Official Languages Committee on Nov. 27th, 2012

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

I just want to say thank you very much to all the witnesses whose presentations were in both languages; that helps me a lot.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Morrow, go ahead.

[Justin Morrow, Founder and Executive Director, Canadian Youth for French]

First of all, I have to apologize. We were given a week and a half to prepare this presentation. Unfortunately, we had no time to translate it. We tried, but it was not possible. We did our best, given the resources we have.

Mr. Chair, members of the committee, good morning. Thank you for inviting Canadian Youth for French representatives to appear during your study of the 150^th anniversary celebrations of Canadian Confederation in 2017. It is a great pleasure for me to tell you about our association, our vision, and our ideas.

First, I will give you a brief overview of our organization. Then I will share with you our opinion about this study.

Canadian Youth for French is an organization whose goals are to increase the number of bilingual Canadians and to foster a greater appreciation of French in English Canada.

To do that, we start with our first project, Discover Zone. This is a web portal that provides every high school graduate with all the options open to them at post-secondary level. This may involve universities, colleges, exchanges, forums, jobs or other opportunities in French-speaking communities. We want it to be the one-stop shop for every young Canadian looking for an experience in French-speaking Canada after high school.

We will focus on Discover Zone, our fundamental project, until it is available to every student across the country. That means 310,000 grade 12 students every year. Our plan is to reach that point in three to five years, depending on our finances, but I think it is realistic. If we succeed in having Discover Zone accessible to every high-school graduate in three years, we will be able to contribute to the 150^th anniversary of Confederation in a big way. But, if it takes five years, our contribution will be limited to opening our services to the general public in 2017.

The last time I was here, I told you about my personal journey. At that time, the organization was still in its early stages. Since then, we have taken two major steps forward.

First, we got our third grant from Canadian Heritage, which allowed us to develop our website and Discover Zone. It all should be online very soon—our hope is that may be today. In my opinion, that is a very good start.

Second, we have established the very first fully Canadian board of directors in our organization's history. That was two weekends ago at our AGM in Quebec City. The voice you are hearing now is no longer Justin Morrow's; it is the voice of the 11 members who represent our country's regions and communities from coast to coast. As soon as our new subcommittee defines the rules for membership, that number will increase exponentially. It is incredible to be in the heat of the action and you should all be anxious to see what is on its way.

Let us turn to the main reason for our meeting today.

How can we ensure the Government of Canada includes linguistic duality in the celebrations of the 150th anniversary of Confederation?

First of all, I would like to commend all of you on inviting Canadian Youth for French to speak to you today. More often than not, when we speak about linguistic duality, we think about defending the rights of the minority as opposed to advancing the appreciation of our linguistic and cultural dualities in the majority.

Also, linguistic duality is not only about ensuring everyone has the right to be served in the language of his or her choice, it is also about ensuring that anyone wishing to benefit from the ability to speak both of our official languages has the opportunity to do so in the setting of their choice.

Until we came along, Canadian Youth for French, I'm not even sure we can say there was a group in the majority that was devoted to advancing our common cause outside of the secondary or elementary classrooms.

As our mission implies, we exist to ensure that anyone wishing to benefit from the ability to speak both of our official languages has the opportunity to do so, and that those in a majority setting understand and appreciate our linguistic and cultural differences and our realities.

How do we ensure the Government of Canada includes linguistic duality in the celebrations of the 150th anniversary of Confederation?

On November 1 you heard from members of the FCFA, FJCF and QCGN. After reading the transcript, Canadian Youth for French finds itself in strong agreement with three main points.

Alexis Couture stated young people should be included not as tokens of youth but as valid participants with an active role in the decision-making process. With that we strongly agree.

Marie-France Kenny stated that grant and contribution agreements should not only contain a linguistic clause but a strong linguistic clause. With that we completely agree.

There also seemed to be a consensus that a distinct organization should oversee the planning of this ceremonious event, and that it should consist of members of the various communities found throughout the country: English, French, aboriginal, and immigrant. We strongly agree, but we would like to further specify that both English and French minority and majority communities be represented on this committee as well.

Someone asked if the head of one such organization should be bilingual. We would ask that this be taken a step further. Not only should the head of the committee be bilingual, but also each member of the committee should at least be able to understand both official languages.

The final point is whether all celebrations should include both official languages. At the federal level, all celebrations should be in both official languages. At the provincial and municipal levels, we believe that where the francophone community has a strong enough presence to contribute to the celebration, both official languages should be present, but a different approach should be taken in such communities where there isn't a strong enough presence. I can expand on this during the question and answer period if you'd like.

The next question that should be asked is, how CYF can contribute to this occasion.

First and foremost, we're going to need some help from you guys and a guarantee that our organization will still be around by the time 2017 rolls around and that we will have the resources to contribute to this grand occasion.

Second, for our organization to be successful, our relationship with members of the official language minority communities will need to be extremely strong. We must understand their reality so that we can communicate it properly to our anglophone communities and so that our members have the utmost respect for the official language minority communities that open their doors to them.

This is why we recruited two members to represent francophone and Acadian communities on our board. This is also why we met with Marie-France Kenny on numerous occasions, why we will be attending a meeting with the Assemblée de la francophonie de l’Ontario this afternoon, and why we will continue to create relationships with all members of official language communities across the country in years to come.

This being said, our contribution will depend on the development of our organization. If we only reach our goal within five years, our network will be too green and we won't be able to make a substantial impact, so we're going to have to limit ourselves to supporting official language minority partners, just the support in general.

However, if we can reach our attainable goal within three years, our network of young adults who are passionate about our country's linguistic duality will not only be able to support these partners but also will be able to spread the word throughout majority communities. For example, I would be able to go back to the rhubarb capital of Ontario, where there isn't a strong francophone presence, and share my stories to let my neighbours know how valuable our linguistic duality is. That can be done across the country with our members who will be there in 2017.

To conclude, I would like to thank you again for this opportunity. By inviting us here today, you are telling our citizens that it's not only those in official language minority settings who can support and be proud of our country's linguistic duality, but citizens from majority communities can be proud of our linguistic duality as well. We are here. We are proud. Let us join in the celebration of our past, present, and future in both official languages throughout our celebration of the 150th anniversary of Confederation.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you.

Mr. Godin has the floor.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to welcome our witnesses.

I would like to start with the people from the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation.

At a previous meeting, I gave a representative from Library and Archives Canada a piece of my mind. But now, I have the right people here.

Earlier, you said that the priority of the Canadian Museum of Civilization was linguistic duality and the 150^th anniversary in 2017. I do not want to trick you, but that is what you said. Let me say this clearly; I am not going to beat around the bush because I only have seven minutes and I would like to ask other people questions too. I have a hard time grasping the fact that the Commissioner of Official Languages had to get a complaint like this:

Just recently, I received a request for a financial contribution in the mail. It was written in English only. This was not the first time. I find it deplorable that an organization that operates under the Museums Act sends its correspondence in English only and the only concession made to French-speakers is a notice indicating how to get the document. It is unacceptable that this correspondence should have been written in English only, especially given that it was being sent to New Brunswick.

By the way, the name is Thibault, not Talbot.

Right at the end of the document, it says that you can get the letter in French by calling the 1-800 number shown.

I would really like to hear your response to this. There is nothing more insulting. Do you think that a letter like that sent to Alberta would be well received? Imagine if you had sent it in French to British Columbia or Saskatchewan. You would have heard about that.

From what I have heard, the Canadian Museum of Civilization does not want to cooperate with the Commissioner of Official Languages. I would like to hear your comments about that. As we move towards the 150 ^th anniversary, it would be good to put this behind us.

It is all the more important given that the government is about to spend $24 million to change the name of the Canadian Museum of Civilization to the Canadian Museum of History. I feel that the money would be better spent complying with the Official Languages Act.

I would like to hear what you have to say.

[Elizabeth Goger, Vice-President, Human Resources, Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation]

Good morning. My name is Elizabeth Goger. I would like to answer your question.

Yes, we are aware of the complaint. But I would like to clarify the situation. When we are identifying potential donors, we consult the lists that we have of subscribers to various magazines or other publications, in English or French. As we have no other information about people, we use those lists to determine whether the language preference is English or French. We make the assumption that people on the mailing lists of English magazines prefer English as their language of correspondence. Then we send a letter in that language to potential donors to find out if people would like to make a donation either to the Canadian War Museum or to the Canadian Museum of Civilization. So if that is not a person's preferred language—we do not know which is—the person can call the 1-800 number in the letter and we will be pleased to send the information in French.

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

What is the difference between that and sending it in both official languages? You could put a note for those who want the information in their language of choice. Then they could tell you, and you would get to know your customers.

[Elizabeth Goger]

We have met with people from the Commissioner of Official Languages' office. We are looking at the situation so that we can resolve the complaint. We are working on it.

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

How come this problem never happens in English? It is always in French.

Moving on. You said that you were doing national tours in minority regions. In New Brunswick, the only place you went to was Fredericton. That is not a minority region. Bilingualism is not a problem there. I do not understand why you did not go to the Acadian peninsula, or to Moncton or to Dieppe. They are right next to each other. That is where you will really find the minorities. I know that about 35 people showed up.

Why did you not go to places where the minorities really are? In your presentation, you talked about minority regions.

[Chantal Schryer]

Actually, in my presentation, I said clearly that we visited nine cities. I did not say that we chose the cities because of their linguistic minorities.

This is what we did in each city we went to. A week or two before we got there, we sent invitations to all groups, including linguistic minority groups. In Fredericton, actually, several people came from Tracadie and places outside Fredericton. They shared their ideas and choices with us, and told us what they would like to see in the new exhibition.

We must not forget that we have the website either. The website can be accessed by everyone, English-speakers and people in minority language situations all across Canada. We promote the website on a daily basis with all target groups.

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

I go back to the fact that we are talking about minorities. Minorities outside Quebec are French-speakers. Why not go to the places where they live so that they are the ones who do not have to travel? It is just a comment.

[Chantal Schryer]

I am certainly making a note of it. Thank you.

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

My next question goes to the representatives of the Société nationale acadienne.

You represent New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador. But you also have members from Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, including some active ones, as well as from Maine and the Îles-de-la-Madeleine. There are a lot of Acadians there. There are also some on the Gaspé and in Quebec.

Will the 150^th anniversary be an opportunity to reach Acadians living outside the Atlantic region? The SNA has a role in reaching out to Acadians, surely. This is a national event.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Godin.

[René Légère]

In terms of the activities we propose, I can offer you the examples of the World Acadian Congresses that we have been organizing every five years since 1994. Acadians from all over the world are invited to the events. There are several hundred thousand of them in Louisiana, for example, in Belle-Île-en-Mer, France, and around Poitou. According to the latest figures, more than a million people in Quebec are of Acadian origin. You understand why. After the expulsion of the Acadians, many of them fled to the Atlantic provinces and then ended up in Quebec. That is what explains such a large number of Quebeckers of Acadian origin.

Each time we organize an event, we invite them. It is like inviting an Acadian diaspora. It makes for awareness, particularly among the Quebeckers. They see the very close link between Acadians and Quebeckers. For Canada as a whole, it is certainly not bad to make them aware of the fact that there is another francophonie that lives, speaks and acts as part of the global francophonie beside them. For those reasons, we are going to invite people from outside, of course.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you.

Mr. Gourde, the floor is yours.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My thanks to the witnesses for joining us this morning.

My first question goes to the representatives of the National Capital Commission.

In your presentation, I noticed the pride of place you give to bilingualism. I also noticed it in your programming of Canada's national celebrations, the shows, I mean. I also noticed your success in terms of television. Eight million Canadians were tuned in. Perhaps with the arts, we can go a little further with linguistic duality.

Can you give me an idea of the proportion of French to English in the show and tell me why it was such a success?

[Guy Laflamme]

That is an excellent question, Mr. Gourde.

Year after year, the francophone content of the show is about 30%. Thank you for pointing out the effort that had been made to make sure that we did not have a French version of the show on Radio-Canada and an English version of the show on CBC. We worked very closely with our colleagues from the corporation to make sure that the broadcast was of the same bilingual show.

It is interesting to note that, when Marie-Mai performed, the viewership went up. An event like that allows us to promote linguistic duality and also to expose people from the other culture, speaking the other language, to a cultural treasure. We are going to continue along the same lines in the future. Radio-Canada and CBC support us in that.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

I am glad that Radio-Canada and CBC are supporting you. I hope that it will encourage them to include other shows highlighting linguistic duality in their programming. I feel that it is part of their mandate.

My next question goes to Mr. Morrow.

This is not your first time here. You have made it known that you belong to the new generation of Canadians who like to be bilingual, who love it. You put a lot of effort into learning French as a student in la belle province, at l'Université Laval.

How do you see the celebrations in 2017? Bilingualism is important to you. How do you want it to be promoted and how do you think you can best be involved in those celebrations?

[Justin Morrow]

Thank you for your question.

As I mentioned in my speech, the bilingual nature of the event is very important. Each federal event is supposed to be held in both languages. That is the bottom line. Take an English-speaking municipality as an example. There is the difference I was talking about. Where I live, there are no French-speaking communities. So we are not going to be telling English-speakers to include French in their speeches. But there are people like me, anglophones in those communities and from all over Canada, people from the English-speaking communities in Quebec, people from the French-speaking majority in Quebec, who support bilingualism and linguistic duality. They could all declare themselves to be in favour of bilingualism whether their communities have anglophone majorities or francophone majorities.

What does it bring? How does it work? Why is it important? What does it bring to our culture, our lives, the people we are?

That is how I see bilingualism and linguistic duality being included in the event. It has to be promoted with the majorities.

Have I answered your question?

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Thank you.

My next question goes to the representatives of the Société nationale de l'Acadie.

I have to congratulate your for your strength and your perseverance.

How do you want to be involved in the 2017 celebrations?

[Amély Friolet-O'Neil]

I can answer that question. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to say something more on the subject. My colleague René talked about it, it was at the heart of our presentation. Basically, the crux of what we want to convey to you is that the Société nationale de l'Acadie is the guarantor of an event which is crucial for our people, and the event is the World Acadian Congress.

That congress takes place every five years. For the Acadian people, the Acadian nation, it is an opportunity for dialogue. It is also an opportunity to reflect on the road we have travelled, to determine where we are and what we want to do. It is a key time in fostering and developing a feeling of belonging to our community, both in Acadia and in Canada. Those are the three elements behind our 2017 presentation. That is how we would like to take part in the 2017 celebrations as one of Canada's founding peoples.

My colleague will surely agree with me when I say that, when Acadia is present, when Acadia has a strong presence provincially, nationally and internationally, it provides a reflection of Canada in which linguistic duality is understood and strengthened. If Acadia is allowed to take an important place in the 2017 celebrations, it is for us a recognition of the place that Acadia occupies in the Canada of today and has occupied throughout the history of Canadian Confederation and of the arrival of the first settlers to the land. You mentioned New France and the date 1608. There is also Acadia and the date 1604. The history of Acadia goes hand in hand with the history of Canada. For us, the 2017 celebrations are an opportunity to reflect on the place we have in this Canada and on the way in which we can strengthen the Acadian identity. Ultimately, that will strengthen Canadian unity and the bond, not only between our French-speaking communities, but also with the English-speaking communities with whom we share our lands in the Atlantic provinces.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Monsieur Dion.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for joining us today.

I have a general question and an additional question for Ms. Schryer. My first question is for Mr. Laflamme, Ms. Schryer, Mr. Légère and Mr. Morrow.

We have to draft a report and you have an opportunity to help us. You said some very interesting things, but I would like you to try and summarize what you would like to see in the report, in order to concretely help you achieve two things, which we should address separately. The first thing has to do with ensuring that, in your sector, the 2017 celebrations will be delivered in both official languages. Second, the priorities that you have identified as part of celebrating linguistic duality must also be met. So, in terms of the delivery of services and the direction of the celebrations, if you had to summarize everything in a few seconds, what would you like to see in our report so that we can make those recommendations to the government? I would like to hear what you have to say.

Ms. Schryer, my additional question to you is this.

The Canadian Museum of Civilization has been changed to the Canadian Museum of History. I think the term “Canadian Museum of History” is ambiguous. Does that mean that Canada is looking at the history of the world? We are talking about the Canadian Museum of History. So that means that we are studying the history of the world in Canada, which is fairly close to what the Canadian Museum of Civilization does, as it looks at the history of civilizations. It is a fine distinction. However, are we now saying that the purpose of this museum is to study the history of Canada only? In that case, it should be called the Museum of Canadian History. We have to be specific and, if that's the case, I think it is unfortunate that we have to limit our study on civilizations or world history.

I think it is a good idea to create a museum of Canadian history, but I think it is a shame to do so at the expense of a Canadian museum of civilization.

My question is for all of you. What do you think about it, Mr. Laflamme? We are going to go in that direction.