Official Languages Committee on April 1st, 2014

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is for both organizations. I will begin with Mr. Griffith, from Temiskaming Shores.

Have any companies from your region distinguished themselves internationally in the sale of goods or in service delivery because they were bilingual. For instance, I am thinking of mining corporations and small drilling companies.

[Darcy Griffith]

Yes, absolutely. I think we have a number of businesses. Mining is one of the sectors that does have the ability to communicate. We also have Three H Furniture. They communicate not only in English and French but also in at least one other language that their founders speak. They sell their furniture across North America, and indeed, are winning design awards down at some of the larger U.S. furniture design competitions.

One of our larger fabricating shops, Nor-Arc, has been successful in competing in Quebec and winning projects. Again, they are primarily a francophone business and can communicate bilingually. Wabi Iron and Steel competes internationally in selling steel down through South America and across over to Europe. That's my understanding. We also have the Temiskaming mining supply company, TIME, and they sell mining products internationally. They've just undergone a significant expansion.

There is a benefit to being able to communicate in the language of choice with your customers, whether that's across a provincial border or across a national border. Certainly I think this region is well positioned. When you hire the right staff who have the skill set to do the job and who understand how to get the information across and can do it in French, then there is a great benefit, a great value, and the ability to succeed where others might not.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Thank you.

What about in your area, Ms. Côté?

[Ethel Côté]

In eastern Ontario, we don't have any mines or companies that are active in that sector, but we do have products. We have numerous consulting firms that support municipal governance development, local development and land-use planning, firms that sign many contracts with Africa, Eastern Europe and even Latin America, where English, French and Spanish are the main languages.

We also have local products such as beer and wine. They were initially marketed at the regional level and then gained popularity as a result of various meetings.

It is also interesting to note that we are exploring new markets through the diaspora. Many immigrants who settle in Canada still have business ties in their native countries. They are frequently interested in running a business here, in Canada, while supporting the economy back in their home country. It is often people like those who serve as links.

With the help of Haitian immigrants who came to Canada and started businesses, we are currently building partnerships with various suppliers of products and services as part of the reconstruction efforts in certain parts of Haiti. Members of the diaspora are often the ones who serve as links and facilitate that type of partnership building.

We do the same thing in Africa. I am part of the Pan-African Institute for Development. I'm the institute's outsider, if you will.

We've also helped support direct ties between companies on the ground in the renewable energy sector, for instance, and renewable energy cooperatives in Quebec and Ontario. Ties are still being established on that front.

It is often thanks to our network of associations, the diaspora and the other networks I mentioned—which by the way, are increasing in number across the francophonie's economy—that we are able to create opportunities that bring entrepreneurs together. Every event draws between 200 and 300 entrepreneurs, and every single time, real partnerships translate into business opportunities.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

In the wake of the Canada-EU trade agreement, have you noticed any Canadian businesses starting to work on business plans to export their products to Europe?

[Ethel Côté]

Not yet, but people in my training workshops are talking about it. It's mainly French immigrants to Canada who are realizing they could also do business with their home country. People come for training and information. They want to know how it could be done. But logistics-wise, we aren't yet seeing anything happening on the ground. People don't know how they can benefit under the agreement.

Conversely, in France, as soon as the signing of the agreement was announced, some ministers organized missions with entrepreneurs. They even led a trade mission focused on the social economy sector. They came from France to meet with other communities and social businesses in Canada and discuss opportunities business to business. Though they aren't private businesses, some social enterprises do sell products and services. It would appear, then, that some countries are being more proactive than others.

On my end, I can tell you that people participating in my information sessions have discussed it with me. We can see that the possibility is there, but we don't know how to go about exploiting it, because that isn't our focus.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you.

Mr. Nicholls.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Ms. Rivard, Ms. Bateman and others on the other side mentioned the possibility of tax breaks. They also suggested that you should go to talk to your local MP, Jay Aspin.

I was a bit taken aback. I can understand your challenges as a single mother, because I am a single father and I know how difficult it can be to make time to do some things. I would suggest instead that Mr. Aspin should go to talk with you, rather than your having to seek him out.

He was there Friday for a photo op for FedNor, and my question touches on FedNor. Your website says that your agency receives money from FedNor.

I would ask you whether you think a part of that financing from FedNor should be reserved for a person who would be specifically there for francophone businesses, to do translation, and for the anglophone side, to do translation into French. Would it not help your personal productivity and the productivity of other francophones in your community to translate things if they had specific funding from FedNor to do so?

[Darcy Griffith]

Absolutely. Temiskaming Shores and Area Chamber of Commerce received funding from FedNor for a rebranding effort when the City of Temiskaming Shores was created. We received funding to put towards website design and rebranding initiatives.

On a go-forward basis, having somebody in the community who could provide translation services to translate documents from English into French or French into English for businesses is something that absolutely would help. Whether that funding came from FedNor or whether there were other funding opportunities, I think it would help us be more competitive.

We use some of the FedNor funding, which we get on an annual basis for summer students, to hire part-time help for tourism initiatives. We try to make sure that those students are bilingual. There is also an ACFO organization locally that receives funding federally. They promote francophone services in our community.

So I think FedNor is helping. Additional help is always welcome and is certainly something that would benefit our community.

One of our top recommendations is translation services to try to ensure that businesses can get help, whether it's through the creation of an app for a front counter service or through a capability to have somebody speak French into a smartphone and have it translated into English immediately, to reduce the need to hire somebody with the skill set by having technology fill the void, or whether it's by having somebody with the ability to translate written documents and web pages. All of that would be welcome.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Right. If it had been included originally, then perhaps the website could have been done in French. As far as I understand it, 30% of the population is francophone, but the website and documents are only in English presently. Is that correct?

[Darcy Griffith]

It's partly correct. The website is only in English. It is something about which we have had discussions for a while. We have some challenges in translation when we have people translate a document and somebody else who speaks French reads it and says that it's not necessarily the same in tone or in meaning. It is always a little bit of a challenge to make sure that not only the words but the flavour comes across in any translation.

Many of our documents are now translated into French after being created in English, or in some cases we have had documents created in French that have been translated into English.

We are moving towards a fully bilingual chamber of commerce. It isn't something we have achieved yet, but it is one of our goals and something that we're moving towards.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Just for reference, in terms of finding out what tax breaks are available, I would suggest, perhaps, to your MP what we often do in our constituencies, which is to send someone out to give workshops. Then the community can come, close to their homes, and learn what the tax breaks are.

I would suggest you suggest this to your MP, and perhaps he can organize a workshop.

[Darcy Griffith]

I will. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much, Mr. Nicholls.

The last member for today is Mr. Williamson.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

I feel as though we're picking on poor “Landslide Jay” here, who won that riding by 18 votes. We have to be kind, because every vote counts here for our colleague.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Before I begin, I think I'm going to turn things over to Joyce just for a minute. She has some news on funding that is available.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Go ahead, Ms. Bateman.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thank you so very much, John. I really appreciate sharing your time.

I'll speak just briefly, because the question has been asked and, Darcy, you're serving a broad community, and so are you, Ethel.

The Department of Canadian Heritage offers support for interpretation and translation.

That's $5,000 free for you to just apply to get support for interpretation and translation for small organizations.

We did have the honourable Shelly Glover come and speak to this committee earlier and this is one of the services that's offered to people in your riding. The honourable member was obviously not aware of that either and I'm very grateful to be able to share this.

Thanks, John.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Thanks. No problem.

I hope that helps.

I do want to caution that when we talk about funding, the funding doesn't come from FedNor. It doesn't come from government, it actually comes from you people, taxpayers.

Often these business decisions are best left to businesses to decide what support they need as opposed to having the federal staff rolls increase at a cost that's more expensive to taxpayers. But that's just a side comment.

I'm trying to keep this focused on the question at hand, which is minority linguistic communities. I'm trying to get a sense of some of the success around your municipality. You've gone through an amalgamation so have you found that focusing on, or bringing together, different communities has been a strength? How do you explain your success as a community that is attracting customers from throughout the region and across the border from a linguistic group that might not be able to communicate with all shop owners?

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you. That will be our last question for the day.

Go ahead and answer it and at that point we'll adjourn.

Go ahead.

[James Franks]

I'm going to speak on that from the municipalities' perspective because I was involved through the amalgamation process.

We were three smaller communities that amalgamated and that has, in my opinion, done good things for this community. We came from three communities that fought over every potential investment in the region to see who might get it. On many cases we lost the potential investment to other communities around us because we were too busy fighting with ourselves. By working together now as one larger community we've been able to attract some significant investments and we're being seen as this economic and service hub for the region, because we're the larger player. More and more retail investment keeps coming in, and as we continue to grow we continue to draw folks from further away, which then helps all of the businesses in the community, whether they're francophone or anglophone. But definitely it's impacted us from the Quebec side.

As we've become this larger growth area and attracted some of these national retail chains, that is definitely drawing a significant number of residents from the province of Quebec who generally have only many small communities to work with and small businesses in those communities, so now they're able to access services from these large retail chains that they just couldn't access previously.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Okay. Thank you very much to all of our witnesses.

Madame Côté, Madame Rivard, Mr. Griffith, Mr. Franks, Madame Weston-Bernstein, thank you very much for your testimony. It will help us in drafting our report.

We've been looking at all the snow behind you in the window in the video conference. We've named it snow mountain. You clearly have quite a bit of snow up there. Thank you very much for your participation. It's very much appreciated.

This meeting is adjourned.