Exactly.
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.
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.
9:55 a.m.
NDP
Tyrone Benskin NDP Jeanne-Le Ber, QC
—but I guarantee that if you speak to them, for the most part they'll say they got to do something last month—
9:55 a.m.
NDP
Tyrone Benskin NDP Jeanne-Le Ber, QC
—and for them, that's a measure of success.
That's where you would tie in. If the energy that comes out of organizations like ELAN can reach out to the artistically inclined in the Eastern Townships, in the Gaspésie, and provide the infrastructure for community theatres and other types of presentations, festivals and so forth, they would become a tourist attraction. You have the lobster season in Îles-de-la-Madeleine. Having a nice little concert during lobster season, or whatever the case may be, would be an economic driver for you, I would think.
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
Joe Daniel Conservative Don Valley East, ON
Thank you, witnesses, for being here.
I want to follow up a little on understanding how much funding each of your organizations has received year over year. Perhaps you could start, Ms. Hunting.
9:55 a.m.
Executive Director, Townshippers' Association
Is that total funding, or from each sector?
9:55 a.m.
Executive Director, Townshippers' Association
Off the top of my head—it's audit season—we were up around $609,000 for the programs we ran last year for Townshippers' Association.
9:55 a.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Centre for Refugee Employment
We don't receive any money from the government.
9:55 a.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Centre for Refugee Employment
Last year, we received up to $60,000 from the United Way. Other than that, the other refugees are working now and making contributions to the organization.
9:55 a.m.
Executive Director, English Language Arts Network Quebec
Our operating funds through the Department of Canadian Heritage have been $95,000 for the last few years.
May 15th, 2014 / 9:55 a.m.
Executive Director, English Language Arts Network Quebec
It's per year. We had an increase this year, which was beneficial, but we have been operating on that kind of money supplemented by projects.
We haven't had very good luck with Quebec for reasons that are partly technical and partly sociological.
We're not eligible for any kind of operating funds from the Canada Council because we're multidisciplinary and they have disciplines, and we can have specific projects. ELAN has worked on a fairly small budget for the last 10 years, and they've accomplished quite a lot.
9:55 a.m.
Executive Director, Townshippers' Association
We receive $228,000 annually from Heritage Canada; $609,000 is not Canadian Heritage, so—
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
9:55 a.m.
Executive Director, Townshippers' Association
It is supplemented through other funding.
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
Joe Daniel Conservative Don Valley East, ON
Thank you.
I'd like to follow up a little on this dropout rate. It seems unusually high. We've seen similar illiteracy numbers coming out of certain areas of New Brunswick, and generally that's because there have been jobs they don't need literacy or education for.
Is that the case in the townships in your industry?
10 a.m.
President, Townshippers' Association
No one answer covers it all. In part, what was alluded to earlier on the question of transport, when a number of young people hit the age of 16, they've had it with being on a bus sometimes three to four hours a day. When they leave home, they're tired; when they get home, they're tired. School means they're in effect excluded from many of the extracurricular activities that build friendships that lead to stability in a community.
Another factor that has had a major impact is that when regional schools were developed, secondary schools were closed in many of the communities, and the students were bused away. It failed in one important aspect, not in terms of its educational goals—there was much more variety—but it meant young people no longer found themselves rooted in a community, in a small town, or on a farm They saw themselves essentially in transit, and as soon as they reach the age of 16, there is an imagined paradise that exists somewhere out there. It's west and it's bigger and it has so much more to offer.
If we went back 100 years, many jobs were available that didn't require specialized training. That is no longer the case, so dropping out happens.
10 a.m.
Conservative
10 a.m.
President, English Language Arts Network Quebec
With regard to youth retention in the arts—Guy has alluded to this already—there are a lot of opportunities in arts and culture to encourage youth to be involved in the community.
Our organization, which I represent in Theatre Wakefield, is an umbrella group. We run programs for youth. We do a summer film camp for youth, which fills up every year. The graduates, the alumni of those camps—because they do come back year after year—have gone on to star in main stage productions that we run. They have gone on to apprenticeships in directing, and things like that. Some of them then follow their careers into arts within Quebec.
10 a.m.
Conservative
Joe Daniel Conservative Don Valley East, ON
That certainly seems to be what I would term the traditional arts area. Have the technology changes that we've seen over the last decade impacted the arts community for anglophones as a minority group in Quebec?
