Official Languages Committee on April 23rd, 2009

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Brennick. It will be easier for me to address my remarks to Ms. Faitelson-Weiser. I am pleased to see you here with us today.

You say that the families are the ones who should make the decisions, and I agree with you on that point, but if the tools they use to make the right decision are not sufficient, we have a problem.

We toured the country, and we went everywhere, from Newfoundland to Vancouver. In some French-speaking communities, there was no French day care centre. So the children went to an English-speaking day care, and finally wound up in an English school. Thanks to the new program and the new action plan established in 2002, money was available to help the communities in this regard. And so, day care centres were established within the schools. Parents could send their children to a French day care and then a French school.

As we have seen in New Brunswick, anglophones want their children to go to a French immersion school at a very young age. The minister wanted to send them to French immersion in grade 5. That was the first time I saw 350 anglophones demonstrate in the street because they wanted to speak French. You remember this, it happened last year.

To get back to the topic of our study, earlier you were saying that people choose English, French or Spanish, depending on their job and what is best for them. The federal government must send a message to the provinces and the universities, who represent some of the biggest employers in the country. The government must tell them that they must offer services in both languages since we are living in a bilingual country.

With Service Canada, people can go work everywhere and do not have to restrict themselves to one particular place. Someone can find a job just as easily in Alberta or Nova Scotia as in Toronto. The government must send a clear message and help the communities so that they can send the university professors... The government must clearly state that the employer wants to hire certain people and should start preparing them for these jobs. As Mr. Shea said, we must start preparing people in the field so that they can hold these jobs. It is not an insult to be told that you need to learn two or three languages. We have to put an end to this silliness.

I would like to hear your opinion.

[Silvia Faitelson-Weiser]

I'm convinced that if we really do want Canada's anglophones to keep French as a second language, Canadian bilingualism has to be valued. That may be the case, but it is no longer obvious.

Our young people are turning their backs on French. We have international programs because our young people want to learn other languages. They have understood that globalization means knowing other languages. What they do not readily understand, however, is that they need to learn French. Why should they learn French when there are so many other languages that I listed earlier?

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

Why should they learn French when the Government of Canada does not respect this requirement itself?

[Silvia Faitelson-Weiser]

I agree, but I am not the one that...

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

Do you agree with me?

[Silvia Faitelson-Weiser]

Yes, but I think...

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

Our meeting is being recorded and a report will be produced.

[Silvia Faitelson-Weiser]

The policy must be clear and people need to be well informed. Our young people need tangible things, and I am not talking about money alone. They need to know what is expected of them. It is not enough to tell them that they have to be bilingual, we need to be much more precise.

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

It is the same thing in British Columbia. We met with representatives from the organization Canadian Parents for French on several occasions and they told us that there was a problem with the number of teachers. In British Columbia, young people sign up to learn French, but there are not enough teachers.

By the way, the Shippagan campus at the University of Moncton, in New Brunswick, provides emerging courses as well.

[David Brennick]

There are still not enough properly trained bilingual teachers. I have been in the educational field for a long time. As regards the short-term programs that Ms. Faitelson-Weiser referred to earlier, our centre has had an agreement or an arrangement with the Collège de Jonquière linguistic centre for many years now. We have done this for two reasons. First of all, we can provide a three-week training session to improve the pedagogical and socio-cultural language training of our teachers. Since they work all year long, they can take this three-week course in the summer. We have benefited from this training a great deal, as have our teachers and students, which is essential for us.

We have to enhance the value of French. We are all speaking from our personal experience. My daughter took advantage of the program subsidized by the Government of Canada. She worked as a caregiver in the Montreal region for a summer. She worked with young people. A Quebec girl came to our region and held a similar job and lived at my home. These two young people had this experience thanks to the government's subsidy. This experience has enriched their personal development. But aside from this development, they improved their level of language. This is the type of thing that strengthens the acquisition of a language and makes the experience real and tangible.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you very much, Mr. Brennick.

Thank you, Mr. Godin.

[Silvia Faitelson-Weiser]

As I already said, we provide a follow-up course. Normally we have 70 students every month in July. If we have three or four Canadians, that is a lot. The remainder are foreign teachers who want to improve themselves.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Very well. Thank you.

I will now give the floor to Ms. Shelly Glover.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Good morning, and thank you for being here today. I have a number of questions I would like to ask. Since I have only a few minutes, I will start by telling you my story.

I was a student in the immersion program. I now have five children, and some of them were in immersion as well. When I was at school, there were certain rules, and we were required to speak French in the halls. You talk about standards for acceptance at the post-secondary level, but at one point, Canadian Parents for French decided that the program was too demanding. It was decided that students were not required to speak French all the time. Some of the rules were abolished.

Today, my children have a great deal of trouble speaking French, because they had no opportunity to practise. I would like to know whether we could get your support before the students graduate. Before establishing standards for high school, we need your support to help students from K to 12. They have to practise their French.

You talked about scholarships. This is the reason Canadians are no longer learning French. In my opinion, our children have no confidence and do not want to continue their education in French. Last week, I spoke to some grade 11 and 12 immersion students. They told me that they were in immersion because their parents put them there. They also said that they did not like French, but that it ''looks good on my résumé''. And they could not even say that in French! Do you think this is because of a lack of scholarships, or because these students do not have the confidence they need to take high school courses in French? Do we have your support? Could we ask you to make a change and to put back the rules that you abolished. Do you think this has an impact on students?

[David Brennick]

If I understand your question correctly, you would like us to support the introduction of rules by schools that would require students to speak French in the halls.

Based on my experience, there has always been a battle about this in the schools. At some point, people become exhausted. Should we become language cops? I prefer to encourage young people and to highlight the value of learning a second language. We have to find a middle ground. The same goes for our own children at home. Sometimes we make good decisions, and sometimes we make bad decisions. It is true that it is crucial that young people have a chance to practise and use French. That is why I encourage training programs, trips and exchanges.

However, in our area, we have noticed that it has become difficult to promote exchanges these days. We have to be realistic, we have to look at the demographics and see who these young people are. They are no longer the same as they were 20 years ago. That is why it becomes a real challenge when you ask us what works, what can be done and what we can do. I concede that this is very important. We have to show sensitivity, because we do not want to become the language police either. For that, there is the Office québécois de la langue française.

[Silvia Faitelson-Weiser]

I would say that in my opinion, we cannot reduce this to a question of confidence. There will always be students who are short on confidence until they have to speak French, when they are in a francophone environment and have to buy something in the grocery store, for example. Generally speaking, our young people are not more or less confident than they were in the past. It is a question of motivation. I was talking about scholarships. This is an incentive that could compensate for the importance of other languages.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

I talked to these students and asked them why they were not speaking French. They said clearly that they were embarrassed, because their French was not very good.

I want to really stress the fact that I think it is more important to practise your French than to just take courses and study how the French language works.

Again, Canadian Parents for French were the ones who changed my program. We really need your support to bring this back.

I do like the comments you made about standards, but I wonder if you believe the standards should also be put at the earlier stages. Because we all recognize that at the base, at the very beginning, there is a problem, because by the time they get to grade 12 it looks like we've already missed the boat.

[Silvia Faitelson-Weiser]

I would be all for standards being put at the earlier levels, but the problem you would encounter is that not all the students start studying at the same age. There is a difference in standards for somebody who started speaking French--or English, let's say--at home. I think standards should apply to English too.

If there are requirements for English-speaking people in French, there should be requirements for French-speaking people in English.

So it's very hard to establish. There could be agreements between elementary schools, let's say, but in the end, we are talking about working for the government. So if the government is serious that everybody has to be bilingual, to what level do they have to get?

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you very much, Ms. Glover.

We will now begin the second round with Mr. Jean-Claude D'Amours.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to thank our witnesses for being here this morning.

A little earlier, you touched on the issue of languages. With respect to what my colleague opposite, Ms. Glover, was saying, I think perhaps society as a whole has to make a decision about French. I live in northern New Brunswick, in a community that is 98% francophone. I took classes in English at the polyvalente, and the teacher—and I will not give any more detail so as to avoid targeting anyone—talked to us in French. And yet it was an English course. That is the opposite of what usually happens. At some point, people have to decide whether they want to be unilingual or bilingual. The question applies equally to francophones and anglophones regarding the other language. It is ironic to realize that this English course was being taught in French. How do you learn English in a community that is 98% francophone, and where the few anglophones living there, most from birth, all speak French in the community. That makes things even more difficult.

You raised the issue of the two languages, Ms. Faitelson-Weiser. The problem does not affect the public service only: it is everyone. Businesses or other private companies have no obligations. Often only one language is used, and that is the one spoken in the community. Everywhere else, or at least in most other countries, people do not mind learning three, four or sometimes more languages. Elsewhere, this seems totally natural, yet here in Canada it is seen as a burden. As you mentioned, a requirement could be introduced forcing people who want jobs with the federal government to be bilingual at the outset. However, that would not fix the problem regarding private companies.

Does Canadian society have a problem in this regard? Let us take the example of my English classes being taught in French. The same thing happens in anglophone communities, where it is not easy to speak French. Why should people not be learning three or four languages? As my colleague demonstrated earlier, he knows at least three languages. Of course, I do not know how well he was doing, because I could not understand a word he was saying.

[Silvia Faitelson-Weiser]

I will give him a test later.

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

Right.

Have we developed a problem as a society in Canada by limiting ourselves, by failing to go further?

[Silvia Faitelson-Weiser]

I think you are generalizing a little too much when you say that everywhere else, people speak several languages. I am from Latin America, and there, people usually speak three languages: Spanish, Spanish and Spanish. It is true, however, that in recent years, people are starting to learn English, because it has become so important. We probably do have a problem as a society, because we cannot make up our minds whether or not we are bilingual.

That said, English has duel status in the world today. It has become the lingua franca. In the past, French had this status as the language of diplomacy. German was the language of the sciences. There was even a time when Latin and Spanish enjoyed this type of status. Today, English has become the international language of communication. Given that, there is no doubt that anglophones throughout the world feel much less need to learn another language. The anglophones of Canada are part of the world community of anglophones.

However, for at least 15 years, our young people have known that they have to learn another language. However, that other language is not necessarily French. It is incorrect to say that there are no problems elsewhere in the world. Switzerland and other European countries are the exceptions, because the communities where different languages are spoken are much closer together there than they are in North America. In North America, everyone speaks English.

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

Thank you very much.

I would like leave some time for Mr. Brennick, who would like to respond as well.

[David Brennick]

In celebration of 40 years of official bilingualism, I did a number of radio interviews. What was very encouraging to me, in the comments shared, was that people were very much at ease with French or English. A number of individuals made comments to me like, “They size me up. If they think I'm English they address me in English. If they're wrong they just switch to French.”

I think over the last four years there has been a depoliticization of linguistic issues. People are no longer caught up in the same fervour around language and politicizing it. They really look at it as a tool. I see it with my own children, in their ability to go from one to the other with no fear.

Part of my day job is responsibility for international students--we have many Spanish-speaking students--and sensitizing our own students to the fact that this is a great and wonderful world where people are comfortable, regardless of the language. That's part of the changing demographic of our country and part of the new reality--coming like this with respect to languages, a second language.