Official Languages Committee on May 15th, 2014

Evidence of meeting #25 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 artists.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

The Economic Situation of Canada's Minority Linguistic Communities

Committee Business

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Serge Kaptegaine Executive Director, Canadian Centre for Refugee Employment

Guy Rodgers Executive Director, English Language Arts Network Quebec

Peter MacGibbon President, English Language Arts Network Quebec

Gerald Cutting President, Townshippers' Association

Rachel Hunting Executive Director, Townshippers' Association

9:10 a.m.

Executive Director, Townshippers' Association

Rachel Hunting

I think one of the most important things that needs to be ironed out in the community sector is how funding envelopes and programs can support organizations without creating competition between organizations, and competition between provincial organizations, regional groups, and local groups. There needs to be a greater understanding of how these organizations work together and how funding envelopes at each level can contribute to the overall economic vitality of the linguistic minority community and not in a divisive sense.

9:10 a.m.

NDP

Jamie Nicholls NDP Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC

Wouldn't a three-year funding envelope be more stable as a model instead of having this year-to-year competition for funding?

9:10 a.m.

Executive Director, Townshippers' Association

Rachel Hunting

A three-year funding program would absolutely provide stability for organizations, not only in an operational sense, but also in an action sense. When you have a one-year funding envelope, often you will get to the point in your project where you're really ready to roll, and the funding stops, or it's not renewed, or it cannot be renewed for a variety of reasons. You're always wary of creating an expectation in the community, or of responding to a need for a certain amount of time, and then no longer being able to provide that support to the members of your community. It is problematic because you don't want to be creating needs; you want to be responding to them.

9:10 a.m.

Executive Director, English Language Arts Network Quebec

Guy Rodgers

I'd like to respond to that.

That is a very serious problem. We understand that we don't want to turn project funding into program funding, but there must be some way of evaluating projects that have greater community value, through letters of support from the community. Sometimes we create a project that just hits the mark. It provides support. It provides a benefit, and then the project's over. We have to drop the project or find alternate funding. Some projects are projects. They have a life of one or two years, and then they're gone and we move on to the next one. When a project really has ongoing value, there should be some way of demonstrating that through letters of community support and having an envelope to perpetuate those particular projects. That would be enormously helpful.

9:10 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Michael Chong

Mr. Cutting.

9:10 a.m.

President, Townshippers' Association

Gerald Cutting

I'd like to reinforce a couple of points.

Stability will create vitality, because stability creates presence. In looking at what might be described as a wise investment, to take a business model, I think both provincial and federal governments need to invest so there will be ongoing sustainable vitality, and what we'll see is the communities themselves will begin to take on more and more of that responsibility. Right now what we're faced with is an enormous amount of the time of our administrators is taken up with the yearly fight to continue.

9:15 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Michael Chong

Thank you very much, Mr. Cutting and Mr. Nicholls.

Madame Bateman.

9:15 a.m.

Conservative

Joyce Bateman Conservative Winnipeg South Centre, MB

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank all of our witnesses. Their testimony is very important today.

I'd like to begin with a few questions for Mr. Kaptegaine because he is a member of my community.

Your work makes an important contribution to the refugee community.

As you know, our asylum system is one of the most generous in the world. Canada takes in one of every 10 UN convention refugees. Canada is also on track to increase the number of convention refugees it takes in by 20%. We have increased funding for refugee assistance programs by 20%.

Our study today is about the economic contribution in both official languages, about bilingualism. I think that our investments are significant, as is our generosity around the world. However, the work begins with people like you, Mr. Kaptegaine.

Can you please give us more details about your work with refugee communities, specifically in terms of their ability to work? As you know, our government is very interested in job creation.

9:15 a.m.

Executive Director, Canadian Centre for Refugee Employment

Serge Kaptegaine

As I said to the Chair earlier, last year alone, we helped 280 people. That's very important because, when you talk about that many people, it's not just the individuals. It's a whole family, maybe with two or three kids. If you do the math, that shows a really significant impact.

Imagine if those people ended up on the streets. They would depend on social assistance. Who would lose? Not just the government, but also those families. So we realized that, in the past, if people were reluctant to hire refugees, it was because they didn't have enough information.

I have a simple example. When organizations take in these refugees, there is a lot of confusion about the difference between a refugee and an immigrant, and between an international student and a refugee. So these organizations see a newcomer, and that group includes both immigrants and refugees. If you put all of those people in the same group, how do you explain why a refugee doesn't have university documents, for example? People might think the refugee is lying because Robert over here has all of his documents. But that's because Robert is an immigrant.

That can change. That's why I talk about education. We have to educate these organizations about the groups of individuals who come here. Not only do we have to educate organizations, but we also have to educate refugees about the services that are available to them and help them understand the work culture in Canada. That's easy. You might get hired today, but in two or three months, you might lose your job. I realized that, in many cases, that's because of a lack of information. These refugees can't understand the differences between the work culture in Canada and the work culture where they came from. That knowledge is really important and can help a person get hired and keep his or her job.

That's what I wanted to add.