Official Languages Committee on Nov. 27th, 2012

[Éric Mathieu Doucet]

Good afternoon. I'm Éric Mathieu Doucet, executive director of the Société nationale de l'Acadie. Your question strikes a chord with me because I am married to a newcomer. It's a reality I live with every day.

I'm one of those people who thinks that we are also building our history on a daily basis. Every day, we make decisions that, in 10 or 15 years, will become our history. In my opinion, the 150^th anniversary of Confederation is a very important anniversary. In 150 years, we have accomplished a great many things.

It should not just be an occasion to think about the past and what we have accomplished, but to think about the future and what we want to accomplish together. Newcomers are a part of these decisions. Give us the time to think as a group, as Canadians, as members of this great country, about where we want to be in five years, 10 years and 150 years. I think that the contribution of newcomers will be very important in this respect and that this will allow us to build the society we will want to live in.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

That's great. Thank you.

Mr. Morrow, you have the floor, but briefly.

[Justin Morrow]

New Canadians play a huge role in our country, obviously. This is why we recruited somebody to be on our board of directors to represent new arrivals. We have somebody who has been in our country for two years now. She came in with a totally different mentality from ours. We don't know much about the reality of new arrivals yet. We're still trying to figure out, as an organization, the reality of the French-speaking minorities and the Acadian groups and what is going on in Canada. We want to know that, which is why we included somebody on our board who could tell us what that is.

I also don't think it should necessarily be our responsibility to tell new arrivals what Canadian bilingualism is. I think they have a great idea of what Canadian bilingualism is before they get here, and they are kind of shocked when they arrive because it isn't what they had in mind. I think we should ask them what they think Canadian bilingualism is and how we can become their vision. They think in utopian ways.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to Madame Michaud.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thank you very much.

First, I want to thank you all for your presentations.

I have a few quick questions for Mr. Morrow. I would like to come back to a discussion you started with Mr. Lauzon. Could you clarify your comments? In your presentation, if I understood correctly, you said you would like the national celebrations to be held in English and in French at all times. However, in the provinces, the municipalities, you would be more flexible by requiring that there perhaps only be a mention of linguistic duality or an explanation of duality. Can you elaborate a bit about what you mean?

[Justin Morrow]

If a French-speaking community wants to play a role in their community, whether they're a city, they're a municipality, or what have you, then that should be at the same level as the federal government. Everything should be bilingual. They should work on a way to do that as much as possible.

If there's a community that is 100% anglophone and there are no francophones who will say that they want to be a part of it, that they need to be included in it—for example, where I come from, there's nobody who is going to step up and do that—then there should be something to indicate that if it's not going to be totally bilingual, there needs to be something in there that demonstrates that we're a bilingual country. It could be somebody who speaks French. One of the options could be to have it fully bilingual. It could be somebody who comes and shares their experiences on how important it is to have both languages in our country, on how that duality is reflected and what we can learn from a culture and from our different realities. It could be something along those lines, but something definitely has to touch bilingualism in every single project that takes place across the country.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Yes, that clarifies your position a little more, I think.

Your organization, Canadian Youth for French, was it not invited to appear as part of the study that was done by the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage and that dealt with the same topic or a similar one?

[Justin Morrow]

No, we haven't heard about that.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

At least we have the chance to hear from you today. This also applies to Mr. Légère and Ms. Friolet-O'Neil.

My question is for the representatives from the Société nationale de l'Acadie.

Earlier, in your presentation, you recommended creating a program or a mechanism that would help communities to carry out large-scale activities during the 150^th anniversary.

Could you please give us some details about the plan or program that you would like to see adopted?

[René Légère]

I'll let Éric Mathieu answer that question.

[Éric Mathieu Doucet]

We are thinking of a program that would enable groups and communities that are interested to contribute significantly to the 2017 celebrations, be it in the years leading up to the celebrations or during 2017 itself.

As for the mechanism that would make it possible to take part, a fund and programs could certainly be created. You could specify the main objectives of that. Certain existing programs that already meet these objectives in part could also be improved, but there should be a special envelope for large-scale projects as well.

Since we need to celebrate, there will no doubt be more activities of this type in those years. People need to be able to contribute. It's all well and good for groups to want to contribute, but it's another thing when we're talking about a collective, about families who band together to organize something, to celebrate with people in their region. In those cases, we're talking about people who really believe in it.

People sometimes wonder what the difference is between a chicken and a pig. The chicken contributes to your breakfast, but the pig, the pig is fully invested. It gives its very life. It leaves a part of itself on your plate. We want people to be able to contribute something to the festivities. That's sort of the case with the Société nationale de l'Acadie. We are thinking of organizing a kind of national convention of Acadia to determine what direction we want to take in the coming years as part of a collective Acadian project, what our involvement is in the national identity and how we contribute to collectively moving our country forward.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thank you very much. I hope you will be heard. It's fairly early in the process. No major plans have really been undertaken at this point. But we hope to be able to include your recommendations in the process.

This question is for the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation.

I went to the website earlier and saw that some interesting things happened as part of the public consultation you're holding. There have already been a wide range of suggestions, including ones involving historical figures that people would like to see in the museum. I was very pleased to see Louis Riel mentioned. Perhaps the names of many patriots will be added in time. I hope you will find an interesting way to highlight their contribution because they are important figures in our history.

You are also trying to increase the accessibility of the information that you want to distribute across the country. Do you have a specific strategy for rural areas?

[Chantal Schryer]

In fact, we have this opportunity to do our pan-Canadian tour right now, which is what will help us develop an outreach and interaction strategy with Canadians across Canada.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

For the moment, only large municipalities are involved in your tour.

[Chantal Schryer]

You are absolutely right. We had to keep with our budget. We were able to visit nine cities. They were easy cities to get to, and were cities where we could reach the maximum number of people. Everyone across Canada has access to our website. That's why we developed it. We wanted to give people in rural communities or in the far north the opportunity to take part in this pan-Canadian consultation.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Perhaps you could add Quebec to your list of cities because…

[Chantal Schryer]

We're going there; we're going to Montreal.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

It's not the same thing. I'm talking about Quebec CIty. There are a lot of small, rural communities there, and some of them are anglophone. They are minority communities and deserve to be consulted. I strongly suggest it.

[Chantal Schryer]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Ms. Michaud.

Ms. Bateman, you have the floor.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank all the witnesses.

I have a quick question for Ms. Schryer. First, I would like to thank you for mentioning your travelling exhibitions. That's very important. I am not from Ottawa; I'm from Manitoba. It is very important that we share the experience of museums here across Canada. Do you have any plans for the celebrations, particularly for the very small museums and even for the larger ones?

[Chantal Schryer]

That's the case. We are working on two aspects. We are developing partnerships with museums, like I said, across Canada so that they come and present their exhibits with us. We want to offer smaller museums the opportunity to come to us and present the history of their region and their city. We get 1.2 million to 1.3 million visitors a year. That's one part. We are currently in the process of developing a number of partnerships. In addition, presenting our exhibitions in smaller museums across Canada is a priority for us.

For example, we have the 1812 exhibit at the War Museum, but we have also developed two different exhibition formats so that it can be presented in small and medium-sized museums.

We have also created 3D and 2D exhibits that involve a kind of kiosk where the history of the War of 1812 is told. There has been a lot of positive feedback about it. This exhibit is in demand across Canada in the next two years, and we are very proud of that. We plan to do the same thing with all the major exhibits we have between now and 2017 and in time for 2017.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thank you.

Mr. Laflamme, you mentioned your responsibility with respect to both official languages at a restaurant that rents one of your buildings. What percentage of your revenue comes from that kind of source? Are we talking about 10%, 2%?

[Guy Laflamme]

Rental income is a significant part of the commission's budget. Overall, it's about…

[Diane Dupuis, Senior Vice-President, Public Affairs, Communications and Marketing, National Capital Commission]

…20%.