Official Languages Committee on Feb. 16th, 2012

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Welcome to the Standing Committee on Official Languages. Today is Thursday, February 16, 2012, and this is our 26^th meeting. We are here pursuant to Standing Order 108 to study the evaluation of the Roadmap: improving programs and service delivery.

We have three witnesses here today: Mr. Lussier, Mr. Déry and Mr. Gauthier. Welcome, everyone.

We'll begin with a 10-minute presentation.

Mr. Lussier, you have the floor.

[Hubert Lussier, Assistant Deputy Minister, Department of Canadian Heritage]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As the members will no doubt recall, the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages has two duties with respect to official languages. These duties involve ensuring there is government-wide coordination of official languages issues, which includes coordination of the roadmap that you are studying and involves about 15 federal institutions.

Moreover, we provide the delivery of two programs that support official language minority communities and linguistic duality, which includes encouraging contact and exchange between the two linguistic communities, namely, anglophones and francophones.

With your indulgence, my two colleagues, who each exercise functions associated with these two topics, will make brief presentations. First, Jean-Pierre Gauthier will say a few words about the road map, complementing the presentation made in October to you. And then Yvan Déry will explain our department's official languages support programs and how they relate to the road map.

[Jean-Pierre Gauthier, Senior Director, Official Languages Secretariat, Department of Canadian Heritage]

Good morning, everyone. I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to appear again before the committee as part of your study of the roadmap.

I'll take only two minutes because I want to give as much time as possible to my colleague, who has new material, and to questions from the committee. In our first appearance before the committee on October 18, 2011, we unfortunately didn't have as much time as we would have liked for questions. So I am pleased to be here to continue this discussion and answer the questions that couldn't be asked last time or that may have been raised in the testimonies you've heard since then.

I just want to take the opportunity to stress the importance that my team and I place on the committee's work. You are an important source of information. We listen to the testimonies you receive. We are greatly interested in the information that emerges. In fact, we consider the testimonies you hear as being formal consultations. Obviously in addition to that we have our informal consultations that take place as part of our business dealings. We are conducting a series of forums and special events, as well as a detailed study of the documentation, strategic plans from the communities and other various sources. This amalgamation of all this information provides us with clarification and enables us to make proposals to the minister.

I'll stop there because I'm sure there will be questions. I will now turn things over to the assistant deputy minister, if I may.

[Yvan Déry, Acting Director General, Official Languages Support Programs, Office of the Director General, Department of Canadian Heritage]

Thank you very much for having us here today.

The official languages support programs are the most significant in terms of cost, and they are the oldest programs of the Government of Canada dedicated exclusively to promoting official languages outside the federal government. These programs were created in the 1970s and have been improved over the years.

There are two programs in our current structure.

First, there's the Development of Official-Language Communities. With this program, we work with the provinces to support minority-language education, either in French outside Quebec or in English in Quebec. We also support the two main networks of representative organizations, the one for francophones outside Quebec and the one for anglophones in Quebec, as well as a large group of regional and local organizations that support community vitality in every region in the country.

The second program is the Enhancement of Official Languages. Once again, we are working with the provincial governments and, with this program, we support second-language learning across Canada. We also support organizations such as Canadian Parents for French, which promotes second-language learning. We support stronger links between anglophones and francophones.

Funding for these two main programs totalled $337 million this year, for 2011-2012, or $1.7 billion over five years, which is the horizon for the roadmap. The roadmap's contribution to this $1.7 billion amount is $600 million, which is a major complement to our work, representing 35% of the total of what we are funding. With this $600 million, we are an important player when it comes to the roadmap. So it's practically the oldest and the largest program funded by the horizontal initiative that come under Jean-Pierre Gauthier.

So the road map is a complement to what we do. With $600 million over five years, the complement is divided into many missions. We have a big segment of that, which is used to do what we call building on achievements, to consolidate what we have been building over the years before. The bulk of the road map money goes to education.

Our two missions in education are second language learning and minority language support. We also fund, through our provincial partners, exchange programs—summer language bursaries—for 8,000 young Canadians each year who will go to another region of the country to learn their other language for five weeks of immersion. We have a language monitor program that is also well known, where you have young university students used as teacher assistants in classes, in areas where young Albertans, or young British Columbians, for that matter, have never seen a francophone in their life. You get a born francophone who will assist the teacher in giving French lessons. That's invaluable for the experience of these young students.

The “building on achievements” part of the road map also continues the work we are doing with the networks of organizations throughout the country—the minority community organizations. We also work with all of the provinces and territories to support their provision of services in the language of the minority. In provinces like Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, you have a wide array of services, depending on each province's situation. All provinces are now working with the federal government to provide key services in the language of their minority.

The road map also brought about two new youth initiatives for the first year of the road map, and the cultural development fund, which has been working now for four years. We have results to communicate later on in the presentation.

Finally, the road map promised that we would bring about a new cross-nation mechanism to support the work of all federal institutions in delivering on their obligations under the Official Languages Act.

The achievements in minority-language education are vast and it's a field that involves hundreds and hundreds of people across the country. It's extremely important for the future of minority communities.

As we speak, 245,000 young people are receiving primary and secondary education in their language in a minority situation—in English in Quebec and in French outside Quebec—in 900 schools administered by 40 minority school boards. Talk about school administration in minority communities began in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, so these school boards for the most part haven't yet been around for 20 years. Progress in this field is measured with the help of the federal government, provincial and territorial governments and through the work of thousands of volunteers across the country.

In recent years, our program has made it possible to create what we call living milieux. The creation of school/community centres is one achievement we are particularly proud of. It's practically an invention of our program. There are now 31 centres across the country. The same building houses a community centre and a cultural centre that are attached to a school. Some good examples show to what extent this type of link with the school is vital in isolated communities. It's an idea that has created spin-offs. People are now talking more and more about community schools. New Brunswick launched the concept. In Quebec, we call these "community learning centres". Rather than add a wing to a school to create a community centre, we make full use of the school's rooms and infrastructure.

I could go on for an hour, but I know my time is limited. You have before you documents that provide details about the various ways we can use the roadmap funds. There have been extraordinary advances in the field of education in minority situations.

On the second language learning side of things, we have 2.4 million young Canadians who are studying French or English as their second language, as we speak. While the general school population is declining, the number of students taking French or English as a second language is increasing. The proportion is increasing, it's being maintained, and we're working on improving that. But the real challenge is not to increase those numbers as much as to increase the quality of the experience of those second language learners. We have immersion that is climbing as well.

We're working with provinces on what we call intensive learning. It's a new approach, an approach that has been developed over the last 15 years, and it is now expanding throughout the country.

As for the achievements in community support, we talked about networks of organizations. We're working with 400 organizations across the country. The ones that have testified before you are the major stakeholders, but they have behind them hundreds of local organizations that provide services, drive communities and serve as a point of reference and contact in regions where the minority language is difficult to find, to see and to hear.

We have the cultural development fund, which has been in addition to the road map, because in the preceding years, people have said that culture must be a vital part, integral to the vitality experience, yet previous plans did not make direct mention of that. We have been funding, by choice, small projects that will bring a local experience, that will revitalize culture or create animation in local centres through this program. It's booming, it's working quite well, and I think you've seen an array of organizations that have been praising this program over the course of your work.

Let's go to the last slide.

Since 1994, the Department of Canadian Heritage has been working with 32 federal institutions recognized for their superior ability to contribute to community development. As part of the roadmap, we promised to work with 200 federal institutions. We are keeping this commitment and, as of the next fiscal year, these 200 institutions will be asked regularly to contribute to the development of the communities and to promote both official languages.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, everyone.

We have 50 minutes left for questions and comments.

We'll start with Mr. Godin.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to welcome our witnesses, Mr. Lussier, Mr. Gauthier and Mr. Déry.

Since the time is limited, I'll get straight to my questions.

When do you think the mid-term report will be ready? Will it be made public?

[Jean-Pierre Gauthier]

The mid-term report is being finalized. I think it will be available in a few weeks. The decision was made to make it public and present it before the committee, since the committee requested it.

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

Mr. Gauthier, I'm a little concerned because of something you said earlier.

[Jean-Pierre Gauthier]

Yes, I noticed that.

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

It made me jump. It made my hair stand on end.

Mr. Gauthier, you said that your department really looked at the work done by this committee and considered all the testimonies given here and viewed it as a formal study. You said that you were going to do another, more informal study.

Here's what concerns me in all that. Unless I'm mistaken, when we did the study, the question was whether the roadmap was working. We asked our questions with that in mind. We did not ask what should happen in the future. If the consultation and this committee are off track, wouldn't it be better to do a study with the communities, that the government meet with communities to really find out if what was done worked?

Since you follow the committee meetings, surely you'll agree with me that the message is clear: the roadmap was positive. Is that what you understood from the testimony?

[Jean-Pierre Gauthier]

Yes, absolutely. We do follow the testimony. We read all the transcripts. We extract the essence of the testimonies to help us with our work.

One thing is important. When I talk about formal consultations, we obviously have a number of mechanisms, a number of opportunities to speak with communities and find out what they think, whether it's with a more specific objective or not.

For example, I'm thinking of the mid-term consultations that we had and that was still fairly broad, but that had a fairly specific perspective, very retrospective, and it focused more on the roadmap. But on other occasions, we have also gotten our information by listening to the communities.

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

I'd like to come back to that, but I also want to come back to something else. Does the department itself find that the roadmap has been productive and positive?

[Jean-Pierre Gauthier]

This is in fact documented and we know of many examples that demonstrate these successes. In our coordination role, we speak to all the roadmap partners. We are amassing a large number of great stories that have happened because of the support of the roadmap.

The evaluations are under way. They will provide a more systematic look, if I may. They will make it possible to see in detail if the objectives established for each component have been reached and if they were effective. This is under way and it is part of the input we will be looking at. We want to know what the evaluators are telling us. It's a combination of all of that.

However, we can tell you right now that a lot of good things have been done. It's been documented and observed. As for the results achieved program by program and the evaluation of effectiveness, we are listening to the committee. We'll have the committee report, but we will also have the evaluations. We will take in all of that.

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

Will there be another roadmap?

[Jean-Pierre Gauthier]

I'm not the one to make the decision, and I don't think it's been decided yet. We are listening and doing analysis to see how to follow up on the government's official language commitments in the best possible way in the years after the roadmap ends.

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

Are you going to take into account the fact that the communities want the roadmap?

[Jean-Pierre Gauthier]

We realize that, yes.

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

I think that was clear.

[Jean-Pierre Gauthier]

Yes, I agree with you.

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

Mr. Déry, a little earlier you talked about the memorandum of understanding between the federal government and the provinces that ends in 2013. Are negotiations currently under way with the provinces?

[Yvan Déry]

Formal negotiations with the provinces will begin in the next few months. The Council of Ministers of Education, Canada has already set up its negotiation committee. We have had some contact already. We are getting ready for the start of the next fiscal year. We have a schedule of meetings to prepare for the renewal of our agreements on April 1^st, 2013.

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

I'll ask you once again if you intend to consider the requests of the communities that want to be able to take advantage of the roadmap.

[Jean-Pierre Gauthier]

As I already said, we communicate with the communities at various times. We hold informal meetings. For example, tomorrow there will be a day organized by the Department of Justice. It's the justice component, which I am taking part in. We take into account everything we hear at these forums.

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

You're talking about forums that may be held any time, but I want to know if meetings with the communities are planned, specifically for the roadmap.

[Jean-Pierre Gauthier]

When we arrange meetings—and I could give you the example of the research symposium that took place in September—we indicate fairly clearly to participants that the discussions provide us with information about following up on the roadmap. This way, all the participants at the event are aware that meetings may be held regularly, but that this one has special significance.