Official Languages Committee on Oct. 6th, 2009

[Lise Zarac, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Is the process too long, too heavy?

[Heather Stronach]

It is too long or too heavy, or maybe has too many parts to it. For example, this year they've been revising their process and there is a new process that was just introduced. I didn't know it was coming until it actually arrived, so this meant I needed to deal with that piece in order to be able to complete my report, in order to bring our organization to the next stage. That's one piece of it at this time.

[Lise Zarac, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Those are your feelings, but did you ask them directly what was holding back the financing?

[Robert Donnelly]

It's simply process. The response I get is that it's process.

[Lise Zarac, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Thank you.

I have a quick question for Mr. Donnelly. You said that you represent 32 associations. What is the health of those associations? Do you have a feeling? What are you getting back from these associations? Are they in a healthy situation? Is there cause that because they're not getting the financing they might go down completely, that they won't be able to fulfill their mission?

[Robert Donnelly]

There is stress, which you just talked about earlier. That's always a problem. There is the ability to produce, as Mr. Godin was saying before, and although I wouldn't go as far as to say “unable” to produce, it vastly diminishes their ability, because you work very hard in putting together a one-year plan and then you get funding for six months, or it comes six months late, so you readjust and you start to cut things. In the organization I was with, we started doing our plan in November. We made three plans. This was four years ago. If the late funding comes as it usually does, we'll go to our board and back up and say, instead of one, two, three, four, five, we're going to do numbers one, two, and three. That is what happens.

Yes, the impact is there. People are creative. It's not only a question of bank accounts or credit cards. In one organization all the people agreed to take two months off without pay in the summer. That allows them to be better able to work in the other 10 months. That saves money. People find ways to make it work.

[Lise Zarac, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

I don't question the ability of the people. I used to work a long time with these associations.

How do they feel? Do they feel like they're not completing their mission in a way, even if they're good at cutting back and rearranging? What's the feeling out there? Are they feeling that they are accomplishing their mission?

[Robert Donnelly]

No, there's a strong feeling of frustration. You're talking about people on a volunteer board who are told that while last year we had them buy into these 10 points, now, because of the bureaucracies and the delays and so forth, we're only going to be doing five of them. That leads to frustration for the staff, and it leads to frustration for the volunteers who get involved with these organizations, expecting results, only to be told that they're only going to be able to do half, or that the money came so late that it was cut in half.

[Lise Zarac, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Yes, Ms. Martin-Laforge.

[Sylvia Martin-Laforge]

I would like to stress one point.

The English-speaking community in Quebec is still coming out of many years of demobilization. Any delay in keeping up the momentum has a huge impact on the overall momentum of the English-speaking community. Each one of the 32 organizations--and others that are not part of our organization--feels the consistent need to keep up the momentum.

We can't go at top speed all the time. When you speed up, slow down, speed up, and slow down again, and so on, you lose your impetus and momentum. This is something I learned from my grandfather.

For English-speaking Quebec, it is incredibly important for that to happen and momentum to continue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Ms. Zarac.

We got a very good response rate to the questionnaire we sent out for our study. Indeed, 65 per cent of your organizations responded.

We will now move to Ms. Shelley Glover.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Merci bien.

Welcome back to those of you who have been here before. It's nice to see you again.

I want to concentrate on what Mr. Donnelly has said repeatedly, and that's the word “frustration”. I can assure you that each and every one of us here, regardless of party or ideology, believes that it is frustrating, and we empathize with that. As a new member of Parliament—and I've been here almost a year now—I'm seeing frustration too. I am quite surprised at the way things progress or don't progress within this large organization and Parliament itself.

I was very hopeful when we began to look at this that we would be able to spend a lot of time trying to come up with answers to alleviate this problem. Unfortunately, we haven't met with the people who are going to be able to change that as of yet. We hope to do that at some of our next meetings.

I think some of the things are recurrent, and I must emphasize that we've heard this for years and years and years. I was part of many non-profit organizations in a minority community that expressed frustration for 10 to 15 years. I'm very saddened to see that we haven't made too much progress, but I want to emphasize that I believe that some band-aid solutions have gone on for many years and that we need to fix them. Although it's wonderful to see you again, I want to get down to the meat and potatoes. I want to make sure that the messages we've heard for years and years, which you've repeated today, are correct. So please indulge me.

You've said that they're recurrent or repeated year after year and that you don't believe it's political. Although our parties here try to make it political, I appreciate that you've said you don't believe it is political and you don't believe the public service is trying to sit by and not do the work. So thank you for those comments.

You've also said that the report and application process is time-consuming. So we are specifically going to ask how we streamline that. I'm hearing that correctly from you again today.

Also, the delays in confirming whether or not your program is going to be approved hinder your ability to get credit. Again, we're heard that.

And there's your point that the delay in receiving your cheque after confirmation affects your credibility with people like your landlord, as Mr. dePoe and other stakeholders said. Moreover, the interest payments aren't covered.

And once you receive your confirmation and then your cheque, your spending time is reduced. That makes it a challenge to make the March deadline before you have to pay it back. We're heard that.

I've also heard that you think some of the suggestions are good, such as the multi-year agreements. That's great.

I've heard the suggestions you've made as well, Mr. Donnelly, in your report, and I appreciate them. Thank you very much.

But what I don't want to see is anyone leaving this arena and disregarding what you've said very clearly, that we have to work together and that it's not a political problem, but in the system. So I would hope that you will follow what we are going to do with the people who are going to be intricately involved in making the decisions to change this; and if you have further suggestions, please feel free to contact us at any point. I'm pleased to hear that you feel you have the ability to contact Canadian Heritage and that you have great relationships with them. We hope that continues.

I'm hoping we will have some witnesses at the next meeting. I'm also hoping that if we need more time, we will be allotted that time, because what's ultimately very, very important is getting down to figuring out how we can become more efficient.

I believe things like the sponsorship scandal and the Gomery inquiry recommendations led us to have to be more accountable, more transparent, and gave us this machine. But we have to find a way to be more effective, so thank you for bringing your suggestions.

I am not going to ask any further questions, because as I've said, I've heard this for more than 15 years. I just want to get to the bottom of it, and that's why I'm anxious to speak with the people who are in the system, to make sure we get this right so we can help you. So please bear with us. We're all in this together, and we all want to help you.

[Robert Donnelly]

Mr. Blaney, could I ask a question? When these meetings take place with the representatives of the government, would that be an open meeting like today's meeting?

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Yes, and actually, Mr. Donnelly, I was just about to mention that we are to adopt the schedule right after we finish this witness session, and it is expected that on October 20 we'll meet with Canadian Heritage for that standing order.

Oui, monsieur Godin.

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

I have a point of order, Mr. Chairman.

I don't believe that is a political issue. In English, you would say:

it went from bad to worse and how do we fix it? That's all.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

This shows us that it is not only the fact that the cheque arrives late which causes problems, but that this also has repercussions on communities and on how dynamic they are.

We will conclude our third round with Mr. Nadeau.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

We all know that money makes the world go around. If the funding is not there, the paper programming takes on another dimension. All the difficulties with regard to community development, be it for anglophone Quebeckers, francophone Canadians, groups in Quebec and majority anglophones too...

We want to identify solutions, but unfortunately, the cycle is broken. The communities have to provide more reports than big corporations receiving major federal subsidies to save a town, an industry or a company. It is not bad in and of itself, but I can tell you that the reporting requirements are not the same. It comes down to the social and human fabric of an entire country. Whether we are talking about Quebec or Canada, it is huge problem of unparalleled complexity.

I have heard that there are too many steps in the process. One solution would be to regionalize it. The process by which you provide the required information is extremely slow. Information goes back and forth internally until a solution is identified, so that it takes six months to get $15,000, and a regional summer program for youth or adults gets cancelled.

How can we decentralize and simplify this process?

[Sylvia Martin-Laforge]

In Quebec, we are between a rock and a hard place with regard to such decentralization. For most of our groups, including our own organization, the envelope for Quebec flows through the Quebec regional office. If you invite us back, we will tell you about our ability to take action as a minority community with Canada and what the regional envelope means for us.

I think that it is not decentralized in that way, but it might be a solution.

The standard has to be national—I mean, amongst all of the provinces and all of the associations. So if there is a standard to have an application in and for an approval letter to be out within—pick a time—three months, it should be the same for everybody. So I think there's a national standard and maybe a regional application, but there has to be some thinking about how that works.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

It's time for me to thank our witness for appearing before us this morning with very pertinent comments.

Thank you very much for coming.

We will suspend for a few minutes because we need to adopt our budget and work schedule.

[Proceedings continue in camera]