Official Languages Committee on June 16th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

I would ask parliamentarians and witnesses to take their places so that we can start.

This is the 28th meeting of the Standing Committee on Official Languages. In the first part of our meeting, it is our pleasure to hear from two organizations that represent the minority language communities.

Sylvia Martin-Laforge is Director General of the Quebec Community Groups Network; she is here with her President, Robert Donnelly, from the Quebec Region.

We also have Lise Routhier-Boudreau, President of the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne, Ms. Bossé, who is that organization's Director General, as well as Diane Côté, Director, Community and Government Liaison.

Good morning and welcome to this meeting of the committee, which is no doubt one of the last before the summer.

Without further ado, I would ask the members of the Federation to give their opening address, then parliamentarians will be able to ask you some relevant questions.

[Lise Routhier-Boudreau, President, Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada]

Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, first I want to thank you for inviting us to appear this morning, but especially for showing interest in this fundamental issue of government support for organizations and institutions serving the francophone and acadian communities of Canada.

The purpose of the presentation we have for you today is to provide a description of the situation based on the recommendations the committee made a year ago in its report entitled, “The Collaboration Accords between Canadian Heritage and the Community Organizations - An Evolving Partnership”.

For the needs of this presentation, we have focused on three of the recommendations. First, there are the two concerning Canadian Heritage's commitment to delivering funding responses by the deadline and that funding be delivered within 30 days following the date of the funding response. Then there's the recommendation concerning a 50% increase in funding for the Cooperation with the Community Sector subcomponent. In concrete terms, this takes the form of the collaboration accords, which used to be called the Canada-Community Agreements.

Let's start with the first two recommendations. In the past few days, we conducted a survey of our member organizations so that we could give you a recent, up-to-date and slightly more detailed picture of the situation for 2009-2010. Based on that survey, we can tell you that 75% of the provincial and territorial representative organizations have not yet received confirmation of the amount of their program funding for the current fiscal year. In addition, while 10 organizations received a letter at the end of April informing them of a 25% funding advance, pending confirmation of their funding, the fact remains that five organizations at this time have not yet received the first instalment of their contribution.

Now let's talk about impact. Six of the organizations that responded to our survey said they are using their lines of credit, reserves or investments to cover their operating expenses. Since April 1, interest charges incurred on those lines of credit have varied between $180 and $525 a month per organization, which in some cases represents the equivalent of a pay cheque for one employee.

Lastly, the most unfortunate consequence, in our view, is that two of our member organizations have had to lay off staff for lack of cash and confirmed commitments by the federal government. Two others are considering doing the same thing by the end of the summer.

In closing, I would note that the situation does not apply solely to program funding. All the organizations are still waiting for responses to project applications submitted under the Community Life component. Too often the approvals and first instalments for these projects are received in the fall, forcing recipient organizations to carry out in six months activities that they had designed for a full year.

So that's a brief, but very telling picture of the impact of processing, approval and funding payment delays on the organizations that serve the francophone and acadian communities. Our survey does not concern local organizations, but the situation that we have observed within the provincial, territorial and sectoral organizations suggests that the local situation can hardly be any more encouraging. I would even say it's worse.

Ladies and gentlemen members of the committee, when our organizations receive program funding from the Department of Canadian Heritage, they become agents responsible for offering services and activities to citizens.

You'll agree with me that having to lay off staff while waiting for funding responses, having to pay interest charges on lines of credit drawn on during waiting times, having to borrow from one's own employees, these are not necessarily conditions that are conducive to concrete results in terms of services, activities and community life.

Of course, the kind of delay we're dealing with also occurs in other programs and other departments, but here we're dealing with a systemic problem that has persisted for a number of years now. This problem was raised, in particular, in the Official Languages Support Programs audit report last December. That report recommended, among other things, that the OLSPB put appropriate mechanisms in place to improve delays in the application and approval process and continue promoting the use of multi-year agreements.

We completely support those recommendations. It is really urgent that measures be taken to eliminate the waiting times and delays at the administrative level, if we want our organizations to be able to operate and provide the services that are expected of them.

However, that's only half the solution. I now come to the recommendation that you made concerning increased funding for the Cooperation with the Community Sector subcomponent. We have received confirmation that there will not be an increase for the next five years. However, the last increase in that funding dates back to 2005, and it was a very modest addition of $2.7 million a year, well below minimum needs that the communities estimated at that time at $18 million.

So that means that, roughly speaking, the funding granted to the organizations of the francophone and acadian communities to address the constantly growing demand for services and activities in French have remained the same in the past five to 10 years. During that time, the cost of living has increased. The final report of the evaluation of the Official Languages Support Programs clearly summarizes the situation: it refers to a situation “in which organizations have limited funding to assume a mandate, which is itself continuing to expand. This dynamic inevitably leads to fatigue, if not exhaustion, within the network of OLMC associations.”

People will tell us that the Roadmap for Canada's Linguistic Duality provides for investments of $1.1 billion over five years. That's true, and the FCFA pointed out that that Roadmap would make it possible to continue the momentum of the Action Plan for Official Languages in a number of important development areas for the communities.

However, there are two very significant problems. First, while announcements were indeed made about the various initiatives under the Roadmap, in concrete terms, the funding amounts announced remain to be seen. Second, we have pointed out that support for organizations that create community life in French is absent from the Roadmap. The issue of financial activities and services in French therefore remains intact.

People will no doubt be told that we are in the midst of an economic crisis. I would remind you that the organizations serving the francophone and acadian communities employ hundreds of individuals, not to mention the social and economic impact that they have in their communities. Investing to consolidate this network is, in a way, a contribution to Canada's economic recovery.

In conclusion, like all Canadians and the government, the community organizations are in favour of the sound use of public funds to produce results. However, the delays in funding approval and payment we are dealing with, as well as the lack of any increase in dedicated funding for the collaboration accords clearly constitute a barrier to those results.

Thank you very much. I am prepared to answer your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Ms. Routhier-Boudreau.

We'll turn to the Quebec Community Groups Network.

Mr. Donnelly, I think you are going to speak on behalf of the group.

[Robert Donnelly, President, Quebec Community Groups Network]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, on behalf of the QCGN, we'd like to thank the committee for receiving us again this year. As you will have already heard from Lise, some of the problems are still there. I'll talk a little about that, but also about some more general things.

The QCGN, which was recognized by the Department of Canadian Heritage as the official representative and interlocutor of English-speaking Quebec in the last collaboration accord, is a non-profit association that brings together more than 30 organizations from all parts of Quebec. Its purpose is to support and assist in the development and enhance the vitality of English-speaking minority communities. We have 32 member organizations across the province, from Gatineau to Gaspé, from townshippers to MCDC in Thetford in Quebec, and to the Lower North Shore and Baie Comeau, and the lower Lower North Shore and St. Augustine, Îles de la Madeleine, etc.

Lise was talking about the importance of timely funding for these member organizations. This is the third year, I think, that I've come to Ottawa. We spoke about it in the past and we're speaking about it again today. We all have examples of member organizations that are surviving the summer on the executive director's credit card. That's the reality.

We get 25% funding, but it's 25% of what? We don't know what the funding is for the year. You don't know how much you can start spending because you don't have your yearly budget. In these weeks where there's so much talk here in Ottawa of support, funding, and the amounts that are being invested, this is not new. This is a five-year plan. It's the same money year in and year out, yet every year it's such a problem getting timely funding. We know that people have been working on trying to fix this, but there's still a way to go.

As the QCGN prepares to launch its 15th anniversary celebrations in the fall in conjunction with the 40th anniversary of the Official Languages Act, we look back on past successes and failures and on 40 years of official languages legislation. The crucial question we must pose is this: how successful has the Official Languages Act been in supporting the vitality of English-speaking Quebec? But that is only the first part of the question. As we all know, the devil is in the details. The more fundamental question is the following: how successful have the Government of Canada's official languages policy framework and program funding initiatives been in supporting English-speaking minority communities?

The QCGN is working hard to develop and implement policies that support and nurture our community's place in Quebec and Canadian society. Among our greatest challenges has been getting recognition of Quebec's English-speaking community as a minority both in Quebec and in Canada.

That is why we were pleased that the Commissioner of Official Languages, Mr. Graham Fraser, underlined our “national standing” when he noted in his annual report in 2007-08 that Quebec's English-speaking community is one of the two official language minorities. The commissioner stressed that federal institutions and key stakeholders interested in official languages should acknowledge our community's contribution to national policy-making in Canada.

However, for the Official Languages Act to be effective in Quebec, our community's national standing must not only be recognized but acted upon. That means federal institutions must find innovative ways of supporting our community. While priorities apply nationally, the policies can be adapted in such a way as to implement them differently for us in Quebec.

In the 2005 mid-term report entitled “Update on the Implementation of the Action Plan for Official Languages”, our community's formal assessment noted that the most successful and promising initiatives under the action plan in Quebec were the efforts to improve access to health and social services in English. However, our overarching assessment was that the action plan had generated very uneven results and that it underestimated the community capacity required to successfully support its application.

That should have been a wake-up call to proceed differently, but despite the best advice, an upgrade didn't occur in the second round of the action plan funding and is absent from the road map. We are concerned that it is just still not a priority. While the development of the health sector is clearly a success story for us in Quebec, there is still little or no funding for other key sectors.

If evaluation frameworks for a 2008-2014 road map do not address funding gaps, for example, in immigration and literacy, the results will once again be skewed against our community. The evaluation may determine such programs were implemented successfully, but they will nevertheless have failed in supporting English-speaking Quebec.

We have come to recognize that when a systemic flaw fails to recognize the needs of our community, only an evidence-based approach can resolve the issue. In that context we have proposed that the Government of Canada develop and implement overarching evaluation methodology that would ensure all departments take the priorities of the English-speaking minority into account. If that is not done, the priorities of our community will continue to be ignored.

In the most recent collaboration accord, English-speaking Quebec was allocated almost $16.9 million in funding. That is less than $3.4 million a year, of which 80% is core funding. The core funding is that 25% cheque that goes to all our member organizations, but they still don't know that it's 25% of what. While the amount represented an 11% increase from the previous collaboration accord, it is just insufficient to support our network and to meet the needs of English-speaking Quebec.

What do we need, you might ask. I would suggest our network needs at least an 18% to 20% increase in funding to meet the most pressing needs of our community and to address funding gaps in a number of currently underfunded areas, including youth, seniors, status of women, arts, culture, and heritage. So, yes, there is success in the health sector, but what about the other sectors?

Over the past year, the QCGN has attempted to access strategic funding from the national as well as the regional envelopes of Canadian Heritage. That has met with systemic roadblocks. We believe initiatives of national strategic importance that the network has submitted in the area of youth have not been given the national priority they deserve. We work within a framework of PCH Heritage regional in Quebec and PCH Ottawa.

Without support of initiatives such as permanent funding for a provincial youth coordinator, the creation of a youth organization for English-speaking Quebec will be impossible. Quebec's English-speaking youth have no voice. When compared to every other province that has targeted ongoing core funding for official language minority youth organizations, this has been a disappointment for English-speaking youth in Quebec.

These are among our many priorities for the coming years. I'm sure the committee agrees that to be truly effective in supporting English-speaking Quebec's communities and institutions, a high level of commitment by the politicians is required. Without the support of each and every one of you, and your parties, there will be little or no change. For us in the English-speaking community of Quebec, there's a real appetite for change.

Merci. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Donnelly.

We'll start with Monsieur D'Amours.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you all for being here.

Thank you very much for taking the time to be with us this morning.

I would like to ask you a few questions. You need only answer with a yes or a no, or with a figure. Is there a deadline for submitting your applications?

[Suzanne Bossé, Director General, Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada]

It's November 28.

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

You have until November 28; that's later. However, some organizations will file their applications before November 28. I heard about organizations that had filed them at the end of October, precisely so as not to be filing at the last minute and so the government would have the time to assess the files.

Furthermore, we know that this money is used to fund operations; these things recur. We can have three- or five-year, agreements—which we virtually don't see anymore— or two-year agreements, which seem more common right now. It's hard to understand where the problem is, why it takes so much time to send that money. I imagine you're waiting.

Let's say you file your application at the end of November; we're talking about five, six or seven months before knowing. They tell you or suggest that you find another solution to fund yourselves in the meantime. So you're going to request a line of credit. That's great: a line of credit! As you said, Ms. Routhier-Boudreau, that's money for operations. There are costs, there is interest, but, if they don't approve your plan, what happens? Who'll pay down the line of credit? Who'll pay down the credit card that someone has used if you don't know on April 1? When it works in one direction, it should work in the other as well.

Let's consider the example of tax returns. There's a deadline, and there are penalties that the citizen fails to file before the deadline. However, you're told that, if the government is late, that's okay. Get organized and find personal financing, outside funding. However, if your plan is ultimately rejected, you're in no man's land; you have no idea what's happening. In that case, who will repay the line of credit?

[Lise Routhier-Boudreau]

Indeed, that's a major problem. We have to take risks. We don't have a choice; the situation requires it.

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

You're volunteers.

[Lise Routhier-Boudreau]

We're forced to do it. We have staff who are currently very tired. We're unable to retain our staff properly because there are risks associated with the fact that the funding is never guaranteed year over year. That has a lot of consequences.

The interest issue is also very important. The interest money could be invested elsewhere much more effectively. I think the fact that we have to use lines of credit is an enormous problem. We're not in favour of that practice, and we're trying to avoid it as much as possible. However, in concrete terms, that's the way we operate.

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

It was mentioned that the fact that you've obtained your operational funding could be announced, but project funding isn't yet available. A lot of Canadian organizations are currently waiting. As you mentioned, the funding may not arrive until the fall.

Now it's late June. You can't receive money and implement your projects the next day. That's virtually impossible. It takes time.

Let's consider the example of the Réseau des cégeps et des collèges francophones du Canada, which is waiting for project funding. If a number of months go by before it gets an answer, people will wind up panicking. You have to implement your projects, but at the same time you have to do your planning so you can get funding for next year.

Do you think you can operate efficiently when you're asked at the last minute to do 1,001 things, whereas everything could have been done well a long time ago, especially when we're talking about recurring agreements?

[Suzanne Bossé]

We taking about Canadian Heritage projects that haven't yet been approved. However, we know that there are other projects. For example, an application was filed with Industry Canada in February 2008 for an event that was to be held in March 2009, and we still haven't received a response.

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

You filed an application in February 2008 for March 2009, and you haven't received a response!

[Suzanne Bossé]

We haven't yet received a response, but the event has taken place. When we talk about risk management—

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

Was the organization able to manage that risk? That's impossible.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. D'Amours.

We'll now continue with Mr. Nadeau.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Putting it another way, it's hard to go to war without ammunition. But that's exactly what you're doing. I remember accompanying Jeannine Séguin, president of the Fédération des francophones hors Québec at the time. She is someone who speaks out loud and strong, who makes appropriate demands. She was explaining to Serge Joyal, who was then Secretary of State for La Francophoni, that it first had to be understood that groups like Alliance Quebec—today the Quebec Community Groups Network—and the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada represent the Canadian and Quebec social fabric.

Today, if we used the same language, if you were representatives of banks, of GM or oil companies, you would be telling us how you would manage the billions of dollars or the tax credits that are granted to you by the Canadian government.

However, it's quite the contrary; it's still the same debate. I remember interdepartmental debates that took place in the mid-1980s to ensure that money didn't come just from Canadian Heritage or from the Department of the Secretary of State, as it was called at the time. People wanted the Canadian government to help all the communities fighting against assimilation or for rights in Quebec and in all of Canada. At the time, I was president of the Fédération des francophones de Saskatoon, which was experiencing the same thing.

At the time, the Chrétien-Martin government cut our funding. They wanted to cut our budget by 52%. Ultimately, it was cut by 37%. We know how hard it is to retain staff in that kind of situation. People don't wait forever. You yourself said that employees are being asked to go on employment insurance. If they're on contract, they can't get it.

We read the report that was written on the collaboration accords. I'm one of those who proposed the subject to the committee, and my colleagues agreed to discuss it. We know the solutions. The problem is systemic. We know that. I want to thank Mr. Godin for suggesting that we conduct this emergency meeting.

For the government and Parliament to understand, what solutions are the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada and the Quebec Community Groups Network proposing? You talked about multi-year agreements. What elements should be put in place so that we no longer have to meet on this subject, so that it works on its own?

[Lise Routhier-Boudreau]

I'm going to start, and Suzanne and Diane can continue, because they're the ones who handle the day-to-day management of files.

Multi-year agreements are definitely part of the solution. I'll give you the example of the Sommet des communautés francophones et acadiennes, which was held in June 2007 and was largely funded by the Conservative government. We conducted an extraordinary exercise, and that summit resulted in a community development plan for the next 10 years. That plan sets out very specific strategies for each of the areas that we want to improve. The committees want better handling of the issues, and there are strategies. The indicators make it possible to report on the funding in place. It seems to me multi-year agreements could vastly improve the situation. There are other solutions as well.

[Suzanne Bossé]

This year, the situation has definitely been exacerbated by the fact that the Department of Canadian Heritage had to renew all its programs and have them approved by the Treasury Board. However, this is systemic, as we've said. So you have to look to multi-year agreements and see how many officer signatures are required before the contribution agreement winds up on our desk.

Depending on the funding amounts in question. Does it absolutely have to go through the minister's office? On the scale of the number of signatures, there are all kinds of options that could be looked at. The FCFA asked the OLSPB for a meeting to discuss the findings and recommendations contained in the summative assessment report on the Official Languages Support Programs. We'll be having that meeting tomorrow, where we will say that we are ready to work together to examine procedures and to do our part. However, matters clearly have to move at other levels.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Nadeau.

We'll continue with Mr. Godin.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

How many associations did you say you have in Quebec?

[Robert Donnelly]

We have 32.

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

Out of those 32, individually, do they make requests for government money to run their associations?

[Robert Donnelly]

Yes, every year it's a whole new application. It's new program funding.

We have four organizations for the first time now with multi-year funding. Obviously that is a good part of the solution, but I would say it's not only multi-year funding that is--