Evidence of meeting #13 for Official Languages in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was young.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
Jacques Gourde Conservative Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC
I believe you're also working with the Assemblée de la francophonie de l'Ontario. What initiatives are you working on with the Assemblée?
You can answer too, Mr. Vaillancourt. Both of you can talk about what you are going through together.
9:20 a.m.
President, Assemblée de la francophonie de l'Ontario
Sorry, I didn't hear your question.
9:20 a.m.
President, Fédération de la jeunesse canadienne-française
The question is what initiatives we're doing together.
As a national organization, we have less direct contact with the AFO. However, the member youth organization in Ontario, the FESFO, which is absolutely extraordinary, maintains a lot of contact.
Perhaps I can let you provide details on that topic.
9:20 a.m.
President, Assemblée de la francophonie de l'Ontario
Thanks, Alexis.
The FESFO, which represents youth in Ontario, is a member of the Assemblée de la francophonie de l'Ontario. We work closely together on various issues.
The last health-related initiative was an awareness project called TonDoc. It's quite a tool. Young people can refer to it on all health-related matters.
The people in the Franco-Ontarian community support the FESFO's projects. They are members of our board of directors, and they developed the various priorities in our community's strategic plan together with us.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
Jacques Gourde Conservative Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC
How many provinces are there in your federation, Mr. Couture? Are all the provinces represented?
9:20 a.m.
President, Fédération de la jeunesse canadienne-française
You have to draw a distinction. Nine provinces and two territories are members of the board of directors. Nunavut and Quebec aren't represented.
Quebec is absent because there's no structure corresponding to those in the other provinces. Its situation is obviously different. However, Quebec is involved in all national events. We have a number of recruitment partners in the province, as well as in Nunavut. We nevertheless make an effort to reach out to them.
At the Jeux de la francophonie canadienne, the Quebec delegation has been successful at every edition to date. In the Parlement jeunesse pancanadien, about 10 spaces are reserved for Quebec out of the some 100 seats allocated nationally.
So nine provinces and two territories are represented in the administrative structure, whereas youths from across the country are represented at our events.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
Jacques Gourde Conservative Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC
Could you send me a list of initiatives that you have conducted to reach out to the Quebec associations, to support you and to help you?
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
Jacques Gourde Conservative Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC
It would be important for Quebec youth to take part in your federation. They are an integral part of our country.
9:20 a.m.
President, Fédération de la jeunesse canadienne-française
Perhaps I can add that the federation is currently in the midst of an evaluation process. We're trying to determine how we can better integrate Quebec. This is a proposal that's now two years old. It was introduced at the general assembly and came up again this year.
A committee is currently sitting to assess the options. Greater integration of the entire country is obviously what we would like. As regards development, I believe we've reached that point. It can only be beneficial to have everyone around the table.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
9:20 a.m.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to go back to the issue that Mr. Aubin raised concerning the documents. I may not be as nice as he is, but what we received is incomplete, and that's not acceptable. It's very hard to read.
First, is it possible to obtain a version that contains all the documents, in electronic format? Right now, it's garbled. If we try to paste it together, we'll make a nice mess of it. Is it possible to get the information in electronic format? It's stored electronically, so that should be quite easy.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Michael Chong
Yes, I've already asked the clerk to ask the Department of Canadian Heritage to provide us with complete documents containing no errors, and that will be done.
We think we might have received a draft copy, so I've asked the clerk to see if we can get the final complete copy, along with the further answers we requested.
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I'd like to offer my congratulations on the hiring of Mr. Hominuk, your director general. I believe he will be occupying your position in January or February. You've made an excellent choice. Bravo.
You said you wanted budgets to be granted on a multi-year basis. That means there will have to be increased audit capacity in French. Unfortunately, it appears we're headed in another direction in this country. You previously said that the government's decision to hire an auditor general was, and I quote you, "disturbing". Would you have anything else to add in that regard?
9:25 a.m.
President, Assemblée de la francophonie de l'Ontario
Thank you for the question. I'll rephrase that.
Incidentally, I would like to say that our new director general is the product of youth projects and activities, since he has emerged from that group of youths and has been involved from a very early age. We are particularly pleased with that.
While linguistic duality is a cornerstone of our national identity, the federal government must clearly set the best example the country can offer. It is therefore somewhat disturbing to see that this does not appear to be respected in key positions, whereas there were prerequisites. We're a bit troubled. We believe that there are competencies in the majority and minority communities and that there are people who can do these things who speak both languages.
I believe that if we really want to promote linguistic duality, we have to invest in francophones, francophiles and anglophones and go after our biggest assets. We also have to cultivate this francophone reflex.
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
I would point out to you that my question was shorter than your answer. I'm a parliamentarian and you aren't.
9:25 a.m.
President, Assemblée de la francophonie de l'Ontario
All right, I'll remember that.
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
9:25 a.m.
President, Fédération de la jeunesse canadienne-française
I obviously believe that the aim is that key positions should be occupied by people who are capable of understanding both official languages and functioning in those two languages.
I don't believe we have anything else to add with regard to the Auditor General's appointment, except that we would like that position to be occupied by a qualified person who speaks both official languages.
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
9:25 a.m.
President, Fédération de la jeunesse canadienne-française
Yes, you have to meet the requirements of the position.
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
When the Commissioner of Official Languages recently appeared before us, I expressed the wish that he would check to see if he could inquire into and inform us or inform Canadians about the most important area in the Roadmap for Canada's Linguistic Duality, that is to say education.
I would like to know your opinion on the relationship between the Government of Canada and the provinces regarding education for the official language communities and cash transfers. Do you think some kind of accountability mechanism should be set out in the agreements? Should it be stated that the communities must be consulted? Should there be a complete breakdown to which everyone should have access?
November 17th, 2011 / 9:25 a.m.
Gilles LeVasseur Vice-President, Assemblée de la francophonie de l'Ontario
To answer Mr. Bélanger's question, I would like to mention that there is an aspect that is often hard for the communities to accept. The decisions made by Canadian Heritage on the allocation and distribution of funding are not always consistent with interests as the community defines them. We need the contribution agreements or accords to contain a mechanism that makes it possible to go to mediation to negotiate or review the allocation of funding. Ultimately, there could be an arbitration mechanism so that the complaints of the various communities could be well heard and so that we could understand what we're seeking.
We don't have the necessary influence to make Canadian Heritage move in a given direction, unless the Roadmap is clear and well developed. With a program that evolves over time, the allocation and distribution of funding and the power granted to the administration, the decision on priority-setting is often made based on other interests, as a result of which we're trapped by the program's evolution. If one thing had to be included in the agreements, that would be this mediation and arbitration mechanism so that we would be able to reflect the strategic plans for the communities.
9:30 a.m.
President, Fédération de la jeunesse canadienne-française
Briefly stated, I think that what is true in health should be true in other areas. The health management model is very good. The Société Santé en français has a shared-management model and jointly develops the criteria for evaluating initiatives. I believe that the community's objective is to have a say from the outset on the choice of initiatives that we want to carry out and on the determination of which initiatives have the greatest impact. The Government of Canada has the best intentions in the world—we understand that—and the community as well. However, their viewpoints may be different. If we want those viewpoints to converge, that could be good. So it would be good to study the health model.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
I'm going to ask you another question which you unfortunately won't have the time to answer because I have one minute left.
Your comments have sharpened my thoughts. In a number of fields, there area leading organizations such as the AEFO, the FCFA and the FJCF. Apart from that, there are specific organizations. There are a host of them in education, health and justice, where there are lawyers. There are also specialists in economic development, research and development, arts and culture, literacy and so on. However, in my opinion, the most important field after education is immigration and the way we integrate immigrants into the communities. We must increase their numbers and then integrate them.
Think about that before answering my question and send us your answer. I'm going to put the same question to the representatives of the FCFA when they appear next week. Since they are represented in the committee today, the question will be put to them. Should there be a similar organization in immigration, focusing on immigration to ensure that a better job is done of integrating those communities into ours?