Official Languages Committee on Feb. 9th, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Good morning, everybody.

Welcome to meeting 45 of the Standing Committee on Official Languages.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3), we are doing a study of the development of linguistic duality in northern Canada. We are very pleased to be in the Northwest Territories. It's actually the very first time for this committee to be in this part of the country.

All the members, including me as the chair, are very proud today to be with you, especially with the commissioner of the Northwest Territories, Ms. Sarah Jerome.

Thank you, Ms. Jerome, for being with us this morning. You told me about your backache this morning, so we appreciate your being with us.

We also welcome your legal adviser, Madam Shannon Gullberg.

Thank you for being with us, Ms. Gullberg.

Without any delay, I invite you to begin your opening statement. The members will then proceed with questions.

Madam Commissioner, the floor is yours.

[Sarah Jerome, Commissioner, Languages Commissioner of the Northwest Territories]

[Witness speaks in the Gwich'in language]

Good morning. I realize that I don't have a translator in the room so I will go ahead and translate for myself.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Sarah Jerome]

Welcome to the Northwest Territories. Thank you for the invitation to appear before you this morning.

I must apologize, as I am not feeling very well this morning. I have a pinched nerve, but I came anyway, thinking that today I would feel better, but it seems a little worse this morning.

I have my legal adviser, Shannon Gullberg, here with me this morning. Shannon was the previous languages commissioner prior to my appointment in May of 2009 and has worked throughout the territories with the 11 official languages. Shannon lived here in Yellowknife and had direct contact with the francophone community, and also throughout the NWT, so I would prefer that Shannon do the presentation after I do my opening remarks. I just wanted to make you aware of that.

It has been quite a challenge working with nine official languages up here in the Northwest Territories. Having worked here all my life--I was born and raised here--and having been taken away to the residential school for 12 years, I kind of lost my language along the way, as have many others of our people who were taken away for about 12 years of their lives.

We have tried over the years to revitalize our language and to work to relearn our language. Some of our people have never been able to do that. I was very, very fortunate, as I had parents who took us back to the camp every summer for two months in an immersion situation, so we had no choice. My late mum spoke only the Gwich'in language. She did not speak English. Thank God for that: today I still have my language. But I cannot say that for the majority of our aboriginal language speakers up here.

Our languages have been on the decline over the years, so today we are working at doing everything we can to revitalize our language. It is being taught in the schools, but in order for the language to be taught it has to be taught in a natural environment, in an immersion situation, and possibly out on the land. It is being taught in the schools, so that's where we are right now.

With that, I would like to ask Shannon to proceed with the presentation.

Thank you.

[Shannon Gullberg, Legal Advisor, Languages Commissioner of the Northwest Territories]

We don't have anything formally written for you, but if the committee would like, maybe I would just make a few opening comments, perhaps reflecting or mimicking what Sarah has said.

Certainly with 11 official languages...and if you haven't been in the north before, just even getting to Yellowknife you can appreciate the vast geographical distances. You have a long way north to go yet before you actually get to the top of the Northwest Territories. The distances here are vast, and that is a huge issue. I don't believe it's insurmountable, but certainly it's a big issue.

So we have 11 official languages, huge geographical issues, and then, as Sarah indicated, we also have a history, if you will, that includes the legacy of residential schools. Not only was there no promotion of official languages, but it was frowned upon, to put it mildly, in terms of using some of the aboriginal languages. When you put all of that together, your starting point isn't good.

On a more positive note, there are a lot of good things going on. As Sarah indicated, there is a lot of language teaching in the schools. The former Minister of Education, Culture and Employment made a directive that there had to be second-language learning in all schools. The end result is that every child in the Northwest Territories in school is learning either French or an aboriginal language in addition to English. You can't avoid it. In a number of schools, and my children have had the benefit of this, not only has it been English and French; it's also been an aboriginal language as well, a Dogrib dialect. So when you put all of that together, it gives some hope that in fact good things will come out of that.

In the last 10 years, my experience has been that the government is far more cognizant of language issues. I think the Fédération franco-ténoise has played a large role in that by highlighting some of those issues and saying that we have to address these in some fashion.

To me, whether everyone agrees with the end result in some of the issues that come up isn't really the issue. The issue is that it highlights language, and people have to come up with some creative ways to move forward. I think it also gives hope that we will move forward in a positive direction.

Of course, money, I think, is always the bottom line. It's one of the big issues when it comes to government and coming up with those solutions. I think that's probably one of the bigger impediments right now.

We're glad to be here today. Welcome to the Northwest Territories and Yellowknife. I hope you enjoy what we refer to as northern hospitality.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you very much, Ms. Gullberg.

We shall begin our first round immediately with Mr. Murphy.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Thank you very much for being here this morning.

It's indeed a pleasure--and I speak on behalf of my colleagues when I say this--to be here on behalf of the Parliament of Canada and to make the federal presence known. You have a wonderful, vibrant, beautiful community.

I am going to ask a few questions about official languages and your role as commissioner. In Ottawa we have Mr. Graham Fraser, appointed by the federal government, who of course gives progress reports to Parliament. But he is also--and I think he would agree--fairly vigilant, to the point of being almost critical of many of the steps the government is taking or not taking on any given day towards what he feels are the goals of official languages policy.

I must say that we've had a chance to read in advance the comments Minister Lafferty may make today, and I've heard your comments, and I understand the issue, which is that with so many official languages, there's an effort on all fronts. Would it be fair to say, however, that there isn't as precise a concentration on French as a second language, or French as a first language, an official language of Canada, when you have so many official languages to take care of?

I say that because the remarks from Minister Lafferty laud very much the efforts with respect to aboriginal languages, and I think you've obviously been making great strides there. But is there a danger that the épanouissement of the French language is being mixed in with that, and that it is not, from our point of view, being given as much due as it should?

I draw your attention also to the funds that have been transferred from the federal official languages program to the Northwest Territories. I guess the follow-up on that general question is the specific question of whether these moneys.... It may be ignorance on my part, but in the envelope of the development of federal official languages communities programs for the Government of Northwest Territories, for instance, the $3.2 million and so on, are those funds directed solely towards French as an official language, French and English as official languages, or official languages as mandated by your commission and your territorial law?

[Shannon Gullberg]

I'll answer first. Sarah has asked me to give my comments on your questions.

In regard to the first question, I think it's a legitimate question: does French sort of get into the mix when there are 11 languages and get overlooked? There's a long way to go, in my opinion, in terms of improving French language services--a long way to go.

However, going back to the initial comment I made, I think that largely due to some really good push on the part of the Fédération, there have been great strides made in providing French language services. For example, there's the French language centre here on Franklin. I don't know if you will have a chance to see that while you're here, but they can provide basic information on government services. The government has worked far more diligently in the last five or six years to make sure that publications are in English and French. So those strides have been made largely due to pushing, and yes, I think there has been some resistance.

I'll just add that for the French immersion education that kids can partake in here, my personal experience is that it's second to none, if you want to look across the country. I can say that based on my own children and their experiences.

So does the government have to move forward and improve things? Absolutely. Are they making strides? Yes.

I think the frustration actually goes more the other way, where those whose first language is an aboriginal language would say that the francophones get all of this and that they're not getting their share of the pie to do the same sorts of things. For example, where is the centre for Gwich'in, where they could access the same sorts of services in a centralized office, and in the other languages as well?

Where those types of facilities have been made available, it has been due to communities--again--really pushing. For example, in Behchoko, they have actively taken the stories of their elders and catalogued them, but that has been a real community initiative as opposed to government really pushing on that.

In short, I guess it's a matter of moving forward, but I think the bigger issue would be that people would perceive it as almost the opposite of perhaps the way you're looking at it.

In terms of the budget issue, I haven't really had a chance to look at that in the last two years. I don't know if Sarah feels comfortable commenting on that without taking a look at it. Minister Lafferty is probably your better bet on that.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Murphy.

We'll now proceed with Madame Guay.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, ladies, for being here today. We have just come from Whitehorse. We met with representatives from a very dynamic francophone community and discussed educating primary and secondary school students in French. The students are at school because they want to get their secondary school credentials.

I know that you face considerable challenges here. There are several aboriginal languages, and a number of communities that have to fight to keep their language alive. I imagine that children are often encouraged to learn English rather than use their aboriginal language, if it is not spoken at home.

Do you provide these folks with any services? Is there any follow up? Is there regular reporting to ensure that the approach is working? Is there funding to ensure that these folks can continue to live in their own language?

[Sarah Jerome]

As I said earlier, because we spent so much time away from our families during the residential schools era, people my age--49--some of our people, some of our former students, refused to speak their language, so therefore their children did not have that language spoken to them at home.

We do have a second language program in all the schools, and we have teachers, but in the early 1970s when we started teaching the language in the schools, we basically took people off the street who were fluent in the language, without any teaching background--people who did not know how to teach a language. I mean, we were the first teachers of the language, but when you get into a formal setting...our people did not know how to teach the language or did not know how to use resources.

We just put them in as fluent speakers, so there was no formal way of teaching our students the language in the school environment. Our elders and our leaders have said over the years that the natural environment is for our young students to be out on the land in their home environment, surrounded by their parents, their grandparents, and their extended family speaking to them. This has not been the case.

A lot of our elders, at the time of our parents, lived out on the land, so therefore we did not have that opportunity to relearn the language. And we did not have a curriculum. We just put the teachers in the classroom and told them to teach the language. It was up to the teachers to develop the materials and to teach the language the best way they knew. This resulted in a lot of failure.

Today in the Beaufort-Delta we have a second language curriculum that has been translated into Gwich'in and the Inuvialuit languages, so the teachers are now being trained to use that curriculum to teach the languages. We are beginning to see some success.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Things are starting to improve then on that front.

Are there any schools or educational institutions for francophones in Yellowknife? Are there any services to help people learn French?

[Shannon Gullberg]

Sarah has asked me to answer that. I think I'll do it from my own personal experience, because I think that's the better story. I have three daughters, two who have finished school now and one who is still in high school. All of them took French immersion, which has been exceptional.

Just to tell you about the calibre of the programming here, which we as a family had always heard was good, we ended up going down to Alberta for six months because my husband had a job opportunity that took us out for a while. There, our kids were in a totally uni-track French immersion school in St. Albert for six months, for a term. The teachers there were shocked and actually not that happy that their speaking skills were so good, having come from a dual-track school. Now, I like to think my kids are bright, but it wasn't just that: it was the level of education they had received.

But one of the issues that happens in high school in remote communities--and I'll include Yellowknife in this--is that you need teachers at that high school level who are competent in teaching those matriculation types of courses--I don't know if this translates well into French--those university prep types of courses so that those kids feel comfortable continuing at that high school level in French and can get their bilingual diploma.

What happens is that it's sometimes difficult to get the teachers who are comfortable teaching those high school level courses to come here. You might have a Biology 20 teacher who is teaching in French and who says, “I'm francophone and I can teach the children some French, but it's really not my area of expertise, so I'm not really comfortable”. The kids sense that. They get concerned about their education, so they make a conscious decision to do that subject in English, because they're thinking “What am I doing after high school?”

My personal experience is that if you want to keep kids learning and doing that--and this is for the kids who are francophone as well, who are making those conscious decisions and asking where they are going after school--you have to invest money. Particularly when you get to the high school level where the students are thinking about their future, I would suggest some incentives for well-trained teachers who are comfortable with and confident about teaching those matriculation types of subjects. I think that's where things kind of fall apart.

Other than that, I think the schools work diligently to try to provide a very comprehensive French immersion program. My personal experience is that I would put not just my kids but the other kids we know who've gone through that program up against kids from anywhere else in the country.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you very much, Ms. Guay.

We shall continue with Mr. Godin.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to start by welcoming you.

I would like you to clarify a couple of things. You are the Languages Commissioner of the Northwest Territories. There are nine aboriginal languages, English and French. Is that right?

[Sarah Jerome]

Yes.

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

What are your responsibilities as Languages Commissioner of the Northwest Territories and how do they differ from those of the federal Commissioner of Official Languages, Graham Fraser? Do you work collaboratively, or is your sphere of responsibility limited to the Northwest Territories? I don’t know if what I’m saying makes sense. After all, the Territories are to some extent federally regulated, aren’t they? What are the federal Commissioner of Official Languages’ responsibilities there, as opposed to yours?

[Sarah Jerome]

We had a territory language conference in Sudbury last fall. I went to that meeting. So we do work with them.

The other thing I should mention before I give this to Shannon is that my responsibility as the Languages Commissioner of the Northwest Territories is to deal with concerns on language issues. If I walked into a government department--for instance, the Department of Health and Social Services--and services were not being provided in my language, then I would have to take that matter to the languages commissioner for the languages commissioner to deal with and investigate it.

I do not have the responsibility of revitalizing or enhancing the language or promoting the language. My only responsibility up here is to deal with concerns.

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

Whose responsibility is that? Is it the responsibility of the Commissioner of Official Languages of Canada?

[Shannon Gullberg]

The act was amended going back four years now. One of the issues that the Legislative Assembly looked at was narrowing the role of the Languages Commissioner of the Northwest Territories.

The idea was that the Languages Commissioner would deal with the issue of complaints. They would promote the office and they would promote procedures to file complaints and all of that sort of thing. The responsibility for promotion of official languages was put on a minister responsible for official languages, who it sounds like you'll be--

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

The Commissioner of Official Languages of Canada was responsible for official languages in the Northwest Territories prior to the Languages Commissioner of the Northwest Territories taking up his position. The Languages Commissioner did not replace the Commissioner of Official Languages of Canada given that the federal Official Languages Act stipulates that French and English must have equal status.

[Shannon Gullberg]

I'm sorry, I'm not quite sure what the question is.

When it comes to any federal government department, certainly I think the responsibility for that would be with the federal Official Languages Commissioner. There have been joint meetings--both when I was the Languages Commissioner, and previous commissioners--with the federal commissioner.

If you know, and I'm sure you do know, a little bit of the history of the Northwest Territories, you'll know that it's not all cut and dry where those divisions are, and whose responsibility--

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

A puzzle that's not all dry.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!