Thank you.
Evidence of meeting #43 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 yukon.
Evidence of meeting #43 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 yukon.
2 p.m.
Conservative
2 p.m.
Conservative
February 7th, 2011 / 2 p.m.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am not mad about the fact that you allowed Mr. Lauzon to go over his time, because it was an important conversation.
Who provides palliative care in Yukon?
2 p.m.
Priest, Comité francophone catholique Saint-Eugène-de-Mazenod
The territory.
2 p.m.
Priest, Comité francophone catholique Saint-Eugène-de-Mazenod
With respect to services for seniors, there are two centres for seniors. As far as services are concerned, there is very good coverage physically. Yes. And the territory is responsible for that.
2 p.m.
Priest, Comité francophone catholique Saint-Eugène-de-Mazenod
The system is built in English. Yes. There are a couple of staff members who are starting to speak French but these are not positions designated for Francophones. Furthermore, as you said, the population is aging. And people are now aging in the Yukon. That, too, is new, because people used to leave the Yukon when they got older, to join their children further south. But now, Southerners are moving to the North.
There is also another reality: people here bring their parents to the North from somewhere else, and that is a very common reality for Francophones. There is a Russian lady, but no one speaks Russian. It's more complicated. That is the reality of children who are here and bring their parents to join them.
2 p.m.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
I can certainly appreciate what you describe, since my mother went through this not long ago. In addition to that, I represent a riding where we fought to retain our French-language hospital. It took time, but the government did recognize that, at a certain point in our lives, when we're older, we do in fact come back to our mother tongue, our original language, to be able to express ourselves. Maybe it's also because we can no longer speak the other language. That's why I ask the question.
I am starting to think that one of the major areas to be explored in our report—because we are starting to think about how we are going to try to help—should be the offer of health care services, which includes palliative care, in my opinion. We don't have to reinvent the wheel in order to do that. It is simply a matter of finding people who can speak acceptable French and English.
I have a few questions. First of all, Ms. Houde, you talked about the amount of money you receive, which is about $46,000. Do you receive other grants from the territory?
2 p.m.
Executif Director, Les EssentiElles
Actually, we're very lucky in the Yukon in that regard. When there were major cuts to Status of Women Canada, the Yukon government released funds to maintain some of the services offered to women's groups. So, we received a core programming grant from the Status of Women Branch in the Yukon.
2 p.m.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Is there an organization equivalent to your own on the English-speaking side?
2 p.m.
Executif Director, Les EssentiElles
There is an Anglophone women's centre. It is obviously larger than ours. We work with them to ensure that they also offer activities in French. That centre actually provides equivalent services in English.
2 p.m.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Is it partly funded by the federal government as well? Do you know?
2 p.m.
Executif Director, Les EssentiElles
I don't think so. The reason we received a federal grant is because we are Francophones. It is possible that Status of Women Canada does so, but it is always provided on a project basis. Starting very recently, every project began to be funded, even those already underway, but there is no core funding provided by Status of Women Canada.
2:05 p.m.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Are there any statistics on exogamous marriage? There may be some that I haven't seen. Are there statistics on English-French exogamous marriages here in the territories?
2:05 p.m.
Executif Director, Les EssentiElles
I don't know whether there are any on marriage, but I know that a study has just been completed by the Association franco-yukonnaise on literacy in exogamous families.
I'm not certain whether figures for families are even presented in that study. In terms of needs, however, there is a study.
2:05 p.m.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Listening to you, I am inclined to think that you agree with my wife, who has instilled in me that men are always the ones who create the problems, while women are always the ones to find the solutions.
2:05 p.m.
Executif Director, Les EssentiElles
Not necessarily, there are Francophone fathers with Anglophone women.
2:05 p.m.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Well, it was sort of a play on words, or at least an attempt at one, even if it isn't funny.
I heard things said earlier that led me to believe that there is more vitality here and that exogamous marriages seem to attract Anglophones to the Francophone reality. I was wondering if that could be documented or whether that is just a feeling you have.
2:05 p.m.
Priest, Comité francophone catholique Saint-Eugène-de-Mazenod
We don't have any statistics on this, but one of the two spouses must attract the other to French, because otherwise, we would never see them, in the sense that they would go to the Anglophone church.
Some things we see here are unusual. I don't really know why, but I think it's due to the attraction of the culture, rather than the idea of speaking French. It's the culture, the vitality and the way of living. As soon as one of them has that--
In one case, the Catholic father was an Anglophone, but the Francophone mother was not Catholic; she had no religion. All the same, she insisted on her children experiencing their faith in French. So, the father learned French and attended the mass spoken in French. In one sense, that is fairly unusual. That's why I say it is not cut and dried. I think it really has to do with the attraction of the culture.
2:05 p.m.
Executif Director, Les EssentiElles
As far as children are concerned, the reaction is to say that it's important that we keep our language. Before having children, people will tend to use English and speak French from time to time, but it's not really a priority. However, once they have children, they suddenly realize that--
