Thank you.
My name is Jean-Gilles Pelletier, and I am the Director of Administration and Communications, Official-Languages Programs, with the Council of Ministers of Education of Canada.
I am pleased to be meeting with you again. I met a number of the committee members in Toronto a few years ago, when it was my pleasure to welcome you to the Centre francophone de Toronto, in my former capacity. In my current capacity, I am pleased to be making a presentation to you today in both official languages. Copies of my presentation have been circulated in English and French. My presentation itself will alternate between French and English.
You probably know that the Council of Ministers of Education, which is commonly called CMEC, was established in 1967, essentially to provide the ministers of education from all provinces, and now also from the territories, with an opportunity to work together and set common objectives, undertake joint initiatives and also speak with a single voice at the international level when they are representing Canada in education-related matters.
The focus of today's presentation, of course, is on post-secondary education, more specifically on minority language education and second language instruction at the post-secondary level.
As you all know, education in Canada is under the exclusive jurisdiction of the provinces and territories, a fact that allows for a great diversity in the delivery of minority language education and second language instruction at the post-secondary level. This shall be, to some extent, the focus of my presentation.
At the same time, however, there are common challenges, concerns, and approaches that all ministers of education share in the areas of official languages, education, and post-secondary education. Through their joint declaration, Learn Canada 2020, the ministers have committed to a number of ambitious goals, namely, first, to increase the number of students pursuing post-secondary education by increasing the quality and accessibility of post-secondary education, and, second, promoting and implementing support programs for minority language education and second language instruction that are amongst the most comprehensive in the world. I'll be speaking briefly about these programs.
Furthermore, through their joint ratification of the Protocol for Agreements for Minority Language Education and Second Language Instruction, commonly called the protocol, signed through the CMEC with Canadian Heritage, all ministers of education have officially acknowledged the importance of supporting Canada's two official languages in education and of improving the quality of minority language education and second language instruction.
I am going to talk briefly about the Protocol for Agreement for Minority-Language Education and Second-Language Instruction.
In 1983, the Department of the Secretary of State, as it then was, and the provinces and territories, through CMEC, entered into the first Protocol for Agreements for Minority-Language Education and Second-Language Instruction. It was the first political document to establish pan-Canadian guidelines for federal-provincial/territorial cooperation in an area specifically under provincial/territorial jurisdiction. Through the Protocol, the federal government provided major contributions to help cover the costs incurred by the provinces and territories in the delivery of minority-language education and second-language instruction.
Since then, what is somewhat extraordinary—and this protocol is often referred to as one of the best-functioning agreements in Canada—is that the ministers and the federal government have signed four additional protocols. The last protocol offers approximately $258 million, $30 million of which is for national programs in the provinces and territories, per year. So these are substantial amounts going to the provinces under agreements signed, first and foremost, on a pan-Canadian basis, and then, secondly, on a bilateral basis, with the provinces.
Since mid-2008, CMEC and Canadian Heritage have been working together to address these changing circumstances, and the hope is that a new protocol will be ratified in the very near future. In fact, the protocol is in the works as we speak. I am pleased to tell you that If ratified, the new protocol will include a very specific outcomes framework that will define common outcome areas for each language objective, that is, minority-language education and second-language education, and offer examples of indicators for each area. This time, and this is a challenge that Mr. Charbonneau also mentioned earlier, there will be a specific area for post-secondary education, and the outcome areas in question will relate specifically to access to postsecondary education, that is, indicators that can be used to monitor progress in that regard somewhat, and support for teaching personnel and research.
So as complicated and difficult as it may sometimes be to identify exactly what is being done in the provinces, given that each jurisdiction has full control over secondary and postsecondary education, in this case, the effort is being made to assign indicators that can be used to monitor progress on outcomes.
I'll briefly give you some examples of what has taken place over the last few years. Again, these examples have been extracted from an interim report that has just recently been published, covering 2005 to 2007. The current protocol ends in 2009, and, as I indicated, we're just about to ratify the renewed protocol.
Under the general framework provided by the protocol, each province and territory negotiates with the federal government a separate bilateral agreement, which is more specific in meeting the unique priorities of their jurisdiction. Each jurisdiction also writes an action plan linked to its bilateral agreement. Although commonalities exist in areas of outcomes or objectives across the country, the bilateral agreements and action plans allow for pan-Canadian diversity and activities and initiatives, and in the funding that is allocated to those activities and initiatives.
I'll give you a few examples of what has been happening. I'll go from New Brunswick to British Columbia, for lack of time, but there are a number of different examples that appear in the report. New Brunswick has moved towards increasing the availability of teaching materials in French for adult literacy and for training and specialized trades; has increased the number of French language resources and reference and computer services in public libraries; has strengthened, through technology and distance education, the links between post-secondary institutions and local businesses and organizations; has continued to support French as a second language and French immersion instructor training programs offered at the University of New Brunswick; and so on.
I'm going to give you a few examples for British Columbia.
British Columbia committed itself to make ongoing efforts to support the Collège Éducacentre, which provides support for the families of its refugee and immigrant students, taking a holistic family-based approach to getting and keeping Francophone students in their up-grading, certificate and diploma programs.
So these initiatives and the initiatives of the other provinces and territories in official languages in education depend on the continued support of the federal government.
Here are a few figures taken from the report and from our own reports. Between 2005 and 2009, under the existing Protocol, about $130 million in federal funding was allocated to postsecondary initiatives; approximately $97 million for minority-language postsecondary education and approximately $33 million for second-language education. Once again, this is money that was effectively transferred to the provinces in a field that is under their jurisdiction. The bilateral agreements with all the provinces and territories are in fact available on the website, so that everyone can consult them.
Now I want to talk briefly about national programs. To promote the learning of official languages in Canada, CMEC, in cooperation with the provinces and territories, administers two federally-funded bursary programs and two language-assistant programs also funded by the federal government, by Canadian Heritage, that provide our youth in Canada with opportunities for exchanges and summer study to enhance their language skills. These have become virtually historic programs. The second-language bursary program celebrated its 35th anniversary last year, and we are very proud of it.
In 2007-2008, the most recent year for which we have figures, the language bursary program enabled more than 8,000 young people and adults to attend sessions offered by over 40 language schools, mostly through colleges and universities, as a result of bursaries totalling $18 million. That year, the monitor program provided language assistants to more than 250 school boards across the country, representing more than $9.5 million in funding. These are significant amounts and they have an impact on postsecondary institutions.
In conclusion, it is a CMEC policy to keep education partners and the general public informed of CMEC activities and initiatives. The CMEC website has a great deal of information that is available to the general public. CMEC is grateful for the support it receives from the Government of Canada and is happy to provide this update on minority-language education and second-language instruction at the postsecondary level. We look forward to the continued support of the Government of Canada in the delivery of quality minority-language education and second-language instruction at the postsecondary level in every province and territory.
Forgive me if my conclusion is less resounding than my predecessor's. I will be happy to answer your questions.