I would like to thank you for giving us this chance to address you and be heard. Espace France-Yukon represents French nationals living or visiting the Yukon. Our mission is to promote exchanges between the Yukon and France, to promote French culture and support French nationals passing through or residing here in the Yukon.
Our association operates thanks to the work of volunteers. We have no paid employees. We pretty well rely on everyone.
Perhaps I could just pass on a few pieces of information with respect to linguistic duality and services in French that are offered here.
An effort has been made to develop bilingual priority services at the territorial level. That's important, and we very much appreciate it, but it is disappointing to have to rely on the services of interpreters, who sometimes do not have the necessary skills in the areas where they are needed. One example would be a telephone line people can call to speak to a nurse. Anyone can call and, if you ask for a French interpreter, they go and get one so that people can understand each other. On a number of occasions, we have dealt with interpreters who did not understand what the individuals were saying about health-related issues. The symptoms were mistranslated. The nurse could not understand us. Basically, it was absolutely useless. We would like to have access to competent interpreters in certain areas, particularly health and safety.
Another important area is cultural dissemination. That is the major topic of discussion in the Yukon at this time. In our case, Internet downloading is limited. People have to pay if they exceed the volume that's allowed. Because we live in a remote area, we have no choice but to do that in order to access films, documents and other material. It's expensive for us. Also, there is a television monopoly and we do not have access to all the French-language channels that could be available. The best example is TV5. We cannot receive it on digital television, although we can on analog television. That channel was removed at one point, but because Francophone organizations protested, it was reinstated, although not on a permanent basis. So, options are limited. It is something to be considered.
Furthermore, with respect to the library and the books available to us, I know that space is reduced. However, we would like to see more funding for libraries, so that they can access more books and literature—for example, so that we could access books that have received awards, whether they are Canadian or French. We hear about them on the radio, which is great, but we don't have them here. We would like to have more access to the culture in order to preserve our French and improve it through greater access to books, films and material of all kinds.