Evidence of meeting #12 for Official Languages in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was english-speaking.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Jamie Nicholls NDP Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC
In terms of these problems on employment statistics and income, is this a new thing or were the statistics the same prior to 2012?
Director, Policy, Research and Public Affairs, Quebec Community Groups Network
The statistics I quoted are from the 2011 national household survey.
NDP
Jamie Nicholls NDP Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC
Okay, so a change in governments provincially hasn't affected those statistics?
Director, Policy, Research and Public Affairs, Quebec Community Groups Network
I don't know.
NDP
Jamie Nicholls NDP Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC
You envision direct project funding. How could we improve the delivery of these funds to support organizations, and what can we do with the enabling fund to improve its outroll?
Director General, Quebec Community Groups Network
Generally, in departments, we would like departments to have access perhaps to specific funding for official language minority communities. When we are in competition in the broader scheme for regular programs, we have to have bureaucrats understand that there is an English-speaking community, and there are myths around the English-speaking community. So in a department, when there is not a deep understanding, I would say of the francophone community as well, but certainly we're talking about our community right now, there are myths about our community and when we put a project in,
it does not get through
because it's not targeted.
I think that the federal government has to consider more targeted funding to official language minority communities, which means, for example, in ESDC, New Horizons is not targeted funded for official language minorities. We get funding but there is no target. But there is an official languages secretariat in ESDC, or some champion.
I think the more the departments understand us, number one, either they get approved specific funding, targeted funding, for official language minority communities, or two, there is a sensitivity within the departments that something special has to be done around the communities.
They're national programs, so it's hard to get in and get a program accepted.
Conservative
Joe Daniel Conservative Don Valley East, ON
Thank you, chair.
Thank you, witnesses, for being here.
I'd like to pursue some of the questions that my colleague, Madam Bateman, had asked earlier about youth and some of the employment issues relating to that. Also tied in with that is the issue about what you called urban jobs versus non-urban jobs.
Is there the infrastructure, like high-speed Internet into some of these remote communities, that would allow people to create software companies, gaming companies, all those sorts of things, and create the work in the places where they want to stay?
Director, Policy, Research and Public Affairs, Quebec Community Groups Network
Industry Canada has those exact figures. The figures that I'm aware of from our community come from a crop survey done in 2010. We have a very high level of high-speed Internet access in our community. It's in excess of 93% or 94%—I'm working from memory here—so, yes....
Conservative
Joe Daniel Conservative Don Valley East, ON
What is preventing many of these people from starting their own businesses in the high-tech sector, in some of these remote places? With high-speed Internet, you really don't have distance.
Director, Policy, Research and Public Affairs, Quebec Community Groups Network
You live on the lower north shore. There's little culture in your community of higher education. To go to CEGEP or to post-secondary straight out of high school, you're going to be going to Quebec City. That's where you're going to learn your skills, but you're going to be away from your community.
I have never started a business myself, but my understanding of entrepreneurship is that small businesses run best in an environment where there are other businesses, where there are other entrepreneurs around. The idea of working in isolation in the lower north shore on a computer in your basement and starting a business is romantic but unrealistic. These young folks who have talent and a particular vocation go get their training and their education and then they move to a technology park like they have in Montreal now, down in Griffintown, or some other place. They're around people who are thinking about the same things and they can support each other. That's where the businesses start.
Conservative
Joe Daniel Conservative Don Valley East, ON
Changing the subject somewhat, Madam, you used the term “social financing” earlier. Can you define that for me? It's a term that I'm not familiar with. What are the potential outcomes? What is social financing supposed to do?
Director, Policy, Research and Public Affairs, Quebec Community Groups Network
I don't think there are too many people who come to Ottawa asking for less money. There is a notion that government is the banker. Social financing is an idea that government is a facilitating partner with civil society in achieving a social return on investments. Social financing is the specialty of ESDC. This is certainly a well-developed concept in Great Britain, Australia, and to a certain degree the United States. It's developing in Canada, but it's still in its infancy here. Its regulatory legislative frameworks aren't even close to being in place to implement this.
Having said that, there's $4.1 million available in the road map over five years for the official language minority communities to work with ESDC on social financing initiatives to see what can be done. It's a big term that means a lot of things. Generally, when we think about investments, we're looking for a monetary return. In social financing, you would fund a project but you're looking for a social return on your investment.
A social financing idea might be if the community group in Thetford Mines, for example, MCDC, expanded their office. If they bought their building, owned their building, and if they expanded their office and rented it out to other community groups, it would become an asset for them. It would turn a profit that they would be able to then turn back into the community. It would be a for-profit operation within a non-profit. That's a social financing idea.
Paying for returns...the question that was asked had to do with how success is measured. Let's say you want to see a decrease of 1% in youth unemployment in a specific region and if you can achieve that, the public partner will give you x amount of dollars. The community sector would go out and work on that. If they reduce it by a certain amount, they will be paid. That's another social financing idea.
We're very excited about the concept. It has worked very well in other jurisdictions. ESDC is the expert.
NDP
Manon Perreault NDP Montcalm, QC
Good morning. Thank you for joining us.
I will address the two witnesses. I will come back to Mr. Thompson to discuss CEDEC, which he talked about.
For a number of years, francophone and anglophone communities have been trying to show their distinctiveness and their differences in terms of employability. Are the programs of the Government of Canada designed to fully respect those differences?
Director General, Quebec Community Groups Network
I would answer in this way with a couple of examples. We're very happy with the work that the Quebec economic development program does in Quebec because it is worked by project. So when Youth Employment Services asked to have a project with the Gaspé and with the Voice of English-speaking Québec, to work together on the employment of English-speaking communities in those regions, it worked. It is a fabulous success because the projects were conceived and designed and implemented with the money. They were conceived on the ground and really did come from a grassroots' understanding of what needed to be done, both in Quebec City and Gaspé. When you have that kind of design to a program it is excellent.
Where it doesn't work as well is with a more top-down approach with programs, where departments will think that this is the way to go and say, “If you want the program, this is the way it's going to go.”
More community involvement in the program is the key to success. I don't know if I've answered your question, but it's excellent money. I think with literacy programs it's the same thing. The partnership at the base working with a department gives us results. I would answer the question that way. When we see too much top-down it doesn't work as well.
In our community a few years ago the Commissioner of Official Languages did a—
NDP
Manon Perreault NDP Montcalm, QC
So the people on the ground are in the best position to comment on the programs.
NDP
Manon Perreault NDP Montcalm, QC
I would like to go back to Mr. Thompson, who talked about CEDEC earlier.
I have read that CEDEC worked with a francophone organization to develop the Canadian plan for economic development of official language minority communities. Is it idealistic to think that the same economic plan can appeal to both francophones and anglophones?
Director, Policy, Research and Public Affairs, Quebec Community Groups Network
The design of the consultation takes into account the needs of the two communities. I think RDÉE is doing the consultation on the francophone side and I think what CEDEC is leading the consultation on the side of the English-speaking community of Quebec. CEDEC and QCGN are talking right now to make sure that the community's overall development plan is tied into the economic development plan that will come.
We're not sure of the mechanism and how that's going to work, but we're talking about it right now. Yes, there will be two plans produced, we understand, one for the ESCQ and one for the francophones outside Quebec.
Director General, Quebec Community Groups Network
As I said earlier,
we have been advocating for a plan in Quebec for a long time, since 2008, according to our study. We have never been able to find a way to bring people together. We have often told the government that we needed a plan. We now hear that there will be a plan. Our mission will be to ensure that this plan applies to the entire community and therefore meets our needs.
NDP
Manon Perreault NDP Montcalm, QC
In the course of this meeting, we have talked a great deal about the benefits, but such a plan must surely come with disadvantages as well, correct?
Director General, Quebec Community Groups Network
A plan is the key.
If we don't have a plan, people do this and do that, and then I come back to the measures question. I come back to try to understand and ask, what is it accomplishing? How can we put our stories together because then we have stories here, there, and wherever, and we can't put them together?
NDP
