Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Fédération des francophones de la Colombie-Britannique is delighted to welcome you to its territory, in a way. It isn't every day that a committee travels outside Ottawa. We thank you for this effort and encourage you to continue this initiative across the country.
I will summarize some of the main elements of the brief we submitted to the committee. If time permits, I will add one or two new elements.
Basically, we have tried to answer the questions the committee asked.
Overall, the federation is satisfied with the content of the action plan, since it contains much of what the francophone community asked for during the consultations held in 2016, namely a commitment by the government to official language minority communities.
Of course, the objectives of this plan, which is very ambitious, will only be achievable if a substantial financial effort is made. This is all the more true since investments in official languages have stagnated for 12 years, in a province where the cost of living is among the highest in Canada and growing year after year. I would like to come back to this point if I can, since it affects some of the service delivery methods included in the action plan.
We are satisfied with the way in which consultations and meetings have been conducted since 2016. I must say that, since the implementation of the action plan, the federation has also been satisfied with its interaction with Canadian Heritage officials, and I can give you some concrete examples, as well as with IRCC officials, another example worth highlighting.
We think it is a little early to say if there are any areas that are not in the action plan, but that would deserve special attention. However, we have immediate concerns about the lack of mention of federal-provincial agreements, in particular with respect to the following elements: specified and verifiable linguistic obligations, a clear and transparent accountability process and a willingness to specify positive measures under part VII of the act, including through regulations.
I will probably echo what has already been said this morning, but the education sector has informed me of its concern about the financial impact of the delay in signing federal-provincial agreements on certain higher education institutions. We can come back to this point. In our opinion, these agreements should provide for mechanisms for the involvement of professional orders in order to facilitate the recognition of diplomas acquired outside Canada. I would like to pick up on the point raised by Glyn Lewis and my colleagues in the education sector.
As it is a little early to evaluate the action plan, it may not be easy to know how to improve it at this stage. However, we want there to be a monitoring mechanism that involves our communities throughout the life of the action plan. We would like to take advantage of the action plan to renegotiate the Canada-community agreements, now tacit agreements that are renewable annually, and make them official, so that the communities also have their mechanisms in place under the action plan.
I would also like to mention that we just had a regional immigration summit with IRCC last week. We are delighted with the cultural shift that this department is taking by developing a service approach designed by and for key stakeholders. I think this is something that cannot be overemphasized. Until the arrival of this policy or measure, immigration, overall, had contributed to the assimilation of francophones outside Quebec. In fact, immigration to Canada was a way of assimilating francophones. I think that was an unexpected consequence. The government now has objectives, a strategic plan and a mechanism date, and that is quite commendable.
In conclusion, we are very satisfied with the efforts made by the government in the action plan. However, there are still systemic barriers that this plan does not seem to address, and we can discuss them later. Before I conclude, I will simply point out the decision of Judge Gascon of the Federal Court against the federation last spring, in which the whole of part VII was called into question.
For us, this means that the overhaul or modernization of the Official Languages Act becomes, for the future of our communities, a crucial issue and a heavy responsibility for the government and for all parties, since we want to see all parties commit to modernizing this legislation and support any effort to that end.
Thank you very much.