Official Languages Committee on April 27th, 2010

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

They weren't on board the two boats that left England and France and fought all the way to Canada.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Jean-Pierre Corbeil]

That's it.

I don't have the exact number, but there are quite a lot of Chinese parents who choose to send their children to immersion schools because they figure that may be an economic advantage for their children.

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

However, you say you have the figures, don't you?

[Jean-Pierre Corbeil]

We have those figures in the administrative files of the Tourism Division and of the Education Statistics Centre at Statistics Canada. We know how many people attend those schools by region. However, we don't have those figures by mother tongue of the parents. That aspect is more often anecdotal.

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

Who at Statistics Canada decides who will be entered on the form? If you don't already have those figures, I think it would be important for you to get them.

The people in the Chinese community in Vancouver have a great deal of will. I was there with the Canada-France Interparliamentary Committee. We thought it was incredible the number of people learning French and the number of people on the waiting list to be admitted to French immersion schools.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to look at the number of immigrants who are prepared to learn French.

[Jean-Pierre Corbeil]

Of course there are surveys at Statistics Canada. There are tonnes of surveys and there's the census.

However, to answer your question, I would say that one of the difficulties lies in the fact that these statistics are usually gathered by means of provincial administrative files. As a result, the major challenge is not only to make the forms of all the provinces somewhat homogenous, but also to include new questions in the forms. It's here that discussions with provincial representatives can become necessary.

For example, we know that, in Quebec, to gather statistics on education, we ask questions on mother tongue and language knowledge, questions that are generally not found in the forms and the files the other provinces send to us.

So the challenge is a special one and requires cooperation among the provinces at the national level.

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

Could you send the other figures to the committee?

[Jean-Pierre Corbeil]

Absolutely. I'll try to send you the figures we have on the subject.

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

I'd like to answer Mrs. Glover's question. You said you would need an entire day to talk about it. Perhaps you could take advantage of my last few minutes to continue talking about it?

[Jean-Pierre Corbeil]

Right now, I would say that question is related to the amendment to Part IV of the Official Languages Act. To date, we've used the first official language spoken as a criterion. Moreover, there are people who believe that we shouldn't be concerned with statistics, that we should instead simply stick to the communities, to the schools, etc. Unfortunately, this question is often based on statistics and depends on the figures we use for the census. Of course, we could consider everyone living outside Quebec who is able to speak French; there are nearly 2.5 million of them. However, are they necessarily likely to request services in French?

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

That can be a double-edged sword. For example, knowing the number of francophones who speak English, we might take it for granted that they don't need to be served in French.

[Jean-Pierre Corbeil]

Indeed. We know that nearly 45% of francophones outside Quebec live in municipalities where they represent less than 10% of the population and that 60% of those francophones speak English as their main language and mainly identify with the anglophone group. That's a challenge and also an issue. We may suppose that, if French were more present, they would use that language more, but we don't know that.

As you can see, there are some issues. On the one hand, we want to include as much as possible those who are likely to request services in French; on the other hand, a number of francophones do not request French-language services because English is their main language. So there are many issues in this area.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mauril Bélanger]

Thank you.

Now it's your turn, Mr. D'Amours.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'd like to continue on the sections of the forms, or data collection, which is related to the decisions made in each of the provinces. It may be difficult, since the same questions are not necessarily asked or no effort is made to obtain the same data in each of the provinces. So it is a major challenge to develop a national picture of a specific element. It's virtually impossible.

[Jean-Pierre Corbeil]

At Statistics Canada, as I mentioned to Mr. Godin, we conduct an enormous number of surveys on various topics. When we conduct surveys, often funded by various federal departments, we are able to ask the same questions in all provinces and of all respondents. To minimize the volume of responses, of course, we often try to use administrative files. If we already have information in administrative files, why would we ask questions in the context of surveys?

The problem is better documenting the language in which people study. For example, we know how many children attend immersion schools, how many children attend minority schools, but we don't know, based on those files, the mother tongue of those people. That information is not available. We had to wait for the Survey on the Vitality of Official Language Minorities in 2006 to really establish that 50% of children who have a French-speaking parent attend a minority school. Otherwise, we didn't know that because, in certain cases, anglophone children were attending minority schools because there was no immersion program. These issues are quite—

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Time is passing quickly, Mr. Corbeil.

Earlier you said that immigrants don't necessarily settle where francophones are in a community, but that they often settle near major centres in general. If I understand correctly, the problem is not necessarily attracting francophone immigrants to Canada, but rather finding solutions for rural areas. In the major rural areas—not in the major urban regions—the solution is the same for non-immigrants as for immigrants. You talked about work, the economy and various services in general, which are not necessarily related to language, all factors that are already problematic. If these people are looking for work, the economy and services, they'll settle around the major urban areas, even if that's not necessarily where the francophones are, and the problem of the rural regions will persist. We can very well take in all the immigrants we want, but until we provide a solution to the problem of the rural areas, it will always be hard to convince francophone immigrants to settle in a rural area, since they will be looking for the same conditions as non-immigrants.

[Jean-Pierre Corbeil]

Yes, you're absolutely right. This is a phenomenon that we've been observing for the past 10, 15 or 20 years. Francophones are clearly migrating from the rural to the urban areas. What we often observe is that the youngest, as in all communities, regardless of language group, leave the rural areas to go and live in urban areas in order to study. In many cases, when they study in urban areas, they subsequently stay there to hold a job.

So there is a phenomenon, and you are absolutely right, that affects—

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

It's similar.

[Jean-Pierre Corbeil]

—all the communities. I'll briefly mention an interesting observation that came out of a study that we conducted on health professionals and the official language minorities, at Health Canada's request. In a city like Toronto, nearly 25% of doctors were able to hold a conversation in French, despite the fact that the weight of francophones is nevertheless quite low in that city.

So there's the entire question of visibility and active offer of service which can also encourage people who have moved to an urban area to use the language. There is that aspect. But you are right about the disconnect that often exists between rural and urban areas, in attracting immigrants. We see it among non-immigrants as well.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mauril Bélanger]

You won't have time to ask another question and get an answer; so we'll move on.

I believe it is Mrs. Boucher's turn. You can check; I haven't been strict at all.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Good morning, gentlemen. This is very interesting. I have a lot of questions, but I'm going to ask two.

I saw in your profile that the francophone immigrant population is relatively young. As we know that young people are more open to the world and to many subjects that are of less interest to our generation, does that change the data? In addition, what services would that young francophone population need in order to fully integrate into Canadian society and to grow and develop in French?

In the same line of thinking, we have heard a lot about French-language services. When you ask the questions contained in your booklets for statistical purposes, why don't you ask respondents whether they would like to receive French-language services? Perhaps that might change the situation as well.

[Jean-Pierre Corbeil]

Thank you for asking me some very relevant questions.

The immigrant population, in particular the population that has two official languages, English and French, is indeed younger. What kind of impact can that have? From what comes to mind, knowing that school is the major driver for vitality in the community, over the years, as a result of the aging population and the fact that French is less and less being transmitted to the younger generation, we may wind up with schools where we have a lot more immigrants than non-immigrants. That depends on the regions, but that's a situation that may exist.

I know that the question of rights holders and section 23, which is based on mother tongue and not on the first official language spoken, is a completely different issue.

In a way, for rights holding parents who have not studied in French and whose mother tongue is not French, this is another issue. I would say, of course, that with a younger population, if there is a different dynamism, there is a space that could well be occupied perhaps to a greater degree by those immigrants.

With regard to services, I repeat that it is extremely difficult to ask questions in a census. We already have a census that includes nearly 54 questions. So the burden of the answers is significant.

However, in certain surveys, the Canadian Community Health Survey or the one I referred to earlier on the vitality of the minorities, we asked francophone respondents whether they had requested services in their language and whether it was important for them to have services. In general, in response to that question, the majority of francophones say that, even though they don't use French regularly, it's very important for them to receive services and to ensure that their children speak the minority language. There is a clear desire for services. However, when we ask them why they didn't ask to be served in French, a degree of resignation sometimes emerges and suggests that, ultimately, that would be too complicated or take too long because they assume the specialist or the person who provides the service to them doesn't speak French. These are answers that we received in that survey.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

We talk a lot about francophones, but I know some francophiles who would be very happy to get certain services in French. What can we do to help them?

At some point, perhaps we won't have this issue, but there are francophiles who speak fluent French even though they are not of francophone stock. It may be their second language, but they are also rights holders. What do we do for them?

[Jean-Pierre Corbeil]

There would definitely be a way to gather that type of information.