Official Languages Committee on Feb. 7th, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

I would like to call to order this 43rd meeting of the Standing Committee on Official Languages. This is the second of three meetings we have scheduled for today.

We are very efficient.

I would like to welcome our witnesses.

Welcome. We had an opportunity to meet with certain witnesses at this morning's meeting. This afternoon, we will be at the Centre de la francophonie in Whitehorse.

We, the members of the Standing Committee on Official Languages, are very pleased to be here. This is our first visit to the Far North since the committee was first established more than 30 years ago, following passage of the Official Languages Act. So, you have before you a microcosm of Parliament. Here today are members of Parliament representing both the government and the Official Opposition.

Apparently, Mr. Généreux, a government MP, is currently stuck at the Vancouver airport. Mr. Lauzon is with us, but Mr. Généreux is having a problem with his flights. We will be following the situation closely. As you can see, the atmosphere is less formal than during question period and, hopefully, less acrimonious.

Without any further ado, I would like to officially welcome the representatives of all the organizations we will be hearing from this afternoon, including the Executive Director of the organization Les EssentiElles, Ms. Ketsia Houde, as well as the chair of the Comité francophone catholique Saint-Eugène-de-Mazenod, Mr. Jean-Marc Bélanger, and Mr. Claude Gosselin, who is a priest.

I invite you now to make your opening comments. Members will have questions for you after that.

Mr. Gosselin, please.

[Rev. Father Claude Gosselin, Priest, Comité francophone catholique Saint-Eugène-de-Mazenod]

Good afternoon.

Thank you very much for giving us this opportunity to share with you our experience of life in French here. I hope this will be helpful to you. We have prepared an overview of who we are, what we do, what we're experiencing and how we deal with it. If this brings grist to the mill, that will be a good thing.

I would like to give you some historical background regarding the Comité francophone catholique Saint-Eugène-de-Mazenod. While some religious services in French have been offered since 1991, the Oblate fathers ultimately were the majority here. Most are Oblates who were in the North, and many of them were Francophone. One of the Oblate fathers from Quebec felt strongly about services for Francophones. So, starting in 1991, there were religious services once a week, as requested by certain families.

The Comité francophone catholique Saint-Eugène-de-Mazenod, however, was officially established in 1998. Its mandate is quite simple: it is to provide an active pastoral life to the Francophone catholic population of the Yukon.

In the early 1990s, as I was saying, the pastoral ministry was initially in the hands of an Oblate father who had been living in the Yukon for several decades and felt strongly about the need to support the Francophone cause. After that, other priests followed from the Dioceses of Chicoutimi, in Quebec, and Quebec City itself.

It's important to note here that, at the time, the Anglophone diocese was not interested in providing pastoral service in French. It was only through the determination, tenacity and resourcefulness of men, women and families that this service came into being and has continued to exist for some 20 years now. Anglophones have no choice but to accept us.

Without having the legal status of a parish—we do not have a parish, in fact—our Christian community is more than 200 strong, and the pastoral reality is the same. Our community is diverse in terms of age and origin: it goes from newborns to seniors, some as old as 97. It includes Francophone and Francophile single persons, couples and families who, in many cases as well, are from all the different provinces of Canada and from Europe.

We would initially gather in the schools for Sunday mass; since 1997, however, the Anglophone Sacred Heart parish has been providing us with accommodation and technical support, in the form of space for a secretariat in the church rectory and a weekly meeting place in the cathedral.

Originally supported financially by the Quebec organization Mission chez nous, which provides support to missions in Quebec's Far North, we now receive half of our annual funding from Catholic Missions in Canada, which has the same mandate for all of Canada's Far North. The other half of our budget comes from donations from our members or Francophone parishes and organizations in Quebec.

I would now like to talk about our areas of activity. Although it tends to be more concentrated in Whitehorse, our pastoral action extends all across the Yukon Territory, based on the needs of Francophones and their communities. I have just come back after a week in Dawson.

Our priority areas are liturgical services, faith education and sacramental initiation, fraternity and community life, care and spiritual support, visits to the elderly, the sick and families, as well as considerable emphasis on social justice and mutual assistance.

So, a priest and a technical assistant responsible for pastoral life encourage the development of activities and support the actions of dozens of volunteers, without whom pastoral services would not exist. Because this is a community need, people quickly understood that, if they wanted services, they would have to develop them themselves.

We were told that we could talk about some of the issues we are facing and make recommendations in that regard. We have two. This brief preamble will perhaps have allowed you to better understand our issues, based on which we have some recommendations to make with respect to the way of life of the Francophone minority in the Yukon.

The first one is this: what brings our Christian community together is not, first and foremost, language; rather, it is the desire to celebrate our faith in our language. One cannot help but observe that there is a natural equation between the language of the heart and the mother tongue.

The whole area of spirituality works that way. Many events in life—the birth of children, illness, mourning and death—are experienced most fully and most naturally in one's mother tongue. Visits to the elderly who are less able to cope on their own, and to the dying, are particularly eloquent examples of that. Many French-speaking people who have lived most of their lives in English, here or in other Canadian provinces, are comforted by the ability to once again be able to share their experiences, memories, concerns and hopes in their mother tongue.

It's as if the language engraved on the hard disk of their brain or their soul suddenly began to prevail, for some, over their memory loss, for others, over their growing fragility, and for others still, living in even greater isolation, over their disconnectedness from reality. I discovered that here, because I was part of a majority. That was something new for me.

One day, a Francophone nurse working in a centre told us about a lady who was dying all alone and who was French-speaking. It was the first time I saw that kind of rapport. That lady had lived her entire life in English, but she died in French. The last thing she was able to say in French was: Hail Mary. That was when I realized the significance of this.

On another occasion, a young woman who spoke only English remembered that her mother used to hum songs in French. She was from Manitoba. She had been suffering from Alzheimer's disease for several years. Her daughter believed that her mother didn't have much longer to live. She told me that she hoped someone would come and pray with her in French. That was a very happy coincidence for me, because I did not speak English at the time. The lady in question was the same age as my mother. As soon as I began reciting prayers the lady knew, she opened her eyes and started moving her lips. She lived for a year that way. She was senile in English, but she prayed in French. There is a very strong connection there that people tend to talk about a lot more now in homes for the elderly. When people know that no one speaks French, they try to establish that kind of rapport.

Providing spiritual support to the dying is another area where the reestablishment of spiritual contact is often connected to a lifetime of experiences that are deeply embedded in these individuals. They have the sense of finding a certain facility again when they make contact with their mother tongue, the language of their roots, the first language that penetrated their being when they were still in the womb. The pastoral service is also available to quite an extensive community network for the sick and their families.

There is also poverty, the housing crisis, domestic violence, depression and other problems, which are no different for Anglophones than they are for Francophones. And yet these realities are that much more bitterly felt when there is, in addition, an inability to make one's self understood in one's language.

The following recommendation is quite simple, but I think it's always a good idea to mention it. I suggest that, with respect to health and social services—particularly services for families, seniors and the sick—a complete range of services be available in French in accordance with the Act. There is a need, not only to provide services in French, but also to promote respect and dignity of the human person.

If the Comité francophone catholique has managed to provide pastoral service in French for the last 20 years, it is more as a result of active resistance than any recognition by the Anglophone majority. We are not waiting to be given the right to exist, but we do exist, humbly and actively, and seek to impose our presence in all its authenticity and colour and its originality, within our diocese and church, but also the entire Yukon community.

That active resistance facilitates the necessary mobilisation of all our members in the pursuit and attainment of our objectives. It also reminds us that nothing can be taken for granted. While our most ardent desire is to continue to experience our faith in French, it is also important to recognize that this service will remain dynamic only as long as the people wishing to receive it remain involved. Indeed, it is that involvement that leaves its mark and allows the Anglophone majority to open up to that duality, as if by contamination or by attraction. It is important to state that this is also the lot of all Francophone organizations in the Yukon.

So, our recommendation, in support of a dynamic minority which too often grows weary at having to defend the legitimate right to speak French in a country with two official languages, is that both the federal and territorial governments show some political will by clearly recognizing that linguistic duality and enforcing it in concrete terms. To that end, the federal government must improve its monitoring mechanisms to ensure respect for the Official Languages Act and effective promotion of linguistic duality.

Its involvement would encourage the territorial government and all other civil or religious institutions to admit the French fact as a building block in building the Yukon.

In closing, I would say that, based on what we are experiencing in Yukon, linguistic duality receives greater recognition when it is experienced as a companion to the other culture, rather than as something that sits in opposition to it. The CFC would like to see the achievements of the minority acknowledged as a source of cultural enrichment for the entire community. That companionship is part of the history of the Yukon. Why not ensure that this historic recognition remains an example. That is our hope.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you very much, Mr. Gosselin.

We will move on now to Ms. Ketsia Houde.

[Ketsia Houde, Executif Director, Les EssentiElles]

Thank you for accepting our request to appear.

Les EssentiElles is a non-profit organization that was founded in 1995. I would like to tell you a little story. It was the then President of the AFY, whom you met this morning, who, seeing that the needs of Francophone women were not well enough defined or dealt with by the organization, asked one of her friends to present a motion at the general meeting stating that separation was necessary and that Les EssentiElles should become an independent group. After that, she resigned from her position at the AFY to join the team of EssentiElles. That gives you some idea of the origins of our group. It was the then President of the AFY who detected a need, and the women supported her to move the project forward.

We are actively involved in enhancing the quality of life of Francophone women in the Yukon as we try to meet their needs. Our mission is to act as their spokesperson in our relations with the AFY, the school board and all the various Francophone and Anglophone organizations, so that the needs and interests of Francophone women taken into account. One of the characteristics of our organization is that we represent women from all over, from all walks of life. We do not only work with children and the sick; we also work in such areas as social justice and education, and we sit on a variety of health-related committees, as well as being members of the Community Partnership in Education. So, we are active in every area, but in a limited fashion, obviously. That is the reason why we advocate with respect to all of these different issues, depending on the priorities set by the committee, but always with a focus on women.

I did not have much time to prepare my presentation, because the invitation arrived late. So, in terms of my presentation, I would like to talk a little about Canadian Heritage. Our ability to fulfill our mission as a spokesperson is possible through the financial assistance provided under Canadian Heritage's Official Language Minority Communities Support Program, under the Roadmap for 2000-2013. That funding is the engine that enables us to carry out our work, and we would like to see it increased. We have been receiving the same amount of money since 2006, with a slight increase between 2003 and 2006.

Basic expenses for the group increase with the cost of living, and to an even greater extent in the North. Diversification of our funding is one of our priorities, but it is fairly limited for women's groups in Canada, given the fact that, in recent years, there have been massive cuts to Status of Women Canada's programming. There is also the fact that the majority of the funding is now project funding, which means that resources are drawn from the basic operating budget in order to carry out projects. Often employees end up leaving to pursue other professional challenges. Also, when a project is completed and we have not been able to find another project for a fantastic employee who is fully operational, qualified, speaks French and does a good job, we end up losing that employee. It is extremely difficult to retain human resources within the organization.

We would like to point out that the dynamic focus of our group, and therefore its contribution to the vitality of the French fact, is closely connected to the financial assistance we receive from Canadian Heritage under the Roadmap.

With respect to Citizenship and Immigration Canada, there is currently no service in French offered to Francophone immigrants, something that was mentioned this morning by the AFY. We also note that CIC is not fulfilling its obligation to provide services in both official languages. The contract signed with the Louise Multucultural Community Centre does not include an obligation to provide services in both languages.

Francophone immigrant women therefore do not have the same opportunities to become integrated into the community, both the Yukon and Franco-Yukon communities, something which has an effect on their ability to contribute to the expansion of the French fact. All across Canada, we need immigrants to strengthen our communities. If Francophone immigrants arrive here and cannot become integrated into the community or receive services in French, they will have a much harder time feeling as though they're part of the community and will be less likely to stay in the Yukon to participate in community development.

A recent contribution, a project aimed at Francophone immigration, is a step in the right direction. If the project continues, that could attract new Francophones from various regions of the world. However, if there are no settlement services, they won't really be able to become settled, and will end up not staying. A project gets off the ground to welcome Francophones to the area, but then they are not given any services to help them become settled.

With respect to health care, Les EssentiElles offers a prenatal nutrition program to pregnant women and supports them as well as the entire family, the fathers included, up until their child is one year of age.

That program is critical in terms of ensuring language transmission in Francophone and exogamous families, because the ability of Francophone families to receive support and be involved in activities in French during pregnancy and up until their child turns one, means they can retain and pass on the French language and, more importantly, break their isolation. If a family that comes here has to become integrated into an Anglophone group, it is not so simple for them. The parents then have to speak English to their child, when it would be preferable that they speak to the child in French. So, this program allows families to get together and receive services, information and references. Other details may seem insignificant to some—such as the need to know the English translation for “rougeole”. When people go to a health care centre because they believe their child has reached an age when he should be vaccinated, but they don't know the name of the vaccination, the nurse may look at them strangely, making them feel uncomfortable and complicating access to services. That is a problem. With funding, our group develops resources—for example, small index cards that give the translation for different vaccines and illnesses.

On a number of occasions, the committee has pointed out the lack of programs in French for children aged one to school age. A program is available for children up to the age of one, but between that age and the time when children enter school, there is no program in place to allow people to meet and be together. There are in English, but not in French. The Community Action Program for Children would meet that need, but funding for the program has not been renewed in several years. So it has not been possible to register in that program. We have been making our needs known to the Public Health Agency of Canada since at least 2000, but have thus far received no answer.

One of the problems we face, which may be of interest to you, is that there is no bilingual officer managing the programs we receive through Health Canada, and specifically the Public Health Agency of Canada. Because that is the case, every application we make must be translated, whether it involves funding, changes to the budget or requests of another nature. So, on a daily basis, if I have a question for my officer, I send her an e-mail in English, because otherwise, she has to have it translated, which takes a week; in the meantime, I have to wait. Yet under the Official Languages Act, things are not supposed to work that way. I should be able to communicate with federal government officials in French, but that is not the case here.

Last year, we presented a special project on diabetes. We received the funding we had requested, but the grant application was only partially translated into French. In such a case, the officers reviewing the application only access part of the information. The problem here is that these people have not invested the necessary amount of money to have our complete application translated. In that case, we did receive funding, but the opposite could occur if people do not receive complete information.

The health and welfare of Francophone families is the cornerstone of community development, and maintaining the French language at home has a direct influence over registration at the French day care and school. Without the prenatal program, which gives families an opportunity to speak French right from the beginning, it will be more difficult later for them to attend the Francophone day care or school.

As I mentioned, our organization covers every sector of the community, whether it's the economy, health care, employment or culture, an area where Mr. Nadon, whom you met this morning is involved. Financial support from the federal government, through Franco-Yukoner community organizations such as the Association franco-yukonnaise, l'école Émilie-Tremblay, l'école secondaire de l'Académie Parhélie or the Community Health Partnership, are fundamental to our community's ability to assert itself and develop.

The vitality of other organizations has a direct impact on our work, since we cooperate closely with a variety of organizations. For example, as regards training that targets the specific needs of women, a course in basic mechanics is offered to women in French. In terms of promoting and supporting women artists in the field of arts and culture, in cooperation with the AFY, we will be presenting a group exhibition in March which will be an opportunity for Franco-Yukoner women to exhibit their art. It will be a chance to promote Francophone women artists and ensure that they have their rightful place in these activities. That is part of our work. Many women are working within the organization at this time. Often this happens quite naturally, but it's not systematic. Part of our role is to ensure that women have a presence.

In terms of continuity and increased operating funds that would reflect the rise in the cost of living, which is particularly high in the North, they will be critical in the coming years to ensure that what French-speaking Yukoners have achieved in the last 25 years is not lost but is, on the contrary, sustained and strengthened. The cultural, social and economic vitality of our community clearly demonstrates that the resources provided under the Roadmap are a key component of promoting Canada's two official languages. Its renewal is of paramount importance for our community.

I believe you had an opportunity to hear from government officials this morning. At the territorial level, we have noted that the offer of services in French is extremely uneven and based more on individuals than on the services themselves. Indeed, there are not necessarily any positions designated bilingual. Often there is one, but it disappears. A person who speaks French stays in the position for six months, but when that person leaves, the service is no longer available. With respect to several different services, the government determined there was bilingual staff, but active offer is not consistent, which makes requesting services difficult. People come to the counter and ask to be served in French. The attendant replies that he will find someone who will can provide service in French, but that may take 10 or 15 minutes. So, in the meantime, people have to wait, with everyone looking at them. Then the attendant finally comes back and says that the individual in question is on a break, asking whether they want to wait. That is when people decide they have better things to do, so they simply choose to speak English. Yes, there is service in French, but most of the time, it is not available.

There are several departments where it is possible to apply for funding in French, such as Status of Women Canada, which we deal with, and the Community Development Fund. However, even there, the last time I made an application, I received a call from someone wanting to know whether one part of the application was identical to the previous one, in order to avoid having to have it translated again. It was a project application, meaning that it wasn't the same thing and, in any case, they are the ones that demand different applications. It is unpleasant to receive that kind of call.

In terms of government documents, the translation is irregular. Franco-Yukoners don't have systematic access to documents in French, and it is not unusual to have to insist that the documents be translated, or for the department to ask us which part of the report we want to have translated. One department asked me whether we had funds to translate its material. I was quite shocked by that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Was it to translate something from French into English?

[Ketsia Houde]

They were departmental documents in English. They told us they had no money to have them translated into French and asked us whether we did. Obviously we do not. It was a document from the Yukon government on the prevention of sexual assault, and since they had no funds to translate it into French, they asked if we would do it.

One of the things the committee should try to ascertain is whether there is any form of consultation or communication between people. At the present time, there are consultations on services in French in areas deemed by the community to be a priority, including the ones dealing on the justice system that took place two weeks ago. We received an invitation in December, I believe, and the consultation did take place, but there has been no information provided as to whether there will be a report or a plan of action. We met with officials to talk about the current situation, but without ever receiving any information to suggest that a report or plan of action would be produced at a given time. It's all very vague. A process is in place, but in terms of results, I'm not sure what they will look like.

As for policing services, the RCMP is the police force in charge in the Yukon. In the territories, violence against women, which includes domestic violence and sexual assault, is three to four times higher than in the rest of Canada. So, it's a major problem. Furthermore, access to bilingual police officers is crucial in order for Francophone women to be able to properly explain their circumstances, and thereby lay charges and launch the judicial process. At the present time, the RCMP has no bilingual officers available on an ongoing basis. A woman may make a complaint because her husband is beating her and call the police station, but there will not necessarily be any Francophone officers available, meaning that she will have difficulty recounting what happened. In a document published by the Alliance des femmes de la francophonie canadienne, entitled “Mythes et réalités sur les femmes francophones victimes de violence”, they cite the example of a woman trying to explain that her husband assaulted her, and the officer asking her if she was “beaten”, when what she is actually trying to say is that she was “bitten”. They couldn't understand each other. The officer thought that her husband had beaten her, when she was telling him that he had bitten her. This is the kind of situation that makes it difficult to access services, not to mention the constant obligation to translate.

With respect to health care services, access is problematic because of a lack of bilingual health care personnel, which results in additional problems for women, who are not always able to explain their health issues. As was mentioned this morning, when you have a health problem and you're stressed out, it's difficult to explain what is going on. It's complicated, and if, in addition, you have to do that in a second language, it's even worse. That can lead to delays in receiving services, either because the person does not receive the correct diagnosis, or because the physician doesn't understand us, which means that treatment is increasingly delayed. I also found out about one women who had been seeing a doctor for two years. He couldn't understand her and didn't realize that she had a chronic illness. Finally, she came to talk to staff at the Community Health Partnership to get help. They realized that the doctor had not understood a thing about her issues and had no idea what was going on. As a result, he had not done the diagnostic tests that he should have done to allow her to receive appropriate care. She had been waiting for two years because her doctor didn't understand what she was saying, and she did not realize it. Those are specific situations.

[Royal Galipeau, Conservative, Ottawa—Orléans, ON]

Was that doctor in the top half or the bottom half of the class?

[Ketsia Houde]

I don't know.

I'm surprised that staff from Community Health Partnership are not going to meet with you. Unfortunately, Ms. Sandra St-Laurent is out of town right now, but I do think you should secure some documentation or information from them about health care services. They are the ones pressuring the Yukon government to provide services. It is important that the committee get in touch with them, if only in writing.

Finally, with respect to education, I would like to mention that Les EssentiElles supports the school board in its current legal action.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Ms. Houde. I would like to thank all our witnesses.

We will begin the first round with Ms. Zarac.

[Lise Zarac, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Houde, in other words, a Francophone woman in Yukon has to be very patient. Could you remind me by how much violence against women is higher in the territories than elsewhere?

[Ketsia Houde]

Yes, it is three to four times higher.

[Lise Zarac, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Because she has trouble explaining what has occurred to police officers, requires medical care following an assault and has trouble making herself understood, meaning that she has to go before the courts a third time, a Francophone woman in Yukon is victimized in multiple ways.

[Ketsia Houde]

Yes, absolutely. She is victimized again because she has to explain what happened, it's complicated, and they don't understand her.

[Lise Zarac, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

That is very unfortunate.

You said that the funding you receive from Canadian Heritage increased slightly between 2003 and 2006, but that, since 2006, it has been the same amount. What level of funding are you receiving now?

[Ketsia Houde]

We receive $46,700.

[Lise Zarac, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Is that for everything? You say that you deal with education, health and justice. Are you able to spread the $40,000 around enough to help all those--

[Ketsia Houde]

That covers operating costs, because $40,000 doesn't take you very far. Much of it is my salary. We also try to organize activities in French and take part in meetings such as this one, today.

[Lise Zarac, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

How many volunteers do you have? I assume that you must have volunteers working with you.

[Ketsia Houde]

We don't have very many. Depending on the projects we have had, we sometimes hire part-time employees to deal with communications and that sort of thing. What allows us to operate is the fact that we work in cooperation with the Anglophone women's group. All the awareness campaigns against violence are done jointly, and the campaigns are bilingual. We pool our resources and our strengths. Otherwise, we have few activities. We do a lot of things in cooperation with others. Our participation is at a financial and human level: often I will do things to ensure that the AFY and other Anglophone women's groups are involved.

[Lise Zarac, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

This morning, the AFY told us that new projects are refused if they already exist. Can you explain in greater detail the benefits of recurring funding in a community?

[Ketsia Houde]

In fact, as we were saying, there are very few of us. I am the only person who works full time. If I have to create and develop a new project every year, I don't have time to actually carry out the project I worked on. It really has to do with time limitations.

In addition, even if we have a pilot project that works, is successful and yield results, we are told we have to do something new. It's always difficult in that respect. We cannot build on something because we are constantly being asked to re-invent the wheel.

[Lise Zarac, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

In other words, when you have developed something that is successful and effective, you simply have to abandon it?

[Ketsia Houde]

That often happens, as a matter of fact. Finding a source of funding to renew something that's already in place occurs is a rare occurrence. I know that Status of Women Canada has just announced funding—for what are called blueprint projects—where you are able to do that, but this is the first time I've seen it. It literally says that the money is for projects that are already in place, in order to keep them going. However, in the other areas there is nothing like that.

[Lise Zarac, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

You say that this is new?

[Ketsia Houde]

I found out about it last week.