an orange sign at the entrance that says, in English and French: "Piétons, utiliser l'autre trottoire", "utiliser" is in the infinitive form and "trottoire" as an "e". I think that should be denounced.

The current government says it is in favour of promoting minority communities in the provinces. However, you have all said that your budgetary envelopes were neither indexed nor increased. How can we talk about growth, operations, and enhanced vitality of the communities if that never increases? Moreover, members' salaries have just gone up. So if your budgetary envelopes are not increased, how can you talk about growth? It is just for show. The government doesn't really want to promote minority communities.

[Marie-Pierre Simard]

No, we like to say that we are managing the decline in growth. As I was saying, there are many initiatives that never see the light of day. What worries us the most is that we are talking about accountability. We have responsibilities to the government, but we also have responsibilities to the community.

We signed an agreement. We agreed on joint outcomes. At present, in New Brunswick we can't achieve that. We signed a contract, a partnership, but someone is not living up to his end of the contract. That is why we will never be able to achieve the results we agreed on.

[Raymond Gravel, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Earlier on, someone said that you had gone from being a partner to a client.

[Marie-Pierre Simard]

And from there to social assistance.

[Daniel Lamoureux]

We are more like associates now.

[Raymond Gravel, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

That would mean that the relationship is no longer the same. In fact, it is a paternalistic approach, or a maternalistic one because the minister is a woman.

[Daniel Lamoureux]

Precisely.

[Raymond Gravel, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

What is your relationship with Quebec? Does Quebec, with its majority francophone community, influence the minority language communities in the other provinces?

[Daniel Lamoureux]

In Nunavut, all the francophones are from Quebec, I think. All the taxi-drivers come from Montreal. But people do not stay very long. They are there on average for between two and four years at the most, but there are exceptions, since some people have been there for 20 years. But most go back to Quebec. So it is a little bit like the James Bay region. People come to Nunavut to make money, $1,000, $2,000, $3,000 a week, and then they go home. There is definitely an influence in terms of culture and even identity. We are all Montreal Canadians fans.

[Denis Perreaux]

In Alberta, there are good relations with the Government of Quebec. I must say that the policy on the Canadian francophonie, in particular the promotion of the Canadian francophonie in Quebec, has been very well received. From our point of view, the best thing that can be done in Quebec for our communities is promotion and the opportunity to raise awareness. However, we couldn't do that by sending ACFA brochures. There has to be an extensive and sustained effort. So it is really great that Quebec has added the aspect of visibility and promotion of the Canadian francophonie to its existing policy.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Gravel.

We will now go to Mr. Lemieux.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for your presentations. I have a question about funding. There are many programs; the Canada-community agreements have been mentioned, for example. If I remember correctly, Ms. Simard said that her association represents some 30 organizations in her province. As you know, in my riding of Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, there are many francophones and francophone organizations. Some of those organizations get money from a variety of places in the federal government.

For example, in the area of arts and culture, some groups receive federal money from Canadian Heritage. In the area of official languages, a lot of money is provided through the National Arts Program to an organization that distributes the funding to various organizations in various ridings. Under the Canada-community agreements, money is distributed to organizations.

How do you keep on top of what is happening in the 33 organizations in your province and the various sources of funding? You have said that there is a lack of funding. I understand what you are saying about this specific agreement, but the other organizations may be receiving money from various other sources. How do you keep abreast of what is happening with the various federal government programs and how they are supporting the organizations in your province?

[Marie-Pierre Simard]

I was really hoping that someone would ask me that question. I have a research study here that we have just completed in collaboration with the 33 organizations that receive money. Canadian Heritage has always told us that it provided all of our funding. That is not true. Canadian Heritage contributes 20.7% of the organizations' funding. Of that percentage, only 12.8% is earmarked for development. The other 8% goes to administering the agreement. Sixty-four per cent of the funding the organizations receive comes from outside the federal government. The federal government's total contribution is 36% including that from Canadian Heritage. The money from Canadian Heritage is extremely important because it is used to leverage other funding. However, the funding we obtain from sources other than Canadian Heritage is eight times what it gives us as income.

If we look at contributions in kind, that is, what 95% of the organizations receive in the form of goods, services, loaned use of space, etc., they amount to $12 million a year, whereas Canadian Heritage provides New Brunswick with $2.4 million a year. With the contributions in kind and the funding altogether, there is a leverage effect of 12 times what we receive. If I take into account total contributions, Canadian Heritage provides 8.3% of the funding, with contributions in kind amounting to 59.8%.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Lemieux.

Thank you, Ms. Simard. If that study is public, I would invite you to send it to the committee clerk. We can have it translated so it is available in both languages.

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

I would like to have the complete study that we have just talked about for committee members.