Official Languages Committee on Dec. 6th, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Welcome to the 18^th meeting of the Standing Committee on Official Languages this Tuesday, December 6, 2011. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(f), we are going to study the Evaluation of the Roadmap: Improving Programs and Service Delivery.

Joining us today are Mrs. Villeneuve and Ms. Beaulieu from the Alliance des femmes de la francophonie canadienne, and Mr. Racine from the Fédération des aînées et aînés francophones du Canada.

Lastly, we have Madame Williams and Madame Raeburn-Baynes of the Black Community Resource Centre.

Welcome to all three of you.

We'll begin with an opening statement

from the Alliance des femmes de la francophonie canadienne.

[Louise-Hélène Villeneuve, President, Alliance des femmes de la francophonie canadienne]

Mr. Chair, members of the committee and dear partners, on behalf of the Alliance des femmes de la francophonie canadienne and its members, we would like to thank the House of Commons Standing Committee on Official Languages for giving us the opportunity to share our perspective on the Roadmap for Canada's Linguistic Duality 2008-2013.

My name is Louise-Hélène Villeneuve. I am the president of AFFC, and I am here with Manon Beaulieu, our director general. Our presentation includes a brief overview of AFFC, its priorities, its assessment of the roadmap, along with concrete examples of accomplishments, and some recommendations.

AFFC is the only national group consisting of French-language minority women's associations. The alliance includes 15 associations from across the country, from the Maritimes to the territories, with a common interest: improving the sociological and economic situation of francophone women so that they can directly contribute to the development of their communities. Our priorities are to improve the economic situation of women, to support and recognize caregivers, to promote and incorporate gender analysis and exogamy, and to develop the leadership of women. Through the diversity of its members, AFFC represents women of all ages and from all walks of life who work together and greatly contribute to the priority sectors of the roadmap. Let us give you some examples.

In health care, AFFC has been a leader since 2006, given that women represent between 70% to 80% of caregivers. The alliance works with member associations and provincial and national partners in order to move discussions and initiatives forward, and in order to improve access to French-language services for caregivers. Provincial health care systems are increasingly seeking to keep seniors and people who are ill at home. But there is only minimal planning to set up support and training programs to expand home care and respite care. The women from communities are the ones who commit to meeting those needs.

In terms of justice, eight member associations are working directly on developing and making French-language resources available for women who are victims of violence. These associations are also familiar with social and legal services offered in French in their area, and they are able to properly direct the victims towards those services. But it is important to point out that French-language services for victims in minority communities are practically non-existent. Only three provinces have a francophone reception centre for women who are victims of violence. Our members have to take the initiative to contact anglophone centres in order to find employees who speak French and who can help the victims.

In immigration, our member associations are very familiar with the isolation francophone immigrant women experience when they arrive in predominantly English-speaking communities. Some of the associations provide specialized services to newcomers, be they individuals or families. Among other things, our members give them training, and they help them buy food, manage their mail, fill out forms, make long-distance calls, and so forth.

In economic development, eight member associations work with francophone women from all ethnic communities to help them with their employability. They provide them with information and networking opportunities that will help them find their place in the job market. Our member associations have also been offering workshops, such as home-based child care management, to increase women's financial, political and economic literacy.

Cultural activities include essay contests, radio broadcasts on topics of interest to women, and a forum called “L'Art au féminin”. More specifically, this forum has enabled women to become familiar with social media and applications for funding. They have also been able to benefit from one-on-one career management counseling and, therefore, have acquired concrete tools to increase their artistic activities.

In terms of youth, the priorities of our member associations are the next generation and working with young women in the communities. There are many projects on mentorship, intergenerational meetings, leadership training and education.

Dear members of the committee, the activities and services that we have listed and that have had a direct impact on francophone Canadians are carried out by 15 AFFC member associations jointly with some of our partners.

Only seven of our member groups have full-time employees; the other eight only have part-time employees or volunteers. In total, almost 200 volunteers contributed more than 65,000 hours of work to enable the roll-out of those activities in which over 8,000 women participated.

AFFC's key role is to support its members in all activities related to the priority sectors of the roadmap. AFFC is central to communication. It provides a network for sharing information and practices, and it works together with the staff of member associations. AFFC also plays a key role as an interface between its member associations and national and provincial sectoral organizations, both francophone and anglophone, including Quebec. This not only allows members and non-members to keep abreast of current cases or issues, but also to develop partnerships with sectoral bodies in their provinces or territories. So we all contribute to the advancement of francophone women in Canadian society.

In 2010-2011, six of our member associations received funding from Canadian Heritage. But it is difficult to determine whether the funding from Canadian Heritage falls under the roadmap. Only three member associations have received funding from Status of Women Canada, which is not listed under the roadmap departments. Others receive only very little funding from provincial governments, but most of them have to rely on other partnerships with local or regional community organizations, or even on the sale of lottery tickets.

If we look at the return on investment of our member associations, it goes without saying that the minimal amounts invested have almost miraculous results, but this insufficient funding does not allow francophone women groups to be equal participants, alongside other members of the francophonie, in the development and vitality of their communities.

On the morning of December 6—a national day of remembrance and action on violence against women sadly memorable because of the murder of 14 female students from the École Polytechnique in Montreal—let us be visionary and imagine what could be achieved if women groups were adequately funded.

We wish to share with you our strong recommendation to renew the Roadmap for Canada's Linguistic Duality, which has been and continues to be of paramount importance for the concrete development of our communities. Ideally, enhancing it would be even more desirable.

We also recommend that multi-year funding be the preferred approach in order to enable organizations to better plan their work in the field.

In addition, we recommend that each spokesgroup for minority communities receive funding in order to be able to work with minority life researchers so that an ongoing study is conducted on the impacts of investments.

Finally, AFFC recommends that the next roadmap makes women a priority sector. This commitment from the government will allow women to continue their pivotal role in the communicating French culture, developing community vitality and strengthening inclusion and social cohesion in Canada.

Ladies and gentlemen of the committee, on behalf of all francophone women living in minority communities, we thank you for your attention. We hope to have shown you that, like the federal government, women pledge their unwavering support for official language minority communities.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mrs. Villeneuve.

We are now going to continue with the Fédération des aînées et aînés francophones du Canada.

[Jean-Luc Racine, Director General, Fédération des aînées et aînés francophones du Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. On behalf of the Fédération des aînées et aînés francophones du Canada, and on behalf of our president, Michel Vézina, from Gravelbourg, Saskatchewan, who could not be here today, I would like to thank you for inviting us to speak this morning.

First, let me introduce the Fédération des aînées et aînés francophones du Canada. We are a non-profit organization with a membership of 295,000 seniors in Canada. Our federation includes a federation of francophone seniors for every Canadian province, except for Newfoundland and Labrador and the two territories. The federation has about 1,800 members in Alberta, 1,200 in Manitoba, 13,000 in Ontario, and so on. It is important to note that the 295,000 members of the Fédération des aînées et aînés francophones du Canada include the 265,000 FADOQ members from Quebec, which is a significant number. But the fact remains that 11 of the 12 federations that we serve operate in minority communities. We actually represent about 30,000 seniors who contribute to member federations. In the minority communities where we work, there are about 404,000 people aged 50 and over for whom French is their first language.

Before I begin, let me give you a few numbers. First, it is no secret that the Canadian population is aging. This reality is even more pronounced in minority communities. In 2006, 32% of Canadians were 50 years old and over. In Saskatchewan, the proportion is 57%. That means that 57% of francophones in Saskatchewan are 50 and over. It is 47% in Prince Edward Island, 46% in Manitoba, 45% in Newfoundland and Labrador, and 40% in British Columbia. So the francophone minority population is very old, which is why it is important to make sure that seniors and retirees are fully involved in communities.

I will also give you some other interesting data. Based on the 2006 census, we saw that, proportionately, there were considerably more francophones 65 and over living alone compared to anglophones. There are a lot more single, widowed, separated and divorced francophones. In addition, our data shows that the median earnings of francophones 65 and over is $4,076 less than the earnings of anglophones. In terms of average income, the difference is $7,082. That means that francophone minorities are more disadvantaged in terms of income.

Let me also give you an overview of the situation in education. Among francophones, 49% of people aged 65 and over don't have a degree whereas the percentage is 38% among anglophones. That gives you the socio-demographic profile of our clients.

In terms of the latest roadmap, the only sector specifically for seniors is health. That is the only part of the roadmap that mentions seniors. And they were actually recognized as one of the three priority clienteles of the roadmap. The summary I gave just now of the socio-demographic profile provides an overview of the so-called determinants of health, which are significantly less favourable for francophones.

So we believe that the government was absolutely correct in indicating in the roadmap that targeting francophones, and seniors in particular, as a priority. It went without saying.

We are also very pleased to see that 12 projects that were funded by the Société santé en français—and therefore, by Health Canada—dealt directly with seniors. We feel these various projects make it possible to provide adequate health services to francophone seniors. It is so important to receive health care services in your own language when you are sick and vulnerable.

I'm not going to discuss the 12 outcomes because it is basically a matter for the Société santé en français. But I will provide a single example to give you some idea of the scope of the results. In Alberta, funding was given to VON Canada to develop a project that supports francophone family caregivers.

Every time I meet with franco-Albertan seniors, they all speak highly of this project. They tell me how much it helps francophone seniors. People are so appreciative that an organization the size of VON Canada has developed services in French. It is interesting to see the benefits of this project because it is making progress.

In parallel with that project, VON Canada reported that it is worthwhile and feasible to provide services in French to francophones in a minority situation. So VON Canada is quite interested in continuing this development.

We recently held a four-way meeting. In attendance were VON Canada, the Alliance des femmes de la francophonie and the Société santé en français, among others. We spoke about developing a true pan-Canadian strategy to help seniors with care and services at home, but also care with family caregivers to establish a pan-Canadian strategy. As you see, by working on a small project that began in Alberta, we are in the process of implementing a project that will grow across Canada and serve all francophone seniors in a minority situation.

It may seem somewhat ironic, but we also worked on a project supported by the youth fund. We didn't actually expect to receive funding. But we did, and it was for intergenerational projects.

But there is a paradox. In fact, many of our francophone seniors attended anglophone schools because there were no French schools at the time. They always spoke French at home; it was valued. Today, with exogamous families, a lot of young people attend francophone schools, but when they go home, it isn't necessarily French that they speak.

Our seniors are also quite convinced. They believe in the importance of continuing to preserve French, speak French and live in French. It's very important for them. We determined it would be beneficial to combine these two groups because, in bringing them together, the younger people would be able to see the importance of speaking and keeping their language. It's very beneficial for us. We received $35,000 from the youth fund.

With that money, we gave 12 intergenerational workshops with secondary school students and seniors. From those workshops, we developed 10 intergenerational projects in four Canadian provinces. In total, 124 seniors and 108 youths took part in the workshops and in the various projects. So we managed to fight a lot of preconceived notions from both sides, bring these two groups together and get them to work together.

Naturally, this project is now leading us to develop more intergenerational projects. The results are incredible.

We know that there were investments in other sectors of the roadmap where the benefits are considerable for our communities. We are well aware of that.

These are the only two areas where seniors have been involved.

We would like to take the opportunity to present the five priorities we will be working on in the next few years. We recently met with people from the Quebec Community Groups Network, a group of anglophone seniors. We will also be working with them on certain files relating to communities in minority situations. So there are five files we will be doing a lot of work on in the next year.

The first file concerns young retirees. Right now there is a stagnation in the clientele of golden-age clubs. Young retirees need to be found. We are aware of this. Our stagnant clubs are not managing to recruit new members, it's the status quo. Furthermore, we have developed a very interesting model in Ottawa. We even intend to appeal to the private sector so that it can help us set up franchises across Canada to find this clientele. We are very proud of it. We think it is essential to reach out to this new clientele and continue to mobilize it. Our experience shows that it's really in mobilizing seniors and retirees that we can encourage them to remain active and get involved in their communities.

I will quickly go over the other four files. For intergenerational matters and with respect to community involvement, we feel it is very important to continue with the seniors and ensure that they are involved in their communities. The third file, which is very important, involves employability. Since our population is aging, we will start to see shortages in the labour force starting in 2013. Immigration is one solution, but we think measures should be put in place to enable seniors, retirees and older workers to continue working or to return to the labour market. This is very important to us. We intend to work very hard in these areas. The fourth file concerns health, and the fifth, economic development. We plan to invest greatly in that area. Perhaps I will come back to it during the discussion if I have time.

We would like to end the presentation by strongly recommending to the federal government that it continue to work in partnership with communities in minority situations as part of the next roadmap. We have confidence in our future. We intend to be creative and innovative, to take hold of our destiny, and to ensure that seniors and our francophone communities can continue to grow and live fully in French. We invite the federal government to be a leading partner in this adventure, and to believe, as we do, that Canada's wealth lies in large part in the growth and vitality of Canada's two official language communities.

I'd like to thank all the members of the committee very much for their attention.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Racine.

Now we'll have a statement from the Black Community Resource Centre.

[Dorothy Williams, Program Director, Black Community Resource Centre]

I'm afraid I don't have a statement.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

That's no problem. We have your statement.

[Dorothy Williams]

Good morning, everyone. My name is Dorothy Williams.

I am here today to share with the committee some of the issues we face at our organization. I'm program director at the Black Community Resource Centre. I have worked there since 2007 and have seen the organization through ups and downs. As program director, I function as a project manager, office manager, grant writer, and community liaison person. This entails finding funding, developing and writing projects, reporting, hiring, supervising, and networking.

It is a challenge to build a viable community organization within a struggling, underserved minority community. BCRC is unique amongst other black organizations in the city because our lens is on the entire community rather than on the concerns of the immediate district we live in.

We, and by that I mean specifically myself, spend a lot of time looking at the larger issues that impact blacks on the island, indeed throughout Quebec. It is incumbent upon me, at that point, to look for models and programming that can try to ameliorate or address these global issues. I would say that most of our engagements, particularly networking, revolve around such larger roles and issues. Like other functioning black associations, or BCAs, as we call them, we strive for the betterment of the members in our community.

The BCAs include BCRC and ethnic and fraternal organizations. All of us face challenges. Some of those challenges are systemic and endemic, due to the unique cultural differences, the diverse ethnic origins, and the multilingual make-up of the various black communities in Quebec. In our case, as an official language minority community organization—OLMC—BCRC must also deal with several other distinct challenges. Some are actually roadblocks to our quest to create a forward-looking, vibrant community landscape. Specifically, we find ourselves living from paycheque to paycheque, or, in our case, from project funding to project funding.

What this means for BCRC is that we cannot, despite our best intentions, really engage in long-term initiatives. Sure, we have our own five-year plan where we've identified key strategic areas crying out for intervention. We're not fooling ourselves. The systemic issues, such as social exclusion, racial profiling, job insertion, underemployment, education, health access, etc., all require long-term concerted program interventions.

Unfortunately, without core funding, in a given year we're able to address only those issues where funding is available. The lack of core funding also means that the development of non-profit human resources is retarded. We spend an enormous amount of time training volunteers and project staff. However, the payoff for organizations like BCRC is immediate but of limited duration, as we have to release them, particularly staff, when projects are terminated.

Concomitant with engaging staff for projects, their hourly wage is tied to project funding, yet they are implicated in the resolution of BCRC's long-term strategic areas. This knowledge transfer and expertise that we build up is sadly lost when this young staff is terminated or they transfer to higher-paying, more secure jobs. This is a waste of resources, human and financial, all the while slowing down our own internal capacity building.

Another area of concern, and certainly one requiring a full review, is that OLMCs are not rewarded for success. By this, I mean when we have identified and facilitated a successful program in the community, funding rules prohibit repeat funding. Even in our case, when a project has been evaluated as successful, the participant and stakeholder feedback is sometimes off the chart, but there is no chance that it will be funded again unless it is modified to fit within some criteria in another program. I've seen the results of failed projects treated much the same as successful projects, with little regard or interest in maintaining successful interventions in the community. Why? Because the success of projects is solely tied to the project's immediate results, which we meet, but not to the long-term overarching need to have sufficient funding in order to ameliorate social, cultural, and economic outcomes, or to fill a gap, or to enable communities to be sustainable, and this is a goal of BCRC.

Funding in Canada is silo-based. For real change to happen, this type of funding must derive from diverse sources.

Our organization addresses multiple issues from a more global perspective. We call it the holistic approach. Our youth and their families are often waylaid by more than one problem at a time. Difficulties they face in one area tend to be magnified because there are additional overlapping problems in other areas. For instance, if your family has lived in poverty for decades, it is unlikely you will have networks to acquire meaningful employment, be knowledgeable about health access, or have acquired sufficient economic capital for educational empowerment or entrepreneurial initiatives.

Such access is taken for granted when one has access to a certain level of household income. Underserved youth may need long-term mentoring or coaching, or just a push in some cases. Any support that is offered needs to take into account the totality of the individual, their protective factors, their characters, their environment, and such. You don't put people on their feet just by giving them better health access. You need to assist them in multiple ways from multiple perspectives at the same time.

I mentioned earlier that in a given year we were able to address only those issues when funding is available. This brings to mind another issue about funding, and it is that organizations like mine, that serve unique, isolated populations where there is an issue that we identify, often have to wait until new funding streams come on board, even though we may see these new issues bubbling under the surface. Because we must respond only to those priorities identified years earlier—for instance, 2008, the previous road map that we're in now—we find ourselves having to shelve some ideas because they just don't quite fit the volet.

The road map needs to ensure that funding is pertinent: it is sensitive and encourages the push towards building stronger and sustainable communities, and, by doing so, building stronger and relevant organizations. That is why, Chairman, I invited Gemma Raeburn-Baynes of Playmas Montreal, because she is a partner with BCRC in this drive that we have here in Montreal and to represent the organizations that BCRC supports.

[Gemma Raeburn-Baynes, Partner, Black Community Resource Centre, and President, Playmas Montréal Cultural Association]

Good morning, everyone. I'm very pleased to be here.

I've been associated with the BCRC as a partner for the past three years. Our organization is called Playmas Montréal Cultural Association, and we provide programs and social development programs for youth. We give scholarships through our very popular event called A Taste of the Caribbean Festival, and I hope you will all be attending next year. It's a festival where we promote the Caribbean culture in music, entertainment, and food, especially food, the cuisine of the Caribbean. We open that up to the general public so that everyone can appreciate the culture we have and that we bring to this wonderful country of Canada. With the funds, we give scholarships to minority kids in the culinary arts programs. We are partnered with the Pius X Culinary Institute, and we have young people from the ages of 16 to 24 attend the school. We take disenfranchised black kids and help them to have successful careers in order for them to learn, develop, and succeed, and to have a better social life.

Because of the BCRC we're able to get some administrative support, but as Dr. Williams said, it's only for a certain amount of time. It will be for, say, nine months, and then there is no more funding, so we have no more administrative support and we have to retrain somebody else or try to get help. But the BCRC has been wonderful to us as a partner. They have been able to not only help us with administration, but they've been mentors, and they've been mentors to even the students involved in our culinary program. They have been great consultants. She has a great shoulder that I cry on from time to time. I'm really very happy that she invited me to be here. A lot of different organizations need the support of the BCRC.

[Dorothy Williams]

Finally, I would like to take this time to put forth recommendations that will perhaps go a long way to making a difference with the new road map.

Number one, identify and support OLMCs with core multi-year funding, rather than short-term fiscally derived project funding.

Number two, for measurable impact, a holistic approach to organizational funding is needed. Multiple government departments with similar interests could contribute to one envelope, so that OLMCs could mount sustained, long-term initiatives in order to address systemic problems.

Number three, the road map in Quebec needs to be far more sensitive to the reality of multi-ethnic, multi-racial anglophones in Quebec. In Montreal, in particular, concerted inroads are needed into communities that speak English but are not of anglo British origin.

Funding of programs through the road map should somehow be evaluated or assessed with pre-determined measurable indicators to determine if they can receive repeat funding. I am not saying give everybody all the money they want, all the time, in every single instance. That's not what I'm saying.

Successful program models not only need to be kept in place when possible, but they should be considered for expansion, either to other groups in different regions willing to see if the model works there or to different target populations in one's area. Replicating success should be part of what the road map is all about.

To echo what you said, the road map needs to recognize the value of community research. It's not just university people who do research. We're not objects. We can do our own research. But we need the resources. One of the major caveats is that we don't fund research. It's very difficult, particularly with isolated unknown communities, to find the information, other than anecdotal, to really deal with what the issues are out there. Without research, there's quite a bit of, I would say, playing around before you hit on a model that's going to make a difference.

That's all I'm going to say. Thank you very much for listening to me this morning.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much, Madame Williams and Madame Raeburn-Baynes.

We'll have about one hour of questions and comments from members of the committee, beginning with Monsieur Godin.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to welcome you to the Standing Committee on Official Languages. Your presentations were very good. There are a lot of questions we could ask you, but our time is limited. So I will try to ask relevant questions.

Let's start with the AFFC. Actually, I'd like to put my first question to the three groups.

Do you want the roadmap renewed? And does the roadmap improve things? In fact, have there not been cuts, for example to Status of Women Canada, since 2006?

Mrs. Villeneuve.

[Louise-Hélène Villeneuve]

I can start.

Clearly, we want the roadmap to be renewed. But we've noted that it's difficult to know which funds exactly come from the roadmap, for instance when we do business with the departments, such as Canadian Heritage. It's certainly something we'd like to see improved.

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

I would like you to explain just this point. We're discussing the roadmap, an innovation that was put in place in 2001, I think.

Mauril, was the first roadmap put in place in 2001?

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

In 2003.

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

In 2003.

It seems like everything is linked to the roadmap. But when we ask whether the money comes from roadmap, we don't really have an answer. It's as if there were some kind of lack of communication between the organizations and the government. It's as if you can't get access to it. Does the money really come from the roadmap, or does it come from standard programs that are already in place?

It's nice to talk about the roadmap, it's as if it were a gift from the heavens. But can you say that the roadmap has really changed things and that you really need it? If that's the case, can you explain why?

[Louise-Hélène Villeneuve]

We recognize that we have taken initiatives that fit with the roadmap priorities. But when we turn to the departments to ask if that money is coming from their envelope allocated under the roadmap, we get a clear answer.

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

So have you not seen the regional offices closed, for example?

[Louise-Hélène Villeneuve]

Absolutely. With respect to Status of Women Canada and the cuts, we dare believe that we, women, have done our part. In 2006, Status of Women Canada saw cuts of over 40%. While there used to be 16 regional offices, now there are only four.

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

This is what I have trouble with. There were cuts, even with the roadmap, and 16 regional offices became four. That means that there was no one on the ground to work with people. In the regions where we are closing an office, there no longer is anyone who is working with the people.

[Louise-Hélène Villeneuve]

Exactly.

I would like to make a clarification: Status of Women Canada is not one of the departments and agencies targeted by the roadmap.

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

No, but it's still a government agency.

[Louise-Hélène Villeneuve]

It is a government agency, exactly.

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

Please excuse the language, but I don't give a damn whether it comes from Canadian Heritage, Human Resources and Skills Development or another department. At the end of the day, if the government makes cuts to an organization, it's still a cut. It's all very well to put it elsewhere, but the fact remains that you experienced cuts.

[Louise-Hélène Villeneuve]

Please allow me to add two things to this. First, the word "equality" was removed from Status of Women Canada's mission statement, as if equality pertains to an ideological choice. Rather, we think that it's a fundamental Canadian value.

Second, we can no longer do research. You know as well as we do, when we submit funding applications, we are asked for statistics. As our colleague said, we do not have funding from Status of Women Canada for our particular situation. It is also more difficult these days to get funding to do research in our communities. So it is becoming more difficult to support our requests with statistics.

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

If the roadmap were to be continued, do you think the government should sit down with the agencies to come up with an action plan and establish the roadmap?

[Louise-Hélène Villeneuve]

We think cooperation between the departments themselves, as well as directly with the communities, is required.

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

Madame Williams, you were talking about that road map. If I got it right, you were talking about...here's the money going to our community; we have a project that works well, but there is only one allowed here and then it's gone. Then there's another one and it's gone. Then there's another one.

It seems to be that as long as you are doing work, it looks good for the government. Is that how you feel about it?

[Dorothy Williams]

I don't know about it looking good for the government because I don't think most people—

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

The government thinks it looks good for them.

[Dorothy Williams]

Okay, for them. I think they can certainly look at our record of BCRC and see that we are an organization that follows through with projects. We do proper reporting. We come through with the deliverables that we say we're going to do.

What I'm concerned about with that kind of funding model is that it really is a patchwork. It depends on the flavour of the month or the year.

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

Madame Williams, if we talk about the road map the government is going with, do you feel it should have a bigger dialogue with the community?

[Dorothy Williams]

I think there needs to be.

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

Do you feel that if you could prove to them that continuing with your project is better for the community than just dropping it and starting a new one...?

[Dorothy Williams]

To drop the road map?

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

Not the road map, your project.

[Dorothy Williams]

Okay. No, that's why I said there needs to be some kind of indicator, so that it's very clear this project is making inroads and that it should have sustained funding. It needs to continue, and that's what the road map should give us—the opportunity to continue with successful projects.

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

Mr. Racine, would you like to add something? I see your hand is raised.

[Jean-Luc Racine]

Yes. A good example is the youth fund. We received $35,000, and we realized an extraordinary project. But, once the funds were gone, it was over, and we had to find other sources of funding. It's a never-ending process. It gets a bit difficult.

It's also important to know that…

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

I'd like to ask you a question about that, Mr. Racine. You have a project to implement, you receive $35,000 for it, but then you have to find more funding?

[Jean-Luc Racine]

Exactly. Other avenues have to be found. We managed to build a capacity to develop, find the young people and the seniors. So once that's done, it has to start all over again. We need to think about other ways to do this, other avenues for funding. That's what's a little difficult.

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

I think the government's idea—the others may be in a better position to say—is not to always provide funding. You have to find a way to find the funding. Perhaps funding to cover one year isn't enough, and it would be better to give projects a chance to be implemented, to form teams.

[Jean-Luc Racine]

Funding to cover more than one year would already be a lot. It sometimes takes a year to break in a program. We want to build something, we want the projects to grow and, eventually, we want to find sources of funding elsewhere. One year isn't much and, sometimes, it's less than a year; it's nine months. It's very quick. I've seen large projects implemented in six months. Sometimes, this can be very difficult.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Godin.

Mr. Gourde.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for being here this morning.

My first question is for Mr. Racine. You spoke a little earlier about measures intended for seniors to help them stay on the labour market. We understand that our seniors make a significant contribution to the Canadian economy. These people have a lot of experience but, when they are retirement age, they deserve a nice retirement. Some seniors take their retirement at age 58 or 59, it depends. If they still have years available, some of them want to continue to work to make a contribution to society. You spoke about significant measures to be put in place. I'd like to know your ideas about these measures.

[Jean-Luc Racine]

I see a lot of these people. I've met with teachers and public servants who can take the liberty of retiring at a fairly young age. They often feel a kind of euphoria for two or three years, but after that, they want to come back. We see that people no longer know how to reintegrate into the labour market. They also don't want a full-time job. So they need to be shown how to go about getting the job they want. Naturally, these people had one profession for a number of years, and most of them did not have to look for work because they held the same position for a long time. All the training is necessary.

The employers also need to be prepared. A lot of them still have prejudices about some older workers. So they need to be prepared for that and they need to be told what to expect. There is awareness work to be done with employers as well. So there is a lot of work to be done.

There are also mentoring opportunities, where we can see to it that an older person works with a younger person to help the older person find a job, to give him or her some practical advice, and so on. So there are all kinds of things that can be put in place to help this clientele stay in or return to the labour market.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

In general, do you think people want to change their area of work?

[Jean-Luc Racine]

That is very often the case. We're talking about the transferability of skills. A teacher does not necessarily want to return to the classroom, but wants to do something else. There's a lot of learning. It takes a lot of work, training and support for these people who want to return to the labour market.

But we have already started implementing a number of very interesting projects. Among others, we're thinking of a very good project in the Saguenay, which isn't a minority community. We also have projects in Ottawa. Very interesting things are being done in this area right now.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

In your presentation, you spoke about economic development with seniors. You didn't have time to finish your remarks, and I would like to hear what you have to say about that.

[Jean-Luc Racine]

Let's talk about the tourism industry. We have 300,000 francophone seniors among our members. We are increasingly working with our provincial federations and with the 16 regional FADOQs in Quebec. We are doing more and more travel and exchanges. We are trying to ensure that seniors are not only visiting the communities, but also have the opportunity to meet other seniors. We have gotten greatly involved in this area. More and more, we want to work in this area. We are also greatly involved in the senior rebate programs. We are working more and more with the private sector. We want to develop very interesting things.

I'd like to answer Mr. Godin's question. With respect to economic development, we tried to see whether we could obtain funding in that respect to create projects. It was very difficult. We didn't manage to find that funding. Breaking through is becoming very difficult. At the outset of the roadmap, the funding went to one sector in particular. The funding stayed there and we didn't really have access to funding that might be available.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

You spoke about economic projects, particularly regional tourism with the FADOQs. Some regions of Quebec set up a trip and promote it in other regions. There are exchanges between the regions for trips of one, two or three days, no doubt. Do you want to talk about this type of trip?

[Jean-Luc Racine]

Yes. We are currently working on twinning. Among others, it's being done between Ontario and the FADOQ for the regions of Quebec and Chaudière-Appalaches, and also between Saguenay and Nova Scotia. We are doing a lot of pairing up.

Naturally, this pairing up includes travel and exchanges, which enable groups of seniors to visit other seniors. This summer, seniors from Quebec went and met with seniors from Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. We are moving more and more in this direction, and we want to continue it.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

You also have the participation of the private sector.

[Jean-Luc Racine]

We are looking at those opportunities, exactly.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

There are means to do this pairing up.

[Jean-Luc Racine]

Exactly.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Gourde.

Mr. Bélanger.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Madame Raeburn-Baynes, what date is this Caribbean festival?

[Gemma Raeburn-Baynes]

May 27, 2112, at Marché Bonsecours, in Old Montreal.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Thank you.

I want to use the opportunity I have to congratulate you for winning the Sheila and Victor Goldbloom award this year—

[Gemma Raeburn-Baynes]

Thank you very much.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

—given out by QCGN. It's well deserved.

Mr. Chairman, I have to correct some of the information you gave this morning. I'm so sorry.

The Feuille de route started in 2008, and it goes to 2013. What was before was the Plan d'action. I want to highlight a couple of difference between the two, if I may, for the benefit of all our colleagues and our guests here this morning.

The Plan d'action had a committee of cabinet that dealt with these matters. I don't think that is reflected in the Feuille de route. The Plan d'action had the Secretariat at the Privy Council that handled these matters, and I don't think that's the case in the Feuille de route. The Plan d'action had increasing sums of money from year to year, so that at the end of the five years it was at $200 million, whereas the Feuille de route starts at the same amount, $200 million, and stays at that amount, and therefore it's not adjusting for inflation.

The Plan d'action had semi-annual consultations, once in the spring with the senior public servants and the entire communities, both anglophones and la communauté francophone, and once in the fall, with ministers. I don't believe you see that in the Feuille de route.

That's just to highlight a few of the differences, if I may be so bold, Mr. Chair.

I have a question that hasn't been raised. People might try to stop me, but we'll see. Members for the government party are submitting petitions to the House demanding that funding to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation be completely abolished.

Is the CBC an important institution for the communities you represent? A quick answer, please, because I have only one turn.

[Louise-Hélène Villeneuve]

Absolutely. There are communities where it's the only source in French that's accessible to people who want to get information or stay up to date on cultural news. I'd say yes, absolutely.

[Dorothy Williams]

I would say that CBC, because again you're talking about Montreal—

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

I'm talking about CBC/Radio Canada—all of it.

[Dorothy Williams]

CBC/Radio Canada, okay. I would say that I think it serves its place, if I may be so bold as to say that.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

That's not bold at all.

Thank you, Doctor.

[Jean-Luc Racine]

I agree with my colleagues and would say that it's essential. I think it's our way of identifying ourselves. The CBC is an essential partner in our communities. For instance, often, when we issue press releases, I get calls from people at the CBC, and they are there to cover the news. Otherwise, we wouldn't be well known. There are not a lot of media outlets interested in us, aside from the CBC.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Thank you.

Yes, go ahead, Ms. Beaulieu.

[Manon Beaulieu, Director General, Alliance des femmes de la francophonie canadienne]

I would just like to add, Mr. Bélanger, that I've had the opportunity to live in one territory and four different provinces. If there hadn't been the CBC for the minority communities, I would never have known what was really going on across Canada. So see how important it is? It is crucial for communication across our country.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

I want you to know that I fully agree with you.

One of the concerns that the people from the FCFA—the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada—have expressed here, through their president, who was here two or three weeks ago, is that, as a result of adopting the roadmap, departments and agencies have reduced their contributions using their own programs.

Did I hear correctly that you think that this might be what happened with Status of Women Canada?

[Manon Beaulieu]

As for Status of Women Canada, there were cuts in 2006, as we mentioned earlier. The reason we said that Status of Women Canada was not part of the roadmap was because it was not a sector identified as such as a partner from the start. This posed a problem for women's groups because we could seek funding only from Canadian Heritage.

As we have already mentioned, it's difficult to determine where the funding is coming from with Canadian Heritage. So it was more difficult for us to see how the roadmap would affect us. For Canadian Heritage and for us, we certainly do not want to end up fighting over where the funding is from. As you said, we do not want the money going from one pocket to another.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Dr. Williams, you touched on the point that I think is pandemic throughout the entire federal administration. It's not just with this particular government; the case applied before. That is the dichotomy of project funding versus core funding. I have come to believe that the way to go is to provide core funding as opposed to project funding.

If the government were to go that route, however, and perhaps it will want to try it with the next edition of the road map, how do you suggest that the government then undertake a periodic review to determine that for the institutions or the groups that are receiving core funding it is still appropriate?

That may not be the right word, but you can't have a status quo forever. On that one, I would defend the government: that getting core funding one year doesn't mean you get it forever.

What kind of mechanism would you propose to have an ebb and flow, if we adopted a core funding method?

[Dorothy Williams]

I can only speak for my organization. For instance, I'll start off by saying that the Black Community Research Centre does not have charitable status, so we find it very difficult to raise funds. That is one of the issues. Even in getting support—from other foundations, certainly, and from non-profit organizations—to give us money, there's always a thought in the back of the mind: thank goodness that we can get the kind of funding we can get through the road maps. I'm going to say that.

I'll go back to what I said in my speech to the chair. You really need, before you do that, to set in place measurable indicators; you need to tell us. And it needs to be done together. We need to understand what you define as success, just as we will tell you how we see success in our community. If we are all on the same page about the steps we're meeting, then in terms of a partnership, once we've met those steps, we deserve and should continue, for the sustainability of our community, with that funding.

But I think there needs to be from the government a very strong, clear indication that they're working with us to understand. We have our own strategic matrix—I have it here—which we worked on. We have a five-year plan based on our own understanding of what is success in community.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Will you share that with us?

[Dorothy Williams]

Okay.

I think we need to get that kind of guideline.

The only thing we get back is—

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

I have to stop you, because I'm running out of time.

I just want to tell the chair that—I don't have time to explain all of this, but unfortunately the second part of the meeting is business—because a colleague, whom I'm hoping we'll see before Christmas, at least, is not here, I won't be bringing up the motions again, Mr. Chairman.

Merry Christmas to you all!

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you.

Monsieur Lauzon.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would also like to thank all the witnesses for being here this morning.

I will start by asking Mr. Racine a question.

Mr. Racine, you spoke about VON Canada in Alberta. Could you please explain how this project works?

[Jean-Luc Racine]

The project is for family caregivers. I can simply tell you that VON Canada has had a program in English for several years. It is deployed in the communities. They developed…

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

A program of services?

[Jean-Luc Racine]

Exactly.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Is it at home, in homes?

[Jean-Luc Racine]

Yes, it's to support family caregivers. Perhaps Ms. Beaulieu can help me answer the question.

Training is given to family caregivers. We help them because it isn't easy to take care of someone at home who is losing their faculties. The project is used to support family caregivers to help them provide proper care. Unfortunately, that's all I can tell you.

One thing is certain: this project is leading us to a much more significant project. That's the good news.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Would you like to add anything, Ms. Beaulieu?

[Manon Beaulieu]

Yes. The VON is the Victorian Order of Nurses for Canada. As you mentioned, it's a service that's offered at home. The reason we connected with this organization is that we discovered, a little by chance, that there were people from minority communities who were unaware of the resources available in French. The Victorian Order of Nurses can provide services and have expertise in psychological support, and so on. So that's why it's important to develop the network and ensure that all francophones in Canada are aware of the available resources. So we don't have to reinvent the wheel.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

What should a francophone who is sick at home do if he or she needs this VON service and there is no French-speaking nurse?

[Manon Beaulieu]

Through the VON, we established contact with the Canadian Caregiver Coalition. When we spoke with the representatives of that coalition, we mentioned the need for francophone employees both in the agencies and among the volunteers who help people with cancer or any other kind of illness and who need care. That's why we are working with them, so they are increasingly aware that they are not always able to provide services in the language chosen. So we also want to try to make the VON aware of the importance of having employees who speak French to respond to the needs of these francophone individuals who need nursing care at home.

I lived in a rural community where there are couples who are basically separated because the person who is ill can no longer receive care at home. Patients must move to another community 15 or 20 miles away from their homes. It may not seem far to us, but for elderly people who need to take their car and do the trip in the winter, on the roads in Manitoba, it doesn't work. We need to provide better services at home.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

This happens to anglophones as well.

[Manon Beaulieu]

Yes, it happens to everyone.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Mrs.Williams, I find your organization very interesting. There are a couple of things you mentioned. Do you not have charitable status?

[Dorothy Williams]

No, we don't.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

That's not very difficult to get.

[Dorothy Williams]

Yes, it is.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Dorothy Williams]

Incredibly so.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Well, it takes about 12 months.

[Dorothy Williams]

No, it has nothing to do with that.

One of the corollaries of 9/11 and the federal government's response at the time was a change in charitable status and the way in which people apply. The grandfather clause applies for groups that already had the status, but new groups can no longer.... Because we have the Black Community Resource Centre, we very clearly state as our mission and our mandate that we're serving English-speaking blacks. You cannot get charitable status if you are making a specific statement about a particular community. It has to be open to all, by implication.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

In answer to Mr. Bélanger, you mentioned that in the next road map the government should describe what they think success is, and that you should have the opportunity to describe what your organization thinks success is.

What do you mean by success? What is success to your organization?

[Dorothy Williams]

Wow! Well, it's on many different levels. What is success for us would be—

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

In 20 words or less.

[Dorothy Williams]

Okay, in 20 words or less, if somebody comes into my organization with a particular issue, I would love to be able to sit down with that person and know that we have access to resources that take care of their immediate issue. We ask the person what they are doing, how they are doing, and what kind of support they need. Maybe it's educational, maybe it's employment, and those resources are available. Our teams can work with.... In other words, a holistic approach—

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

But the resources are available in the community. You simply refer that person—

[Dorothy Williams]

In our community, that's right. And that's one of the reasons why we need to build strong organizations.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

What are the numbers in your organization? How many people do you have in your organization, and how many people do you serve, say, in a 12-month period?

[Dorothy Williams]

That's two different things.

First of all, we're not a walk-in organization. We don't have a storefront. We are a resource and information organization, so we have no membership per se.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

How do they get service from you?

[Dorothy Williams]

In a given year, I would say in that black binder, we probably have maybe 8,000 people come through our door.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

They come through your door, but you don't have a storefront.

[Dorothy Williams]

Yes, but that's because they are coming for very specific—they are not card-carrying members; that's what I mean.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

I'm a black person in Montreal. How do I access your...?

[Dorothy Williams]

Hopefully, you know somebody that knows we exist, and it depends on the kind of service you're looking for, the kind of information. We have people call us and they're looking for the name of a black lawyer, they're looking for the name of a black doctor, or some other kind of service.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

I'm unemployed and I'm looking for employment. Can I go to you?

[Dorothy Williams]

We have an employment board. We used to actually have a fully functioning employment centre. We no longer have the funding for that.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

So I go to your place. I'm living in Montreal. I go to your office, and you have a list there of potential jobs that are available.

[Dorothy Williams]

That's right; they're posted. And we have a documentation centre. We have connections with vocational centres. Part of what BCRC does is partner with mainstream organizations. That makes us very unique from the BCAs. The black community associations in Montreal are very regionally based, so they're the ones you go to when you want a Christmas basket, an after-school program, a basketball program, a day camp, etc.

That's not why you come to BCRC. You come to BCRC because you're looking for entrée or ways into mainstream services that you hear about, that you feel you have access to, and we find ways to give you that.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

You mentioned that you had to shelve some ideas. Which ideas have you had to shelve?

[Dorothy Williams]

Which one do I start with?

We had a program, Communities that Care, which is from the United States actually. It's a wonderful model and it seems to be working in a lot of communities. We couldn't find funding for that. We have a program called Positive Tickets, in which we're now starting to make inroads, and we had to put that aside as well.

Those are just two examples.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much, Madame Williams.

Monsieur Trottier.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to welcome the witnesses here this morning.

Mr. Racine, I was quite interested in the intergenerational program you described. What is the target for the young people? What's the target age?

[Jean-Luc Racine]

High school students, mainly.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Have you considered putting in place programs for younger children?

[Jean-Luc Racine]

Yes. We even have a project in the works. We have made funding requests. The project is called Grands-parents.ca. We would like to use technology to create a link between grandparents and their grandchildren. We are targeting grandparents because they often have the means. We are also considering the fact that grandchildren in exogamous families don't often have the opportunity to speak French at home. Often, the significant bond is with grandparents. So we would like to use technology and equip seniors so that they can connect with their grandchildren.

We want to put in place all kinds of programs to ensure that the younger children are aware of the importance of French and can have opportunities to communicate with adults, in this case, their grandparents. We are thinking about a program like "grandma and grandpa want to know", for example. We want to organize something with seniors so they can communicate with their grandchildren age 4 to 12.

We have all kinds of projects that are intended to ensure that younger children are aware of the importance of French and can have the opportunity to communicate with adults, grandparents in this case.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

I was very interested in your description of the experience and how things are reversed after a few generations. In the past, people often spoke French at home and English at school. These days, for a lot of francophones in minority situations, it's the opposite because families are exogamous or even because of isolation. They are more mobile than before. So people are speaking French at school and, at home, the universe is anglophone.

I live in Toronto, a city where there are a lot of francophones scattered about. The francophone community doesn't have a place to gather together, like a community centre. So it's difficult for kids to have access to this transmission of the French culture and language.

Can you describe how the program with high school kids works? What are they learning? Does the program involve grandparents or seniors in general?

[Jean-Luc Racine]

The program involves seniors. Actually, it depends, because we have a number of projects. The project we carried out took the form of workshops where, for two and a half hours—or even three hours, in some cases—about a dozen young people and a dozen seniors got together. We did awareness work. We got them to let go of their preconceived notions about one another. Calmly, we also encouraged them to develop an intergenerational project together. Following the workshop, they were asked to develop a project.

Some very interesting projects took shape. For example, some young people told us they were interested in learning more about more traditional trades, like fishing. So fishing workshops were given to the younger children. The sharing of experience was very interesting. Various projects like that took shape.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Can we use senior citizens, for want of a better phrase, as ambassadors for francophone heritage?

[Jean-Luc Racine]

Of course we can.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Do they have the training to help young people?

[Jean-Luc Racine]

In Ottawa, as an example, there is a program for retired people called Parcours Lecture. It has retired people going into schools and reading stories to children in French. Of course, that leads to some great opportunities to talk with the kids and they find those connections to be interesting and meaningful.

We also have a project with the Canadian Association of Immersion Teachers. We applied to Heritage Canada and are waiting for their answer. We want to set up links between grandparents and French teachers in immersion schools. We also hope to set up between grandparents and anglophone children who are learning French. We want them to have meaningful connections with francophones.

These are all projects we are working on at the moment. Funding often comes piecemeal, project by project, but we are still hoping that it will let us move a little further forward. That's sort of the way it works.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Trottier and Mr. Racine.

Mr. Aubin.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First, I would like to extend a warm welcome to the committee to Ms. Ambler. But I hope that she is not here because Mr. Galipeau has a health problem. We are getting a little worried over on this side.

And to our guests this morning, thank you for the particular light your comments have shed and the questions that have occurred to me as a result.

In this process of evaluating the roadmap, I am hearing that you want both it and the funding to be renewed. I am hearing you tell us loud and clear not to leave you hanging. As a parallel issue, it also seems that there is some difficulty in distinguishing between regular funding and roadmap funding.

My first question goes to the people from the Alliance des femmes de la francophonie canadienne. You said in your statement that six of your 10 organizations received funding. So the question that immediately popped into my head was: why not the other four? Is it because each organization has to submit its own application or is the available funding distributed wrongly? How is it that all your organizations do not receive funding?

[Louise-Hélène Villeneuve]

Our organization is a network and all of our member associations are independent. They exist all across the country, but Heritage Canada's money is not evenly distributed. Each community has its own overall development plan, and it looks to us that, when women are considered a priority “sector” in those communities, groups of women become organized and services are provided to the people.

Anything to add, Manon?

[Manon Beaulieu]

I would just like to mention the vicious circle that our 15 member associations find themselves in. There is no core funding, just the operational funding that we hear so much about.

This morning, we talked at length about funding project by project. The part-time staff and volunteers in our offices are not always able to apply for funding for each project, which means that they don't get it. There must be funding for one person whose job it is to find other sources of funding. They are out there. But you need trained people to find them. Also as we mentioned this morning, people are often underpaid and do not always have job security, so we lose them. With our groups of women, and there are precious few of them, these things always go in waves…

As Mrs. Villeneuve mentioned, especially in the provinces and one territory, we see that, wherever women are seen as a “sector” in the agreements between Canada and the communities, the communities benefit from the efforts those groups of women make.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you. I have to stop you because I really have very little time.

You know that this committee is an advocate for linguistic duality in this country. We also have to consider the equality of men and women, another objective that we have not yet attained. I imagine that you would like your organization to be recognized as a priority stakeholder. I prefer that expression to the word “sector”: women are not a sector.

So what specifically would that status—being recognized as a priority stakeholder, that is—allow you to do more of in the next roadmap?

[Louise-Hélène Villeneuve]

I feel that it would provide us with the ability to work more directly with departments, in the sense that funding women's groups would be part of their mandate. I also think that it would allow us to continue with the initiatives that we have started. We would like to get to the point where we do not have to sit around this table anymore. Let me make one comment.

If you look around this table, you see that most of the seats are occupied by men. So are decision-making positions. We are trying to increase the number of women in leadership roles and to open up more possibilities for them, as you did when the opportunity arose for you to take decision-making positions.

That would mean that, when programs are developed and evaluated, the specific needs of women would be considered and our society would be better served.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you.

On that subject, I would add that, while our numbers may not be representative this morning, the NDP is actually 43% women. Our goal is 50%.

Mr. Racine, something else surprised me in your statement. You said that you got funding from Fonds Jeunesse. I don't know if that came as a surprise or a gift. Does this mean that you had not applied for it, or that you were not holding out any hope of getting it?

[Jean-Luc Racine]

No. When the roadmap was presented, we found out about the existence of the Fonds Jeunesse. We saw the activities we conduct fitting under some programs, but not necessarily that one. We applied as a result of the call for proposals and we got funding.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

When you get funding from a program like Fonds Jeunesse, doesn't it mean that you have to establish an excellent program? I'm not denying the quality of yours. If you get funding that does not support what you're already doing and does not allow for long-term development, you end up investing a lot of resources in a parallel program that is bearing fruit but has an uncertain future. The human resources do not seem to match the financial resources.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Aubin.

[Jean-Luc Racine]

It certainly becomes a little more difficult and complicated. Once the project ended, we tried to make it part of our programming. We realized that it was relatively easy to bring seniors together, but getting school kids mobilized is a whole different story. It is very difficult. At the moment, we are providing workshops, but just for seniors. There are no kids at them. Going to look for kids to take part in our programs is too difficult. It takes too much time and energy and too many resources that we do not have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you.

Mr. Weston, go ahead.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I also want to thank the witnesses.

Since I am a native of British Columbia, I want to thank all the French speakers for their efforts to speak slowly and clearly. As an anglophone, I have been able to follow along perfectly.

Thank you, Ms. Villeneuve, for reminding us of the nightmare that occurred at École Polytechnique. If we do not remember the nightmares of the past, we will not be able to dream of a better future. And since we are talking about dreams and such, I am going to ask you a very tough question.

The roadmap is not necessarily intended to help your agencies and businesses flourish but rather to support your mission, which is to promote the use of the French language and, in minority communities, the use of the English language. Let's imagine that, in 50 years, everyone can speak both languages but government funding is less than it is today. How do you think you can fulfill your mission, in other words, promoting the use of French, without an increase in government funding?

Mr. Racine, could you give us two or three brief answers.

[Jean-Luc Racine]

If I understand correctly, there may be less funding for the roadmap, but you are going to ask a lot of us. I hear the same thing time and time again. As far as resources go, they are already pretty limited. If we want to take things to the next level, and ensure that programs can be developed and that more and more people can live in French and speak the language, that people can truly live in an environment of linguistic duality, we must maintain our current assets.

I will you give you an example to show you what I mean. Ours is a national association. It receives $120,000 a year to operate. Of course, that's something. But we have an employee on the payroll and we bring people from across the country to take part in meetings. Every year, we hold one meeting, and sometimes two if we have the money. Our resources are already so meagre that we don't even have an office. We try to operate in a virtual space to save money. We can't even afford an office. So if we have to tighten up our belts further still, it would be quite a blow.

We must keep what we have. If the plan is to cut roadmap funding, then yes, we will try harder to do even more, but it will be incredibly difficult. That's asking a lot.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

I would like to hear your thoughts, Ms. Williams.

The question of charitable status troubles me. It seems that if charitable status comes with the promotion of humanitarian needs, which is the traditional perspective, then perhaps that can be overcome. I encourage you to get your MP, or someone who takes this seriously, to revisit that.

Do you have any suggestions? Fifty years hence, we've dealt with some of your missions as Canadians, but the money just isn't there because of increasing pressure on the taxpayer. What's your suggestion? I'm not saying that this is present. I'm looking well into the future.

[Dorothy Williams]

Looking well into the future.... That seems to be one of the real nubs in our community. It is one of the things that generates a lot of questions and helps to accentuate marginalization, particularly of the English-speaking black community, which we serve at BCRC.

I don't really think you would need more funding. Particularly because we're referring to Quebec, I think there needs to be much more openness to allowing more people into the programs they have already. There are lots and lots of second language programs in Quebec, but they're only for specific people. They're not for everyone.

There is, within Quebec, a culture that has ignored the population that existed in Quebec for decades. People who are served by language services are usually those who have come post-Bill 101. There are generations of blacks in the English-speaking community who have no access to French language services and to gaining French language competency. They continue, again, generation after generation, to be marginalized. That's very unfortunate, but that's a reality.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much, Madame Williams and Mr. Weston.

Madame Michaud.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thank you all for being here.

I want to begin with a comment for the AFFC representatives. You mentioned that there were not many women on the committee. You are lucky that there are two. Usually, I am the only one. If Mr. Galipeau's absence continues, this may be the reality for a while yet. This is a trend that I encourage my colleagues to follow. So you are lucky today.

Mr. Racine, you talked about plans to develop a Canada-wide strategy for French-speaking caregivers. I would like to hear a bit more about that. I am very interested in the subject.

[Jean-Luc Racine]

Actually, it is not just for caregivers. The strategy targets home care service in general. Receiving home care services in French in a minority language community is no easy feat. There is a lot of turnover when it comes to home care service workers. If you are able to receive French-language services, it usually lasts three or four weeks, and then the service provider is replaced by an anglophone and French services stop. In order to qualify for home care services, a senior is necessarily in a vulnerable position. The senior is in a very difficult situation.

I would also point out that when you do receive those services, you don't tend to complain for fear of losing services in French.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Could you briefly explain how the next roadmap could help you.

[Jean-Luc Racine]

I think it would be in terms of maintaining funding for health care. It is crucial that the federal government maintain its investments in health. If that happens, it will be possible to develop strategies.

Right now in Alberta, minor projects are leading to bigger ones. That is why we need to maintain the funding. Without it, things become a lot harder.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thank you very much.

I have a quick question for the BCRC.

You were telling us that you now have a five-year strategic plan. Could you tell us a bit more about this, about the main priorities that were identified in that plan per se?

[Dorothy Williams]

Actually there are 10 areas, 10 sectors, if you will: education, health and environment, employability and training, justice, organizational support and development, heritage and history, arts and culture, research, volunteerism, and communication. Every single sector is elaborated according to its objectives, its advocacy and policy issues, organizational partners we want to bring in to help us achieve our goal, project partners we may already have on board, and potential financial resources to help us in these sectors.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Do you see the objectives of your plan reflected in the current road map?

[Dorothy Williams]

Oh no. Certainly not all of them, no.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Were you involved in any consultation before?

[Dorothy Williams]

Yes, and BCRC is involved in QCGN from the top, so the president of our board is actually on the board of QCGN. The executive director, Akute Azu, is on the executive director's committee of QCGN, and many times we have given QCGN our staff to work on committees to have some kind of inroad or impact within the English-speaking black community.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

I am switching back to French now. This question is for all three groups. It comes back to the level of involvement in future consultations in relation to past assessment processes.

If I understood correctly, Ms. Williams seemed to be saying in her presentation that the people at the BCRC would really like to be involved in the consultations and in the program assessment processes that follow.

The AFFC representatives talked about how difficult it was to determine which investments really came out of the roadmap because of all the overlap with Canadian Heritage.

Would helping to develop assessment indicators to measure outcomes and success allow you to address some of the shortcomings when it comes to the transparency and relevance of roadmap initiatives? The question is for all of you. Please keep your answers brief, as I don't think I have much time left.

[Louise-Hélène Villeneuve]

Quickly, I can say that a cooperative approach to administration would certainly benefit everyone. If we worked with the government, things would definitely be clear. You could determine exactly what our needs were and, as Dorothy was saying, develop shared success factors.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you.

Mr. Menegakis, you have the floor.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Welcome. Thank you for being here today and for making your presentations. I found them very useful and informative.

Before I pose my questions, I want to refer back a little bit to CBC/Radio-Canada.

For what it's worth, I think it's important to note that our government has taken a very strong position in support of the CBC/Radio-Canada. In fact, Minister Moore, the Minister of Heritage, last week publicly commented on his support and the government's support for CBC/Radio-Canada. It's unfortunate that there's misinterpretation as far as that is concerned. But I can assure you the government is not in any way entertaining abolishing Radio-Canada, which we know is very important to the francophone community across the country, and particularly in those regions where there is no other media availability.

Another worthy note is that in the present structure of the government cabinet, there are 18 women who are either ministers or parliamentary secretaries. Of course, we'd like to see that number be higher, but certainly it's a strong indication of where we are going. I think it's very important.

I listened to your presentation with great interest. I think our government is continuing to demonstrate the importance of women in particular and everyone to be represented properly in government.

As you know, we're studying the road map for linguistic duality. It's a very important investment our government made in 2008. It's a $1.1 billion investment, so we're interested in hearing some of your comments as far as its progress to date. It's a little bit more than midstream; that's why we're studying it. We want to see the positive impacts or any impact it's had in the communities at large.

I do also want to congratulate you, Mrs. Raeburn-Baynes. In a previous presentation here we were given some documentation, one of which was the Sheila and Victor Goldbloom award. Your resumé was very impressive, so congratulations on that recognition there.

My question is to the BCRC. I know you don't have memberships per se, but how big is the black community in Quebec and Montreal?

[Dorothy Williams]

Now, officially, according to Stats Canada, from the last census, it's approximately 169,000; however, we figure it's probably closer to 220,000 because that really depends on how people are counted.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Yes, I would think it would be more than even that.

One of the things that I've always believed is that the cultural programs are very important, particularly for our youth—

[Dorothy Williams]

Absolutely.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

—and for our elderly. Could you elaborate a little bit on how the road map has helped in some of the cultural programs that are available throughout Montreal?

[Dorothy Williams]

Throughout Montreal...?

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Throughout Quebec, I guess.

[Dorothy Williams]

Well, as far as I know—

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Can you give us some examples?

[Dorothy Williams]

In terms of culture, I know that QAHN has availed itself of some funding. I'm not sure if the Quebec Drama Federation and its members have been able to avail themselves of some funding, but as far as I know, I'm not aware of any other groups that get funding for culture through the road map.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

I would think that cultural programs are major things that attract youth, would they not?

[Dorothy Williams]

Yes, they are. There are people in the community who recognize that. Again, I can only talk from the black community's experiences. In terms of culture, other than the kinds of events that come from groups like Playmas or our youth hip-hop groups, dance groups, steelpan, etc., one thing we can't or don't promote, because we're unable to, is black heritage in Canada, because it's not recognized at all.

[Gemma Raeburn-Baynes]

It isn't. I can speak about that because we did apply a few years back to Heritage Canada to promote the black heritage of Canadians. We do have a lot of black Canadians who were born here, and we were turned down. It's quite difficult as a black community to get funding from Heritage Canada.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

I'm a little bit disturbed with the fact that you're having a difficult time getting your charitable status. I hadn't realized that it changed a lot after 9/11.

[Dorothy Williams]

Yes, it did.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Menegakis.

Monsieur Harris.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Thank you very much for being here today.

I would just like to say one thing about CBC and Radio-Canada. If that's how the government party shows its support, just imagine what it would do if it did not like CBC and Radio-Canada.

As far as women's issues go, we have seen a number of cutbacks since 2006. In fact, I noticed today that the letter “e” is missing on the other side's sign. So we too, in the committee, have some work ahead of us.

It's not a conspiracy; it is nothing to do with that.

We still have to buy some new signs.

I wanted to start with Mr. Racine. You said, in the beginning, that there were not enough community groups for seniors. You said there were not enough groups in the Northwest Territories. Is that right?

[Jean-Luc Racine]

No, actually, I said that there was technically no seniors federation in the Northwest Territories. Usually, representative organizations are members of our federation. So we have no members in Nunavut, but we do have members in the Northwest Territories and Yukon. It is all done through their representative organizations, and the same goes for Newfoundland and Labrador. With that exception, each Canadian province has federations.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

I mention that issue because this committee has discussed it a number of times. During the previous Parliament, the committee undertook a study on linguistic duality in the north. The committee went to Yukon and the Northwest Territories. We just had Nunavut left to visit. We, the five members of the opposition, would like to complete the report. In addition, we have already spent $100,000 on that study. Do you think that report could be useful to you?

[Jean-Luc Racine]

It depends. I have not seen the content of the report, I don't know what topics it deals with, and so on. My northern communities clearly need support, in terms of seniors, if nothing else. We would certainly be very glad of any studies that may help us figure out the best way to support francophone communities in Canada's north. We could examine the study and use some of the recommendations as guidelines. Yes, of course.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

We still hope to have the opportunity to complete that report.

I also heard that you need multi-year funding.

For BCRC, you're talking about core funding. We're all talking about the same kind of thing. It's something that seems to be repeated time and time again, as witnesses are coming before us, and at other committees, that only temporary, short-term funding is available and that this is having an effect globally across Canada in all kinds of different areas with respect to groups' abilities to plan long term.

Would anyone perhaps like to talk about how important that funding in more detail?

[Louise-Hélène Villeneuve]

I can say that, ultimately, long-term funding of an organization is more cost-effective. We know that. In fact, we cannot guarantee to some of our employees that they will be with us next year.

I have an analogy, if I may. Let's imagine a brand new residential district—which are now common—where all the trees are ripped out, and so on. If someone is moving there for a year, but perhaps no longer than that, they probably won't take the time to improve the grounds or do any landscaping in order to live in a nice community. That will not necessarily be the case. However, if other neighbours know that they will be there for a long time, they will get more involved.

All to say that, if we could afford to give our employees contracts for more than one year, we could become more consistent. We could also save on the cost of recruiting and everything that goes with it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Ms. Villeneuve and Mr. Harris.

Ms. Ambler, go ahead.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for appearing before the committee today.

Let me apologize, first and foremost. Not having heard the opening statements, some of my questions may not be as relevant as those of my colleagues who came before me today.

My questions will be related to the work I do as a member of the status of women committee. Currently we are working on two reports. One is on violence against aboriginal women. The other is on elder abuse. Today of all days is a solemn day. We're reminded of the massacre at École Polytechnique. I believe that reminds us that sometimes acts of violence are perpetrated by mad men and are senseless and just impossible for us to understand. But that doesn't absolve us of responsibility as Canadians, and as a government, to deal with the issue of violence against women. The White Ribbon Campaign that is currently happening also focuses on domestic abuse.

Madame Beaulieu, you mentioned, I believe, that your association published a document on services for women that deal with violence against women. Is that correct?

[Manon Beaulieu]

Actually, not quite. Some of our members work specifically with women's groups, but as we mentioned earlier, across Canada we only have four centres. We know that it's the provincial governments that provide services in social areas, but if we don't have the support from the federal government at least to improve that.... A lot of the time, French-speaking women in distress will have to phone an English line, and there will not even be a bilingual person there. It's very frustrating for them.

They do a lot of work in collaboration with the anglophones, but the counselling and the services are minimal.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

On a more philosophical note, part of the White Ribbon Campaign, you may know, involves requiring men to take on responsibility and to be role models for their sons and young men. The government believes this is an important way to combat violence against women. Would you agree that this public awareness that it's not just a women's issue is important for actually solving the problem?

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much, Madam Ambler.

Go ahead.

[Louise-Hélène Villeneuve]

To give a quick answer, absolutely. I think it's a society issue. It's not just a women's issue. I think everybody should be involved. It starts at a young age as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much to our witnesses for their testimony and their presentations and to members of the committee for their questions and comments.

We're going to suspend for two minutes to allow our witnesses to leave the room. Then we're going to go into committee—

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Are we going in camera?

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Not necessarily.

I'm assuming that the witnesses are going to leave the room. I'm assuming that they're not going to stay here to listen to us debate the letter from the Commission scolaire francophone du Yukon. We're going to suspend for two minutes. Then we're going to go on to our second item on the orders of the day, which is the discussion of the letter, as requested by Monsieur Godin.

This meeting is suspended.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

We're coming out of suspension.

Mr. Menegakis has asked for the floor.

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

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Yes.

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

I did ask first, and you said yes. Then you turned around after that and said that you would recognize him.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

I don't recall saying that, Monsieur Godin.

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

Well, you have a short memory, Mr. Chair, because I did.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

When did you ask me that?

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

Just before, when you were adjourning, I said I wanted to go on this issue. You said it was my letter that I brought in, and you said, yes, and he asked after that—

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

I had that before as well—

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

I recall the incident. You pointed at the letter. I didn't realize you were asking—

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

No, I went like this. I said I wanted to speak, and you said yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

You did “this”. I didn't realize that meant you wanted the floor first.

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

But he didn't do more than I did.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Okay. I will give you the floor, but next time please be more explicit about what “this” means.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

A point of order, Mr. Chair.

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

Mr. Chair, in all honesty, and to be fair, he didn't do better than I did. He just went like this.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

No, I didn't.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

He asked me.

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

I did ask for the floor.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

I understand. I misinterpreted what “this” meant. So I will give you the floor.

You have the floor.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Then, Mr. Menegakis, you will have the floor.

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

In my opinion, the fact that the representatives of the Commission scolaire francophone du Yukon sent us such a letter shows that they are worried.

The representatives of the Commission scolaire francophone du Yukon took the trouble to write a letter to you and to the committee, Mr. Chairman, to ask the committee to review the meeting that took place in the Yukon. These people are worried. We heard them in the Yukon; they feel that certain things are happening that are not appropriate.

For everyone's information, I would like to read the letter:

Dear Mr. Chairman,

The Commission scolaire francophone du Yukon No. 23 (CSFY) is writing to express its concerns about the work of the Standing Committee on Official Languages since the start of the first session of the 41^st Parliament. On February 7, 2011, the CSFY appeared before the Standing Committee on Official Languages in connection with the study on the Development of Linguistic Duality in Northern Canada. At that time, the Franco-Yukoner community worked to present as clear a portrait as possible of the status of French as a minority language in Yukon. The relationships between the federal government, the Yukon government and our community are complex, given that the territorial governments are constitutionally different from those of the provinces, and these differences mean increased responsibilities for the federal government with respect to linguistic minority communities. This study's report was supposed to outline these complex issues and bring forward solutions and new approaches to enable the federal government to fulfil its responsibilities. We were therefore eagerly awaiting your committee's report.

During the September 22 meeting of the Standing Committee on Official Languages, the member for Ottawa—Vanier said that the list of possible studies for and previous studies of the committee “will be flushed,” to which the member for Richmond Hill replied: “It is possible that some new idea will come out of the 41^st Parliament. Not everything that happened before we came here needs to have precedence.” You will understand that the Franco-Yukoner community did not find this all that reassuring. The Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure was to plan the work of the committee during its meeting of September 27. Unfortunately no minutes of this meeting are available. Furthermore the committee chose to hold its meeting of October 4 in camera. We therefore have no information on the planning of the committee's work. Since then, the committee appears to have undertaken a new study, Evaluation of the Roadmap: Improving Programs and Service Delivery.

The CSFY believes that the study on the Linguistic Duality in Northern Canada is essential to the development of northern linguistic minority communities. Our community put a great deal of effort into presenting our situation to representatives of Canada's Parliament, and we put our trust in the parliamentarians we met with. It is important that your committee do everything it can to show that it is worthy of this trust by tabling the report of this study in the House of Commons. We also consider this to be an urgent matter. For a number of years now, the federal government has been supporting minority-language education through bilateral agreements. These agreements are based on the Protocol for Agreements for Minority-Language Education and Second-Language Instruction between the Government of Canada and the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada. The current protocol for agreement expires in 2013. Negotiations for the next protocol should begin very shortly. During its presentation for the study on the Linguistic Duality in Northern Canada, the CSFY pointed out a number of management and accountability problems with the funding provided to the territorial governments under the bilateral education agreements. The CSFY even brought this matter before the courts in 2008, and the Supreme Court of Yukon Territory ruled in its favour in its judgment of July 26. It would therefore be very disappointing if the report is not tabled before the start of negotiations between the federal government and the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada, and if we are all exposed to a series of legal proceedings that could have been avoided, had the Standing Committee on Official Languages proposed political solutions.

The CSFY is therefore asking you to make the status of the work on this study public and to exercise diligence in ensuring that the report is tabled in the House of Commons as quickly as possible.

I hope you will act on this request. Yours truly,

André Bourcier, President

Commission scolaire francophone du Yukon, no 23

Mr. Chair, the letter that was sent to you shows the importance of the meeting with the people of the Yukon. This has been going on for 25 years. We have seen previous governments refuse to meet with the communities. As for the current government, I don't know what the problem was, but for our first series of meetings from coast to coast, that is from Newfoundland and Labrador to British Columbia, even the chairman of the committee refused to make the trip. They said publicly that they considered it useless to do so, and the chair even said that he did not know how to justify to his fellow citizens that the government would foot the bill for a trip during which official languages would be discussed throughout the country. He refused to take part in it. I was vice-chair of the committee, but I had to act as chair during the entire trip.

As for this trip, members of the government party actually wanted to make it, and wanted to conclude the meetings in Whitehorse and Yellowknife. They even discussed the possibility of continuing the trip in the far north to go and hear the communities there. More than $100,000 was spent by the committee. All of this was duly recorded. That is not abnormal, but in my opinion, communities are complaining because we went to meet with them, and some people are now refusing to prepare a report. This is an insult to democracy and to the francophone community of Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

We don't have any time left now. It is 10:45. The committee made a decision on the study. We are now doing a study on the assessment of the roadmap. That is the decision of the committee, and as chair I am going to abide by it. If the committee changes its decision, I will respect that new decision.

I have my instructions from the committee. They were adopted through motions of the committee. I am the servant of the committee, so I will follow the direction of the committee. Until the committee gives me directions otherwise, my hands are tied.

We're out of time for further discussion, so I'm going to adjourn the meeting. If you wish to change the direction of the committee, I suggest you give me notice of a motion to that effect. I will dedicate time at the following meeting to have a debate and a vote on that motion.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Chair, I want to be the first to speak the next time, before we go to committee business.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Without further ado, the meeting is adjourned.