Official Languages Committee on May 15th, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Welcome to the 25th meeting of the Standing Committee on Official Languages. Today is Thursday, May 15, 2014. Pursuant to Standing Order 108, we are here to carry out a study on the economic situation of Canada's minority linguistic communities.

Today we will hear from Serge Kaptegaine of the Canadian Centre for Refugee Employment.

Also, we have Mr. MacGibbon and Mr. Rodgers from the English Language Arts Network Quebec.

We have Madam Hunting and Mr. Cutting from the Townshippers' Association.

We'll begin with an opening statement from Monsieur Kaptegaine.

[Serge Kaptegaine, Executive Director, Canadian Centre for Refugee Employment]

Mr. Chair, thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify before the committee. I am from Winnipeg and I represent the Canadian Centre for Refugee Employment.

Our work with refugees involves promoting their expertise and helping them find work based on their talents. Our organization was founded four years ago, and things are going very well.

Last year, the centre helped 240 people, all of them refugees. We believe that our system works, and we hope that other provinces will get on board with the idea of giving newcomers opportunities to work.

We realized that, in some cases, refugees could not find work because people did not have enough information about them. In other cases, refugees did not know where to begin to find work and the services they were looking for here.

That, in a nutshell, is what I wanted to say.

If committee members have questions, I can give them more details about the situation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you.

Now we'll have an opening statement from the English Language Arts Network Quebec.

[Guy Rodgers, Executive Director, English Language Arts Network Quebec]

Mr. Chair, I was concerned we might run slightly over seven minutes, so we might have a bit of extra time.

Good morning. I'm Guy Rodgers, and I'm the executive director of ELAN. Peter MacGibbon is the president. We want to thank the committee for inviting us here today to provide some information for this very important study.

The economic aspect of arts and culture is a relatively modern phenomenon. Prior to the 1960s, there were few professional artists in Canada. During the 1940s and 1950s, anglo Quebec gave birth to a large number of artists who would go on to international careers. It was not economically viable for many of them to remain in Quebec. Actors like William Shatner and Christopher Plummer went to the U.S. via CBC Toronto and the Stratford Festival. A number of writers went overseas: Mordecai Richler to London; Leonard Cohen to California; and Mavis Gallant to Paris.

The economic exodus was followed by years of political instability during the 1970s and 1980s. During the most militant years of Quebec nationalism, it was difficult for anglo artists to be recognized as full and equal members of Quebec society.

The English-speaking community was preoccupied by education, health, and rapidly declining vitality, and therefore arts were not a priority. Apart from a few stalwarts such as the McGarrigle sisters, many of the English-speaking artists of Quebec left or drifted into virtual invisibility.

[Peter MacGibbon, President, English Language Arts Network Quebec]

In 2011, Guernica Editions published a series of essays entitled Minority Report: An Alternative History of English-Language Arts in Quebec. This landmark review noted that English-language writers in the 1970s were squeezed between two nationalisms: the growing separatist movement in Quebec and burgeoning literary nationalism in Toronto. In 1985, La Presse announced that English theatre was practically dead. Also, in 2011, the research team of Canadian Heritage's official language support programs branch produced a statistical profile of artists in the OLMCs. The average percentage of artists in Canada's workforce is 0.65%. The majority French-speaking population is slightly lower than average at 0.56%, and the majority English-speaking population is slightly higher than average, at 0.68%. The highest concentration of artists in Canada is found among English-speaking artists in Quebec, at 0.99%, roughly 50% higher than the national average. This statistic reflects a remarkable transformation from a community of artists that was invisible and almost dead 30 years go.

Allow us to give you a brief overview of some of the social and economic forces responsible for this transformation.

[Guy Rodgers]

Shortly after the 1995 referendum on Quebec independence, the tide began to turn. Almost imperceptibly at first, artists began to return to Quebec or to migrate to Montreal, and young people were more inclined to remain in their home province than to leave. This was partly for cultural reasons. The strong francophone arts sector was an attraction. The rich linguistic complexity of Quebec was an attraction, and part of the change was economic. There were low rents and an affordable cost of living, and proximity to Europe and the U.S.A. In some cases, people turned to arts and culture due to an absence of opportunities in more traditional sectors.

By 2005, Spin magazine and The New York Times had discovered Arcade Fire and were looking at Montreal as the most interesting indie music scene in North America. English-language writers began to win national and international prizes. Visual artists, dancers and filmmakers also began to attract national and international attention.

[Peter MacGibbon]

Statistics Canada reported in 2005 that the arts in Canada employed twice as many people as forestry or banking. Most of these people work for very small not-for-profit organizations or are self-employed. They are a highly diverse group, whose language skills and economic profiles vary greatly.

The large number of artists creates new problems and challenges around finding performance spaces, obtaining media coverage, and building audiences. The primary focus of ELAN's work has been collective projects involving visibility for artists and access to audiences. All of these projects are designed to improve the economic conditions of artists.

ELAN's first visibility project was called RAEV, Recognizing Artists: Enfin Visibles! which created 150 profiles of artists, 25 videos about the costs and benefits of being an English-language artist in Quebec, and short histories of the development of each artistic discipline. The RAEV project has been helpful in strengthening the idea of an English-speaking brand within Quebec because we're forgotten by the rest of English-speaking Canada and ignored by French-speaking Quebec.

The ACCORD project was developed to assist regional communities all around Quebec to produce special arts events. The project was designed to develop skills in small communities so that they would be encouraged to produce more events in the future. The project's website was designed to allow communities to identify artists who would work for a modest fee in small communities.

[Guy Rodgers]

Made au Québec is ELAN's most recent and most successful visibility project. It aggregates coverage about anglo artists from media all around the world and provides a summary of that information in French.

I used to do interviews with the francophone media. I'd be describing artists that were quite famous to us, and they'd say, “Pfft, never heard of them.” Now we can point to Made au Québec and suggest that maybe they have heard of The New York Times and the Grammy Awards, so maybe they should take a look at this artist, because they think they're important.

ELAN has also devoted a great deal of time and energy to building links between artists and educators and increasing the number of English-speaking artists in Quebec's culture in the schools program. ELAN's most recent project built on this foundation and added a new foundation. The project is called YEAH!—youth, education, arts, and health. YEAH! was a very ambitious project designed to increase connections between artists and the important sectors of education and health.

There are many benefits that flow from using the arts in a therapeutic way to stimulate learning and to address youth problems, such as bullying, depression, and at-risk behaviour. There are also many artists who have developed skills in this field. Creating additional revenue sources would help them stay in Quebec, and ELAN has been actively involved in making interventions to the CRTC concerning broadcast policy and licence renewals.

Film and television production can employ many artists ranging from actors, writers, and directors to designers and technicians. Last year ELAN persuaded Vidéotron to apply for a licence for an English-language community TV channel. This would stimulate productions, create many full-time jobs, and produce content that reflects the history and the reality of Quebec's English-speaking communities.

[Peter MacGibbon]

Tourism is another sector in which arts and culture can create jobs and have a beneficial impact on local communities, particularly in regions outside Montreal. CEDEC recently sponsored a study on economic benefits of tourism. We look forward to seeing the results.

The arts are also an important factor in regional vitality. This is particularly true in regions such as the Outaouais and the Eastern Townships, where strong local cultures of volunteerism contribute to a quality of life that encourages youth retention and seniors involvement.

Volunteers drive arts festivals and venue management, generating and sustaining the activities that make their communities attractive places to visit and spend money in.

Working through province-wide networks such as ELAN, the Quebec Writers' Federation, and the Quebec Drama Federation increases the connections between regional arts organizations and creates opportunities for artists touring, for access to expertise and resources, and for sharing best practices.

[Guy Rodgers]

To conclude, artists constitute one of the largest segments of the workforce. The Canadian arts and culture sector generates $85 billion per year in revenues. In 2008 the Conference Board of Canada calculated this at 7% of Canada's GDP.

Statistics Canada reported in 2005—we don't have the updated statistics—that Canadians spend twice as much on live performing arts, $1.4 billion, as they do on sports.

Over the past two years the Quebec Community Groups Network has identified arts and culture as an important factor in community development.

The Department of Canadian Heritage's recent review of support for OLMCs decided that the program would prioritize sustained actions in three key areas for community vitality: actions aimed at youth, arts, culture and heritage, and media and communications.

Artists make an important contribution to identity and vitality for the English-speaking community, and they make an important contribution to dialogue with the linguistic majority. Arts and culture can also be an important factor in our communities' economic development.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much.

Now we'll have an opening statement from the Townshippers' Association.

[Gerald Cutting, President, Townshippers' Association]

Thank you very much and good morning, Mr. Chong.

Vice-Chairs Monsieur Godin and Madame St-Denis, members of the committee, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for granting Townshippers' Association the opportunity to testify before this committee on the subject of economic development in Canada's official language minority communities.

For 35 years now, Townshippers' Association has been at the forefront of community engagement pursuing its mission to promote the interests of the English-speaking community in Quebec's historic Eastern Townships, strengthening its cultural identity, and encouraging the full participation of the English-language population in the community at large.

We work on behalf of over 46,000 English speakers who are spread across a region that is larger than Belgium in its geography, stretching from Philipsburg in the west to Mégantic in the east and from Inverness in the north to the U.S. border in the south.

The English-speaking community of the historic Eastern Townships is not a recent immigrant group. Our roots go back to the late 1700s. Indeed, our ancestors were the first settlers of European heritage to enter this region. Consider for a moment that in 1861 a full 58% of the population was English speaking. Currently that percentage has dropped to a mere 6%.

This morning we will outline for you the situation of English speakers in our region, what actions Townshippers' Association has taken to address the issue of economic development in the community it serves, and conclude with recommendations for the future.

[Rachel Hunting, Executive Director, Townshippers' Association]

I'll begin by discussing the socio-economic status of English speakers in the historical Eastern Townships.

A marked trend in the Eastern Townships' English-speaking community is the absence of middle-generation individuals, age 35 to 54, who, by virtue of their profession, education and income, would typically constitute the middle class. We have a missing middle, if you will. Those who remain show signs of growing socio-economic vulnerabilities, including high unemployment, low income and low education levels.

Unemployment is a major issue for English speakers living in the Eastern Townships. When considering the rate of unemployment across the generations, evidence shows that disparities between the minority and majority populations are most pronounced among those age 15 to 24. The rate of unemployment among English-speaking youth is considerably higher than the rate for youth whose first official language is French. Low levels of education, income, and employment among English-speaking youth demonstrate a clear socio-economic disadvantage for this age group and the communities in which they reside. If ever there was a pressing need to call for affirmative action to deal with a struggling minority group, it is now.

Some actions that Townshippers' have taken to approach the subject of economic development and employability in our region include fostering community development and the growth of initiatives that support the pursuit of economic, entrepreneurial and educational opportunities for English speakers who call the Eastern Townships home. It's one of our primary objectives included in the association's strategic plan. Our history of working in collaboration with community stakeholders to ensure that existing and future resources within the English-speaking community are maximized demonstrates our recognition that successful and sustainable economic development requires a holistic approach that draws from the expertise of all the actors in the milieu.

The Townshippers' Association, through our make way for youth program, has been working with partners in the field of economic development, such as SADC, and employers from across the Eastern Townships to develop networking opportunities and activities that bring together human resources and recruiting personnel from the private sector with English-speaking job seekers. Collaborative efforts of this kind allow us to support English-speaking job seekers on a regular basis, as well as annually at large community events, such as Townshippers' Day, where our townshippers-at-work section and employers panel activity give local and regional employers a chance to interact directly with English-speaking job seekers as well as the general public.

In order to combat the mass exodus of young English speakers which is common to our region as it is in other rural areas of the province, the association has sought funding to support a project developed in collaboration with the Eastern Townships School Board and employers from around the region that would seek to highlight opportunities for English-speaking graduates in the Eastern Townships, introduce them to the local employment market, and encourage graduates to remain in the community. Initiatives such as these are fundamental to demonstrating to English-speaking high school and CÉGEP graduates that diverse employment opportunities are available in the Eastern Townships, and that remaining in the region can lead to success.

Additionally, in the past year we have teamed up with Youth Employment Services Montreal, which provides entrepreneurs of all ages with the information and guidance necessary to build a solid foundation for their business, to offer one-on-one coaching sessions to English-speaking entrepreneurs at our head office in Lennoxville.

Federally funded programs, such as the McGill training and retention of health professionals project and its bursary program, not only support the training of desperately needed health care professionals, but they also provide incentive for these young professionals to settle in the regions once their education is complete. The recruitment and retention of young professionals from any sector to live and work in regions such as the Eastern Townships will most certainly contribute to the economic growth and overall vitality of our linguistic minority community.

[Gerald Cutting]

That's part of the problem, but what can we do when it comes to recommendations?

In order to continue to meet the economic development and employment needs of the English-speaking members of our community, associations and organizations such as ourselves must work in tandem with and support other associations, institutions, and organizations working to address the issues present in this sector whether they be defined locally, regionally, or provincially. We also need sustained financial support for core operations in order to develop and implement the projects and new initiatives that short-term funding envelopes are eager to support.

The community sector cannot maintain its momentum when the cost of operations increases every year with the market, but recurrent funding envelopes do not. For a results-based approach there must be a firm resolve on the part of government at both the federal and provincial levels to recognize that without a concerted effort to reinforce and adequately fund community organizations such as the Townshippers', the plight of the rural English-speakers will only worsen.

Finally, as one of the founding peoples of Quebec, we feel it is imperative that the linguistic minority in Quebec be recognized as such with proportionate funding as compared with our francophone counterparts across the country.

Furthermore, it is vital that any programs developed to bolster economic development in the linguistic minority communities take into account the fundamental differences between urban and rural realities lived by English speakers across the province. This is not to create a division between the linguistic minority communities in these areas, but in recognition that they have different needs and thus require a tailored approach for their support.

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. I guess now we are at your mercy.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much, Mr. Cutting.

We'll now have an hour of questions and comments from members, beginning with Mr. Nicholls.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for coming today to testify.

Mr. Cutting provided me a good segue into my questions because, Mr. Rodgers, stable funding is an issue and we've heard that from multiple organizations that have come to this committee. I want to cut right to the chase and see if you would also recommend a more stable model of funding, perhaps on a three-year model rather than year to year with funding being indexed for those three years. Would that not be a recommendation you would make?

[Guy Rodgers]

Yes. Our experience in the community and many studies demonstrate that when you have core organizations like the Townshippers' or ELAN that are stable, the benefits for everybody, the individuals, are enormous.

So yes, indeed; three-year funding that is stable and indexed would provide an extreme margin of security for us.

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

That's great.

Also, given that you mentioned that arts and culture constitute nearly 8% of real GDP and also that it contributes to innovation in the economy, which is right now a weakness in our economy and needs help, would you not also recommend increased funding for arts organizations and organizations that support the arts?

[Guy Rodgers]

I think that it needs to be targeted. I think there are parts of the arts that are very important for community vitality. There is already quite significant funding for art for arts sake through the Canada Council, through the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec. ELAN is developing connections with education, with health, with community vitality. I think in those areas, specifically targeted funding is of extreme importance for the minority language communities and their vitality.

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

Yes. I know that young artists in my own riding do have issues, difficulties and challenges that organizations such as yours assist them with. As you know, the creative economy requires an infrastructure. It doesn't just build itself. Given the recent and rapid growth of Quebec's English-speaking arts community, is there a problem right now finding performance and presentation venues for artists?

[Guy Rodgers]

Back in the eighties and nineties, there was a lot of money invested in infrastructure both from the federal government and from the provincial government. At that time the English language arts community was pretty embryonic. It wasn't present. There were organizations like Centaur Theatre and what was then the Saidye Bronfman Centre, which is now the Segal Centre, that had the capacity to upgrade their infrastructure.

For most artists, it's a struggle finding spaces. They share spaces. They work in unlicensed lofts and get kicked out. So yes, developing infrastructure where we can actually connect audiences and artists is an urgent priority.

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

Great.

I'm wondering about outside of, say, Montreal. Are there any special concerns for artists working in areas outside of Montreal?

[Guy Rodgers]

The president of ELAN is from the Wakefield-Chelsea area, so I'll let him answer that question. He has a much more personal connection.

[Peter MacGibbon]

First of all, I'd like to say regarding community-based arts organizations and artists working in the regions, there is a tremendous culture of volunteerism. Any money, any funding invested in projects by these groups is money well spent, because it's paid back many times over by the efforts of people, including professionals who sometimes work alongside amateur artists to raise the level of quality, and so on.

There are issues around artists organizing themselves and having access to funding, particularly through Canada Council grants. Often it requires quite a bit of organizational infrastructure, administrative infrastructure, to be able to access some of the other Canadian Heritage grants. There's a lot of time and energy put into the admin side. It's not wasted but it is time consuming. Frankly, it's not as much fun as the work of being an artist, so generally it has to be paid work.

Those are the sorts of needs that we're looking at.

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

Both groups have mentioned partnerships with service organizations. There are issues that come up. How could the federal government assist in helping you build these partnerships?

Mr. Cutting or Ms. Hunting.