Official Languages Committee on Dec. 2nd, 2013

[Graham Fraser]

That is for Quebeckers to decide.

There were periods during the 1960s and the 1970s when Quebec governments were elected or defeated democratically because of their position on access to schools in the minority language. Since the repatriation of the Constitution, this is no longer subject to political debate; it is now a right enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The only way to change that is to amend the charter.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you for your questions, Mr. Gourde.

Ms. St-Denis, you have the floor.

[Lise St-Denis, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

When you talk about your report, it is easy to listen to you and to agree with you. However, how effective is your report? You make recommendations. I would think that in theory the government would respond to those recommendations. Does that happen? Are there any negotiations or discussions or do you simply make recommendations?

[Graham Fraser]

In my annual report, I take note of and follow up on our recommendations. The recommendations about immersion are more problematic because education falls under provincial jurisdiction. I therefore make recommendations to the effect that the government act in order to influence education, which falls under provincial jurisdiction.

There are ways in which the government can act in order to fill the gaps, but I am aware that the structure, curriculum and instruction per se fall under provincial jurisdiction.

[Lise St-Denis, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

I would like to go back to the $86 million. You said that that is an annual amount.

[Graham Fraser]

No, it is not an annual amount, it is an amount spread over three years.

[Lise St-Denis, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

It is for a three-year period. Therefore...

[Graham Fraser]

I am sorry, I am just being told that it actually is an annual amount.

[Lise St-Denis, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

So $86 million is provided for 10 provinces, which means approximately $8 million per province.

In your opening remarks, you said: “Over the past four years, the federal government, for its part, has allocated an average [...]” So it's over four years.

[Graham Fraser]

There is a total budget for four years.

[Lise St-Denis, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

That means $20 million per year, no?

[Graham Fraser]

The total is $344.7 million for four years.

[Lise St-Denis, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Fine.

You spoke about underfunding. If there were more funding, obviously there would be better outcomes.

[Graham Fraser]

One would hope so.

[Lise St-Denis, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Of course.

I am talking about immersion. Is there a significant difference between provinces in terms of outcomes? We saw a report on Alberta, but is the promotion and fostering of French immersion approximately the same for the nine provinces apart from Quebec? I don't know if the territories offer immersion programs.

[Graham Fraser]

I need to weigh my words. We do not evaluate results in education. There is no common evaluation system for all the provinces. At one point in time the Council of Ministers of Education of Canada discussed using a type of template or a common evaluation system so that immersion students in Alberta, Saskatchewan or Nova Scotia could compare their results.

You will be speaking with representatives of the Edmonton Public School Board after my appearance. They could speak to you about their use of DELF, which comes from the French system. This board wanted to use the evaluation system used by the Public Service Commission to evaluate student progress, but after one year, the commission decided that this contravened its legislation. That is when the board decided to use DELF, which is a foreign system. Using that system was one of the keys to its success. Thanks to that system, students can compare themselves not only with other students in their class, but also with other students around the world.

[Lise St-Denis, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Do you have any statistics on the number of people from low-income areas who are in immersion programs?

[Graham Fraser]

I do not have any numbers on that. The best source of statistics on immersion is the annual report of Canadian Parents for French. This organization does very patient work in collecting data on various aspects of immersion.

Here is an anecdote. In west Toronto, one of the parents told me that the school board district to which his children's school belonged was organized along a north-south axis. He said that children living in the low-cost housing in the Jane-Finch neighbourhood took long trips by bus every day to go to an immersion school because their parents know that bilingualism is a factor in advancement. As to whether this happens elsewhere, I cannot tell you.

You touched on an important point. The immersion system is often criticized as being only for the elite even though it is funded by taxpayers. This is a frustrating criticism. If students in an immersion program have learning disabilities that have nothing to do with the language of instruction, the school's first reaction will be to pressure the parents of these children to take them out of the program. After a few years, in grade 7, grade 8 or grade 9, all children with learning disabilities are placed in regular classrooms. Because of decisions made by the schools, only those students who excel will be in an immersion program, because those who did not will have been excluded from the system. The system is then criticized and said to be for the elite only. I find this criticism deeply unfair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Ms. St-Denis.

Ms. Bateman, you have the floor.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a few questions.

First, I want to talk about core French courses, which are offered in the same way as geography, social studies and other courses. I am not talking about immersion programs here. In grade 7, my son decided to go into the late immersion program, while two of his good friends, whom I know well, decided to take the English program, which included daily French classes. I am really quite impressed with their abilities, insightfulness and tenacity. To me, this really shows the importance of the French courses offered as part of English programs across Canada.

I am curious to know whether you are planning to improve these programs in terms of the French.

[Graham Fraser]

I am very happy to hear that. One of the negative aspects associated with the success of immersion programs is that these courses can attract the best teachers and best students. However, in Canada, the majority of students who learn French as a second language do so by taking core French classes. This will always be the case. This is why I always find it worrisome to hear parents say that their children will not be able to learn French because they are not in immersion.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

What is your vision for improving core French courses?

[Graham Fraser]

I think we should start by recognizing the importance of core French and stop treating it, as it is in many schools and school boards, as a second-class program. I have heard stories of core French teachers who do not have their own classrooms and have to carry their books from one classroom to another in a cart, and whose job situation was much more precarious than those of immersion teachers or teachers of subjects such as math and social sciences.

I myself took core French courses. I challenge this idea that immersion is the only way to learn French. I believe it is important for students to have access, in addition to this foundation that can be very important, to exchange programs, summer jobs or summer camps, for example, to work on their French outside the classroom.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thank you.

I want to follow up on the question of my colleague earlier.

I will continue in English.

As a mother from western Canada, I always thought it was like a gift to give my children the opportunity to speak French in a classroom situation and beyond. To me, that's a proud part of being a Canadian, making sure that children in Canada other than in Quebec have access to learning French. I just want to understand what you said before, because to me it would be equally important, as a parent in Quebec, to make sure that my children would have, of course, French, but also the opportunity to learn English. Could you just reiterate en anglais your—

[Graham Fraser]

Sure.

I think one has to understand the question of access to minority language education, whether that's English in Quebec or French outside of Quebec, in the context of the language debates that took place in Quebec in the 1960s and 1970s. There was growing concern that all of the immigration to Quebec was resulting in parents enrolling their children in English schools. There was a growing fear on the part of some highly respected demographers that the island of Montreal would end up being majority English speaking and that by attracting immigrants, Quebec was financing the creation of itself as a linguistic minority on the island of Montreal. So a variety of legislative instruments were introduced.

First was Bill 22, in which it was decided that the only children who would have access to English schools were those who could pass an English test when they were going into grade one. This was highly criticized because it was viewed that if you succeeded, you went to English school, and if you failed, you were sent off to the hell of French school.

After the election of the Parti Québécois in 1976 and the development of the Charte de la langue française, the criteria were developed on the basis of the education of one parent. If one parent had been educated in English, their children would have access. The original version of that was to restrict access to English education in Quebec to what they called the traditional English-speaking community. First with the Blaikie Supreme Court decision and then with the charter in 1982, that was broadened to one parent having been educated in English in Canada.

All of that, really, was in the context of serious concern with threats to the French language as they were perceived to exist in Quebec, particularly through that period.

It is also worth remembering that Quebec is the only province in which studying the other official language is obligatory right to the end of high school. In Quebec, it's introduced in grade 3, and it's obligatory. They've been moving it down to, I think, grade 1. It is the only province where learning the other official language is an obligatory program right through to the end of high school.

Outside of Quebec, it is obligatory to study French up until some level in every province east of Ontario. West of Ontario, I'm not certain about Manitoba. I don't think it's obligatory. It is an option. There's no obligatory course for French in the western provinces.

I think the idea that people are not learning English in Quebec is a mistaken one, if you look at the obligatory—