Official Languages Committee on June 5th, 2008

[Graham Fraser]

We have to make a distinction between the status of English, and the vulnerability of anglophone communities. We can suppose that the situation in Montreal, which has 600,000 anglophone residents, is quite stable. In fact, for the very first time, censuses are showing that the situation is stable. However, anglophone communities in Quebec City, Sherbrooke, Granby or other parts of Quebec outside the Island of Montreal are facing the same problems of vulnerability, access to services and access to institutions—their schools are threatened with closure—that francophone communities face in the rest of Canada.

I have always believed that it's not fair to compare the francophone community in Sudbury and the anglophone community in Montreal. A comparison between the anglophone community in Quebec City and the francophone community in St. Boniface or Sudbury would be much more realistic and fair.

[Raymond Gravel, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

If we applied the bilingualism policy in Quebec as it is applied in Ontario and elsewhere, isn't there a risk that French would lose ground in Quebec? Sometimes, in Montreal, I am unable to get service in French. It's unbelievable. If the opposite were to happen in Toronto, if an anglophone could not get service in English, people would be appalled. But that is what happens to us regularly in Quebec.

[Graham Fraser]

It depends on the place, and you have to make those distinctions. I don't think we can really draw a link between the strength or vulnerability of anglophone institutions and the issue of whether or not we can get service in French. That is an observation the late Gérald Godin made when he chaired a parliamentary committee at the National Assembly on the very first amendments made to Bill 101, 25 years ago. He noted that the threat to French did not come from the anglophone minority but from English as a global language. At the time, no one was talking about globalization, but rather about americanization. That made a great impression on me at the time. He made a distinction between the status of the anglophone community in Quebec and the status of English on the continent. I believe that this distinction should always be maintained.

[Raymond Gravel, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

In your report, you say that the situation of francophone minorities in other provinces is declining in many ways. If we don't do anything, will those communities inevitably disappear some day?

[Graham Fraser]

I don't think they will disappear, and I sincerely hope they don't. One of the things that struck me since I have been commissioner is how vital those communities are. Let's compare the current situation with the situation we would have seen 30 years ago. We have established French-language schools and school boards, French-speaking provincial lawyers' and law associations, as well as economic associations in communities. We can see that the action plan has yielded positive results for these communities in the area of health care, for example. In fact, health care networks have been established across Canada.

Have we achieved Utopia? No, we have not. Are there tremendous challenges ahead? Yes, there are. Do we see progress, and vitality? I am convinced we do.

[Raymond Gravel, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

You also talked about the report tabled by Mr. Lord in March. You criticized it rather severely. In your view, it failed to touch on a number of important issues.

[Graham Fraser]

I said some positive things about his report. I was very happy to see that he stressed the importance of including arts and culture in the second action plan. He made 14 recommendations, and I challenged none of them. However, I did note that some aspects he did not mention could have been included in his recommendations. For example, he could have included early childhood support in the education component, while access to justice could have been included in the services in the minority official language component. Moreover, the public service, which Mr. Lord did not mention, could have been included in the effective governance component.

I would not say that I criticized the report severely. I did point out aspects that could have been included by the government, which took care to say that those were not the only recommendations, because there were also recommendations made by your committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Indeed, they were in the excellent report produced by our committee, Mr. Fraser.

Mr. Godin.

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

I agree with you, Mr. Chairman. In Mr. Lord's 14 recommendations, there is nothing that could not be found in our 38 recommendations, if we think back to them.

I would like to come back to Mr. Lord's mandate. He was not working with independents, but with Canadian people, or with the department itself. Thus, these are the department's recommendations, rather than Mr. Lord's. I saw nothing new in any part of his report.

I am critical of Mr. Lord's report because it contains nothing more than what we have already seen. That is why I have some difficulty understanding how you could find things to be happy about. Our 32^nd recommendation was on arts and culture. In any case, you had made the same recommendation yourself.

[Graham Fraser]

I don't want to enter into a debate on the Lord report. I think that the Prime Minister has every right to receive advice from someone of Mr. Lord's experience. I said so when Mr. Lord was appointed.

I responded to Mr. Lord's recommendations. I believe that...

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

Aside from arts and culture, Mr. Chairman, there is nothing much there, according to what you're saying.

[Graham Fraser]

Mr. Chairman, in response to all recommendations for action by the government, including the Speech from the Throne, I have always been consistent—I have always said that I am waiting for results. At the time the Speech from the Throne was read, I said that a Speech from the Throne was a menu, not a meal. All reports and all recommendations to the government are in fact a sort of menu. What I'm waiting for is the meal.

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

I was happy with your report. You are frustrated, and you don't plan to sit and wait. But when the train goes by and it is not carrying any goods, what will you do then as commissioner? You have the power to go to court. The act is being breached, and something is going on.

[Graham Fraser]

I very much hope that I will not be forced to make that kind of decision. I am still waiting here. I'm somewhat frustrated to be still waiting, but as I said in my statement, I was happy to hear the minister say that the plan will soon be tabled. I have always thought that...

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

In your report it was quite clear, you set a date: December 2008.

[Graham Fraser]

Yes.

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

You are frustrated. You are not happy.

[Graham Fraser]

Indeed, Mr. Chairman, I am not referring to the action plan in relation to December 31. It is a recommendation we made pursuant to our request that heads of agencies, deputy heads, deputy ministers report on the progress that has been made regarding language of work. I want to be clear about the recommendations.

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

Yes, absolutely. I was not referring to the action plan, I was referring to your recommendations. I'm no longer talking about the action plan.

Your report states:

This vision of a central agency's role may explain the decision to transfer the Official Languages Secretariat from the Privy Council Office to Canadian Heritage.

And later on, you state: “[...] the government sent the message that official languages were no longer a priority”.

That is in your report. Why do you not recommend having the Secretariat transferred back to the Privy Council Office?

[Graham Fraser]

Mr. Chairman, what we did is that we realized that the issue of governance in a context where the horizontal issue is an important aspect... We believed the best approach would be to retain an expert, to do an analysis, which we did. We called on Professor Donald Savoie to carry out a study, and based on his observations, on current governance trends, we made our recommendations.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

You still have one minute, Mr. Godin.

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

I thought you were interrupting me.

Your report has harsh things to say about the government. What I'm hearing is the government saying that no, it is a good report, that things are going well, that it is quite satisfied. It is saying good things about us. But the message I'm getting from you is that things are not going that well at all.

For instance—and we may get back to this if I have an opportunity to ask another question—when communities come before us to say they have to resort to lines of credit so their organizations can survive, what do you think of that? What do you do on the ground to try to support them?

[Graham Fraser]

Mr. Chairman, when I travel throughout the country, I meet people from the various communities. They tell me about their funding problems and delays in receiving the funding. These are the types of comments which have led me to express some frustration about the delays in announcements regarding the action plan.

For small groups or organizations in sometimes remote communities, delays in receiving funding, together with an obligation to spend the money within the fiscal year even if the cheque only arrives in December makes the situation very difficult to manage. This problem does not strictly revolve around the action plan: it is a generalized administration problem which has worsened over the last few years.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Godin.

We will now move to Mr. Lemieux.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Commissioner, we have taken note of the analysis contained in your report and thank you for your work. However, it seems to me that there's sometimes a discrepancy between your appreciation of the government's leadership and the concrete results we find in the report. Take for instance the assessment of results for report cards over the last three years, on table 4 of page 110.