Official Languages Committee on Dec. 8th, 2011

[Gabriel Arsenault]

…you eliminate the only media outlet in French.

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

In a moment, you are perhaps going to be told that it is not true, that Minister Moore is standing up for Radio-Canada. But on the first page of the web site of Rob Anders, M. P., you can see the petition. If that is what you are told, maybe you should ask about the results of the poll that the Conservative Party conducted among its members, asking their opinion about Radio-Canada funding.

This concerns me. I look at potentially abolishing CBC/Radio-Canada in the same way as you do. It's not just about the French side. People on the English side want to keep CBC/Radio-Canada too. I am taking this action because I think communities must be aware of the possibility. Thank you.

Sir, your statement was absolutely essential. To be fair to the government, I congratulate it for putting a cultural element into the roadmap. It is something the action plan did not have; I recognize that. But some of the elements of the action plan that preceded the roadmap should have been kept. You said that there was no tie-in between the roadmap and the global community development plan. The action plan called for a consultation mechanism every six months. Communities were consulted to see how things were going. Have you been regularly consulted since the roadmap was launched to see how it is being developed and rolled out?

[Ibrahima Diallo]

No, not to my knowledge. We were consulted right at the start when the roadmap was being workshopped and when Bernard Lord was going round all the provinces, I think. To my knowledge, that is the only time when we had a meeting like that at which we could express our interest and set out some milestones. As far as I know, no specific update meetings have been regularly held.

[Aline Bouffard-Cohen]

That answer goes for us too.

[Éric Dubeau]

We were consulted often, particularly about the implementation of programs like the Music Showcases Initiatives for Artists from Minority Official Language Communities. I would also say that we were consulted a lot for the mid-term report.

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

Was the consultation worth it?

[Éric Dubeau]

We won't know that until we see the final report. We hope it was worth it.

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

A decision has been made. It seems that we are going to be able to see the interim report, That is encouraging.

By the way, I would like to congratulate your two premiers, Mr. Ghiz and Mr. Selinger. If the roadmap is going to be implemented and the communities are going to develop positively, it is important for the provinces to be active participants. Having worked with Mr. Ghiz and Mr. Selinger, I can tell you that their governments' desire to respect those communities and have them develop in a positive way is clear. I hope you can agree with me on that.

[Aline Bouffard-Cohen]

Yes, provincial governments are good like that, at least, the Prince Edward Island government is. Now the challenge is to establish cooperation between departments. Each department must meet the needs of francophones. So harmonization is essential. We are working together in order for the needs of francophones to be heard in each department and for the programs to be tied to those needs. That is where the value is added.

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

Let me make a suggestion. Mr. Arsenault, you mentioned immigration needs. I know that the Société franco-manitobaine is a key player in immigration matters. My suggestion is that the Société Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin people talk to the Société franco-manitobaine people about it. I think that could be very useful for communities in both places. The Société franco-manitobaine has put in place some excellent, imaginative programs, which have made Manitoba the province with the highest rate of francophone immigration in the country.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Bélanger.

Over to you, Mr. Trottier.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My thanks to our guests for being here this morning.

I was struck by your presentation because a number of themes kept coming up. You mentioned the lack of consistency that investments in minority official language communities suffer from. I know that you have been working in those communities for a long time.

Mr. Arsenault, you mentioned the changes that have taken place since the start of the 1990s, for example. Perhaps you could tell us what it was like beforehand. Surely, there were investments from different departments like Heritage Canada, Health Canada and Justice Canada. The roadmap was born from the idea of improving consistency, but I am hearing that no consistency exists. Do you have any suggestions? Should we perhaps go back to the old model whereby you asked each department to make investments. Could you tell me more, please?

You can start, Mr. Arsenault. Is there a way to improve the situation, to increase the coordination and the consistency of roadmap investments?

[Gabriel Arsenault]

As the other speakers have mentioned, I think there is the matter of the clarity of the roadmap. I don't think people in the street read the roadmap every day. I think our emphasis has to be put on our communities' global development plans, as all provincial governments are doing at the moment. That is where we should start, in my opinion. We have defined all our communities' priorities for the various sectors. The federal government should complement that work and collaborate on it. I am not saying that there is no communication. But there has to be some understanding of the priorities that have been established in our communities. That would be a good start.

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

Okay.

What about Manitoba? Manitoba means a lot to me; it's the old country. My father and a lot of my family members still live there. That's why I feel Franco-Manitoban at heart. Maybe you can talk about the lack of consistency.

[Ibrahima Diallo]

I think the tie-in is critical. There is an excellent example in our report. This is the agreement we have with Heritage Canada that puts the Société franco-manitobaine at the heart of the arrangement. The Société, together with provincial organizations, is in a position to articulate its actions and establish its priorities from the needs. As a result, things work well. The example is worth following.

In terms of the roadmap, a number of departments intervene directly so that advocacy organizations cannot coordinate the process and move it forward. In other words, if we could follow the money, so to speak, things would work better.

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

What do you think, Ms. Cohen?

[Aline Bouffard-Cohen]

I would like to make two points. Almost every province has an agreement with Heritage Canada, and that is the ideal situation. The agreement is reached and investments in the province are recommended. It works well. People even ask to be involved in the evaluation.

In terms of the roadmap, I would not say that it lacks consistency, I would say that it lacks transparency. By contrast, what we do with Heritage Canada is a perfect example of cooperative agreements to collectively manage investments, since we ourselves make recommendations as to where those investments might go.

I would add one thing to what my colleague said. We do have a kind of consistency interprovincially through the Federation of Francophone and Acadian Communities of Canada. Their priorities and ours are aligned. There is the leaders' forum. Overall, each province ties its global development plan with a Canada-wide plan.

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

Thank you.

The roadmap was established in 2008. Was there a lack of consistency in the departments then? Let's take Heritage Canada as an example. Perhaps Ms. Doucet could talk to us about it.

Were the minority official language communities overlooked? Possibly, Heritage Canada concentrated too much on the francophone community in Quebec. In English-speaking provinces, minority languages do not receive sufficient attention. Has the roadmap helped communities in any way?

[Marie-Claude Doucet]

I will let the director general answer that question, as he has more knowledge of what went on before 2008 than I do.

[Éric Dubeau]

I am not sure. But Heritage Canada is a very complex department. I would make a distinction between what we may see as a higgledy-piggledy approach that seems to go off in all directions at once, and the need in the trenches for approaches that are made-to-measure, that meet the needs of different regions, different functions and different sectors. They may be for arts and culture, for seniors, for youth or for anything else. The approaches are tailored to those needs.

Did we have the same adaptability before 2008? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Do we have it now to a greater extent? The roadmap came with an implementation framework. I applaud that attempt to provide better focus for the implementation. I feel that we can acknowledge that, here and there, it did not have the desired effect. In fact, a community often does not know whether the investment came from the roadmap as such or not. It seems to me that there is one more step to take. It also seems to me that a community can be a significant partner in increasing the consistency.

I don't know what my colleagues think, but that's my view.

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

I would like to go back to Mr. Bélanger's questions. You all talked about accountability, especially with taxpayers' money. Does the roadmap improve things in that respect?

You mentioned the lack of an accounting trail. If departments had a matrix and horizontal investments, would that get in the way of your ability to follow the money and make sure that taxpayers' money is well spent?

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Trottier.

The answer will have to be brief.

[Éric Dubeau]

That's a challenge. We have the roadmap and we have the programs that stem from it. My answer would be different for each of those programs.

In some cases, the transparency is excellent. We mentioned the music showcases program, for example, that allows us to follow the investments to the dollar.

The cultural development fund is another matter. Today, I can give you a number of projects that have been approved and I can tell you the amounts of money they have received. But I do not know what they asked for, and I do not know about the programs on the list that were not approved. That seems to me to be a lack of transparency and accountability. You could follow the same process for all the programs. We have the framework and we have the individual programs. We do not have a tie-in between the two.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Dubeau.

Ms. Cohen, what can you tell us about it?

[Aline Bouffard-Cohen]

I have to say that we in the trenches are perfectly capable of saying what we are doing and working with performance indicators. Heritage Canada helps us to use results-based management methodology. The process is not transparent in itself, but a community is gradually forming at street level that is able to use results indicators.

Our only regret is that the performance indicators for the roadmap are not necessarily linked to those performance indicators we are using. My supplementary comment would be that, for the next roadmap, performance indicators should be coordinated. We can do that, we can work together.