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.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
April 22nd, 2010 / 9:35 a.m.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome to all of you.
Minister Moore talks about consultation. Can you let us know what consultation has taken place between the two organizations in question or others that you know of? Has there really been consultation? Is there really a dialogue going on with the minority communities, and have there been any results?
9:35 a.m.
President, Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada
Of course, there were consultations with Bernard Lord in order to develop the Roadmap. As well,...
9:35 a.m.
President, Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada
Yes, I was not there and I cannot tell you about that. I was not invited to that closed-door meeting. There were people from the FCFA, but I was not there personally. However, that did not prevent me from making comments. That consultation did take place.
We had come up with our own Roadmap, so to speak, which was the Community Strategic Plan, as part of the Sommet des communautés francophones et acadiennes. That document was also provided as input.
As for whether there has been consultation, the action plan called for a lot, which is no longer the case in the Roadmap. Because we asked for it, this initial day of dialogue will take place.
9:35 a.m.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
Thank you.
My question, however, is whether there has been consultation. I know that you have said that Bernard Lord was consulted. But that happened behind closed doors. People wanted to talk about the court challenges program, and he didn't want to talk about it.
I think you remember when that took place. It was all in camera. You couldn't talk about the court challenge. That's not consultation.
9:35 a.m.
President, Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada
I would say that the approach is not consistent. Some departments and crown corporations consult us, whereas others do not. Some do so at our request, when we take the initiative.
9:35 a.m.
President, Quebec Community Groups Network
Mr. Lord's consultation was before, though, at the start of the road map. What we're saying here today is that in the consultation, or the mid-term evaluation, we keep coming back to this thing of the gaps that are still there and have to be identified. It's not at the end of the process, so there is going to be a chance. Sylvia will talk about other types of things. But when you're talking about consultations, you mean about the implementation of the road map over the last two and a half years--is that what you mean?
9:35 a.m.
President, Quebec Community Groups Network
Okay, it's not something that's coming up or not something that happened before.
9:35 a.m.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
Yes, here's a road map, and we're two years into it. Was there any dialogue with you to see if they were on the right road, or asking your opinion? Was there anything that came from the government to participate with you people?
9:35 a.m.
Director General, Quebec Community Groups Network
The major part of consultation we were getting over the past, I would say, six months—and certainly our colleagues in our sister organization would say it too—is that many departments are talking about their three- to four-year plans going forward, in our case, rather than a lot about the road map as it stands. We are not hearing very much about the road map right now. I can name departments--for example, DEC, Economic Development in Quebec--they have not asked us about the road map. There's a few million dollars, over $10 million or around $10 million at DEC in Quebec. That's a lot of money for us. So there's not a lot of consultation on the mechanism of the road map. However, DEC recently came to see us--which was really innovative over the past few years--about the future, which for us is important, because we remain convinced that the road map, the action plan, and the feuille de route do not really represent what we need. But the consultation on the road map has been, I would concur, severely lacking in its focus. I guess it's a problem of focus on results, on what is being spent, on giving us information. So there's a lack of focus.
9:40 a.m.
Director General, Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada
As was already mentioned, the approach is not consistent. For example, our organizations working in health have been consulted. However, there has been no dialogue concerning immigration, despite the fact that we work with the steering committee. The department has provided us with targets that it has set on its own, which are intermediate performance targets. We have not been consulted about either the targets or the indicators.
9:40 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Steven Blaney
Thank you very much, Mr. Godin.
We will now go to our Parliamentary Secretary, Ms. Glover.
9:40 a.m.
Conservative
Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to give a warm welcome to our witnesses, whom we have met with a number of times already.
I am somewhat taken aback by what I am hearing regarding consultation. I personally am certainly available. We have had a number of consultations with you in the FCFA.
We meet regularly in my office, so to not be acknowledged for the time that's put into it is a bit surprising.
I'm particularly surprised by QCGN this morning. The apologies that you made to me this morning for missing your consultation meeting with me last week I truly felt were sincere. Yet you didn't mention that this morning when Monsieur Godin asked if there were consultations. There have been consultations. In fact, I have to say the department meets regularly, at least once a year anyway, with the organizations. I wanted to meet, and QCGN actually turned me down and said they would only meet with the minister. And last week the minister and I waited for half an hour for a consultation that no one showed up to. So I'm a little surprised, when we talk about consultations, that those consultations aren't acknowledged.
Furthermore, when we talk about our commitment to official languages, this is a feuille de route with $1.1 billion. That is sans précédent , it's an historic amount of money, and that is a firm commitment to both the English-speaking minority community in Quebec and of course the French-speaking minority communities across the rest of the country.
In any event, I do have some questions.
To begin with, I want to provide some information to the FCFA, since I understand that it is hard for them to find information on the Web sites. The Web site of the Official Languages Secretariat has everything that you are looking for on the other Web sites. Perhaps there could be a link for the Health Canada Web site, for example. That said, everything is on the Secretariat Web site. They are required to provide that information. I wanted to share that in order to help you.
On the immigration issue, I am very pleased to hear that comment, since it was the government that suggested that our committee examine immigration. Things are changing a lot in that area, and there are consequences for both minority communities. I can tell you that we have doubled the amount of money available since the time of the action plan. So I am eager to see the results of our immigration study. I believe that this will help us remain engaged with our minority communities.
I would like to know how your two groups—you are umbrella groups, in a way—exchange information. How do you organize consultations and exchanges? Do the FCFA and QCGN hold meetings together?
9:45 a.m.
President, Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada
Both organizations together?
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
9:45 a.m.
President, Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada
Yes, absolutely. We do talk.
Ms. Glover, you are indeed very accessible. When we were talking about consultations earlier, we were talking about departmental mechanisms to work with sectoral organizations. We were not talking about consultations with you or with other members. People on the committee, especially this one, have always been accessible, and I would not want you to interpret our comments on consultations as suggesting otherwise.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB
I share everything we talk about with the departments. That is my main job. In case you didn't know, that is my job. I share everything we discuss in our consultations with the departments.
9:45 a.m.
President, Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada
Exactly.
That said, the departments and crown corporations have an obligation to consult us on program development, and that does not happen systematically. So that is what we were referring to. It was not about your accessibility, which we know is not a problem. We are not questioning that.
Regarding the Official Languages Secretariat site, there has indeed been an investment made. You are correct in saying that the information is available there. It was pointed out earlier as well. But there is no information on what is upcoming. So it is difficult for us to know what to expect and plan ahead. We do not know what will go where.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Steven Blaney
Thank you very much, Ms. Glover.
Yes, Mr. Donnelly. A quick comment, please.
9:45 a.m.
President, Quebec Community Groups Network
On the second question, of whether we talk, of course we talk on a regular basis, especially when hot issues arise. One that comes to mind is the cancelling of the court challenges program and the implementation of the LRSP. There was huge consultation on what the communities were going to do about that and many other issues.
To come back to your first point, about a missed meeting, I'll also echo what she says. I don't think that's what Mr. Godin meant about consultation. That's not the understanding I have of his question.
Do we consult with politicians? Of course we do, all the time. We set up meetings. But when we come to Ottawa to meet representatives from Immigration Canada, we come with reality hats on, knowing that they will talk to us all we want, but when you look at the reality of the jurisdictions, what can we expect from them? They're very careful about what they say.
We continue to meet with people. We asked to meet the minister, because we still think the issue in the throne speech was important. We would have talked of other things as well, but they declined and asked us to meet with you, which we accepted. Due to a medical emergency last week we unfortunately had to cancel our visit to Ottawa. I was simply not available.
In speaking to you earlier this morning you told me that with your agenda it takes from three to six months to get another appointment. We hope to have another appointment in months three, four, or five, as we requested in our letter earlier this week. So we have talked, but the formal consultations will be on May 18 and 20.