Official Languages Committee on Feb. 28th, 2012

[Andrée Duchesne]

As you know, Mr. Bélanger, those matters are mainly the responsibility of the Office of the Commissioner for Federal Judicial Affairs. I do not have those figures. You must check with the commissioner's office on that.

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

We'll look into that. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Monsieur Trottier.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to the witnesses for being with us today. You are here this morning to answer questions concerning the long term and to discuss the future of the country's linguistic communities. The fundamental question for this committee is whether the roadmap has been a success.

As you know, it was implemented in 2008 and met two major needs of the linguistic communities: long-term funding and support. Some programs lasted one year or perhaps two, but there was no long-term support. There was also a lack of coordination among the various departments. With that in mind, would you say that the roadmap has been successful in solving these two major problems in the linguistic communities? Perhaps we can start with the Health Canada representatives.

[Debbie Beresford-Green]

Thank you for your question.

I believe those are two important questions that we will address once we have the results of the assessment currently under way. However, there have definitely been successes. I am talking only about Health Canada, our program and our investments. We have built on the successes of the former program because we can see the long-term improvements, particularly in health. Is any work left to be done? Yes, because, as I mentioned, with regard to health indicators, it takes time to improve the situation.

As my Statistics Canada colleagues and I have mentioned, the work and cooperation among the departments is an advantage. It enables us to share priorities and to work together toward the same goals.

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

Ms. Duchesne, would you say that the roadmap has, by and large, been a success?

[Andrée Duchesne]

Like my Health Canada colleagues, I would say that the summative evaluation that we are completing should provide some relatively specific information on that question. Beyond that, I would say that access to justice is quite a new area for official language minority communities.

We have been working in it for 10 years. We had to establish our capabilities and bring in other stakeholders to work with us. We are particularly pleased with our achievements funded under the roadmap. We also think we should go a little further for those investments to be sustainable. For the moment, based on our results and our partnerships, we can say that the actions our department has taken have nevertheless helped improve matters.

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

You talked about creating capacity. That capacity often depends on the provinces, which provide minority language services. Could we say that a new roadmap may not be essential as a result of this new capacity? A program achieves results when we no longer need it. Have we reached that point?

[Andrée Duchesne]

I hesitate to say categorically that we have reached it. However, we should not view that finding as a sign of failure. The justice system as we know it also requires that we maintain what we have. As you may know, provincial court judges try 99% of criminal cases in this country.

The Criminal Code contains language provisions that guarantee the accused's right to a trial in his or her language. Based on the successes we have achieved—and my colleague Linda could talk about training, because we have put a lot of effort into that area—we believe that this capacity is being built with the support of the provinces. However, as you will agree, federal support in this area is absolutely important. That is why we have to continue the work we have started.

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

Thank you.

I have a question for the Statistics Canada representatives.

We are conducting a mid-term evaluation of the roadmap. Are there any performance indicators we can use to assess yearly whether the situation of the country's linguistic communities is improving and if government services are providing those communities with tools? Can we assess those things in the country's linguistic communities based on performance measures?

[Jean-Pierre Corbeil]

Yes, there are those kinds of indicators, absolutely. As we mentioned, those indicators are based on certain sources of information that must be available. The question that arises is always comparability over time. Just considering the example of economic development, we can clearly use a number of indicators at least to monitor, over the various censuses, what has improved and what has deteriorated. So this information is available. We have already started. Moreover, the portraits we mentioned have used various pieces of information and indicators to educate us about various themes, including the five priority areas of the roadmap.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much.

We'll take a little break.

We'll take a brief health break for a couple of minutes. I've been asked to do that by some members of the committee.

We'll just be a couple of minutes. You can stretch, take a break at the facilities, or get a coffee.

I'll suspend for a couple of minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Welcome back to meeting 27 of the Standing Committee on Official Languages.

We'll continue our interventions with Mr. Weston.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As you so cordially invited us to take a health break, I will take this opportunity to invite my colleagues to take part in a "parliamentary health" initiative. We run at 6:45 on Tuesday mornings and swim at 6:45 on Thursday mornings. That is for my friend Mr. Bélanger in particular.

Thanks to our guests. Your comments were relevant and very interesting.

My first question is for you, Ms. Duchesne. I am a lawyer. I come from British Columbia and have dealt with constitutional affairs in British Columbia and Quebec as well in the course of my career. So I am very much interested in the subject addressed by my friend Mr. Godin, that is to say the bilingualism of Supreme Court judges. I agree with him. It is a priority that the judges be able to speak both languages. Do you believe that other priorities, such as the integrity of candidates, Canada's legal capacity and also regional representation on the Supreme Court, may perhaps conflict with this priority of bilingualism in candidates to the Supreme Court?

[Andrée Duchesne]

As you will understand, I am not in a position to answer that question. Like questions concerning judicial appointments, it is very much a question for the Office of the Commissioner of Federal Judicial Affairs. They are also the jurisdiction of the Minister of Justice. I would like to remind committee members that my colleague and I are here to represent the Department of Justice as a federal institution.

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

All right. Thank you.

Mr. Corbeil, I found your comments very interesting.

We can imagine that bilingualism entails two factors: what encourages people to study their second language and what prevents people from doing so.

You said that, in education, we have also observed remarkable progress in the youngest generations of francophones, as a result of which a larger percentage of that group hold university degrees. They also have incomes equal to or greater than those of their anglophone counterparts. You also said that more young people are currently registered in French immersion programs, 50,000 more than 10 years ago.

Do you think there is a connection between the two? What makes parents want their young children to enrol in French immersion programs outside Quebec?

[Jean-Pierre Corbeil]

Thank you for the question.

As you know, second language instruction is an extremely broad field of study. There has been phenomenal growth in the number of schools offering French-language immersion programs outside Quebec, particularly since 1975. What is clear is that many parents are interested in ensuring that their children can converse in both official languages.

However, I would like to go back to what you said in your first statement regarding the higher level of education and socio-economic status. You have to understand that many francophones outside Quebec come from Quebec. There has been interprovincial migration, as a result of which these young people have gone and settled in the west, like many other Canadians. They are contributing to the vitality of the francophone communities.

However, there is a challenge surrounding the issue of French-language immersion. There has indeed been an increase in the number of students attending immersion programs, as we have seen. What is more, studies have shown that, after finishing school, those individuals retain their second language for a longer period of time than students who have gone through the regular French second language instruction programs. In that sense, that is a very important asset. The only problem is that many of these young people wonder why they should speak French when no one around them does the same. A lot of francophones think the same thing. So there is a void. There are clearly significant issues in this area. We see it in Toronto, where 435,000 persons speak French, but where there are only 100,000 francophones. There is also that void.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

All right, thank you.

Mr. Aubin, go ahead, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning to all of you. Thank you for being here.

I will be putting my questions more to Mr. Corbeil and Mr. Nault. We evaluated this roadmap a number of months ago, and I am finally getting the chance to speak to some evaluation specialists. And I have four and a half minutes left to do so.

I know that you are not an official roadmap partner, but you said in your opening presentation that you were a partner of several departments and communities that call you for information. Do they consult you to obtain statistics, to get information, or have they also taken advantage of your knowledge and technical know-how to develop an evaluation method?

[Jean-Pierre Corbeil]

My answer will be brief.

It is essentially to provide statistics. Obviously, we do not conduct summative evaluations. However, sometimes it is just about statistics; at other times, it is to try to understand, based on the statistics we have or that exist, certain phenomena for which we have no specific questions.

I would say that it's essentially to obtain statistics.

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

Perfect. Thank you.

I will take advantage of your expertise to ask you whether you think that conducting a horizontal evaluation involving 14 partners with, ultimately, 14 different evaluation methods, can ultimately result in a credible and comprehensible report.

[Jean-Pierre Corbeil]

As you may suspect, I absolutely cannot venture an opinion on that subject. Statistics Canada stands apart from the evaluations that are conducted in the context of programs and interventions of policy-oriented departments. Consequently, I cannot at all venture an opinion on that point.

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

We're just talking about methodology. Can one use 14 different methodologies and wind up with a single report?

[Jean-Pierre Corbeil]

As I've already told you, the methodological elements that Statistics Canada uses are essentially based on statistics. That is not necessarily the case of the departments directly concerned by the roadmap. That's all I can say on that point.

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

For a number of months now, week after week, we have heard from a lot of people who come and testify about their experience in the various communities. It appears that this testimony, gathered over months, will constitute a significant portion of the report, indeed the entire final report.

How could we make the report, which the committee must produce at the end of its proceedings, credible with regard to the actual evaluations? Do you have any suggestions to give us for drafting purposes?

I'll give you two examples. This morning, we received a report from Health Canada. The approaches it contains are quite clearly established. In one column, there are the expected results, in a second column the performance indicators and details on those indicators. I get the impression that it is easy to navigate. There is a happy mixture of statistics and hard facts.

As the Standing Committee on Official Languages has heard witnesses, what would our report be lacking in order for it to be relevant?