Official Languages Committee on April 22nd, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Good morning, everybody.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3), we are studying the Department of Canadian Heritage's road map for Canada's linguistic duality for 2008 to 2013.

We have the pleasure to have this morning as witnesses the members of the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada: Madam Marie-France Kenny, and the director general, Suzanne Bossé. You're always welcome to our committee.

We also have the Quebec Community Groups Network. He thought it would be his last time, but he's here again this morning—the president, Robert Donnelly, as well as the director general, Sylvia Martin-Laforge.

Without further ado,

Mr. Donnelly, would you please start this day with us?

[Robert Donnelly, President, Quebec Community Groups Network]

My pleasure.

Good morning, Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you once again for taking the time to listen to us, for once again giving us this opportunity to assist the committee in its work. Today, of course, we’ve been invited to participate in a discussion on the road map for Canada's linguistic duality.

As an introduction, I ask you to recall that at our last appearance we expressed our dismay a little bit about the lack of acknowledgement by the federal government of the English-speaking minority in the Speech from the Throne. In that regard, you may or may not be aware, the QCGN has recently submitted an official complaint to the Commissioner of Official Languages about the omission, because of the impact that kind of thing happening in the throne speech could have on the official language minority community in Quebec.

What do we mean by that? Well, we bring this up to demonstrate that despite 40 years of the Official Languages Act and despite the recognition of our minority community's national standing by the Commissioner of Official Languages in his 2007-2008 report, we still believe that a deep-rooted misunderstanding remains regarding the English-speaking community of Quebec as an official languages minority community.

Key stakeholders see omissions in federal strategic communications, such as the throne speech, as evidence that there is, at best, continuing political and policy confusion around how the English-speaking community of Quebec must be supported, and at worst, a deliberate move to dismantle the traditions of the official languages policy.

Not only do policy-makers have a hard time imagining that English-speaking Quebeckers are members of an official language minority community, but many English Quebeckers also have a hard time considering themselves part of a minority. But we are, and many English-speaking communities and institutions are on the endangered list.

The original policy document entitled The Next Act: New Momentum for Canada’s Linguistic Duality and the funding priorities that ensued under the action plan and the current road-map initiatives have been a significant step forward in terms of the government's attempt to inject new momentum into the promotion of a linguistic duality in Canada. The most significant initiative to date in Quebec has been the effort to improve access to health and social services in English, and there’s been great success in that domain. In contrast, however, most departments have not been able to successfully take on the design of national policy and programs that are flexible enough to work in Quebec as well as across Canada. That has meant fewer initiatives for the English-speaking community.

From a policy-maker's perspective, the reality of the English-speaking community of Quebec presents a particular challenge. We know that. In fact, it questions the core of collective thinking about Canadian official language minority communities. The tradition that informs the beliefs and the structure of a response to official languages is based on the francophone experience, and the foundation of that experience is a minority language that has been fiercely protected and proudly fostered for four centuries in Canada. But for English Quebec, the protection of the language is not a concern. For the English-speaking minority of Quebec, the fundamental aim is to preserve our institutions and the communities they serve.

We seek integration. We demand that our children have the language skills necessary to participate fully in Quebec society, and we understand that limited and rational asymmetry in program delivery, but not design, is necessary for Quebec to flourish. For the English-speaking official language minority, the mandates, overall policy considerations, and program design of various federal departments continue to make interventions in Quebec problematic. For the most part, services that have a direct impact on our community fall within provincial jurisdiction. Furthermore, restrictions on federal spending powers, highlighted in the Speech from the Throne and now the subject of Bill C-507, and the devolution of federal responsibilities provide significant challenges to those charged with designing and implementing the road map in Quebec. Unlike the federal government, our provincial government does have the responsibility to promote the vitality of our community. Therefore, little, if any, leverage can be obtained without some innovative thinking.

Under the previous action plan and the current road map, many initiatives were not available to the English-speaking community of Quebec. Among the gaps were programs in the areas, for example, of literacy, early childhood development, and immigration.

There are certainly varied reasons for this situation. The community also acknowledges that in some cases our capacity to successfully support implementation was lacking, but our community structures and support networks are still evolving to adapt to the specific challenges and realities of being an English-speaking minority community in Quebec.

The structural challenges in government programming, such as the road map, can be mitigated by innovative thinking and dedicated effort. For example, immigration is the subject of a Canada-Quebec accord to which the current road map is subordinate.

Quebec's immigration policy does not address the demographic pressures faced by the English-speaking community. Renewal is of importance to English-speaking communities across the province and of critical concern to the communities on the island of Montreal. Ground-breaking strategies are being developed to access road-map funding for research to inform the design of future initiatives, such as a study on the ability of English-speaking communities to help attract and retain immigrants in rural Quebec.

We believe that closer collaboration with Citizenship and Immigration Canada, with the community, and with the government of Quebec is beginning to pay off. In small steps, we're beginning to demonstrate that capitalizing on the community's role as an asset could help with immigrant retention in the regions, and retention means thriving communities and perhaps even growing communities.

Finally, I have a word on evaluation. Ever since the launch of the overarching priority-setting initiatives, such as the action plan and the road map, we have come to recognize that there is a systemic flaw in the policy and program design, which cannot be fixed by regular evaluation processes. Therefore, unless the evaluation process includes what we call a gap analysis, nothing will change. Only an evidence-based approach will ultimately allow departments to fill in the gaps.

Issues cannot be fixed at the evaluation stage--which often comes at the end--and therefore policy and interventions for the English-speaking community of Quebec must be considered from the outset.

The English-speaking community of Quebec cannot continue to rely only on a half-century of research and capacity building, as provided to Canada's francophone minority. Evidence-based policy by definition relies on evidence. To ensure our vitality, the English-speaking minority needs more resources directed towards research.

To conclude, although we feel largely absent from the road map, we of course still believe it possible that English-speaking Quebec can be given equal national consideration and equitable resources in developing its successor, the planning of which we understand is already under way.

Thank you for listening to some of our concerns, and we look forward to trying to answer some of your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. President.

We'll now turn to the--

The Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada.

Ms. Kenny, the floor is yours.

[Marie-France Kenny, President, Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada]

Mr. Chair, ladies and gentlemen, members of the committee, I would first like to thank you for having invited us to appear this morning as part of your study on the Roadmap for Canada's Linguistic Duality. We are coming to the roadmap's halfway point and we absolutely need to take this time to look back on what has been done and especially the approach that was taken, in order to make the adjustments needed between now and 2013. In preparing our presentation, and in order to make thoughtful comments and assist you in your study, we consulted with the 40 member organizations of the Leaders Forum, which is working on implementing the community strategic plan. That plan arose from the 2007 Francophone and Acadian Community Summit.

The government launched its Roadmap for Canada's Linguistic Duality in June 2008, however, it did not set the new course as we had been hoping for in terms of strengthening the social, economic and cultural vitality of our communities. Nevertheless, the roadmap was a significant initiative. Investments totalling $1.1 billion were announced, representing an increase of $400 million over the Official Languages Action Plan. The roadmap helped sustain most of the initiatives started under the action plan. A greater number of departments and development sectors were targeted by the roadmap. Culture and youth were identified as priority sectors. Investments made in education, health and justice were increased. If the strength of the roadmap was to emphasize services to the public, its weakness came from leaving behind the groups that create and deliver those services. There was no increase in the support given to communities and organizations that create and instil a sense of community living in French.

In a context where the government, in the Speech from the Throne, has spelled out its commitment to further work with local organizations, one of the priorities should be to strengthen the capacity of local organizations to carry out their community missions and offer services to the public, if the roadmap is to become an out-and-out success. That is a priority for both us and the government.

That isn't the only success factor. I would now like to address the main issue that we would like to talk to you about today, i.e. the governance of the roadmap. The greatest challenges are ones of clarity and transparency. To date, it is especially difficult to know what has been invested where, when and by whom. There is still no public document containing a breakdown of roadmap investments by department, year and initiative. Our primary and almost sole source of information is the Official Languages Secretariat website, which presents only the announcements that have already been made. Furthermore, the recurrent funding of the various departments in terms of official languages is not announced and not part of the available data. The situation is not made any easier by the fact that few departments specifically mention the roadmap or official languages in their financial planning. More often than not, you have to try and read between the lines. Added to that is the fact that funding is announced once a year, which makes it particularly difficult to do any short, medium or long-term planning. There is also a lack of clarity with regard to expected results, performance indicators and the linkages among departments or between departments and communities.

We have tried to find out more about how the roadmap is presented in departmental reports on plans and priorities. The only department we currently have information on is Canadian Heritage. The department presents various measures related to the implementation of the roadmap, the renewal of federal and provincial agreements, cooperation agreements with the communities and ongoing initiatives to improve the grants and contributions approval and allocation procedures. Those activities have their own performance measurement frameworks, which include results and indicators. Among other things, the department measures the satisfaction of OLMCs with program access and services provided by the community organizations, as well as the confidence of OLMC members with regard to the promotion of our community.

How did they define those indicators? How will they consult with the communities on the achievement of those results?

Moreover, will they be assessing the impact, the work done by communities, or the impact of government funding? I do want to underscore that there have been improvements in terms of linkages. For example, if you look at the Horizontal Results-based Management and Accountability Framework, which was developed last year for the Roadmap, you will find that the governance structure now includes a dialogue component with the official language minority communities. We are proud to have contributed to that governance structure and are looking forward to the first day of dialogue with the communities. The event will be held in May and attended by representatives of 15 departments and 40 francophone organizations.

It needs to be said, however, that such a day of dialogue was held at least once a year under the Official Languages Action Plan, with senior executives of federal institutions in attendance. This day of dialogue, which was called for by the FCFA, is the first opportunity to hold discussions between the institutions targeted by the Roadmap and the communities.

Consultations also vary considerably from one sector to another, from one department to another. That is something that has been mentioned on a number of occasions by Commissioner Fraser and his predecessor, Dyane Adam. Part VII of the Official Languages Act and its obligation to ensure that positive measures are taken suggest that communities participate in all stages of the development, implementation and evaluation of the policies and programs that are of concern to them.

We, like the government, want the investments made under the Roadmap to produce significant results for Canadians who want to live and grow in French. We believe that the challenges we have pointed out with regard to governance can be overcome through better coordination. As we have indicated in our document entitled La mise en oeuvre de la Loi sur les langues officielles: une nouvelle approche - une nouvelle vision [the implementation of the Official Languages Act: a new approach, a new vision], the success of a comprehensive approach depends on the coordination of a central institution that has an authority over the entire federal machinery of government.

Such coordination would ensure that the federal institutions under the Roadmap take their responsibilities into account in their budget planning, report on plans and priorities and performance reports. That would lead to a better overall profile of all Roadmap investments, guarantee better linkages with provincial and territorial governments as well as with communities, and call on targeted institutions to consult with organizations and report on the coordinated efforts.

Essentially, there needs to be an active, horizontal governance structure to directly engage the key departments and agencies, and ensure strong and transparent leadership. I have often said that we wanted to be part of the solution. That is still the case. That is why, after having reviewed the implementation of the Roadmap to date, we would like to make concrete recommendations for the next steps.

First, in order to facilitate planning both for the communities and the departments, we recommend there be a template indicating how investments are being made under the Roadmap. We will come back to that. Furthermore, we know that your committee made a recommendation last fall calling on the Department of Canadian Heritage to make further use of multi-year agreements. We thank you for that and believe that the recommendation could extend to all institutions targeted by the Roadmap.

As for cooperation mechanisms with the communities, I said earlier that the Roadmap and the community strategic plan share a number of common elements. It would make sense to increase the linkages between the two. That is why we gave a detailed presentation of the community strategic plan to the members of the Interdepartmental Policy Committee in November, and that is the reason why we will be discussing implementation of the plan with the 15 departments attending the day of dialogue in May.

I hope that there will be more opportunities for discussion among the institutions targeted by the Roadmap, other departments and the communities in the future.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

One moment please, Ms. Kenny.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

I have a point of order: the translation is not working.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Perhaps we can check with our interpreters, but it seems that there is no English coming through at the moment.

It's back.

Could you please go back a paragraph?

[Marie-France Kenny]

I apologize. I am probably speaking too quickly for the interpreter. In fact, I was told about that at the beginning.

In the future, I hope there will be more opportunities for dialogue between the institutions contained in the Roadmap, the other departments and the communities. More specifically, in accordance with what is prescribed by section VII, we are asking that the government quickly implement, in cooperation with the communities, a transparent consultation structure founded on performance targets and indicators, that the government consult with communities in the development of evaluation mechanisms, including collecting information and validating this information by the communities; that the government work with communities to assess whether the changes have actually taken place on the ground regarding the ability of Canadians to live and work within the dynamic communities in the official language of their choice; and, lastly, to make public the way the budget was broken down, so that we can see where investments under the Roadmap were made, by year and by department.

Five years ago, on the request of the government, the FCFA coordinated the development of the communities' perspective on what accomplishments had been made halfway through the Official Plan on Official Languages. Now that the Roadmap is near its halfway point, I cannot insist enough on the importance of receiving the perspective of communities as a tool to benchmark, evaluate and, ultimately, achieve results. We are also aware that this perspective at the halfway point will sow the seeds of a government initiative which will come after the Roadmap.

We have ideas to share and, especially, we have a plan which is based on a common and motivating vision which we developed three years ago: a vision of life in French, in a dynamic community involving many organizations which offer a whole range of services and activities. This vision will require strong leadership on the part of both government and communities.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Ms. Kenny.

We will now begin our first round with Mr. Bélanger.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Donnelly.

Ms. Kenny, thank you very much.

My first question is for Ms. Glover, the Parliamentary Secretary for official languages.

Previously, with these kinds of consultations, the kind that will take place in May, we invited members of the opposition parties to send a representative. In fact, Mr. Godin participated in some of these consultations, during which members of the community met with representatives from different departments; often ministers were present as well.

Will the government invite representatives from the opposition parties to the dialogue which will take place in mid-May?

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Mr. Bélanger, I would like to point out that, during the first part of our meeting, we hear witnesses. Please also be aware that, in the second part of our meeting, we will be in camera. You can use your time any way you wish, but normally, now, it is between you and the witnesses.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Thank you for confirming that I can indeed ask the questions I wish of the witnesses, and that I can use my time as I see fit. However, I will ask the same question, and I will wait for an answer because I understand that you will have to discuss this matter with the minister and the government. That being said, if it was possible to receive an answer before that dialogue takes place, that would be greatly appreciated.

Further, in May, we will hear from—but we are still waiting for confirmation—Minister Moore, and possibly Minister Day, the President of the Treasury Board, to speak to the Roadmap. I share your opinion: since we are at the halfway point, it is important to point out any weaknesses the Roadmap might have.

My second question is for you, and for Mr. Donnelly, as well as to the officials with you. If you have any questions which you would like the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, and the President of the Treasury Board, to answer, please send them to us. I have no objection to sharing them with all the members of the committee, because the country could benefit from a greater degree of transparency as far as the Roadmap is concerned. We also tried to have more transparency regarding the action plan. So this is an invitation. I will use the content of your presentations from this morning to prepare for the two meetings we will have in May with the ministers.

In particular, I'm intrigued by your view, Mr. Donnelly, of the systemic flaw that can't be fixed at the end when you have an evaluation. There was a fairly detailed evaluation midway on the action plan. I hope there was a final evaluation on the action plan before the feuille de route was put in place. Was there not an occasion to influence the feuille de route in terms of the systemic flaw, or was the systemic flaw a continuation of the action plan?

It could be. So I'm just trying to determine if the systemic flaw that you perceived was already present and why we are not attacking it. If we haven't been, then indeed the mid-range, or mi-parcours, would be useful afin de corriger le tir, pardon.

[Robert Donnelly]

We talked about the gaps. I'll ask Sylvia to answer more specifically. Finding out what the gaps are lets us plan ahead.

[Sylvia Martin-Laforge, Director General, Quebec Community Groups Network]

The road map and its successor were the fruit of many consultations. At least, the action plan took enormous consultation in the beginning of 2000-2001.

We acknowledge in the English-speaking community that we were not quite ready for all of the initiatives being considered by the seven or eight departments at the time. The only place we were really ready was in health. There was a crying need for access to health services and a lot of work was done around health. The other sectors are quite lacking in structure, so the action plan had a huge impact in health but the other sectors were not great.

It's not about who and what. We weren't quite ready...our capacity. That's why we say in this speech “our evolving capacity”. Since 2000, the capacity of the community has grown and we've learned from good practices in health how better to work with the province in certain sectors.

In evaluation, Treasury Board policy evaluates the design and the delivery of a program at mid-term or at the end, where you make adjustments to the actual program. We were absent in many. Unless you do some special kind of analysis to say the English-speaking community was not there then, and then ask are they ready now, or is there a quid pro quo because we can't do that there.... Our point is that with all of the work that has been done, both with the action plan and the many millions of dollars, we will never be able to have a benefit in many sectors because it's already set. Many of the programs that were taken on by the road map were programs that had already been initiated with the action plan. So you can see that we're just moving along with older thinking--

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Can you give me a specific example?

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Bélanger. We'll get back to it in the next round.

Monsieur Nadeau.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Can you give Mr. Bélanger and ourselves specific examples, please?

[Sylvia Martin-Laforge]

The specific example that we brought up in this presentation today is around immigration. In Quebec, we don't want to talk about immigration. We think we need to talk about diversity, because Quebec's structure in that jurisdiction is particular and supports a very important aspect in Quebec. But if you look at it from a broader perspective, there are things that a strong English-speaking community can bring. Over the past three years, we've been working very hard with provincial and federal representatives to start to think about this.

It's not about immigration, really, because we have deep diversity in Quebec. But we still have young blacks who are vulnerable, under-represented, not working, and not available to work. That is not about recent immigration; it's about past immigration. Our whole structure around that group of cultural communities is different from immigration. We're making some headway, but we need research to continue making headway so that in a way that department can consider renewal in the community in a respectful, productive way for Quebec that doesn't fly in the face of a jurisdictional issue.

This requires a certain degree of finesse, a certain amount of passion and an interest for the English-speaking community.

That's my best example.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Good morning, Mr. Donnelly and Ms. Martin-Laforge.

Ms. Kenny, Ms. Bossé, I would like to know what the situation is at the interdepartmental level. This is a very important element. Certainly, we have the Roadmap, but the entire machinery of government must be able to help communities.

[Suzanne Bossé, Director General, Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada]

That is an excellent question. I could not tell you where things are at. However, it is clear that certain benchmarks have not been established, and we don't really know who is in charge of setting, directing or coordinating them right now.

For example, there is the recognition of credentials. Human Resources and Social Development Canada is currently working on this issue to ensure that new Canadians are well integrated, that they find work and remain in the country. Citizenship and Immigration Canada is also working on the recognition of foreign credentials.

However, these two organizations are not working together. Each department seems to be operating in its own silo. Therefore, we cannot say that the machinery of government is working in an efficient and streamlined manner. In the course of our representations, be it with the Secretariat for Official Languages, the OLSPB, Human Resources and Social Development Canada, or Citizenship and Immigration Canada, we kept on wondering how all of these organizations would coordinate their efforts. As it currently stands, interdepartmental cooperation is not really happening.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

You still have some time left, Mr. Nadeau.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

From that point of view, I presume that this is a relevant element.

What would it take to nudge the government along so that we can find a solution? This file has been ongoing since the beginning of the 1990s. A lot of work has been put into it and there have been discussions on this subject since 1970, that is, since the time when organizations, including anglophone organizations in Quebec, francophone organizations in the rest of Canada, and Acadian organizations, were created.

[Suzanne Bossé]

Indeed, we have just asked the representatives from the Official Languages Secretariat to discuss the issue of coordination in May, because it is a very serious challenge. I think that now is the time to sit down and talk about it, in the interest of both departments and communities. In fact, it is a common challenge. At the very least, with our Leaders' Forum and our Strategic Community Plan, we have already studied this issue and we have already developed work structures.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Yes.

[Marie-France Kenny]

If I may, I will repeat something that was said in November when we talked about official languages in our document that was made public, and it was said once again this morning. The issue of governance in official languages is a serious problem. There is no single person in charge of everything that happens in the departments and crown corporations. They are responsible for their own initiatives. People do not think automatically to consult their neighbours, the other departments, to find out what is happening in one area or another. If we could resolve this governance issue, that would already be a big help.