Official Languages Committee on Nov. 29th, 2007

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

One of the best!

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

You, anglophones of Montreal, have no reason to complain. So how can anything be taken away from you with the Court Challenges Program? Please tell us how.

[Richard Smith]

As I mentioned, from what we've seen of the court challenges program, often it supports one point of view. Already, now, you see the beginning of different points of view on integrated schools. Obviously we have some support across the political spectrum in Quebec. Some people have mentioned the position you've mentioned, that they feel it might not work. At the minimum, a lot of people felt at some level it should be tried, because Quebec is a unique environment in Canada, where anglophones do recognize French is a public language and a language of business, stronger and more important than in many of the other provinces.

But you can see here how there's going to be divergent points of view and divergent claims to the process. We're saying we don't have confidence in the process based on what we've seen. If all of a sudden someone said, “Yours is not a real challenge because nobody wants integrated schools”, then we would have to raise our own money privately, entirely, and then, of course, those people who support an opposing point of view would get a free ride with the court challenges program.

So we're saying that in instances where you get diametrically opposed cases, there be some kind of mechanism through which the public feels each side was fairly treated.

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

But when P.E.I. went to court challenges to have their school, it was not because they wanted to learn two languages, it was to be able to learn their own language. They were taking that away. They had to go to the English school. They had nothing for them.

Finally the court decided, yes, you have the right according to the charter, you have the right according to the Constitution, to learn your own language.

[Richard Smith]

Even in our group, there's nobody who's saying that the right to have a separate English school system should be overturned. Nobody's saying that. We're just saying that we would like to have the....

For example, an integrated school was never even conceived of when the Constitution was drafted in 1982. It was not in any of the deliberations. So the original drafters couldn't have conceived of it. And when Mr. Lévesque and the Parti Québécois first enacted Bill 101, they too thought that separate schools would continue.

Now you have people from our age group who were badly educated in the seventies in English schools. They were not educated to compete in the English market. That's why there are very few anglophones in my age group in Montreal. They've all left. My whole high school reunion was in Toronto, and this was a Montreal-based school. I graduated in the early 1980s.

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

That's because there were more jobs in Toronto. All of our people leave to go to Alberta. You have 7,000 people left north of New Brunswick.

[Richard Smith]

No, no, this was very clear. We were not adequately educated in English schools in Quebec to compete in our market. We don't want that problem to happen to subsequent generations.

We're saying, why can't you take kids from English and French schools and maybe put them in a common environment? What is so wrong with that? Now, maybe it's impractical. Maybe the English kids will result in a English milieu, but it's a course we have to take.

Our movement's point is that to think that the status quo is not without cost is foolish. We see it in the English community, this desire for continued segregation, not only in schools but in other facets of their life. Why do you think there is so much animosity towards the one island, one city concept in English-speaking neighbourhoods? It's because we live a segregated existence. So we want that reflected in other structures.

As I said, if Quebec tried for independence, I am sure there would be a movement by that same point of view towards partition, even though we don't support partition.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Smith. I apologize for cutting you off mid-sentence.

The floor now goes to the government side, Mr. Pierre Lemieux.

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

Thank you very much.

Really, I just want to make a couple of comments, Mr. Chair.

I think the committee can recognize that there are concerns with some aspects of the court challenges program. One of the concerns, for example, I think, is that it has a fairly wide mandate, meaning that it covers lots of different issues. As we know, the two main thrusts are equality rights and language rights.

There have been some significant cases won that have been beneficial, for example, to official language communities, and Monsieur Godin has mentioned some. One of the difficulties we have, though, is that if we speak against the court challenges program or say that we have concerns against the court challenges program, the opposition will often attack with, “Well, then, you're against the language rights that Monsieur Godin was talking about.” But I would say no, that is not necessarily so.

Within all the cases that the court challenges program has assisted, there have been some that have been very positive, very good, but there have been others that have been much more questionable. The opposition often says that the court challenges program gives access to Canadians, all Canadians, to the court system. But that's not entirely true. It's a third party organization that determines which causes will be funded, which causes will advance, and which ones won't. It's a selective process, and there's some subjectivity in that.

Even in the testimonies we've heard from other witnesses, there is controversy in that, in that there are Canadians who are concerned that only...and I don't speak here about language rights, I speak here actually more in the—

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

On a point of order, are we writing our report, or is he going to raise some questions to the witness?

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Pardon me, that is not a point of order, that is a...

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

It's fine.

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

Mr. Chair, I don't interrupt Mr. Godin when he has his seven minutes and ask him to stay on topic. I don't ask him to immediately ask a question of the witness. He's allowed to expound upon his thoughts, and that's what I'm doing now. It's my seven minutes.

Thank you for the input, though.

We heard some of the concerns today from Mr. Smith, but we have had other witnesses express the same concerns in that the court challenges program offers selectivity to certain causes, and certain causes advance and other causes do not advance.

That's what I mean. I don't think it's fair to say that if you have a concern with the court challenges program, you are therefore against all of the positive gains—and we can list some in the official languages communities—and against all of that. No, I don't think anybody has said that. What we're saying is that there is concern with the court challenges program in how the program particularly is administered. So I wanted to clarify that.

I think there were two key concerns we heard from witnesses. One of them is on the selectivity. In other words, this third party organization has this ability to select certain causes and not others. The other concern is that there's not enough transparency. The third party committee does not have to offer reasoning as to which cases it selected and which it didn't select, and it does not have to give an account of which cases it rejected. So it's somewhat shrouded in secrecy. There's not a lot of transparency associated with the court challenges program.

These came to mind because Mr. Smith had mentioned some of his concerns. Actually, I think we've heard some of the same concerns coming from other groups that have been here in front of the committee. And I just know that in my work as MP, I've heard these other concerns expressed about the court challenges program.

So I thank Mr. Smith for his comments. I don't have a particular question. I'll end there.

I don't know if one of my colleagues wants to pick up or wait for the second round.

At any rate, I'm done. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

You still have around three minutes.

Mr. Chong.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Some of the issues you brought up were interesting, especially with respect to an integrated schooling system. I think that's an interesting idea. In general, though, I just want to make a comment. My view is that, at a broad level, communities that are isolationist and inward-looking tend not to be healthy communities, confident communities. We live in a world that is increasingly integrated and influenced as it has never been, whether it be through trade, through immigration, or through rapidly changing society.

One thing that I think you have correctly identified is that being engaged and outward-looking and trying to encounter the other is a good way to approach things. So I think your comments about the isolationism that some of the minority language communities feel in Quebec is quite accurate.

I think, though, with some of the suggestions you've made, with respect to some of the columns you've written in the Gazette and in Le Devoir, you have to be careful about not also falling into that isolationism yourself as a community. Because it's easy, whether it's talk of a provincial constitution for Quebec or discussion of an identity particular to Quebec, to fall into that trap of being once again inward-looking and isolationist. If you engage other groups and communities, the majority francophone community, I think that's the way to go.

It's interesting that you bring this topic up now, because at our last committee meeting we had the official languages commissioner here. One study they're undertaking is a study of diversity and bilingualism, because in cities like Toronto, as in Montreal, there's increasing diversity, and the big question is this: how do you accommodate that increasing diversity, while at the same time protecting the fact and the reality of official bilingualism and the duality of the two languages in this country?

So perhaps it would be good for you to engage the official languages commissioner on this issue as well. He might actually have some pertinent comments for you.

I'll just close by saying that I know he has studied the issue of minority language communities in Edmonton and is quite enthusiastic about how the minority francophone community in Edmonton is being educated. He thinks it's one of the leading school boards in the country with respect to how they protect French language minority rights in an English language majority situation.

So I would encourage you to contact him to talk to him about that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chong.

We will now begin our second round of questions.

Mr. Scarpaleggia.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Ms. Folco wanted to...

Go ahead.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Good morning, Ms. Folco.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Scarpaleggia.

Good morning, Mr. Smith. It's good to see you again. I'm afraid that what I'm going to say will be a continuation of some of the conversations we've had in the past.

First of all, I would like to address some of the comments my colleagues across the floor have made this morning.

To begin with, Mr. Lemieux just mentioned that people in general, and the government specifically, speak against the court challenges program. As I am aware, and I think everyone around this table is aware, the government hasn't spoken about the court challenges program. It didn't just show concern about the court challenges program, it got rid of it. Let's use words for what they mean: it got rid of it.

I think we can have concerns about it and can make it better—there are always ways to make it better—but the government got rid of it, and I think we have to recognize that.

As to the fact that the people who administered the program were not making it available to all Canadians, because they had to sift through to find those Canadians they accepted, one could say the same thing about Canadians who go to an appeal, because they're not sure their appeal is even going to be received. If you go to the Supreme Court, you're not sure the Supreme Court will accept hearing you. But that doesn't mean that the appeal or the Supreme Court is not available to all Canadians. I think we have to take that into consideration.

Mr. Chong mentioned it is not a healthy state for communities to be inward-looking through their schools. That may be so, but in my experience and the experience of everybody particularly on this side of the table, those who are not protected disappear altogether. It's not a matter of being sick; it's a matter of totally disappearing and not existing any more. So you have a choice: are you going to be sick on your terms, or are you going to disappear as a community altogether? I think many people have made that choice.

I've addressed those two comments, but I would like to address the comments you've made, Mr. Smith.

I'm a former linguist and have worked a lot on bilingualism. I worked a lot on teaching a second language in school, whether it's French as a second language or English as a second language. I actually set up what we call the Six Plus program, to teach English in grade 6 as a second language to French students. What we observed was a repetition of the old pattern, that English, despite everything that has been done in Quebec, is still the dominant language. The proof of that is simply that when kids get together, because of social and cultural constraints, through rock music or whatever, English is still the language kids like to speak to each other, whether they are French-speaking from birth or have learned French because their first language was an immigrant language, if I can call it that.

So there is a strong movement in Quebec to combat this, and the only way you can it is to make sure that the French language is strong in the student from the very beginning. This was the reason behind the Quebec government's decision not to allow ESL, English as a second language, to be taught before grade 4, because they wanted French kids to have a good control over their own language, French, before they went on to a second language. I agree with this.

By extension, if you go into a school system where the French kids and the English kids are totally mixed together at all times—although I think it's always good to mix kids, or anybody, together—in this particular case, because French is not the dominant language in Quebec, what would happen is what has happened in the past. Mr. Godin was a good witness of this. They would talk French because they had to do so in the classroom, but the minute they get out in the courtyard or out in the street, it would still be English, as it has always been. This is a fact of life. If you put the kids together, socially this is what will happen.

This is the price that I think we have to pay as a society, not just in Quebec but throughout Canada. This is the price we have to pay in order to protect the second language community, which in most cases happens to be the French community, the French...or sorry, not second language, but French minority community.

The English community has lost a lot of its members because of language problems, yes, it's true. But that does not change the fact that it is still the dominant language in Quebec.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Ms. Folco.

Mr. Smith, you have roughly 30 seconds to respond.

[Richard Smith]

I appreciate that. But at this point, a lot of the evidence is still anecdotal. I teach English to francophones as well, and I'm shocked at how many francophones cannot progress professionally because they don't have enough English. So maybe if there was more English in their school, it isn't by definition a problem....

I meet many professionals who are stuck professionally. That's why they come to me and they pay many thousands of dollars to come to me--and arguably too late, because you should be doing this when you're in school when you're a teenager.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Smith.

We will now proceed with Monsieur Ménard.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think you have to give the floor to the government side first, do you not?

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

I beg your pardon, Mr. Ménard. That is a navigational mistake. It must be because of the temperature outside.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Your generosity is legendary.