Official Languages Committee on March 19th, 2013

[Royal Galipeau, Conservative, Ottawa—Orléans, ON]

Which year was that?

[Graham Fraser]

It was in 1995.

[Royal Galipeau, Conservative, Ottawa—Orléans, ON]

That is what I thought.

[Graham Fraser]

But there is one area where I am more optimistic than I was when I wrote the book. I would say that linguistic duality has many more allies in the public service than I thought when I did the research for the book. In addition, for the last six years, if we have given a bad grade to a certain department, a new deputy minister now decides to fix the problem, to make improvements and to develop an action plan. You can see progress when a deputy minister or an agency head comes in with the will to change the culture of an organization and to instil greater respect for the official languages.

The other thing that I was delighted to discover since I have been in this position is the vitality of official languages minority communities and the way in which they differ from one area of the country to another.

[Royal Galipeau, Conservative, Ottawa—Orléans, ON]

Mr. Fraser, I might get cut off pretty soon.

I'm probably one of the least important parliamentarians on the Hill, but in three years I'd like you to get a new mandate as Commissioner of Official Languages, but let's assume you don't. What would you see as your legacy after nine years?

[Graham Fraser]

My hope would be that we will have had a series of achievements that are publicly acknowledged and recognized in which the presence of both official languages in Canada's public space is such that all Canadians, even those who are not bilingual, will have grown to have a sense that the other language belongs to them, even if they do not speak it.

I had an experience recently. I was talking to a former Conservative member of Parliament. He told me that he had watched the Olympics with friends in Toronto, and the people in the room were surprised at how little French there was in the opening ceremonies. He observed that 20 years earlier those same people would have been surprised if there had been equal treatment of English and French at a public event.

What we are now seeing is a gradual evolution. People are taking for granted that national events need to have the presence of both English and French in order to be fully recognized as national events.

[Royal Galipeau, Conservative, Ottawa—Orléans, ON]

You won't be surprised to know that last Wednesday I was at the airport here in Ottawa to welcome the French prime minister. Of course, all kinds of French diplomats and bureaucrats were there waiting in the Billy Bishop room. This was at the same time the Pope was being elected at the Vatican, so all the TVs were tuned into CNN. I had to fight to get them on RDI. Of course, nobody knew how the TV worked, but in the end, it worked.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Galipeau.

We now move to Mr. Dion.

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

That story is no laughing matter. It is a problem in every hotel in Canada.

[Royal Galipeau, Conservative, Ottawa—Orléans, ON]

I do not deny that, Mr. Dion, but I took action.

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

It was good that you did.

Mr. Fraser, one of the few interesting things that happens in this committee is our occasional meetings and debates with you. I appreciated your first mandate very much. My party and I are very much looking forward to working with you in your second mandate.

But allow me to offer one criticism. I find that you have succeeded very well in boosting people's confidence in the face of a lot of negativity. But, as the price for a certain clarity, I find that your annual reports contain too much sweetness and light. A lot of things are going on.

I was looking at your list of priorities and they are the right ones. But we have to have numbers in front of us and Statistics Canada gives us more numbers than you do. I am sure you will say that that is what they do, but I would like to see them in your reports. If you really want to promote linguistic duality in Canadian society, we have to see the real state of the linguistic duality.

Let me give you some worrisome figures. The last time we spoke, you told me that I had to look at numbers, not at percentages. Fine, but, with all the people coming from all over the world, the percentage of francophones is going down. But let's talk about the numbers. How is it that, in an educated country like Canada, we have gone from 2,561,000 outside Quebec able to carry on a conversation in French to 2,584,000 in four years. That is an increase of about 20,000 people in four years. We are standing still, and that is extremely troubling.

Let's talk about the young people, those whom we are counting on to be our great hopes for the future. I am going to talk about young people outside Quebec, because, inside Quebec, of course, the anglophones are very bilingual and the francophones are learning English at a rate that, while not yet high enough, is at least increasing. Outside Quebec, according to Statistics Canada, registrations in immersion programs are up by 23% but the number of students in regular French programs is down by 23%. In real terms, that means that the percentage of Canadians learning French as a second language outside Quebec has gone from 53% to 44% in 20 years. There is a huge problem and the commissioner has to address it directly.

I will stop there because my time is running out and I would like to hear your answer.

It is all very well to boost people's confidence, but they have to be made to face up to the challenges in front of them, and that has to be done as clearly as possible.

[Graham Fraser]

Thank you very much for your comments.

Yes, indeed, it is one of the great challenges I see in the continuum of second language learning in Canada. The immersion program is generally recognized as a great success, but the dropout rate is a real concern. There are also school boards that still limit access to immersion. In British Columbia, people are still spending the night lining up to get their children a place. As a way of allocating places in a school system, I find that to be absurd.

I have even heard cases of school counsellors advising students to drop out of immersion programs in order to get better grades. They tell them that universities look at nothing but grades. One immersion student told me that his teacher had told him not to do the exam for the immersion course, but to do the one for the basic French course. That would give him better marks, which is all universities are interested in. I see that as encouraging mediocrity.

That is also why, after one of the studies we did, I continue to promote the idea that it is up to the universities to send the message to high schools to give more weight to students who have chosen a more demanding, more difficult, program. It is extremely important for universities to send that message. They also have to provide opportunities for second language learning at university level, partly because the Government of Canada, the biggest employer in Canada, needs bilingual employees.

In almost every province I have visited, I have been to universities in order to push that message. When I talk to federal agencies, I tell them about the importance of their role as recruiters in universities. Of course, I also have meetings in high schools where I push that message too. It is extremely important.

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

Since we are going to have a second round of questions, I will talk about more specific budget matters later.

You understand where I was going with my first comments. People's confidence needs to be boosted. In that respect, you have been very good. But what my party and I expect from you in the next three years is the same excellence in focusing on the major trends, the big problems and making forceful suggestions to this government about the solutions to those problems. Annual reports do that. They start from the four priorities you have set for yourself. They are good ones that I will not go over now because I do not have the time. They also tell us where we are at the start of the year, where we are at the end of the year, where the shortcomings are and what needs to be done.

[Graham Fraser]

I hope you'll be interested in the annual report that we are currently producing and that will be tabled in the House in October. It makes a kind of list of what we have been able to observe during the first mandate. You can see where there has been progress, where the setbacks have been and where there have been major problems.

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

I will read it carefully and I hope my comments today will help you as you write it.

[Graham Fraser]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you.

Mr. Trottier, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being here with us again, Mr. Fraser.

Could you share with the committee the reason for a three-year mandate? Normally, it could be for more years. So why a three-year mandate? Are you able to share that with us?

[Graham Fraser]

I must say at the outset that I did not ask for an extension. But when I was asked if I was open to the idea, I said that I would agree to one if I was asked. That is when I suggested a three-year extension. My reasoning was this: one year is too short and two years would put me right in the middle of the 2015 elections. That is why I said that, if I was going to accept an extension, it would be for three years.

There are other positions where people are appointed for 10 years, in the form of a five-year renewable term. As I said to the member for Acadie—Bathurst, my colleague Jennifer Stoddart, who had a mandate for seven years, was given a new mandate for three more years. The auditor general has a 10-year mandate. So I told myself that there is some logic in going from seven years to 10.

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

In any case, I do not consider you a lame duck at all. You are going to do good work, I feel, and perhaps you may be open to accepting another new extension after this one.

In your brief, you talked about immigration and education. Explain to me what you can do in the area of immigration. In your opinion, what are the current pluses and minuses? How can the government improve the official languages situation in immigration?

[Graham Fraser]

I think that there is a kind of consensus in official language minority communities now that immigration really is the key to their future. In those communities across the country, the diversity is amazing. Members of a community may come from the Maghreb, from Africa or from France. I feel that it is very important to have support programs available to help people like that to integrate into the community. The services are often available when it comes to helping people to integrate into an anglophone majority, but there are fewer of them for francophone immigrants. There are some, though.

I was very impressed by an organization in Winnipeg called Accueil francophone. It is a branch of the Société franco-manitobaine. They meet immigrants and refugees at the airport, they take them to temporary accommodation and they help them register their children in French-language schools. New arrivals are looked after for three years.

Some hosting organizations are not sensitive to the reality that there is a minority. They tend, quite naturally, to direct immigrants, especially those whose first language is neither English nor French, to anglophone hosting organizations. But people like that often have French as their second language. People from Senegal, for example, whose first language is Wolof, speak French rather than English. But if the hosting organization is not sensitive to the reality of the minority community, they will all be directed to anglophone institutions.

In clinics and community institutions in Hamilton, people told me about coming across immigrants who had discovered the existence of institutions dealing with health and education after a year or a year and a half. They said that, if they had known about them beforehand, they would have enrolled their children in francophone schools and taken them to francophone clinics. But they were not going to do so now because they already have a doctor and because their children are already in their second year at an English-language school.

So it is very important for hosting organizations to be aware of the importance of directing francophone immigrants, with French as their primary working language, even though it may not be their first language, to minority institutions.

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

Thank you.

You also brought up health services. That touches on the question of the relationship between your office and the provinces who actually provide the services in the second language, the minority language.

Can you describe for us the relationship that you have with the provincial departments that provide education and health services?

[Graham Fraser]

There are two elements to consider, you might say.

First, I have met with ministers, and often with premiers, in almost all the provinces. I have also had meetings with officials responsible for francophone affairs. That exists as a service in almost all provinces. The context is basically one of sharing information.

But one thing impresses me. Even with a small community, there is still an impressive commitment on the part of the provincial government to have an office responsible for relations with that minority community, such as in Newfoundland and Labrador or Prince Edward Island. In that province, an assistant deputy minister who reports directly to the premier is responsible for the action plan and for reviewing the French Language Services Act.

So relations are cordial. However, clearly, I have no investigative powers over the activities of those departments.

The federal government also plays a role in the health networks funded by the Roadmap. In that area, I maintain more direct contacts with community groups and organizations that draw their funding from the health networks. I can think specifically of the Community Health and Social Services Network for anglophones in Quebec or of other networks that receive their funding directly from the Roadmap.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Trottier.

Mr. Chisu, you have the floor.

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much, Mr. Fraser, for appearing in front of our committee. I would like to ask you pointed and very short questions.

In your opinion, what will the major challenges and issues facing linguistic duality be in the next three years?