Official Languages Committee on Oct. 27th, 2011

[Sylvia Martin-Laforge]

There has not been a lot of study of the English-speaking community of Quebec, traditionally. You know, the English-speaking community of Quebec, until relatively recently, in the last 15 to 20 years, didn't even see themselves as a minority. That's an observation; it’s neither good nor bad. But coming out of 40 years ago, they didn't see themselves as a minority. Often the English-speaking community is kind of lumped together with the majority in the rest of Canada, as in, you know, “The anglophones think this….” We see it in the newspapers all the time. There is not a lot of specific study on the effects of being an English-speaking minority within Quebec.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Because of time constraints, I just want to pursue this a little further.

If you have a problem, first of all, you have to identify the problem and the severity of the problem. You mentioned in another part of your comments that different communities require different solutions and different services. If the information you've gathered is incomplete or inaccurate, probably your solutions are not going to be very valid.

I'm not trying to tell you how to do your business. But has there been some consideration given to getting the facts and identifying the problem? Maybe the question is how much of this $1 million goes to ascertaining what the needs are.

[Stephen Thompson]

We should be clear on what it is we're talking about. There is an academic community in Canada that studies minority language communities. You can make an academic career out of that, but not out of studying the English-speaking community of Quebec. There is no place where you can go. There is no English-speaking community of Quebec studies program in any university, so there is no academic career to be had.

The research tradition is on the francophone minority in the rest of Canada. That's what we're talking about. What happens is that research simply gets applied to us. It's just copied and pasted and applied to us. Part of our job, as the QCGN and other organizations within the community, such as QUESCREN, the Quebec English-Speaking Communities Research Network at Concordia University, is to try to create an academic interest, a research interest, in studying our community so that we can come up with more accurate information.

We have excellent sources of information about our community in relation to access to health care and access to services. Statistics Canada produced a profile of our community last year, which is extremely accurate. What we are talking about, though, are when assumptions are made about our community based on the experience of the French minority. That's what we're talking about.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Lauzon.

Mr. Aubin, you have the floor.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good morning, Mr. Thompson. It is a pleasure to have you here again.

Ms. Martin-Laforge, allow me to say that it is a pleasure to put a face to the name because our first conversation was over the phone. Thank you for coming.

We started considering the roadmap last week or the week before. It is probably by virtue of my profession that I am very interested in methodology. It seems to me that before considering another roadmap, we should attempt to learn the most from the information that already exists. I think there are a certain number of inconsistencies within the evaluation process, one of those being that each department can develop their own evaluation process. I am having trouble imagining how, at higher levels, one will be able to measure these various evaluations and draw any conclusions from them. If my information is correct, you recommended that the Department of Canadian Heritage develop an overall evaluation methodology in order to ensure that all departments take the priorities of anglophone communities in Quebec into account. In your opinion, has such a methodology been established? Have you been consulted on the methodology that will be used? Do you have any idea what it will look like?

[Sylvia Martin-Laforge]

In terms of an overall evaluation, this is appropriate only when there are key questions the departments have to respond to before undertaking their own evaluations. The difficulty with anglophone communities is that each initiative has been experienced differently. The same applies to health. In terms of developing an evaluation, there was an understanding of the situation in Quebec and how this procedure was going to take place. In terms of the other evaluations, either the situation was not taken into account or it was never even raised. You would know because you are studying this that the content of a program is used as the basis of an evaluation. If there are any cracks in the process, the evaluation will not take some things into account. Therefore, if the evaluation is about

child care, for example, well, the English-speaking community wasn't even in that piece of work. So they're not going to consider that there was a gap in the piece.

My concern, and our concern in the English-speaking community, is that where we have been included in the design of the program--properly included--the chances are pretty good that the department will come out with an understanding of where the gaps are.

Health is a good example. HRSDC, with the enabling fund, is another example. There are places where a quid pro quo within an initiative makes it easy. But in places where there's no quid pro quo, or there's nothing, or we haven't been consulted, or we haven't said that we needed something--and it could be that, too--then they have a problem.

It is as easy as saying there is no information on how much money, within the context of a program, is allocated to the minority anglophone community and how much is allocated elsewhere. It is easier to tell for some programs, especially health programs, but it is very difficult for others.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you.

My next question is for the statistics enthusiast.

I would like to know if the elimination of the long-form census could cause a certain number of problems regarding the perception or the actual description of the anglophone community in Quebec.

[Stephen Thompson]

We attended a research conference that was sponsored by the Official Languages Secretariat on September 1, and Jean-Pierre Corbeil was there.

Those in minority languages will know who Jean-Pierre Corbeil is. He's the statistician at Statistics Canada who deals with our communities.

Monsieur Corbeil was asked that question, and he assured us at the conference that the information that would come out of Stats Canada would suit our needs.

So we've been assured by Monsieur Corbeil and Stats Canada that when it comes to the products they are going to be able to produce, he is confident in their integrity. That's what we've been told.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Merci.

Mr. Trottier.

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

Good morning. Thank you for appearing before us today.

I would like to know what the feedback has been on the current roadmap? It is important to have an update on what has been done to date. Then, perhaps we will be able to focus on the next version of this program.

Under the current roadmap, what services and spending have been the most useful for the anglophone community of Quebec?

[Sylvia Martin-Laforge]

A new program put in place under the roadmap has been very positive for the English-speaking community. It is

the cultural development fund. If we had our hand up to say that it should be increased, that would be a very important one for our community. They've done some interesting things because they've brought arts culture into the regions. It's an important piece of work to democratize out of Montreal the artists and dance and so on.

So the cultural development fund was a new piece, at a modest amount of money, that I think our community would be right behind.

There's also health, for sure. There we can demonstrate even more easily the impact on individuals.

I think we can for arts and culture as well, because you have people in the regions who are clamouring to be able to partake in cultural activities. I think the enabling fund is....

There's also economic development. It is such an important piece in being sure that English-speaking community individuals can go to work, can have work, can stay. If there's no work, you don't stay.

So economic development is really important.

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

Could you give some more specific examples of economic development and what that means? It sounds very broad. What are some very concrete examples? What would economic development mean for the anglophone community in Quebec?

[Sylvia Martin-Laforge]

I would say there are at least two big pieces in that. There is employability....

I mentioned earlier that with the devolution of manpower programs—sorry, that's not the right word—seven or eight years ago, we have many young English-speaking people who are not getting access to employment services or counselling; all of the things that the old employment and immigration department used to do were devolved to the province.

I'll tell you that in the Gaspé, folks are starting to work to see if they can't get an employability centre for youth. And that's with the help of another one of our members, Youth Employment Services in Montreal. So the Montreal service provider is helping the regional service provider. That's a great example. And DEC is helping towards that. So employability is important, making sure people get into jobs where they don't have to come to Montreal to get access to counselling and things like that. Keeping people in their regions is really important.

I think the other piece would be around entrepreneurship. So if you can't find a job, you make your own job.

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

Good.

Well, on the other side of the ledger, are there things in the current road map that the Quebec anglophone community has not found very useful, that you would deem are not the best or wisest use of taxpayer dollars?

[Sylvia Martin-Laforge]

You know, when you don't use it, you can't really talk about it.

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

Okay. Fair enough.

[Sylvia Martin-Laforge]

We have just so much time. So what we spend our time on is seeing what the priorities of the community are, and how we can get better understanding around that. So I'm not sure I can answer that question.

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

No. That's fair enough.

I appreciate my colleague's earlier comments about jurisdictional challenges at times, when talking about services in health care, child care, and for seniors. Oftentimes these are services that are delivered by the province, or sometimes by the municipality. Is there a sense sometimes, though, that if funds are delivered to those other jurisdictions for services for the anglophone community, that they're not actually translated directly into services? Are there gaps in terms of that model because of jurisdictional challenges in Quebec?

[Sylvia Martin-Laforge]

Yes, I would say so. Any time anybody downloads, there's the potential for somebody to miss out. I truly believe that by downloading from the feds to the province, and maybe then down to the municipalities, there are vulnerable communities that are forgotten. And I think the English-speaking community has been forgotten.

Even in municipalities in Quebec, it's still a fight for bilingual boroughs and bilingual municipalities to be recognized. I think that any kind of downloading has a really big impact.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much, Madame Martin-Laforge.

Madame Michaud.

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

First of all, I would like to thank our witnesses for coming today.

Of course, I'm a francophone from Quebec, but I will try to practise my English a tiny bit with you.

I do appreciate this presentation. It really helps with my comprehension of your communities. I'm from a military family, so I have been in contact with the English-speaking community in Quebec. But it's still always good to have your point of view.

We found out earlier that the mid-term report on the roadmap is not public yet. It is therefore rather difficult to assess how things have gone.

In his 2010-2011 annual report, the Commissioner of Official Languages made the following comment on the development of the roadmap:

[...] the government must ensure that the problems surrounding the creation of the Roadmap 2008-2013—rushed development and last-minute adoption—are avoided at all costs, especially for the good of the communities it affects.

Could you talk to us about the problems you encountered during the creation of the roadmap?

[Sylvia Martin-Laforge]

As I said earlier, the action plan that preceded the roadmap was not perfect either. Both programs are great initiatives. Regarding the creation of programs and initiatives within the roadmap, I am not criticizing the 800 million dollars spent under the action plan nor the

$1.1. billion. There were systemic flaws in the first, and because of the evaluation mechanisms there were systemic flaws in the second. Although we were late again, for lots of different reasons, what we've been trying to say to Canadian Heritage since 2008 is let's be sure we get it right if there is a next one. It's not just about the action plan or road map either; we need to get it right for regular programming as well. If, God forbid, there would not be another priority-setting something, we still need to get it right in terms of the understanding of the needs of the English-speaking community with the design and delivery of regular programming.

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

I would like to continue in this same vein.

You said that some consultations were held, but maybe not enough, for the creation of programs. Did you participate in consultations to develop indicators that would measure the direct effect of programs? Or, again in this regard, were there shortcomings when it came to determining what it was important to measure in order to understand the effect of these programs on your communities?