Evidence of meeting #11 for Official Languages in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was departments.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Steven Blaney
Thank you, Mr. Donnelly. I hope you were able to be served in the language of your choice when you went to the hospital.
We'll now begin the second round with Mr. D'Amours.
April 22nd, 2010 / 9:45 a.m.
Liberal
Jean-Claude D'Amours Liberal Madawaska—Restigouche, NB
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I think that we, for our part, understood what you meant by "consultation": it is not individual meetings with members of Parliament. If you really want to reach your objectives and have your needs addressed, you need to be able to discuss issues. Those discussions cannot be held one on one; rather, everyone needs to get together to look at the situation and see what needs to be changed.
Before talking about the Roadmap directly, I just want to make a short comment. The chairman has raised the issue with some of you about a letter from Statistics Canada that was sent out. Before the committee meeting started, he indicated that this was a terrible thing. I would like to read you a few excerpts. I think that it is important for me to mention this when we are talking about respect for our official languages and the government's efforts to have the communities respected.
I will just read these excerpts and then move on to something else. I apologize to the interpreters, since I know that it will be very difficult for them.
À partir des dernières années, répondants à l'enquête requis à répondre à L'enquête sur les établissements de soins pour bénéficiaires internes utilisant un système électronique au Internet. Nous vous prière d'annoncer que cette est maintenant possible. Access à la nouveau système de questionnaire électronique est facile et vite. De la line d'adresse au votre Internet. Veuillez noter bien qu'il y aura des rappels afin de compléter le sondage pourraient être envoyés s'il vous plat. Veuillez inclure votre identifier l'enquête q'il est trouver juste en haute de votre nom d'établissements dans l'adresse.
As you can appreciate, not many people can understand that. It is a bit difficult for the interpreters to try to render it—I apologize to those who are listening to the interpretation; don't worry, we did not understand any more than you did.
Let us now talk about the Roadmap. You raised some interesting points earlier about interdepartmental relations. It is also interesting to look at certain documents that were prepared for us for comparison purposes. One item is called the Primary Health Care Transition Fund. It comes with a nice note that says: "This component of the Action Plan terminated in 2006-2007. We unfortunately do not have any specific figures to determine whether this funding was reallocated to other components under Health Canada's responsibility".
It is so broad and complicated—moreover, the information is not provided—that I can understand that it becomes very difficult to know what the various sources of funding and resources are within the different departments. That is something that we have already talked about in the committee. If I remember correctly, the Minister of Heritage said that this was an important issue. One has to wonder just how important it is, since it is difficult, if not impossible, to find.
So if you could give us more explanations about this... After all, it is not just Canadian Heritage that has responsibility for official languages and what the government calls the Roadmap; all the departments are supposed to play a role. Do you feel it is reasonable for the information to be so vague and for it to be so difficult to see the connection between the various departments and the Roadmap? You can—
9:50 a.m.
Director General, Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada
In our presentation, we stated clearly that we wanted all the information to be quickly and easily available. We have talked about the Horizontal Results-Based Management and Accountability Framework. We referred to the reports on plans and priorities in the performance reports. We have tried to identify, in each department's report on plans and priorities, the plan, the priority, the targets and the indicators for the next three years.
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
9:50 a.m.
Director General, Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada
I am not saying that it does not exist, but it is impossible to find.
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
9:50 a.m.
President, Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada
Except for Canadian Heritage.
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
Jean-Claude D'Amours Liberal Madawaska—Restigouche, NB
—to organize things, since you cannot find this.
9:50 a.m.
President, Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada
Yes.
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
Jean-Claude D'Amours Liberal Madawaska—Restigouche, NB
That is understandable, since you have to try to look ahead, and especially if you have to say that it is too bad that you did not know because you would have applied or done something.
9:50 a.m.
President, Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada
It becomes difficult for us to manage issues and to look ahead and plan, when we do not know what is coming down the pipe, where, how, or from whom. Right now, things are not clearly identified as being part of the Roadmap, except by Canadian Heritage and Official Languages.
9:50 a.m.
President, Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada
Yes.
9:50 a.m.
Liberal
Jean-Claude D'Amours Liberal Madawaska—Restigouche, NB
That is, the Roadmap does not necessarily set out a vision. It's on a day-to-day basis, depending on people's good will and the information that is disclosed.
9:50 a.m.
President, Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada
It depends on the levels of knowledge and understanding of government departments and corporations. There again, it all comes back to governance. Who does the Roadmap belong to? It belongs to the government as a whole, but to whom?
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
9:50 a.m.
Director General, Quebec Community Groups Network
If there is one significant difference between the old HR management accountability framework that was under the action plan and the new HR MAF--or however we want to categorize it--it's that the coordination aspect is visibly, demonstrably absent. You can't find it, you can't see it, and they don't talk about it.
9:55 a.m.
Liberal
9:55 a.m.
Director General, Quebec Community Groups Network
There was a concern that there was a need to demonstrate interdepartmental evaluations to tell the citizens of Canada, not just the official language minority communities, how the money was spent and what the indicators were. There was coordination and you could see it.
I don't want to talk about the moneys or anything like that; that's not the point. It's that technically HR MAF is not doing the job.
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
9:55 a.m.
Bloc
Monique Guay Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
Thank you very much.
Welcome to all four of you. Once again, it's a pleasure to meet with you.
The Roadmap is important. I see that under the former Treasury Board Secretariat action plan, the amount granted was $72.64 million over five years, whereas under the Roadmap, it was reduced to $17.52 million over five years. That definitely makes a considerable difference.
You said earlier that there is a lack of consultation and dialogue between the various departments. You also stated that the Roadmap is not complete because there has been no consultation concerning targets. So there are really substantial gaps. Will you be studying this? Have you scheduled meetings with ministers or deputy ministers? That is important.
You can answer me a bit later, but I would like to add something. You are welcome to meet with us any day, anytime, as often as you want. These meetings between us are formal, but they are not government meetings. You need to meet with government officials who can really do something within their department. Even if you met with Ms. Glover, myself or my colleague Jean-Claude D'Amours, that won't change anything. You need to meet with ministers, deputy ministers and senior officials who will respond immediately and be able to give you answers.
9:55 a.m.
President, Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada
I will say that it is somewhat difficult. As soon as an issue concerns the FCFA or francophone and Acadian communities, we are generally referred to the Department of Canadian Heritage. But the official languages issue is not the sole responsibility of this department, but rather of the government as a whole.
9:55 a.m.
President, Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada
We don't understand. Mr. Moore would have to meet with us practically every two weeks to hear all these matters, but of course he does not have that kind of availability.
So access is sometimes difficult. It is easy to meet with officials from some departments, and there are others who say that it is not possible; they do not even try to set a later date. Naturally, we try to schedule meetings when I am in town. So the officials do not say that they would be available instead on another day; they simply say that they are not available.
So I can tell you that accessibility is a particular challenge. We often meet with senior officials, and that works up to a point. There are challenges, but not with all departments.
9:55 a.m.
Bloc
Monique Guay Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
Could you tell us which departments you are referring to? We could perhaps exert pressure on them to ensure that they meet with you.