Official Languages Committee on March 10th, 2009

[Jean-Gilles Pelletier]

I don't want to sound like a broken record, but...

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

No problem. I think this is the first time I have heard you speak in this position. We will listen to what is on your record.

[Jean-Gilles Pelletier]

Perfect. What I was saying is that there are different ways of influencing individual bilingualism. The one you have identified is to establish certain institutional criteria to ensure that graduates of a postsecondary program are bilingual.

It is difficult for a government to institute this across the country and it is difficult for a government, even a provincial government that essentially has responsibility for universities and colleges, to require that of all postsecondary institutions in the province. One approach is often to buy peace. The tools we have for doing this are generally budgetary tools, financial tools, to...

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

What I would like to know is why it is so difficult. Let's take the broken record off and try something else. Why is it so difficult?

For example, if someone is attending a community college to become a welder, the person will learn certain things. If the person wants to work in the public service, he or she has to learn certain things. This is a bilingual country. This could be one of the criteria for working in the public service. It would mean establishing criteria because this country is officially bilingual.

[Jean-Gilles Pelletier]

It would take a lot of time to try to understand just how independent universities and colleges are. Colleges have a different degree of latitude from universities, which have very broad latitude. One thing we do know is that the way to influence the development and implementation of postsecondary programs at the university level is often through financial support programs, that essentially allow for new requirements to be developed.

Let me speak briefly to what could be done to expand official and individual bilingualism.

Good morning, Mr. Lemieux. I am pleased to see you again. Mr. Lemieux had an opportunity to participate in the celebrations for the 35^th anniversary of the Explore program in Quebec City in September of last year.

The programs that CMEC administers across Canada are programs to allow young people who are enrolled in postsecondary programs to improve their language skills in both official languages. Every year, about 5,000 young Anglophones and 3,000 young francophones travel all across the country to learn the other official language and spend five weeks in an immersion situation. You probably all know about these programs or know someone who has taken part once or twice or even three times, and for whom it has made an incredible difference, both in terms of their desire to continue learning a second language and continuing to learn the second language and in terms of their practical skills in using the second language.

I don't want to give a long speech about how difficult it is to get the universities to move in this or that direction. There are things in place. The programs are practical tools—we were talking about concrete assistance—that are there to enhance individuals' bilingual capacity.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Pelletier, Mr. Godin.

We often think of government as legislator, but in this case, the federal public service is the universities' employer. So it is a client of our universities.

We will now move on to someone who, as Mr. Godin said, is a passionate advocate for this cause. It is therefore my pleasure to give the floor to my hon. colleague, Michael Chong.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Merci, Mr. Chair.

I want to build on what Monsieur Godin was saying about our education system in Canada.

Clearly, the number one challenge with respect to the French fact in Canada is that the long-term trends are not good. The percentage of francophones in Canada is on the decline, has been for decades, and will be for future decades. This is the number one challenge we're facing.

I've always been of the view that we can take a defensive posture about this or an offensive posture. The defensive posture is simply to protect the number of francophones that we have in the country. The offensive position would be to say let's try to increase the number of bilingual Canadians, those who can speak both official languages. When you look at our education system, the building block for it is the public education system, our high schools and primary schools, which feed into the university system.

My question is directed to CMEC because the Canadian government, under the previous action plan developed by Mr. Dion and recommitted to by our government, provided over $1 billion through the protocol through your organization to provinces to promote not only minority language instruction but second language instruction. One of the key targets that was established back in 2005 was that by 2013 the number of bilingual graduates from Canadian high schools would double. From what I'm hearing, only four years from that target, we are not going to meet it.

My first question is why that is. Why are we not going to meet the commitment that the federal and provincial governments made through bilateral agreements and through action plans to double the number of bilingual graduates in Canada?

[Jean-Gilles Pelletier]

I was not there when that commitment was made, so it's hard for me to explain the context under which such a figure would have been arrived at. It is, to some extent, mystifying, but I can see why politicians set themselves really high objectives. Doing so captures the public imagination, and trying to focus on such really incredible goals does work to gather energies and create synergies.

On the other hand, practically speaking, what I can speak about is the fact that the number of bilingual Canadians graduating from high school is increasing in the extreme across the country. This is something to be very proud of. Official bilingualism is not going down, it's going up, and at a furious pace in some jurisdictions such as British Columbia and Alberta, and in provinces that you think don't have significant, strong programs in the official languages. The French immersion programs in British Columbia and Alberta are absolutely booming, and it has been a bone of contention that we've had to wrestle with in the context of renegotiation of the new protocol. You can just imagine.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

When will the new protocol be signed?

[Jean-Gilles Pelletier]

I can't speculate. At this point in time--

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

It's supposed to take effect in 2009.

[Jean-Gilles Pelletier]

It's in the process of being ratified as we speak. The negotiation process is ongoing.

All this is to say that at this point in time it looks very good. The federal government last spring committed to reconvene the sums allocated to la Feuille de route, and I believe at that time the sum looked at was $258 million per year for a period of four years. It is a very significant commitment, and, as I explained a little bit earlier, it is my hope that the next protocol will be able to provide tools for policy-makers to track the progress and the achievements that we will have made.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

I have a second comment. We have difficulty, as a government, as Monsieur Godin was saying earlier, in hiring bilingual public servants. We end up having to retrain thousands if not tens of thousands of public servants who are newly graduated from Canadian universities because they don't know the other official language.

I know provinces don't have direct control over what universities do, but just as the federal government has spending power, which it uses to control provinces and territories into doing things a certain way, the provinces throughout this country have spending power with respect to their universities, and what provinces indicate to the universities as to their preferences makes a huge difference. I would put to you that the protocols in the admissions standards with respect to other languages have declined in recent years. The admission standards for Canadian universities are not as stringent as they once were with respect to having another language, and they aren't as stringent as they once were with respect to graduating. It used to be that you had to know a second language to graduate from a Canadian university. That is no longer the case.

I just put that to you as a comment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Chong. You have used your time well.

We'll turn to the second round, with Monsieur Pablo Rodriguez.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to congratulate Mr. Chong on his tenacity. He has been raising this subject for some time now.

Thank you for being with us today.

Mr. Charbonneau, I have to gather my thoughts, I am so startled by the conclusions you stated. I was really struck by them. All joking aside, you said at the outset that you were not certain you know what the objective of our study was. We know the broad outlines, but I would like to know what you think we should be focusing, exactly.

[François Charbonneau]

I think the Commissioner of Official Languages is in the process of doing exactly what some of you would like to see happen, that is, opportunities for second language learning, particularly in anglophone postsecondary institutions. That is exactly what he is doing. We are at the table so we can participate in that initiative. The question is whether there is duplication of efforts.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

That is not exactly it. Rather, I would like to know whether there are factors we should be focusing on in our study. Are there questions we should be asking you?

[François Charbonneau]

I will take this opportunity to answer one of the questions from your colleague opposite. I do not take an offensive vs. defensive view of Canadian linguistic duality. We don't choose to assist francophones outside Quebec while saying that because they are disappearing in any event, we should opt for all Canadians to be bilingual. Spending more money in one place than another doesn't make sense. We have to do both, for all sorts of self-evident reasons.

You could ask this question. It is important but it has not been explored. It relates to francophone universities outside Quebec, but also to small institutions. It goes somewhat beyond your terms of reference. The federal government is investing a lot of money in the Canadian university system, and that is excellent news. However, it systematically puts small institutions at a disadvantage. Francophones outside Quebec have more small institutions. In the circumstances, it becomes extremely difficult to retain instructors in those institutions.

If you are interested in postsecondary education and opportunities to learn in French, you have to understand that the institutions of francophone Canada want to offer as complete a spectrum of courses as possible. There therefore have to be certain needs, including the need for offering joint courses to be organized among various provinces. These things are complicated, but we are starting to implement them. In western Canada, a master's in education program has just been established, thanks to the Western Economic Diversification program. Four francophone and bilingual universities—Simon Fraser, the Collège universitaire de Saint-Boniface...

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

I am going to interrupt you because I don't have a lot of time left.

[François Charbonneau]

I'm sorry. So the message is that there are opportunities.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Mr. Pelletier, does the Council of Ministers have set meetings with the federal government, whether it be every three months, once a year, or at some other interval?

[Jean-Gilles Pelletier]

The Council of Ministers and the Secretariat are two separate things. I am going to talk about the Secretariat because the administration of the Protocol is really handled by it. There is a team that essentially administers the agreements, the national scholarship program and the language assistant program. For the overall functioning of the Protocol, there are annual meetings to discuss current issues with the federal government. The bilateral agreements also provide for periodic agreements between the federal government and the parties involved, for example to adjust targets from year to year.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Mr. Charbonneau, it must be difficult to attract instructors to the regions, particularly on the French side.

[François Charbonneau]

It is a challenge that is becoming greater now that the profession is experiencing retirements and replacements. In the late 1990s it was a little easier because the universities in Quebec weren't hiring. That is not the case now.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Do you have access to all the books you need in French?