Official Languages Committee on March 26th, 2015

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Order, please.

Welcome to the 43rd meeting of the Standing Committee on Official Languages. Today is Thursday, March 26, 2015. Pursuant to Standing Order 108, today we are studying the Government of Canada programs designed to promote francophone immigration into Canada's official language minority communities.

We will begin with Ms. Aden, from the Réseau de développement économique et d'employabilité Canada, and Mr. Sigouin, from the Réseau de développement économique et d'employabilité Ontario.

Ms. Aden, go ahead.

[Roukya Abdi Aden, Administrator, National Cooperation, Réseau de développement économique et d'employabilité (RDÉE) Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

My name is Roukya Abdi. I am the administrator responsible for national cooperation at the Réseau de développement économique et d'employabilité Canada. Thank you for receiving us today.

I will begin my presentation like everyone else, by giving you a brief overview of our network.

Created in 1997, our network works for the economic development of francophone communities. RDEE Canada includes 12 members that provide advocacy, sharing of good practices, consistent action and leadership to help communities fully contribute to Canada's economic prosperity.

In terms of immigration, I will not tell you anything new by saying that a 4.4% target was set in 2003 when the strategic framework to foster immigration to francophone minority communities was adopted. In 2012, francophone immigration was at about 1.8%. A decade later, the success rate was therefore very low. Also in 2012, Canada's immigration system was completely updated. The update was based on four principles or pillars: the economy, efficiency, certification and safety.

This system, which really took off in January 2015 when the express entry program was introduced, seeks to directly connect the labour needs of Canadian employers with the selection of skilled immigrants, be they permanent residents or temporary workers. Our Réseau de développement économique et d'employabilité is particularly involved in that, since access to labour is part of our mandate.

The network has been working on immigration matters for a few years and is facing a number of challenges in terms of the recruitment and employability of immigrants. Those challenges include the needs of a rapidly changing labour market requiring specific and up-to-date knowledge in our case. We have to build our knowledge as we go along, while ensuring a presence across the country. Skills assessment is also a challenge that we quite often have to face.

Furthermore, we need to connect immigrants with employers who are looking for skilled candidates. Sometimes we tell the employer that we are able to find the ideal candidate, but when we start the process, we realize that the candidate, although skilled, has not yet had his or her credentials recognized. That is a major challenge for us.

Making employers and businesses aware of the potential and value of economic immigration is also part of the challenge. It is not easy to convince Canadian employers, especially anglophones, to recruit workers from the pool created by the countries of the Francophonie. They are not used to doing that. They generally choose the Philippines because they are familiar with that country and are very comfortable going back there.

In terms of the need to support small and medium-sized businesses, you know that 98% of Canadian businesses are very small businesses. As a result, they don't have human resource services and therefore do not post job vacancies.

In addition, some employers are excessively cautious regarding international recruitment, either because they find the steps time-consuming or because they have a poor understanding of how the system works. They are also afraid of abuse and backlash.

The RDEE and its members have developed a two-pronged approached. For us, immigration makes it possible, first and foremost, to address the need of Canadian employers to access labour. That is how we see things and that is the approach we take with immigration.

We need to have a good grasp of the market to: provide targeted support to employers; identify their needs; determine which employers will be facing labour shortages; work with those needing to recruit workers internationally; engage employers and make them aware of the hiring of francophone immigrants who have settled in Canada or are being recruited abroad; and provide services tailored to employers' needs.

Express entry may be an opportunity for us. However, we need to be proactive to be successful. I would like to present a few solutions, after which I will give the floor to Daniel Sigouin, the representative from RDEE Ontario, which is a member of RDEE Canada. Both networks have work plans on the ground. Mr. Sigouin will tell you more about what is happening on the ground in terms of economic immigration.

I will now present some short-term solutions whose results could be felt immediately. The first objective is to connect employers with francophone candidates. To address the needs for access to labour, it is important to set up a targeted support system for employers to help them recruit immigrants and integrate them into jobs.

We have a few tools right know, such as the Skills International website, which makes it possible to have virtual forums, online interviews and job offers matched with the candidates' profiles.

We also recommend introducing incentives to assist employers interested in international recruitment. Incentives include waiving the labour market impact assessment fee or relaxing the rules of the assessment. We need to ensure that immigrants come from all categories of immigrants and connect with countries that are sources of francophone immigration.

As I said earlier, if an employer wants a skilled candidate, we need to be able to look for that candidate in all the countries of the Francophonie, where skilled candidates are, not just in France or Belgium.

It is also important to have pre-departure services to ensure that immigrants are prepared before they arrive.

Lastly, we would like to tackle the entrepreneurial challenges through francophone immigration. Immigration might address the problem of the next generation of entrepreneurs, which is a problem for the francophonie.

I now invite my colleague Daniel to continue.

[Daniel Sigouin, Director General, Réseau de développement économique et d'employabilité (RDÉE) Ontario]

Thank you, Roukya.

My name is Daniel Sigouin and I am the director general of Réseau de développement économique et d'employabilité Ontario. Clearly, our network is a member of RDEE Canada.

RDEE Ontario promotes economic development and employability in order to ensure the vitality and sustainability of all francophone communities in Ontario.

Since 2001, RDEE Ontario has developed expertise in several niche markets, such as the expansion of small and medium-sized businesses, research and analysis, financing, consultation, economic immigration, business alliances, the development of organizational capacity, the organization of trade missions and the establishment of communication strategies and partnerships in our official language communities.

In 2010, we launched a program called “La Bonne affaire”, a program geared toward economic immigration. La Bonne affaire is a provincial awareness and economic-integration program funded by Citizenship and Immigration Canada. La Bonne affaire works to make Ontario employers aware of the benefits of hiring newcomers, and supports employers in identifying talent and recruiting and integrating newcomers in the workplace.

La Bonne affaire also informs, trains and prepares newcomers for the realities of the Ontario labour market, so that they can meet employers' requirements. It is important to know what employers want to be able to train newcomers and prepare them for the labour market.

We share most of the challenges faced by RDEE Canada and its members. We also feel that the reform of Canada's immigration system will have an overall positive effect on Canada’s francophone communities, as long as we can make the system work properly. The system has shifted from proposing Canada as a destination for immigrants to inviting immigrants to come to Canada to contribute to Canada's economy.

We would like to stress that temporary foreign workers represent a significant pool for Ontario's economy. Two-thirds of economic immigrants are already in Canada, representing an important and significant pool of workers.

In Ontario, 49,770 positions were subject to labour market impact assessments (LMIA) for temporary foreign workers in 2012. Of these positions, 42% were in Toronto and the rest were scattered across the province. Of the total number of positions subject to LMIAs, 58% were in businesses with one to 50 employees, so most of our clients. It is therefore important to properly identify those employers and educate them.

As I said earlier, RDEE Ontario also faces the challenges described by RDEE Canada with regard to the recruitment and employability of francophone immigrants. We would like to place particular emphasis on the following points.

We need to promote employer and business awareness of the potential of francophone immigration. It is important to talk to employers, to think and act like them and to have a solid understanding of their needs. We also need to support them in the recruitment process.

We need to mitigate the myths surrounding the recruitment of immigrant workers. Those myths relate to costs, commitment, the tedious process, and so on. Roukya talked about that earlier.

We must obtain the necessary support so that our network succeeds in developing the tools needed to help the government meet its targets—a win-win partnership with the government. It is important to bring together local and regional economic stakeholders to identify the needs of employers, especially in the targeted sectors. In order to convince entrepreneurs, we must act like them and think like them. We feel that the social approach alone is no longer a winning option and we need to adopt an economic development approach.

Our recommendations are complementary to those made by RDEE Canada. By 2020, Ontario will be facing a significant labour shortage. It is important to educate employers now about the possibility of hiring immigrant workers. The federal and provincial governments have set targets to increase the number of francophone immigrants. Now they must implement ways to achieve this goal by hiring employability, immigration and economic development experts. If RDEE Ontario is to improve and increase the pool of employers to whom it provides individualized support services, it will need additional resources to achieve its goals.

In 2014, with a team of fewer than 10 people—the equivalent of three and a half full-time employees-—we were able to educate approximately 350 employers who hired francophone immigrants in Ontario. Additional resources would make it possible to expand the team, broaden our scope and cover the entire province.

The other recommendation has to do with temporary workers. A pool of skilled temporary workers is currently available. Streamlining the administrative procedures for obtaining their permanent residency would make it possible to keep them in Canada. Since the cancellation of the francophone significant benefit program and the introduction of the express entry program, many immigrants have had to leave the country. We have seen this on the ground. Unfortunately, few employers are taking the necessary steps because they are unsure about the LMIA application process and are afraid they will be turned down.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you.

We will now move to Ms. Ouellet and Ms. Martel from the Association of French Speaking Jurists of Ontario.

[Sonia Ouellet, Secretary, Association des juristes d'expression française de l'Ontario]

Chair Chong, Vice-Chair Nicholls, Vice-Chair St-Denis and members of the committee, good afternoon.

I'm Sonia Ouellet, and I'm the secretary of the Association of French Speaking Jurists of Ontario, or the AJEFO. With me today is Ms. Martel who will be able to provide you with more details on AJEFO’s projects.

I will start by introducing the AJEFO, which is a non-profit organization that has been operating in Ontario for more than 30 years. We promote access to justice in French in Ontario to ensure equal access to justice in both official languages. The AJEFO network is made up of more than 820 lawyers, judges, translators, law professors and students, and members of the public interested in access to justice.

The AJEFO provides services directly to the community through legal education and information programs. Our objective is to improve the understanding of law as a life skill for every individual. Ms. Martel will tell you about the various sites that seek to promote legal information. It is a strategy we have taken to make the information available to the public at large.

The AJEFO's programs target the general public, including youth and teachers, high school teachers. The website is available across Canada. Programs vary according to each provincial jurisdiction. We provide working tools for teachers to use in the classroom. Some of our programs are for seniors, but we also have programs for francophone immigrants.

Since AJEFO is a legal organization, we also provide services to justice sector professionals, such as continuing professional development and legal tools.

I will now hand things over to Ms. Martel, who will present five projects having a direct or indirect impact on francophone immigrant communities.

[Andrée-Anne Martel, Executive Director, Association des juristes d'expression française de l'Ontario]

Thank you, Ms. Ouellet.

Mr. Chair, members of the committee, good afternoon.

As we have seen earlier today, Ontario has a number of programs to support newcomers with settlement, housing assistance, employment services or language training, including information and legal training.

The Department of Justice provides the AJEFO with financial support through the Access to Justice in Both Official Languages Support Fund under the Roadmap for Canada's Official Languages 2013-2018.

Today I will present five AJEFO programs for francophone newcomers based on the roadmap's two pillars: information and training.

The information pillar consists of providing direct legal services and information to the public. The AJEFO has three programs that fall under this pillar.

First, the Canadian CliquezJustice.ca portal offers simplified legal information in plain language to the general public on how the justice system works, careers in justice and various themes in several legal areas such as family law, employment law, immigration and citizenship law.

Recent reports on access to justice in both official languages estimate that roughly 12 million Canadians will experience at least one legal problem in any given three-year period. Few will have the resources to solve them. It is difficult if not impossible for a newcomer to be familiar with every Canadian law and the complex workings of the Canadian legal system.

CliquezJustice.ca aims to help francophone newcomers to Canada. With a better understanding of the Canadian legal system, these newcomers will have the legal skills and tools to deal with various legal issues. Since it went live in February 2012, CliquezJustice.ca has had more than 130,000 visits, with roughly 368,000 page views.

Second, the AJEFO now offers service directly to the public in Ontario. On January 15, 2015, the AJEFO opened Ontario's first legal information centre in downtown Ottawa. The Ottawa Legal Information Centre is a four-year pilot project providing confidential, bilingual services to the public free of charge, regardless of a person's income or type of legal problem. The centre serves as a one-stop shop where clients can receive legal information and a referral to the appropriate resource.

Currently, close to 50% of people decide to represent themselves in legal matters, a situation that puts additional pressure on the justice system. By informing and guiding members of the public, including newcomers, the centre seeks to reduce the wait times and penalties associated with the justice system, and promote the active offer of services in French. Let me repeat, the services are provided both in French and in English.

Since it opened on January 15, 2015, the centre has served 177 clients. Of this number, 51 clients, or 28%, were francophone and 35 clients, or about 20%, identified themselves as being a member of a visible minority or an Aboriginal community.

I will now talk about the third project under the information component.

Since 2011, the AJEFO has offered a series of law camps to more than 1,350 Grade 5 students in Ottawa. The camps include a component related to the Ontario Ministry of Education’s Programme d'appui aux nouveaux arrivants, a support program for newcomers. The law camps teach young francophones about the foundations of Canadian society, such as the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the language rights established under the charter, thereby strengthening their sense of identity and belonging.

I will now turn to the second pillar: training, which includes training to legal professionals.

While the two projects I will present primarily benefit francophone legal professionals, they indirectly serve all francophone newcomers who require legal services.

First, the AJEFO has been managing the portal Jurisource.ca since 2013. This national French-language portal features the tools and resources used by legal professionals in their work in French.

The portal is a single window providing access to a wide range of practical resources such as model documents, which are often unavailable or difficult to find, unlike similar English-language resources.

Jurisource.ca is intended to improve the language skills of legal professionals. By reducing the time a legal professional spends on research and by improving that person's ability to write in French, Jurisource.ca benefits clients in terms of cost and quality. Since it was launched in March 2013, Jurisource.ca has had 23,700 visits, with close to 72,000 page views.

Second, since 2011, the AJEFO has developed and held two family mediation training sessions in French for 98 professionals from the justice sector. The AJEFO will deliver a third such session in 2016, focusing on mediation strategies in an ethnocultural context.

Since Ontario is home to close to 70% of the francophone immigrants who settle outside Quebec, the AJEFO believes that it is vital for all mediators, whether they are legal professionals or stakeholders, to recognize and understand ethnocultural differences as they apply in the context of mediation. The goal is to have competent legal professionals who are sensitive to ethnocultural issues and able to serve the immigrant population.

This concludes our comments. Ms. Ouellet and I would be happy to answer your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, madam.

We will now hear from Mr. Dubé, from the City of Moncton.

[Jacques Dubé, City Manager, City of Moncton]

Thank you Mr. Chair.

And thank you to all members of the committee for this opportunity to meet with you today.

The City of Moncton is proud to be the first officially bilingual city in Canada, through a declaration by council made in 2002. Over the past three decades, Moncton’s economic successes can often be linked to an available, skilled and bilingual workforce. Clearly, other factors also come into play, but what we’ve done rather well is create opportunity by promoting the talents of our bilingual residents.

Moncton has embraced bilingualism, realizing long ago that learning two or more languages is an advantage. This bilingualism has certainly been a contributing factor in our economic and population growth over the years.

The Moncton CMA has one of the most bilingual workforces outside of Quebec. According to the 2011 census, 46% of the city of Moncton's population speaks English and French. This presents great opportunity in terms of the attraction of both French- and English-speaking immigrants to our city.

For more than two decades, Moncton has been the economic growth engine for New Brunswick. Between 1987 and 2012, the region added approximately 40,000 people to the population. Although a large portion of this population growth has been from other parts of the province, Moncton has also seen an enormous increase in the number of immigrants that it has attracted.

The importance placed on both official languages has been a contributing factor in the increase of immigration in our city. The number of newcomers who have settled in Greater Moncton has increased significantly in recent years, rising from around 100 per year in the 1990s to approximately 850 a year in 2014. Economic immigrants represent the bulk of all new immigrants, accounting for 81% in 2010, compared with family class immigrants, 10%, and refugees, 7%.

Greater Moncton has also witnessed an increase in the number of francophone immigrants. Before 2006, the percentage of all immigrants to the community with French as their mother tongue was only 9%. Between 2006 and 2011, francophone immigrants increased to 18% of the total population of immigrants. One should note that, according to the most recent figures, 36% of Moncton’s total population has French as a mother tongue.

That gives you the context in which we are operating in Moncton. In terms of the actual situation, in order to maintain our recent population growth trajectory of 1.9% per year, the greater Moncton area will need to welcome more than 1,000 new immigrants per year by 2017 to sustain our current population growth rate. New Brunswick needs its urban centres to continue to drive economic and population growth.

Yesterday, New Brunswick's official languages commissioner said that every bilingual job creates two unilingual jobs. That statement is proven by solid research by two of Moncton's most highly respected economists. The bottom line is that we need more bilingual, more unilingual, and more multilingual immigrants, and we need them now.

Although we've seen great progress, we firmly believe that immigration will contribute significantly to government's fiscal capacity to provide public services, as well as enhance the social and cultural elements of our society.

In response to this growing need, in May 2013, the City of Moncton organized its first ever immigration summit. Over 200 people were in attendance, representing a wide array of private, government, and immigrant-serving agencies, as well as newcomers. During this summit, our community agreed that a strategic and coordinated approach to immigration was needed if we wanted to ensure our future prosperity.

The result was the greater Moncton immigration strategy, which features four main pillars: attraction, integration, retention, and business entrepreneurship.

One of the key objectives is an increased emphasis on francophone immigration. At the community's request, Moncton is taking the lead on the strategy and has hired an immigration strategy officer to help ensure its implementation. We actually have two and a half people who wake up every morning and think about how we can attract more immigrants to Moncton. Linguistic balance and expertise remain high priorities for the City of Moncton, the community, and the region.

The investment by the Department of Citizenship and Immigration through the roadmap for Canada’s official languages has been a successful tool to ensure that we continue to attract, integrate and retain francophone immigrants, therefore maintaining the linguistic balance in our province and, more specifically, in our city. We commend the Department of Citizenship and Immigration for its work and investments in international recruitment events such as Destination Canada and Destination Nouveau-Brunswick; and funding to francophone points of service such as Centre d’acceuil et d’accompagnement francophone des immigrants du sud-est du Nouveau-Brunswick and the Multicultural Association of Greater Moncton Area. These organizations provide direct assistance to newcomers, from language training to employment services, which is essential to francophone immigrants’ success.

I’d therefore like to take this opportunity to suggest some ideas that, with your support, will enable us to achieve some key objectives.

Municipalities play a key role in immigration. We are seeing this more and more across Canada, including in our own region. Municipalities are a neutral body that can best advocate on behalf of their own community. Municipalities would like the opportunity to collaborate with Canada and the provinces, and to be at the table when planning immigration policies and programming.

In December 2014, the City of Moncton submitted an application for funding to the Department of Citizenship and Immigration for a local immigration partnership, the LIP program, which would allow us to develop a coordinated and community-based plan around the needs of newcomers. This partnership would be led by the City of Moncton and would be used to help implement the greater Moncton immigration strategy.

Of course, within the application, the City of Moncton also requested funding for an immigration website. This website would help provide information on immigration services that exist for pre- and post-arrival. These two initiatives would both help strengthen and contribute to francophone immigration.

The City of Moncton would also like to see the re-establishment of a citizenship and immigration satellite office in Moncton. The CIC Moncton office could service a much broader economic region. There are more than 600,000 people living within a 90- to 100-minute driving commute from Moncton. A Moncton CIC office would be able to easily recruit qualified bilingual staff and offer bilingual services to new arrivals.

International students represent a potential opportunity for our region and should be seen as a conduit for immigration. In the greater Moncton area, we have over 1,000 francophone international students within our French post-secondary institutions. These students graduate with a Canadian degree and are often well-integrated within the Canadian culture.

What they are missing, however, is services to be able to access the labour market. Providing international students with access to language classes, employer matching and better integration and retention services for international students would be a direct benefit to our economic and population growth. Currently, they are provided with no formal language classes and have limited access to the labour market.

In regard to the Express Entry system, it would be advantageous if additional points were given to francophone immigrants who wish to immigrate to minority language communities in Canada. This would help facilitate an increase in the francophone population moving to Moncton and other regions outside Quebec.

Immigration is essential in preserving and enhancing the vitality of our official language minority communities. We commend the Department of Citizenship and Immigration and the Department of Canadian Heritage for working collaboratively with its many provincial, territorial, municipal and community partners to help our region thrive.

Moncton believes in the economic, social and cultural benefits of immigration and in helping to support our francophone immigrants, in particular. Clearly, with the death rate exceeding the birth rate in New Brunswick, more needs to be done.

It is important to recognize the work of Canadian Heritage in this discussion and its positive impact on our ability to attract and retain French-speaking immigrants via investments in our multicultural infrastructure and events.

Furthermore, we would like to thank you, the Standing Committee on Official Languages, for reaching out to the City of Moncton, and for this wonderful opportunity to share our past, our current situation, and future, as well as taking the time to consider some of our ideas that we have put forth.

The opportunity to have presented to the Standing Committee on Official Languages for two consecutive years attests to your commitment to New Brunswick and to Canada, and Moncton's place within it.

We look forward to working in partnership with all stakeholders involved in immigration and in the promotion of Canada's official languages. It is by working in cooperation that we can improve the lives of all Canadians and all future Canadians.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you.

I will now turn the floor over to Ms. Kenney and Ms. Bossé, of the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada.

[Marie-France Kenny, President, Fédération des communautés francophones et acadiennes du Canada]

Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today.

I won't spend a lot of time explaining who the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada, or FCFA, is. Given how many times we've appeared before the committee, I think you're beginning to get a sense of who we are and what we do.

Today, the FCFA is here wearing two different hats. We are the main organization representing 2.6 million French-speaking citizens living in nine provinces and three territories. Furthermore, for the last 15 years, we have also been the national coordinator for programs related to immigration into francophone and Acadian communities.

This is the third time in five years that a parliamentary committee on official languages has studied the question of francophone immigration. I have brought with me today our address to this committee during its last study on the subject in 2010, the report on that study, our address and our brief to the Senate committee on official languages regarding its study on the subject in 2014, as well as that committee's report. I would request that these documents be formally tabled so that they may be taken into consideration during your study. They are here and they are translated in both official languages. The information they contain, especially the FCFA's previous testimony, remains relevant.

I could talk to you about the numerous challenges related to francophone immigration. I could talk about the utter lack of a strategy to promote our communities abroad to potential immigrants. I could talk about targets set jointly by governments and communities that are still not met. I could talk about glaring gaps that remain in terms of French-language settlement services. I could talk about the fact that Express Entry currently has no way of establishing whether an immigrant is a francophone or not, after close to three years of having that system sold to us as the answer to all the problems in terms of francophone immigration. But I really want to avoid sounding like a broken record, so if you will allow me to change the tune, I will deliver a more fundamental message.

While, year after year, study after study is prepared on the challenges facing francophone immigration, more than 98% of the immigrants that Canada welcomes outside Quebec are anglophones, compared with francophone immigration rates of less than 2%. What that means is that, of the 250,000 immigrants coming to Canada every year, 3,358 francophone immigrants joined our communities in 2013. At least, that is according to the figures released by Citizenship and Immigration Canada. In spite of the targets, in spite of the commitments, in spite of the multiple recommendations made by parliamentary committees, these figures have remained stable for the last 20 years. Some 98% of immigrants are anglophone and only 2% are francophone. That's very little, and we learned that, in 2014, between the months of January and March, if I'm not mistaken, that percentage had dropped to 1.35%. We're not talking about just under 2%, we're talking about 1.35%. This is scandalous.

Canada's francophone population may have increased in absolute numbers, but with 3,358 immigrants in 2013, our communities didn't grow all that much. With the share of immigrants we receive, our relative demographic weight continues to decline. In many places, it is only a matter of time before our communities fall below the minimum threshold for receiving services and communications from federal agencies in French. As you know, the threshold is 5% in order to receive French-language services from federal institutions. At that rate, it won't be long before they drop below the threshold. And when our relative weight falls even more, what will be put on the table then? Our francophone schools?

More than 98% versus less than 2%, figures that have remained constant for years. If the goal were to kill off Canada's francophone and Acadian communities bit by bit, to make them disappear through attrition, it would be difficult to come up with a better strategy. For years, there have been calls for the realities and specific needs of francophone and Acadian communities to be taken into account by government when it develops policies and programs related to immigration.

In light of the obligations imposed not only by the Official Languages Act, but also by the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, regarding the support and development of our communities, one might expect that to be normal procedure. Yet the complete opposite has happened. Anything that might have made a real difference to French-language immigration into our communities has been eliminated. Now, we're being asked to rely on the Express Entry program, even though it does not offer even the smallest incentive for employers to recruit francophone candidates or promote our communities.

For years now, we have not received our fair share of the country's annual immigration, and this has caused major damage to our communities. The time has come for repairs. Something major needs to be done. The government must develop a coherent plan for recruiting francophone immigrants outside Quebec. This plan must include robust measures and detailed timelines for achieving our common targets for francophone immigration. This plan must be released immediately, not in 10 years. In terms of francophone immigration, time was already running out last fall when the francophone significant benefit program was cancelled. And now that time has essentially run out, nothing has changed. That is the only recommendation we will make to your committee regarding this study on francophone immigration. And, in our opinion, it is the only one of any importance.

Mr. Chair and members of the committee, this will no doubt be the last time I appear before you representing the FCFA. After six years as president, my term will come to an end in June. So I'd like to take a moment, if I may, to address you as the francophone citizen that I am, will soon be again and have always been.

Over the past 15 years, I've had numerous opportunities to appear before the committee in some capacity. Yours is only one of two parliamentary committees whose existence is mandated by the Official Languages Act. And yet, whenever I have appeared before you during those 15 years, I have gotten the impression that the committee is more about partisan wrangling and political agendas than a shared commitment to ensure respect for the Official Languages Act and the language rights of all Canadians.

The Official Languages Act is meant to safeguard the French language in Canada. But it is the most poorly enforced legislation in the country and has been for 45 years. What's more, when violations are committed under the act—and they are listed in the report of the official languages commissioner every year—no consequences follow. As a French-speaking Canadian, I take that as a lack of respect, when all I am asking is not to be treated like a second-class citizen.

Mr. Chair and members of the committee, I'm an idealist and, I hope, an optimist as well. As a Canadian, I am calling on parliamentarians of all stripes to champion my rights, to stand up for the Official Languages Act and the language rights of Canadians, once and for all. Our future and our ability to live in French also depend on you.

Since we are here today to discuss francophone immigration, I would ask you to take decisive action so that, at the end of the day, we can stop telling ourselves, year after year, that we still have not met our targets and that our communities are slowly dying as a result. What is at stake is the vitality of French in Canada, our survival and Canada's linguistic duality.

Thank you for your time and attention.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Ms. Kenney.

On behalf of the committee, I'd like to thank you for your six years of service and all the input you have contributed to our studies. We wish you all the best in your future endeavours.

We have an hour and 10 minutes for questions and answers.

Mr. Nicholls, the floor is yours.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Kenny, thank you, as well, for your dedication to the rights of francophones in minority language communities and your efforts to stand up for those rights.

More and more, French-speaking Canadians in minority language communities are being threatened by a policy of assimilation through attrition. Year after year, the government's support of the Official Languages Act declines. Take, for example, institutions that benefit and support francophones in minority language communities, institutions like Radio-Canada. We're seeing a disturbing trend: minority language rights are under attack. In Radio-Canada's case, that attack didn't just start today. Regardless of whether the Liberals or the Conservatives were in power, it has been going on for years, if not decades, and it's still happening.

We introduced a motion on the issue. Committee decisions, however, are made in camera. Important testimony on the effects of budget cuts is generally censored in committee reports. And I don't mean just cuts at Radio-Canada. The francophone significant benefit program, the co-operative development initiative and other programs have also been the target of budget cuts. When relevant content is omitted from committee reports, how can we possibly advance the rights of francophones in minority language communities? It's a sad state of affairs, and we hope to, one day, get out of the mire.

The 2005 decision in Desrochers v. Canada (Industry), related to section 25 of the act, offers a glimmer of hope. The court established that the government had a duty to provide services of equal quality in both official languages. It's time for the government to start meeting its obligations to francophone minority communities. We hope the government will respect its obligations under the Official Languages Act.

Now, for my questions.

We were under the impression that a plan for francophone immigration existed. Listening to you, I gather that no such plan exists or that, if there is one, it's not doing what it needs to. Could you clarify whether a plan does indeed exist? And if so, where does it fall short, implementation-wise?

[Marie-France Kenny]

There was a plan, an immigration strategy. I don't know when it came to an end, off the top of my head.

[Suzanne Bossé, Executive Director, Fédération des communautés francophones et acadiennes du Canada]

It's a plan from 2006 that is ongoing.

[Marie-France Kenny]

Okay.

No new strategy has been developed. I have to tell you that things are done on a case-by-case basis, piecemeal fashion. It amounts to putting a band-aid on the problem, whenever one surfaces.

This isn't the first time the Express Entry system has been discussed. For two or three years, we've been offering to help the government incorporate a francophone-oriented component in the program. It wasn't until last fall, after the francophone significant benefit program was cancelled, that the government finally agreed to meet with us to discuss the issue. We were told that the government would test it out initially and then see how it worked.

The first test wasn't successful. In fact, we were told that the numbers would be even lower than expected, below 1.36%. We are now almost at 0%, and still, a francophone dimension has not been added. What's more, yesterday, we found out that, under the Express Entry system, there's no way to know whether an immigrant is francophone or not when they apply. Immigrants aren't asked whether they are francophone or anglophone, or what their first official language spoken is.

Forgive me for saying so, but on top of that, the government has the nerve to ask how we, the communities, are going to help promote the Express Entry program. I'd love to, except without a francophone component, the system amounts to death by a thousand cuts for our communities. And they want me to promote the program. It's too bad, but the answer is no, and it will always be no as long as the program neglects francophone immigration.

There is no strategy. Things are always done in a piecemeal fashion. I apologize—

Suzanne, did you have anything to add?

[Suzanne Bossé]

There is a strategic plan to promote francophone immigration to our communities. The plan was developed jointly by Citizenship and Immigration Canada and the francophone communities. The FCFA coordinated the process. Through highs and lows, in very small steps, the plan was created. Right up to the Roadmap for Canada's Official Languages 2008-2013 , we felt that we were moving forward, but since the new roadmap came out, we feel that this is really piecemeal work.

We have a strategy and investments in language training of $120 million, but we don't even know if this is of use to francophone immigrants. In several provinces and territories, in fact, we do not have access to providers of language training in French or even in English. There is no strategy to promote the communities.

Whether in Paris, Dakar, Rabat, North Africa or in any of the other 14 countries concerned, the roadmap funds are used to promote Express Entry. They are used to promote systems or categories of immigration or to teach people how to fill out the immigration forms. However, our communities are not promoted, except perhaps through a Web page created by Citizenship and Immigration Canada recently. It is excellent, but not well known.

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

From what I understand, there is no strategy, no overall vision, which is very troubling. In order to advance the rights of francophones, and to ensure the survival of francophone communities, this overall vision will be necessary. Twenty-two years ago, the Reform Party arrived in Ottawa saying that it wanted to eliminate the “pet project” of bilingualism in this country. The person at the head of that program was our Prime Minister. It is not surprising that there is no respect for official languages in this government. I find that disturbing.

Moreover, those who work in official language minority communities, and you are among them, often tell us that the federal government does not consult them about decisions on immigration policy. But those decisions hamper their capacity to work in their communities and adversely affect the communities themselves.

Does the government consult your organizations on the development of these programs and policies on francophone immigration? My question is addressed to all of you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

You must answer briefly because there is not much time left.

Ms. Aden, you have the floor.

[Roukya Abdi Aden]

The government held consultations recently. As Ms. Kenny was saying, we may be consulted and propose certain things, but what happens to those recommendations? The communities and organizations submit recommendations to the government, but are they taken into consideration?

I will give you a concrete example. I will only talk about employability and will let my colleagues from the FCFA talk about the topic in a more general way.

We are told that they want to convene and meet with employers, and we are asked whether, as representatives of the Réseau de développement économique et d'employabilité du Canada, we can do that. We reply that the reality, in the field, is that employers will not just come when called like that. They are busy, they have businesses to run.

Could these interventions not be prepared in advance, so as not to target all employers, who are not all necessarily interested in this system, but those who are interested? We regularly submit recommendations to the government on how to intervene.

Of course, they can do as they like.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you.

Mr. Dubé, you have the floor.

[Jacques Dubé]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will use Moncton as an example, where, in 2006, approximately 9% of immigrants were francophones. Nine years later, that percentage has doubled: it is now 18%. So we are moving in the right direction.

Can we take all of the credit? No. It has to be said that in Moncton, 36% of the population is francophone. The only way for us to succeed is to conclude partnerships. We cannot wait for the Government of Canada to do all the work. The government has policies and programs in place and we try to make good use of them. We have had some success because we work jointly with the federal government and the province. The provincial government has an important role to play. It created the Destination New Brunswick program, for instance. We go to France directly, with the provincial and federal governments.

To get back to what the lady who is sitting at the end of the table was saying, we knock on businesses' doors and ask them whether they have jobs available. We go to France and Toronto to talk about available positions. We support them. That is why we have more success with today's system.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you.

Mr. Menegakis, you have the floor.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I also thank the witnesses for their testimony.

Ms. Kenny, I want to thank you for your work and for having shared your personal points of view with us today. I wish you all possible success in your future projects.

Our government has committed to promoting francophone immigration through its permanent immigration programs in Canada. Last year, we welcomed approximately 1,500 francophone immigrants outside Quebec thanks to our economic programs for permanent immigration. Through the Roadmap for Canada's Official Languages 2013-2018, which has education, immigration and communities components, we will invest $29.4 million to support immigration to minority communities. In total, $149.5 million will be allocated over five years for official language initiatives.

Could you share with us the experience your organization and the City of Moncton has had, as well as that of your partner organizations, in obtaining funds through the roadmap, and the importance of that financial help for the community in general?

Mr. Sigouin, you could begin, if you wish.

[Daniel Sigouin]

As I mentioned earlier, the programs we have developed to promote economic immigration are very important. However, we see that they are clearly insufficient to meet the demand, and especially to reach the objectives we have set, both at the federal and provincial levels.

The amounts invested are often allocated amongst several organizations and several projects within the same province. That said, it is hard for us to become experts or to serve all of the clientele in the field. The investments certainly need to be increased if we want to reach our targets.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Ms. Abdi Aden or Mr. Dubé, did you want to add something on that?