Official Languages Committee on March 26th, 2009

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

I think they heard you, yes. We're going to set that aside.

Earlier we were talking about the promotion done by deputy ministers in the universities. That's a program.

[André Dulude]

Of the School of Public Service.

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

You also mentioned a lack of money, I believe. Can you tell us more about that? You seem to be someone who is very well informed. You just told us what happened in the past. Tell us about the lack of money.

[André Dulude]

I told you that we had $150 million that was not research funding. Of that $150 million, there is funding for the universities, but intended for official languages. It's a very small amount, I agree with you. More money is needed, but there are economic circumstances that I accept as a citizen and that I accept as Vice-President of the Association of Universities and Colleges. I talked about priorities. Priorities have to be set. You can't appear before the government with a shopping list, Mr. Godin. You can't do that. That doesn't work. There's no money. We know there is no money.

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

You mean there's no money for official languages, the two official languages—

[André Dulude]

In the $150 million budget.

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

—recognized in the act. It's been around for 40 years and we still have a problem: there isn't any money or there isn't any will.

[André Dulude]

No, I didn't say there wasn't any money. Mr. Rainville is taking out his list of all the programs. There are programs, federal programs. There is money, but I'm telling you there definitely isn't enough. However, as an association, we establish a strategy, we prepare a list of priorities and we try not to show up with 29 priorities.

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

You establish your priorities based on the money you have. I can understand that.

[André Dulude]

No, it's based on what our presidents want. We have 94 presidents. We sit down with the presidents, we say to ourselves that the budget cycle is starting and we set our priorities.

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

Mr. Rainville.

[Luc Rainville]

I was simply going to say that we could tell each other some long stories, but you only have five minutes.

Minister Moore was talking about his Roadmap for Canada's Linguistic Duality before this committee two days ago. He said that the Roadmap was essentially the renewal of what was called the Dion Plan in our jargon. Under the first plan, MOUs were signed between the federal government and each of the provinces. Those MOUs concerned minority language education and second-language instruction. They covered the period from 2005-2006 to 2008-2009. So the MOUs have expired.

Mr. Moore told you that the MOU between Ottawa and Victoria, the British Columbia MOU, had been extended by a year. Under those MOUs, the extension granted to British Columbia leads me to say that people are going to want to negotiate extensions for every one of those MOUs to enable the parties to negotiate the second component of the agreements.

Under those MOUs as a whole, $656 million was paid to the provinces to provide assistance for official language minority education and second-language instruction.

How is that money being spent in each of the provinces? The MOU binding Ottawa to each of the provinces will determine that because ultimately, the projects and what they want to do with that money are determined by each of the provinces, education being a provincial jurisdiction. There's no money for that in particular.

As regards the universities, which may come under those MOUs and receive funding based on that, it's different. When we talked about a shortage of money earlier, for example, that would be to enable us to create and ensure the proper operation of exchange programs that would enable young Albertans to go and study in Acadia or Mauricie or students from Mauricie to go and study in St. John, New Brunswick, that kind of thing.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Lise Zarac]

Mr. Jean-Claude D'Amours, please go ahead.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

First of all, Mr. Dulude, thank you for informing us about your past employer. I am convinced that everyone was surprised, even on the other side of the table.

You say there is no more money as a result of economic circumstances. If I correctly understood your logic, you understand that, so you don't ask for any. However, the economic situation was different in 2006, 2007 and September or December 2008. I wonder at what point the current situation really began and people realized we were in a crisis. In all that time, no one said we were in a recession.

Your remarks earlier surprised me somewhat. I couldn't repeat them word for word, but you said there was no more money as a result of the economic situation and that you understood that. That made me wonder whether the universities and colleges of Canada that your association represents are really pleased to hear that today. They send representatives to testify before the Standing Committee on Official Languages possibly to request additional funding for colleges and universities, but they won't ask for any because we're in a recession. That surprises me enormously.

There are one university campus and two community colleges in my riding. We should check the relationship between you and those institutions, but it would be an enormous surprise to me if they thought as you do. What did we do all those years? Suddenly, a few months ago, someone woke up and understood that we were now in a crisis and a depression. Before that, however, and I'm not talking about some distant past, there wasn't any crisis or depression.

What is your position? What is your action plan in order to try and get additional funding so that you can help your association and the universities and colleges of Canada that you represent?

[André Dulude]

The association's primary mission is to seek funding for the universities. As you'll understand, I'm going to continue to knock on the government's door for additional funding, regardless of the economic situation.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Pardon me, but you said earlier that there was no more money.

[André Dulude]

No, I said that we were in a recession, that there was less money and that priority had to be given to some of our demands. I said that, this year, our main demand was for infrastructure funding, which we got. Next year, we'll draw up a new list. It won't be long, but it may include infrastructure again, research funding or official languages. That remains to be determined. We won't stop requesting funding for all that.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

I understand, Mr. Dulude.

I'll have the opportunity to reread the exact transcription of what was said. However, as I remember it, you said that there was no more money, that we were in a recession and that you had to wait for money. That disturbs me.

You talked about the infrastructure program. Let's consider the example of the small universities. You must represent them as well.

[André Dulude]

We represent all the universities, small, medium and large.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

You know that it is in fact very difficult for the small universities to get a red cent out of the infrastructure program if they don't have a scientific research and development section.

That was your shopping list. I hope there was something else on your list.

The Edmundston campus of the Université de Moncton may have trouble getting a single red cent out of that program. That institution doesn't necessarily need assistance for infrastructure associated with future research, but has other infrastructure needs instead. But that doesn't seem to be covered.

Your comments earlier woke me up. I'm not telling you I was asleep, but I was listening to what was being said and I was trying to make the connection. Suddenly, you woke me up by saying that something isn't working in the system and that you are virtually giving up.

[André Dulude]

I'd like to go back to the infrastructure question. The list of projects from each of the universities will be submitted to Industry Canada by March 31 at the latest. We'll see what happens after that date. It will be up to Industry Canada and to the two ministers responsible to decide based on the established criteria. If you consult Industry Canada's website, you'll see that the criteria are quite broad. I have reason to hope that most universities will get funding.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Pardon me, but the small university campuses that don't have a research and development component will have trouble getting any.

I'm referring back to the fact that you seem to be satisfied with the infrastructure program. That was your comment.

[André Dulude]

Yes, that's correct. We're very satisfied with it.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

It's as though that was your only demand. Did you request anything else that was necessary to assist the colleges and universities across the country, but that you didn't get?

[André Dulude]

We requested funding for indirect research costs. We didn't get it, but we can come back. There will be another budget next year and we'll be able to come back. We got $2 billion for infrastructure.