Mr. Chair, committee members, good morning. My name is Yvan Lebel, and I am the chair of the Saskatchewan Conseil scolaire fransaskois. With me is Mr. Bernard Roy, who is the director of education.
Please allow me to thank you for this invitation and also for the opportunity to tell you about the Fransaskois school community in Saskatchewan and its challenges.
The purpose of this presentation is to make the members of this committee aware of the need for support from the Canadian government to ensure respect for the Canadian Constitution and to provide the Fransaskois community with the means necessary to promote its development and to enhance its vitality.
The situation we describe in the brief shows that our rights under the 1982 Constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as well as the Education Act, 1995—on education in French in Saskatchewan—have been affected, and that the means available to the Conseil scolaire fransaskois—the CSF—are still too limited for it to assume its full responsibility.
The CSF is responsible for implementing a French first-language education system in Saskatchewan that is equal to that of majority schools. In addition, the CSF responds not only to the educational component of its mandate, but also to section 23 of the Charter, in the components of cultural community and the identity of our students, contributing to the development and vitality of the province's francophone community.
Early in the last century in Saskatchewan, there were 80 francophone communities where instruction was in French. In 1918, repressive legislation limited French-language instruction to one hour per day. In 1931, it became illegal to teach in French in Saskatchewan. It wasn't until 1967 that the Government of Saskatchewan again permitted a certain amount of French-language instruction in English school boards. When section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms came into effect on April 15, 1982, a group of entitled parents demanded that the Government of Saskatchewan establish a French-language school board to be administered by parents. The Saskatchewan government turned down their demand and an application for a court remedy was filed in 1986. A favourable judgment was handed down in February 1988, but it wasn't until seven years later, in 1995, that the government authorized the school management to be done by and for francophone parents, and it adopted the Education Act in 1995. On November 9, 1998, the CSF was established. So it took almost 15 years after the adoption of the Charter to be able to obtain this minimum recognition of our language rights. There are only about a dozen active francophone communities remaining from the 80 or so that existed at the beginning of the century. Geographically, the CSF must respond to the challenges arising from the fact that the French-language communities are widely scattered throughout the province.
I hope we will be able to come back to reconciliations for past wrongs during the question period.
In terms of enrollments, registrations from kindergarten to grade 12 have almost doubled since 1998. We had 1,565 students on September 30, 2011. The number of schools has grown from 8 to 16. We think that this number could quadruple if we had adequate facilities and resources, comparable to those of the majority schools.
Daycare centres, preschool and full-day kindergarten are indispensable tools for recruitment and the development of children's language capacity and their cultural identity as francophones. There is currently a waiting list of 250 children for daycare spaces.
As for the underfunding of the francophone school system in Saskatchewan, our brief provides examples showing that, since the CSF was established, it has not received the funding it requires to respond to the needs of the current and latent clientele, and that the effects are cumulative. The funding scales do not consider the real costs of the services that we must provide to fully assume our responsibility.
Despite the introduction of a francophone factor in 2002, many legal remedies—yes, Mr. Chair, we are still before the courts!—and a promise of an oft delayed funding formula, which is now expected for 2012, all these means still do not meet the needs of our school system. Unfortunately, it seems that legal recourse is still too often required to defend our rights. But this is really costly for the board and for francophones. This energy could be invested elsewhere, which would benefit our children.
Giving you all the details of the list of services that are underfunded or have no funding would take too long. Our brief provides a list and a few examples of the main areas that justify our claims. We can tell you that, according to our calculations, we are still short about $13 million to make up the difference and meet the needs of our school system, whether it is school transportation, specialized services, technological equipment, training capability or other areas. The funding formula is deficient and is based on the needs of the majority. It is also important to understand our situation, in that we are spread out and isolated, the fact that it is impossible for us to generate economies of scale and much much more.
We submitted 10 recommendations in our brief. I'll summarize them simply by saying that it is imperative to get more involvement from the federal government to support the responsibilities of francophone school boards operating in minority situations. Whether it's in early childhood, specialized services or any other area, the situation requires increased means. Particular attention must also be paid to implementing compensation measures to remedy past wrongs.
Since the recognition in the Constitution of the right to instruction in the minority language and the establishment of our Conseil scolaire fransaskois, a great deal of progress has been made. We must be allowed to continue to build on that in order to enjoy our right fully.
Will we at some point be able to recover from the enormous losses of the past?
The fact that the French education directorate in Saskatchewan's Ministry of Education was recently abolished is certainly not the most positive and encouraging example. Everyone recognizes that provincial governments have exclusive jurisdiction over education. However, we must also recognize that minority-language education is a special case that is protected by our constitutional rights and, by extension, by the federal government's role in protecting official language minorities. The issues are different and the means to develop must be at least equivalent to those available to the majority, while being tailored to suit the realities of the minority communities.
Furthermore, it is imperative—and this goes beyond the provinces' exclusive jurisdiction—that the federal government ensure that favourable conditions are created and that the necessary tools are available to ensure the full development and vitality of minority language communities.
Thank you for listening. We are ready to take your questions.