Evidence of meeting #28 for Official Languages in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was organizations.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:35 a.m.
President, Quebec Community Groups Network
It's the same as you heard before, in November.
9:35 a.m.
NDP
9:35 a.m.
President, Quebec Community Groups Network
What they received, as I said, is the 25% advance. We're given 25% based on the funding of the previous year, but for the current year you don't know if your funding is going up or down. You don't know what's--
9:40 a.m.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
Okay, let's start again. They apply in November. They don't get it by the end of June. They get 25%, but in a year there are 12 months, and in six months they are through. You have 25%, which is not enough. That I understand. Then they have to go to their line of credit--
9:40 a.m.
President, Quebec Community Groups Network
Yes, to their credit margin in June and July. That's what happens, yes.
We also didn't talk about the 20%, which is the project funding. Of the $3.4 million, 80% is core funding and 20% is projects. So I guess we don't talk about the projects, because they say we're complaining enough. It's even worse. We have to take our project applications by December. They are one-year projects. They only do projects after core funding. We hear about projects being approved in June and July, and we get funding in September, but the project was supposed to run from April to April, for 12 months.
9:40 a.m.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
I don't know if you had it in Quebec, but remember, they used to take the money out to do the highways, but they got it in November. We are in Canada, and we have winter.
9:40 a.m.
President, Quebec Community Groups Network
Yes, well, they get credit margins.
9:40 a.m.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
I want to put the same question to Ms. Routhier-Boudreau. Is this the same situation, in which people apply in November...? Perhaps we're repeating ourselves, but it's worth the trouble to do it. Some people have to hear a song a number of times in order to learn the first couplet. The situation is the same for us: you apply in November and you get 25% in June, without knowing why, in fact.
9:40 a.m.
President, Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada
A number received a notice telling them that they would be getting 25%, but they haven't received that 25%. They were told, but that was a long time ago. We've been having problems in this regard for years now. What makes the matter more dramatic this year is that, as we have no room to manoeuvre because budgets have not been increased, obviously, we no longer have anything so we can address or temper the situation.
9:40 a.m.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
They're lucky you're the person responsible because, if it were me, I'd close up shop and tell them to take a look at the mess they'd gotten us into.
9:40 a.m.
President, Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada
It's not out of the question that it might come to that, perhaps sooner than we think.
9:40 a.m.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
Perhaps it takes a political crisis to wake up governments. And it used to be that way too. I'm very young, but I wasn't born yesterday. This has been going on for a long time. I remember that, from the start,
All your organizations have always had a problem.
That's nonsense. That's why I asked that you appear before the committee to make the government aware of this problem. It's all well and good to make promises and say we're respecting the communities, that we want to work with them. The purpose of Part VII of the Official Languages Act is to promote the minorities, both the anglophone minority in Quebec and the francophone minorities in the rest of the country. That's one of the reasons why I filed a complaint with the Commissioner of Official Languages. I don't know whether you're aware of that; I'll send you a copy. The Commissioner is examining the situation to see whether the act has been contravened. You can't keep everyone in suspense, like hostages, in that way. You're not working to fund the Government of Canada; you're working to provide a service to the community.
9:40 a.m.
Sylvia Martin-Laforge Director General, Quebec Community Groups Network
May I add another situation? I don't know if it's comparable to that of the FCFA. In Quebec, because we are one province, while we are a national minority contributing to policy across Canada, there has been up until relatively recently, in the last year or so, little consideration for the fact that we play on the national scene, not just in the case of QCGN itself but also for a few of our other organizations who meet with national organizations with the francophones outside Quebec, for example, l'Association de la presse, or la FCCF.
We have small organizations in Quebec, like ELAN, English-Language Arts Network, that are required, requested, and important in order for Canada to play on the national scene. ELAN, English-Language Arts Network, receives a very small pittance. I won't even embarrass ELAN by telling you what the amount is here today. For that, they have to figure out how they are going to develop policy and play, and talk to CRTC, CBC, and all of those. They don't even have $100,000. It's way below $100,000.
In Quebec there are other funds--strategic funds--at national headquarters. For Quebec, a number of us English-speaking organizations take a ping-pong approach to trying to get funding. The regional office gets the collaboration stuff, and they want us to play only on a very regional basis, not recognizing that a number of us have to play on the national stage.
I think that's another piece of a puzzle that is different from Quebec and that is a problem for funding.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB
Good morning to all the witnesses. Welcome.
Welcome to our committee. For those of you who don't me, I'm a very new member of Parliament. I was elected only last October, and I too am disappointed to see how much time it takes for government to work, and that has a lot to do with opposition as well. I'm surprised at how much of this goes on to stop good work from being done for Canadians, so I sympathize with you.
I do have a few questions, though, because my understanding is that this delay, the time it takes to get projects and funding approved, has been ongoing for many years. I'd like to ask you on average how much time it takes, in your experience, to get your funding. In previous years, what has been the average time?
9:45 a.m.
President, Quebec Community Groups Network
The times that have been mentioned so far have been the same for the last three or four years. When I talk about project funding, remember I said you get your funding in September for a project that was supposed to start in April. You're six months into it, so you get creative. You change the project because you have to do half of what you said you were going to do or do it all in six months instead of a year.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB
But that's only for the last three years. My understanding is, and I've been informed, that six months has been the average for many years, which is why the 25% was set out--and I see some nodding heads--to address some of that concern. It sounds as though this has been ongoing for ten or more years, and it's unfortunate that we haven't found a way of progressing more quickly. I do want to point out some of the challenges that I've learned about since I've been here.
Of course we don't have public servants who have delegation for approval. The funding for the projects has to go to the minister. So they go to the regions where they do what's called “due diligence”, and then of course they go through a number of other steps before the public servants then transfer them to the minister who has to approve them.
This has been a unique year. We had an election in October. Boy, oh boy, I'm still not fully aware of all of my responsibilities, and I'm seven months in. So it was unique simply because of the way we started, but also it's unique because of this need for Treasury Board to deal with the files that were coming to an end.
You talked about multi-year agreements. It's true that we have multi-year agreements. Isn't it?
9:45 a.m.
An hon. member
Yes.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB
This year, there will be renewals; we'll have new multi-year agreements. So I hope that will help as well, since the department will have fewer cases to approve.
I think that's something to note, that this year is somewhat unique. Then, of course, in December we also had other problems that came into play.
So I did want to point some of those out, but also, some of the groups have not signed their contribution agreements. I think that plays a part as well. I would encourage those groups that have not yet signed to do that as quickly as possible. If we all work together to try to get that done, I think it would certainly help. But I did want to point out that we also have new money.
It was said earlier that it's been five years since more money was invested in Community Life. I acknowledge that, but we have committed $260 million of new money under our Roadmap.
9:45 a.m.
President, Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada
That component doesn't include the community organizations. There's no money—not a cent. We were told directly that there was no money available for organizations such as ours under the Roadmap.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB
So your organizations have filed absolutely no applications with respect to that $260 million in new money?
9:45 a.m.
President, Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada
We don't have access to that funding. Those funds are closed. We're trying to explore other ways of obtaining funding. That's the message we're sending the minister to see whether there are any other avenues to explore.
