We made some changes to the French version of the statement. We will be sending the official version today or tomorrow morning. The English version includes all of the changes that we have made over the past two days.
The Quebec Community Groups Network is obviously pleased to have this opportunity to address the Standing Committee on Official Languages again. We are especially pleased that the committee has been so generous with its time this morning, with a fabulous turnout. This is the first time the network has been provided the opportunity to participate by itself in the committee’s business, and we look forward to evolving our mutual understanding and relationship.
The QCGN would also like to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Pierre Lemieux, Mr. Richard Nadeau, Mr. Yvon Godin, and his wife, Madame Lyna Mainville, for helping the network celebrate the launch of its 15th anniversary in Gatineau just two weeks ago.
As you know, the Quebec Community Groups Network is a not-for-profit organization that brings together 32 Quebec-based organizations that support the English-speaking communities of Quebec. English-speaking Quebeckers are one of the two national linguistic minorities recognized in Canada. English-speaking Quebeckers are the largest linguistic minority within a linguistic minority in the country, about 994,000 compared to the 997,000 francophones in the rest of Canada.
These English-speaking Quebeckers possess strong relationships and ties with both Quebec's francophone majority and Canada's English-speaking majority. The challenges they face to preserve and promote their linguistic space and character, while being supportive of other linguistic minorities and majorities, allows them to understand the need for innovative approaches to sustain and to improve official languages policy in Canada.
People sometimes still say that the English-speaking communities of Quebec are the “best-treated” linguistic minority in Canada. Allow me to offer a few statistics that might contradict this.
Quebec's official language minority retention rate was 69% in 1971, dropping to nearly 50% in 2001. That poses a significant leadership succession problem that has led to an increasing absence of community member leadership of important organizations.
Canadians living in Quebec whose first official language spoken is English are the most bilingual in the country--66% in 2001--but many youth in particular feel disenfranchised from their home province. Anglophones, who constitute 8.2% of the population of Quebec, represent only 0.8% of the province’s civil service. In fact, in a 2007 report by the Greater Montreal Community Development Initiative, GMCDI, it was reported that anglophones have a chronically low level of representation in the public service industry in the greater Montreal region. Of the 65,000 people employed in such positions in 2001, anglophones accounted for only 9%, despite the fact that they represent 25% of the labour force. Our young people, 85% of whom are bilingual, are much more likely to be unemployed than their francophone peers. Our seniors, the least likely to have second language skills, maybe just over 30%, are experiencing a severe shortage of assisted living and long-term care facilities in their own first language.
We feel it important to stress the diversity of our communities in terms of ethnic origin, place of birth, religion, and visible minority status. This diversity is most clearly realized in the greater Montreal region, where more than three-quarters of Canada's English minority reside.
Finally, there is an evolving sense of identification within the communities, from English to English-speaking to communities that speak English, reflecting more toward inclusiveness and recognition of generational, ethnic, linguistic, socio-economic, and even artistic diversity.
The preamble of the Official Languages Act, 1985, speaks of two official language communities in Canada, one French and the other English. The QCGN is considered by many federal departments as the official representative of the English linguistic minority communities and it's specifically defined as the “official interlocutor” by the Department of Canadian Heritage.
In terms of structure and representation, some parallels can be drawn between the QCGN and the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne, the FCFA, the national representatives of the francophone linguistic minority communities. The FCFA, for example, counts as members the 12 francophone provincial and territorial organizations, including the L'Assemblée de la francophonie de l'Ontario, or AFO, and the 10 francophone national sectoral organizations, such as the Fédération de la jeunesse canadienne-française, or FJCF, and the Fédération des associations de juristes d'expression française de common law, FCFA. The latter ensures “political representation, promotion and development support” for the francophone linguistic minority communities.
The QCGN, on the other hand, works in two spheres. One, it interacts with the Government of Canada at the national level on policy and strategic matters; and two, it interacts with the Government of Canada at the regional level and the Government of Quebec on service and program delivery and regional policy. Obviously we are talking about two different spheres, the national sphere and the regional sphere. The regional sphere includes the regional PCH, but also Quebec. We'd be happy to talk about that later in the question period, if you so choose.
This is a complex environment in which we work daily with numerous stakeholders and sometimes with competing agendas. The success of the English-speaking community is very dependent on the influence we can bring to bear on policy, programs, and initiatives.
In 2008 the QCGN presented a submission to Bernard Lord in the context of the Government of Canada's consultation on linguistic duality and official languages, in which we proposed that the Department of Canadian Heritage re-evaluate its approach to treating the QCGN and, by extension, English-speaking Quebeckers as a regional minority when the latter are one of Canada's two national official language minority communities. We recognize that we are not here today to discuss this point at length, but we'd like to have the opportunity to come back at another time to talk about this matter specifically.
The title for today's business, “Impacts of the Delays in Providing Funding to Beneficiary Organizations from the Department of Canadian Heritage”, was found by some of our members, to be honest, to have perhaps a negative connotation. When you start with the impacts and delays, it's hard to think of it always in a positive sense. But as Mr. Blaney reminded us when we were here about four months ago, we had a clear sense by the end of that meeting of what delays and impacts were on the table. As a result, we may have experienced hesitation from some, including some of our member organizations, when we were collecting data on the question. Organizations large and small can sometimes become a little reticent when asked to comment on the performance of their principal and sometimes only source of funding.
From the outset, we must emphasize how pleased and proud the QCGN and its members are to work with the men and women of the Department of Canadian Heritage. We continue to deeply appreciate the hard work the department does to help Canada’s English linguistic communities. It is also our contention, however, that funding delays are a result of apolitical or non-political systemic design. These rational problems can be worked on in a spirit of multi-partisanship, with one clear goal in mind: the vitality of Canada’s linguistic minority communities.
To gather information to present to you today, the QCGN surveyed its members—as I understand the FCFA did, and came to tell you about it last week—and received 21 responses, with a participation rate of 65%. Just remember that not all 32 of our member organizations are funded by the Department of Canadian Heritage.
The following information is derived from that survey. Of the 86% of the respondents who received the 25% advance on core funding from Canadian Heritage in the 2009-10 fiscal year, 80% received the advance in May 2009, one month late; 10% received it in June 2009, two months late; and 10% had not yet received any funding by July. This is the famous advance funding that one would normally hope to see coming in the first week of April. As a result, respondents reported the effects of financial stress; for example, reliance on credit and difficulty paying bills. This stress, however, is very personal. It is difficult not to feel frustrated when reading one response: “I used my personal Visa for expenses while waiting for funding.”
It was also difficult to read how delays directly damaged important community priorities. The Quebec Anglophone Heritage Network reported:
On account of the dire cash-flow situation caused by the delayed advance payment, the Quebec Anglophone Heritage Network (QAHN) had no choice but to refuse offers from the Young Canada Works (YCW) program that would have allowed QAHN to hire two students this summer. This will be the first summer in four years that QAHN has not participated in the YCW program.
As of the end of July, no members had received approval of their 2009-10 applications and they had therefore not signed contribution agreements. As a result, respondents did not receive their second payments. Organizations reported severe financial stress, reliance on credit, and non-payment to creditors. Programs were suspended, salaries were not paid, people were laid off, or hours were reduced. At least one executive director was using a personal credit card to cover expenses. Partners and creditors were openly resentful and distrustful. One respondent said that staff were currently working without pay.
On project funding, one out of six respondents still reported their project was unapproved at the time of our survey, meaning last week. Here is one organization's story.
We have submitted many 10- to 12-month projects that were supposed to take place between April or June 2009 to March 2010. We are almost in August, four months after the beginning of the fiscal year and nine months after we submitted some of these projects, and we still haven't got any answer. In addition to that, they are doing second and third calls for projects when they still haven't given us answers about the first call for projects, which is total nonsense.
To know whether you should apply for a second one, you obviously have to know if your first one was approved or not.
The general question asking for comments about the impact of late funding generated messages of frustration. One respondent's response is worth repeating in its entirety:
The impact of late funding: (1) It causes partners to raise questions about the integrity and reliability of our organization, and jeopardizes our ability to carry out our action plan and achieve our objectives. (2) It creates economic hardship for our staff members and builds up resentment, fear and demoralization. This impedes productivity. (3) It concerns our board of directors and executive director - far too much time and energy are spent on twisting and turning to deal with the shortage of funds, detracting from efforts to achieve results. (4) It results in poor stewardship of public funds. It is difficult to spend wisely when decisions must be made and actions carried out in a short timeframe. We're on a 6-month cycle of famine and feast. This surely cannot be results-based management. (5) It reflects very badly on the Government of Canada. This kind of management gives the strong impression that what the government says and what it does are two different things. Does the government really mean to invest in the vitality of its official-language minorities? Or does it just want to sound as if it is important? Judging by its actions, I would say that, frankly, it doesn't give a damn. If it did, the elected officials would put into place an effective public service and let it do its work.
These are strong points. It would be unfair to say that this is the message we got from everyone, but many organizations felt this strongly about the problems being caused.
As I approach my last page, you are probably asking about the answers and suggestions. We do have a few things to put on the table.
The QCGN supports the aim of the government action plan to reform the administration of grants and contribution programs, and it notes that Canadian Heritage is one of six vanguard departments. The network has noticed with pleasure a reduced administration and reporting burden and looks forward to the full development of the Canadian heritage department's action plan, which will include service standards.
Service standards that are arrived at in conjunction with the networks and other key stakeholders will go a long way in alleviating the frustration and pain experienced by members. These standards will allow organizations to effectively business plan and will provide service and program deliverers a clearer picture of when they will receive funding and who will be able to account if they do not. The accountability is rightly placed at the level of deputy minister, as far as we can see.
Effective risk management is also a key component of the government's action plan. Stable, well-governed institutions with long-standing relationships with the government need not, indeed might I say should not, be subjected to the same application rigour for annual core funding as a more inexperienced or first-time entity. Both, however, of course must be subject to the same audit and accountability regime, but an organization that for fifteen years has been getting pretty well the same funding with very little ups and downs, has always been doing its regular reporting all the time, still has to begin every year like it's all new again and it is being looked at as if it's all new again.
The QCGN wishes to reiterate that some members expressed satisfaction with their funding. Moreover, we believe that delays are neither politically motivated nor attributable to a lack of effort or professionalism by the public servants of the Department of Canadian Heritage. Government is a complicated business, we understand, with billions of dollars entering and leaving thousands of programs for the benefit of Canadians. The systems that carry out this monumental task must be designated to be effective and accountable, especially when they have a reputation to show it. The QCGN and its members are cognizant of this reality and are confident that the Government of Canada is committed to removing the structural impediments that cause funding delays.
Thank you very much. We look forward to trying to answer whatever questions you may have.
