Official Languages Committee on June 13th, 2013

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much, Madam O'Neill Gordon.

Mr. Casey.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

After hearing some of the questions from my colleagues from the NDP, I'm very, very tempted to ask you about the closure of the CIC office in Charlottetown, and to explain to you how devastating it has been. I do hope that at some point I will be able to get you to listen to me on that.

Today, I have an obligation to carry out my marching orders issued by Mr. Dion.

Minister, you don't need me to tell you that under the Official Languages Act and under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, your department has certain positive obligations with respect to official language minority communities.

Now we have a road map. The title has changed from emphasizing linguistic duality to different wording. We know that the financial commitment under the old road map and the new road map has gone up really only because of this $120-million fund, which you admitted today is demand-based, and will likely very well be used for purposes other than promoting the languages of the minority.

I guess my question for you is, do you not see that this is not only not fulfilling the role you are statutorily obliged to fulfill, but it is actually taking away from it, given the change in emphasis and the fact that the funding that is in there now, based on your frank admission, is likely to be used to teach people the language of the majority?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

I think there's a misunderstanding implicit in your question, and I'm sorry if I contributed to that.

Earlier when I said that the language services are demand-driven, I meant that globally. That relates to the overall framework of these things. We try to provide services where they are requested in the official language in which they are requested.

Having said that, we have dedicated a specific amount of funds in my ministry, $30 million, to provide services in French for French-speaking immigrants. We have some very specific projects in that regard. For example, in St. Boniface we have African francophone refugees who we settled there, and we have a contribution agreement with a local francophone service-providing organization to help those francophone immigrants in French. We do that sort of thing all across the country. There are specific dedicated minority language services in addition to which we write into many of our contribution agreements a requirement that they offer services in the minority language in that area. If you are an immigrant in Vancouver and you want to learn French—you already have English but you want to learn French—you can go into one of the service groups that we fund and ask for services in French.

Is there anything else I can add to that?

[Corinne Prince St-Amand]

No. It's clear.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

We do dedicate money, but at the end of day.... The bottom line is that if a whole bunch of people in Calgary, immigrants, suddenly decide they want to learn French rather than English, we'll give those services to them.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

You candidly indicated in the first round of questions, though, that you fully expect that people who go to Calgary are going to be looking to learn English—

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Yes.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

—and this $120 million is there to help them learn English.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

No, the $600 million is overall there to help people learn the languages they want, find jobs, and stuff like that. There is $30 million set aside as a part of our contribution that's specifically for minority language services.

Did you want to add something?

[Corinne Prince St-Amand]

Also, when you started your question, Mr. Casey, you mentioned specifically the $120 million. That is a carve-out of the broader settlement envelope that Minister Kenney has been speaking about. Under the feuille de route, it will be used to support language training for economic migrants, both English and French. It follows what the minister has said.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Mr. Sylvester.

[Peter Sylvester]

If I may also comment, to build on something the minister said earlier, Mr. Casey, there's a nuance here which I think is really important to understand. It's something that the minister adverted to earlier in his comments in the first round. It is that the premise we're working on as we build momentum towards the second road map is one that is focused increasingly on economic immigration, as Corinne has said.

Now, it is a little bit counterintuitive, but we've proposed an approach that various stakeholders, including the FCFA, Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne, have approved of, which is one where you would see francophone immigrants, that is, those whose mother tongue is French or whose first official language is French, immigrate into largely anglophone communities.

Their ticket to integration, in a way, if I can use that expression, and retention is through employment. So it's important for them to get language instruction, not necessarily always in French, as usually they're quite capable in French, but English language instruction is really important to retaining francophone immigrants in minority francophone communities. That's the counterintuitive part. So a large portion of that $120 million that's for language training is—

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Yes. Sorry. I hope you don't think we're hogging time, but I'll go back to my Winnipeg example.

Let's say you're a west African francophone refugee and we decide that you're going to live in St. Boniface. That's great for the francophone community in that they have another francophone family that's going to contribute to the cultural life of their francophone community, but you know what? You're likely not going to stay in Winnipeg if you don't speak English, because you can't get a good job. So to retain that person in St. Boniface, helping them learn English only makes sense.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much.

To conclude, I give the floor to Mr. Dionne Labelle.

[Pierre Dionne Labelle, NDP, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Minister, with all due respect, I have to say I did not like the way you described the $600,000 budget cuts to Destination Canada. You said it was for trips. The way you talked about it gave the impression that they were frivolous trips to Paris, like the inappropriate spending by senators. It was not the case.

When she appeared before this committee, Ms. Kenny—whom I respect—said this about the $600,000 cuts. She summarized the situation regarding this program that sought to bring people to recruit workers in Europe, particularly in Paris. Here is what she said:

It is one of the only tools we have and it has just been taken away from us, even though the government says there is a target. [...] the target remains the same, except that we no longer have the means to reach that target. It is therefore very difficult for us to reach it [...]

Could you specify what you think about these cuts? You seem to minimize them, as if that money had been used in vain or frivolously.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Well, probably you are drawing that inference from my use of the word “junkets”, and I apologize if I'm using it in the sense that is frequently used by your party. The other day the NDP's immigration critic referred to the Prime Minister's trip to the G-7 summit as a junket. So if the Prime Minister going to represent Canada at an international summit is a junket, then I think that's defined as a business trip. That seems to be your definition.

In any event, governing is about making choices. You can't balance a budget without realizing some reductions in spending. The reductions in spending that we're experiencing in Canada are a tiny fraction of what they are in countries like France, and if we can't realize spending cuts by reducing subsidies to travel to conferences in Paris, then I don't know where we can find economies.

[Pierre Dionne Labelle, NDP, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

I was deploring the cut, but my comment was more about the style than the substance.

It is also the case regarding the Canada-Quebec Accord on Immigration. I found that earlier you used a rather paternalistic tone. You said two things, which were that Quebec was taking millionaires' money and that they then went to Vancouver.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

You are right.

[Pierre Dionne Labelle, NDP, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Then, you shifted a bit. You said there were organized Asian networks that bring in...

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

They are Canadian, not Asian.

[Pierre Dionne Labelle, NDP, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

They bring millionaires to Quebec, who then go to Vancouver. Mr. Gourde raised the issue of labour mobility, which is a fact.

You said you intend to go after the people who do that. What do you mean by that exactly?

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

If someone states that they intend to live in a province, but in reality never intended to, it is fraud. We need to start enforcing the law.

I am a bit surprised to hear a New Democrat say that we should ignore a system that allows Canadian lawyers and consultants to make huge profits by encouraging people to apply to immigrate to Quebec when they do not intend to live there.

[Pierre Dionne Labelle, NDP, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

You suppose there is a criminal intent behind that.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Yes, of course. It is a crime. We are talking about fraud.

It's a crime to fill out an immigration form expressing the intention to go to one place when you never had that intention. It's called misrepresentation. It's a form of fraud. Of course, there are sanctions in Canadian law for that.

[Pierre Dionne Labelle, NDP, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

You are therefore focusing on fraudsters and not the Province of Quebec and the management of its program. Is that correct?