Official Languages Committee on April 3rd, 2012

[Guy Rodgers]

There's a problem for us in Quebec in that we're a region, so everything goes through the Quebec office. So there is a disconnect between all the national envelopes, the national programs. We have a problem being pigeonholed into the region. We have a different relationship to Ottawa than to anywhere else within the country when we're dealing with national dossiers. Certainly, we would like to see some of those layers of administration ironed out so that we could go directly to the dossier instead of having to go through Montreal, back to there, and.... You know, it's quite a complex system of connecting with Ottawa.

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

One of the objectives of the road map was to provide better coordination across the departments. What I'm hearing is that it doesn't seem to be fully achieved yet.

[Guy Rodgers]

The road map itself has worked quite well. It's other departments within Canadian Heritage that are not part of...well, the Cultural Development Fund, for example, a direct road map program, worked very well.

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

Okay.

Now I'll turn my attention to the Quebec English School Boards Association.

Obviously, education is a provincial area of responsibility. You mentioned that contribution agreements aren't necessarily the way to go. In other areas, for example, in labour and skills development, there's a federal ministry of labour and there's a provincial ministry of labour. There's no such thing as a federal ministry of education, for example. But when it comes to labour market agreements with the provinces, what we have found is that it has actually worked very effectively. People who receive funds to deliver training and skills development services prefer dealing with one level of government, rather than having to submit grant applications to two levels of government and having to deal with two levels of bureaucrats.

Can you expand on why you think contribution agreements are ineffective, and why you'd rather deal directly with the federal government when it comes to funding for some of your programs?

[David Birnbaum]

To start with, we have no assurance that one penny of that money would go to what the Official Languages Act and the Constitution of Canada requires this level of government to worry about, which is an equitable delivery of services to all Quebec students. We're not imputing any bad faith in saying so, but the fact is that education policy quite normally gets established by the needs of the majority community in Quebec.

There are close to one million French sector public school students. We are at about 100,000. That results in our having school boards with kids on buses for an hour and a half, school boards the size of Belgium, and school boards and students who don't automatically get to benefit from the bottom-line services each day in school, with this being left exclusively to the provincial jurisdiction.

It should be noted that there's absolutely no parallel with those areas where you get reports that contribution agreements work. We absolutely need the oversight here. The items we've mentioned, the community learning centres, would not exist. There's no parallel in the majority French community as there's no parallel in English Canada, but there is in French Canada. They would not exist if this becomes simply an agreement. The notion of our continuing, as we do, to be Canada's leaders in second language education would likely be rather impossible. We've had very little recognition from our Quebec government about the fundamental role we play in helping Quebeckers master French. That wouldn't happen without this agreement.

We can tell you in each sector of student activity where a designated agreement requiring community consultation and federal government oversight is serving our students. We're Canada's leaders in including students with special needs in the overall education experience. We do that with your money, to a greater extent than our francophone counterparts. We have reading enhancement programs that are a result of this current regime. We have student services that are a result of this current regime. We have consultation processes with our parents that are largely a result of the current regime.

Just a very quick segue, through Monsieur Bélanger's intervention. The L’actualité report should be a lightning rod for showing you why federal oversight is required. We wouldn't dare get into a comparison game

with our francophone colleagues in the rest of the country. However there is a marked difference that we experience every morning. We have to do right by the anglophone minority community in Quebec and do so despite the political wishes of certain individuals. The situation here is not the same as that in the rest of the country. That's another reason why we need your protection.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you.

Mr. Weston.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I too would like to thank our witnesses.

Mr. D'Aoust, I was not surprised to learn that our chair participated in your event.

In fact, we all expect him to be chairman of the year of all of the committees—

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

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

It's just one more part of his campaign, I think.

I was struck by Mr. Lévesque's comment.

What was it...?

It was that back in 1977 he said to the anglophones, when they were scared about Bill 101—and rightfully so—“Don't worry about it: your future is in the power of your loins.” That was his response. It was a public comment.

Moreover, Mr. Rodgers said that 50% of the anglophones were married to francophones.

So perhaps we have two road maps going on. There's the bureaucratic, governmental one that we're talking about, and then there's the fact of Canadians who really appreciate our bilingualism. My question is about the intersection of these two road maps.

My experience comes from British Columbia, where my kids have gone to a French immersion school. My family has embraced the notion of bilingualism. In fact, as we've discussed in this committee, bilingualism leads people to take on other languages and better prepares them to face the world in a more competent way. My kids have gone on to learn Chinese, and hopefully will continue. Bilingualism is very much in our bones. One might say that just the intermarriage—the power in the loins and the desire to learn the language—is ultimately going to be what drives us to be the nation on earth that epitomizes the importance of bilingualism.

Then we have the fact of the need to pay educators and administrators. The people who have taught my children, without my knowledge, I'm sure, were recipients of part of the $1.2 billion. In fact, I know that to be the fact. Most Canadians probably don't appreciate what's going on under the radar. I guess my question is this. How long in the future is it? Is it forever...? Do we need to continue investing this kind of money—as my colleague said, $1.2 billion—and is it something we will always do, do you think? Or do you think we will reach a point in Canadian history where we have become so much...? Somebody said it's like eating the poutine. What did you say? Was it

"autotism"?

[David D'Aoust]

I was talking about automatism.

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

Automatism?

[David D'Aoust]

People who react naturally in one language or the other develop patterns of speech. It's not a search for their words or—

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

There are about three minutes left, I'm guessing. Two minutes?

Let's go really fast. We'll start with you, Ingrid, because you haven't had much to say, and we'll go quickly.

Give us 15-second bursts. How much of it is the

automatism

of Canadianism and how much of it is the investment of government dollars?

[Ingrid Marini]

It's a good combination of both, but we have to recognize and demonstrate the opportunities. That's part of the responsibility of the federal government, because even if we are bilingual....

I'm a perfect example: I was raised in Quebec, I went to an English school, in a full immersion program, and I now consider myself to be part of the anglophone community, although I do get along quite well in French.

It's our richness. It's what we have and what we can bring to Canada through our Quebec roots, so—

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

All right. Thank you.

Gerald, do you want to give me a quick...?

[Gerald Cutting]

Well, I'd like to come back to perhaps a couple of terms here that are really crucial as far as we are concerned. On investment, take a business model. What is the federal government investing in? It's investing in a population that must become bilingual, and as a result of that, we can in fact become a model that is exportable.

So I would say one of the most critical issues in all of the investments that are made is to sustain the kinds of programs that are in place. By doing that, it will in fact do what a road map is supposed to do: it will take us from one location to a destiny. We have to be very clear on our destiny, though, and I'm delighted to hear that bilingualism is part of the destiny of Canada. It's a part of our vision.

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

As we know, the budget has not—

[Gerald Cutting]

Exactly. We can explain ourselves in either language, easily and clearly, and have a vision of things, but first of all this vision needs to exist.

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

Mr. D'Aoust, could you summarize your vision?

[David D'Aoust]

Social harmony in Quebec depends on our ability to make our students bilingual, and this will always be the case. We must never stop trying.

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

Mr. Childs or Mr. Rodgers.

[Guy Rodgers]

I think the L'actualité article demonstrates that we're the cusp. The response to that article has been almost entirely favourable towards the English-speaking community, recognizing the efforts we've made, how we're being integrated. As to whether this investment will be in perpetuity, maybe not, but the next five to twenty years will be critical to our being recognized and accepted within Quebec. There are still tremendous political and ideological barriers that we're working our way through. In the short term, this support is essential to our ongoing survival.

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

I look forward to hearing about your new matchmaking service.

[Guy Rodgers]

My son's in love with a Russian girl right now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Madame Michaud.