Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Laurier Thibault and I am the Director General of the Réseau des cégeps et des collèges francophones du Canada. I am speaking to you on behalf of the members of our network and of its board of directors.
I thank the Standing Committee on Official Languages for giving the RCCFC this privileged opportunity to highlight the role our postsecondary training and educational institutions play in the economic vitality of minority official language communities. Your committee's engagement is all the more commendable in that you are looking at educational and training institutions such as our own to develop your reflection.
We have had prior to this the opportunity to tell you about the contribution our institutions make to the development of their communities. There are several reasons behind that. Indeed, we work on the ground. We are motivated by the concerns and expectations of our young people, many of whom are adults, and by those of their future employers. We are preparing the skilled workers of tomorrow. We are essential partners of governments in the implementation of their employment, employability and labour force training strategies. In short, we are directly connected to the future of our communities. That is why we are convinced that your deliberations on the economic situation of our communities cannot be separated from a clear and articulate vision of the postsecondary training of our future skilled workers. We are not only the initiators of well-paid jobs, but also creators of wealth.
The current state of the labour market is such that those who hold technical and vocational diplomas from our colleges are often in a better position to find jobs that meet the immediate needs of businesses in their environment. Francophone postsecondary colleges and training institutions fulfil a dual mandate. They must first of all increase access to postsecondary studies in French in technical and vocational areas. Moreover, through their actions and proactive commitment, they support the development of their communities. We must never forget that young people who have been trained in their environment, in their field of competence and in their native language, will tend to remain there and build their future in their community. That is why our institutions must offer a range of competitive and diverse programs connected to the needs of the labour market and the expectations of employers.
Since 1995, our network has been a pan-Canadian group of 61 French-language colleges in the 10 provinces and territories. Through its collaboration programs and networking initiatives, the RCCFC actively contributes to the development of French-language postsecondary college education and training in Canada, to the advantage of over 30,000 part-time and full-time students every year.
Since its creation, the RCCFC has supported and contributed to the funding of no less than 129 collaboration and expertise-sharing projects in a host of areas that draw on the values of mutual assistance, partnership, creativity and entrepreneurship as levers of economic development. Our colleges are thus essential actors in the economic vitality of our communities. They support entrepreneurs in several ways, in particular through applied research. They allow them to improve their production processes and their productivity while offering students the opportunity of acquiring experience by working on concrete projects.
In 2012, to give you a specific example, our network supported a partnership project between the Collège Boréal of Ontario, the Collège Mathieu in Saskatchewan, and the Gérald-Godin Cégep in the Montreal region, to develop a program aimed at the reintegration of skilled workers in the context of a shortage of skilled labour. The RCCFC acted as a catalyst with these institutions so that they could guide and support older workers returning to the labour force.
I would also like to point to another partnership example involving three of our other members from the Maritime provinces, i.e. the Collège communautaire du Nouveau-Brunswick, Université Sainte-Anne in Nova Scotia, and the Collège Acadie of Prince Edward Island. This partnership involved a unique project to delocalize specialized training in welding, a first for the francophones of the Maritimes.
Indeed, in January 2012, the Honourable Bernard Valcourt, who was at the time the minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, stated that this collaboration involving the federal government and the three French-language postsecondary educational institutions gave students in rural or minority communities a unique opportunity to take part in a shipbuilding initiative in the metallurgical field.
Those were some examples of adjustments to the new realities of the labour market. The same can be said about partnerships entered into by several of our institutions. The purpose is to capitalize on acquired knowledge and competencies, particularly in the area of early childhood education.
Our teaching and training institutions have to learn to train students for jobs and trades that did not exist previously, or have changed radically over the past few years. The new technologies present training challenges, but also represent unexpected opportunities for our institutions. The members of the RCCFC have become masters in vocational upgrading by using and developing communication tools such as webinars and massive online open courses in order to pool resources, expertise and the spirit of partnership of our members throughout Canada. That is the strength of our network.
There is, for instance, the Consortium de l'Ouest et du Nord pour l'éducation postsecondaire et la formation, which groups seven training establishments and was created thanks to the RCCFC. This consortium allows members to pool their experience, expertise and resources so as to maximize their effectiveness and guarantee better quality access to postsecondary education as well as to training in the west and north of Canada. Our institutions thus play a primordial role. They plot the future of their communities by meeting changing needs through adapted means. In education and training, the status quo is not an option. Those who do not take that reality into account run the risk of seeing their very existence jeopardized and their possibilities of economic development compromised.
We wish to point out once again that our communities' economy must rest on physical and virtual infrastructures to improve the program offer. We want to remind you that the offer of quality services and programs through modern and flexible infrastructures is a powerful stimulus for the demand for training in French. In education, there is nothing more attractive to students and their future employers than relevant programs offered through modern infrastructures with learning assistance services and cutting-edge equipment, as well as, of course, quality French-language teaching.
As an organization whose mission is to establish a true partnership between the French-language college-level institutions in Canada, we subscribe to the recommendations that have already been submitted to your committee by some of our partners, in particular the Association des universités de la francophonie canadienne and the Collège communautaire du Nouveau-Brunswick.
These recommendations cover all or most of the priorities the RCCFC feels are necessary to the development of our French-language minority communities. Education and training are the cornerstones of their future; the colleges and other institutions of the RCCFC are the artisans of that future.
To conclude, we would like to see the standing committee reiterate to the Government of Canada recommendation number 10 of the June 2009 report entitled: 5,000 Bilingual Positions to be Filled Every Year: the Role of Postsecondary Institutions in Promoting Canada's Linguistic Duality. The report is about student mobility among postsecondary institutions in our country.
I thank you for your attention, and I will be pleased to answer your questions with all of the passion I have for this topic.