Official Languages Committee on Oct. 27th, 2011

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

Does my time start now?

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Yes.

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

You get an F, Mr. Galipeau.

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

I probably had an F the first time I came in here.

In the 1995 referendum, there was a great deal of emotion and fear among francophones living in a minority situation in Canada. Even though we did not have a right to vote in that referendum that affected us directly—it affected us probably more than anyone else—some of us went there. There are even people here at the table who were there. I was one of them, along with my family. We were there in solidarity with you.

I want to come back to something else that was said this morning. The long-form census has not been abolished. In fact, it was distributed to one-third of Canadian households instead of just to one-fifth. Moreover, the fact that people were no longer forced to fill it out resulted in a participation level that was higher than ever. I am not surprised to hear from the people at Statistics Canada that the data will be solid.

I want to come back to the question of money. How long has your organization been in existence?

[Sylvia Martin-Laforge]

It was started 15 years ago. We are into our 16th year.

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

And it took over from other organizations that existed before it. I would like to know what the annual budget was 15, 10 and 5 years ago and how much it is today. I have heard that the budget is $1 million.

[Sylvia Martin-Laforge]

Fifteen years ago, the QCGN had no budget. I do not know what the budget was 10 years ago. I did not know that I would be asked this question and I did not bring those figures. We could provide you with the answer as a follow-up.

Over the past 10 years, the QCGN has begun to demonstrate to the government that it plays an important role. We represent our community in dealing with the Canadian Heritage Department on the Canada-Community Agreements. Those agreements set the provincial funding envelopes. Our province is special in that it has the anglophone minority. There is an envelope for the province, which includes funding for the QCGN as an umbrella organization.

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

Official language issues are a priority for this government. That is why we developed the roadmap, for which $1.1 billion in Canadian taxpayers' money has been allocated for a five-year period. It is important for this investment to reach the appropriate groups, especially since a number of them continue to be quite sensitive. I remember one day when I was in the Magdalen Islands, which you have referred to, I made a jocular remark to another ferry passenger about the hay that he was carrying in his truck. I happened to make my remark in French, unfortunately. He was very short with me and told me to speak English.

“speak English”.

He was from the Magdalen Islands and I was from Ontario. It was really a reversal of roles. I simply wanted to talk to him about his hay. So that anxiety is always there.

I will now pass the floor to Mr. Weston, who wanted to ask a question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Galipeau.

Mr. Weston, you have five minutes.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you.

As a good entrepreneur, you often talk about best practices. I would like to know the circumstances and areas in which your organization has made the best use of taxpayers' money.

[Sylvia Martin-Laforge]

Mr. Weston, are you talking about the QCGN particularly?

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Yes. I want to know which investment gave the best results.

[Sylvia Martin-Laforge]

To answer your question I'm going to rely on comments from our members. I think that would be an important place. I think—I not only think, I know—our members believe that the QCGN provides a value-added to their organizations. It's not all even, but our members are working on the ground to deliver services to individuals in their community.

Where they are less able to come together and talk together about.... The region of the Gaspé, the region of the Magdalen Islands, the region of the townships--they don't have the opportunity to come together and talk about the community at large. They work in their own communities, but they don't have that opportunity to network and to talk to each other about what they are doing with youth, what could be done at a more macro level.

Let me give you an example. I think this is a beautiful example I have for you. We were consulted by Sports Canada this summer on their action plan. They brought together the francophone minority communities and the anglophone minority communities, and they said we're doing the Sports Canada action plan, what do you think? The English-speaking community went there, and we went with four community members from the regions. We were talking about what Sports Canada can do for the English-speaking community of Quebec. At the same time, we know the Canada Games are going to be happening in Sherbrooke in 2013. So as a result of working with our regions, a project has been designed out of funding to ask that all of the regions come together to demonstrate that in Quebec there is a strong English-speaking community at the Canada Games of 2013.

Without our helping our individual communities to make it available, to have them come to discuss, it wouldn't have happened. I still don't know if it's going to happen, because the funding might not be given, but there is the potential, in 2013, that people from all over Canada, at those Canada Games, will come to Quebec, to Sherbrooke, and see, my God, there's a vital English-speaking community here. It has the potential to show that, and it has the potential to bring young people in to offer services and to be guides and to be volunteers, from Gaspé, the Magdalen Islands, to talk together, to meet other people from Canada.

I think that's pretty valuable. I hope I'm right.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Harris.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Thank you.

Élaine Michaud and I are going to share our time, and she is going to go first, because my question kind of follows hers.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Madame Michaud.

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

I will be brief. First I would like to make a brief comment on something Mr. Galipeau mentioned.

As concerns the record participation in the long version of this year's census, I think we could perhaps consider that what it shows instead is that there is support for the maintenance of the long version of the census, and the need to have people understand the importance of the information collected.

That is another perspective. It is something to keep in mind.

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

I agree with you.

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

Now for my actual question.

When you appeared before the committee on April 22, 2010, you were concerned about departmental coordination. Do you feel that the coordination among the federal road map partners is still a problem, and would you have any recommendations to make for them?

[Sylvia Martin-Laforge]

We on the ground sometimes don't feel the efforts of coordination. We feel the departments are still working in silos. It's so important, I would think, for the francophone community outside Quebec, as well as for the English-speaking community, to feel interdepartmental work. I think there's a problem there.

It is not that there is a lack of good will, but I think that given the budget cuts, and the way departments are set up, the way they work, all this means that people work separately. I find that that does not foster true coordination.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Following up on that--

[Stephen Thompson]

If I could just follow up on that, it's important to realize what that interdepartmental coordination means on the ground. We all live in communities and we all access services as individuals within our own communities. We don't access silos. We access fully functional communities. So the way our minority communities work is as a horizontal organism, not as a vertical organism--health, economic development. You go to HRSDC; you go to Health Canada. You go here, you go there. That's not the way you, as an individual, expect services to come from.

So this interdepartmental coordination, if it's done properly, has a real and significant impact on individual people on the ground.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Following up still, can you tell us what resources are available to help the official language minority communities monitor the road maps implementation process, and also whether you think the existing accountability methods actually foster dialogue and greater cooperation among the road map partners?

[Sylvia Martin-Laforge]

Resources that we have.... There were questions around our funding. We get resources, and part of those resources are to help departments understand the monitoring on the ground. Are there enough resources? We could always do a better job. We could go through each of the departments and.... I can tell you one thing. I have had I don't know how many calls from different departments personally to evaluate their programs. People are knocking at our door all the time to evaluate. It's hard to be knowledgeable. I think I have a background in evaluation, so it helps, but if I didn't, I would be hard pressed.

The other thing you were asking was about...?

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Whether the accountability methods actually foster dialogue and greater cooperation among the road map partners.