Official Languages Committee on Sept. 26th, 2018

[René Arseneault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

I understand.

[Marie-Andrée Asselin]

That funding split won't help us because entrepreneurs don't start day cares.

More spaces for skills training and money for child care worker training are positive measures, but better training doesn't fix worker retention and recruitment problems, not to mention all the other labour challenges. Even at that, the approach is still far too limited in scope.

In addition, we find it odd that we weren't consulted. Why should 33% of the funding go to support entrepreneurs and 66% be allocated to training?

That isn't what we need. What we really need is a small team to help build community capacity in order to increase the number of community-based day cares and support their start-up, in co-operation with parents. What we'd like to know is how this $20 million is going to help us.

The other thing that ties into all this, and Mr. Choquette brought it up, is that things are still stalled. We just found out about the percentages, and we still haven't received the additional funding allocated to early childhood education programs and implementation. The information is trickling in, but we'd like things to move more quickly because the need is great and the early childhood years don't last forever. We really have to do something now.

[René Arseneault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

I see. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you very much.

Next, we have Mr. Rioux.

[Jean Rioux, Saint-Jean, Lib.]

Madam, did I hear you correctly when you said that four out of five children were assimilated and didn't attend French-language school? Is that indeed the information you gave us?

In other words, we are going to great lengths to support immigration, but we are a long way from being able to say for certain that those people will live their lives in French.

My first question is this. Why?

My second question is about early childhood services. Is that the answer?

[Marie-Andrée Asselin]

Yes. As far as early childhood is concerned, four out of five children are assimilated.

The answer lies in a number of things. For instance, one solution would be setting up day cares for children in the zero to five age group wherever there is a French-language school in the province. We believe that's very important, and it's what we, at the Fédération des parents francophones, have really been working on in recent years, in conjunction with our network.

The challenge we keep coming up against is the lack of early childhood educators, infrastructure and start-up capacity in the community. Right now, we are working with the school board to set up a day care in Nanaimo. We applied for funding to install mobile structures on the school grounds. It's very resource-intensive to install the structures, purchase the equipment and start up the service.

We don't have the capacity to carry out five of these projects a year, but five or six a year are what's needed. We want to build a small team dedicated to working on these types of projects because we really need day cares. We have 20 or so in the province, but we have about 40 communities with French-language schools, so this is extremely important.

Eighty-seven per cent of the families whose children we serve are exogamous, so parents with small children have a really hard time incorporating francophone culture into a child's environment in early childhood. Day cares, and all early childhood services really, play a huge role in serving these children well before they turn five and go to school.

Investing in services for children zero to five years of age is vital, and that includes day cares. It will also put information in the hands of parents so that, right from birth, they can use it to guide their lifestyle choices and decision-making. I'm talking about things like choosing a French-language day care and school, deciding to speak to their children in French, taking part in artistic and cultural activities and attending events put on by local francophone groups.

At the end of the day, that's the way to stop assimilation.

[Jean Rioux]

Thank you.

[Marie-France Lapierre]

I'd like to point out that that is why our school board representatives are trying to find spots in their schools. The goal is to find a solution to the day care problem. Our problem goes hand in hand with our success. Our schools are getting bigger. In Pionniers, we opened a school in March. When we submitted the request, we were told that the school would be too big for 560 students, and now we have over 700. That creates problems on the day care end.

Something else we've done is put in place pilot projects for four-year-olds, the idea being that they start school sooner to help build a sense of francophone identity.

[Jean Rioux]

This is a question I've already started asking.

Do the French-language services available in federal institutions adhere to the spirit of the Official Languages Act?

[David Pajot]

Significant challenges exist around staff training. Recruiting workers locally is no easy feat. There are major deficiencies on that front. I'm always talking to people at the RCMP, the Canada Revenue Agency, the Canada Border Services Agency and the like. We have programs aimed at training future public servants. At the university here, we have a basic French program, but only 20 or so students a year take it, so it's not enough to meet the needs of a professional population locally.

Retention is the challenge these government organizations come up against. You have bilingual government workers who come from out east—Ontario, Quebec or New Brunswick—but they don't stay in British Columbia for more than three or four years. They don't settle here long term for reasons as basic as money. What's the point of staying here three or four years if you can't buy an apartment and put down roots? It's especially important, then, to have the capacity to train workers locally to work out west, whether it be in British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba or Saskatchewan.

The situation also has to do with the teacher shortage. They're intertwined. I nevertheless think it's important to train people here, in B.C., so people with the ability to work in both official languages stay here. That also ties in with the principle of providing education beginning in childhood. When immigrants come to B.C., they might easily wonder what the benefit of enrolling their children in a French-language school would be. They have those kinds of questions, what we call family politics.

Why would they bother registering their children in a French-language school when assimilation at all levels occurs regardless? It isn't limited to childhood. It also happens in adulthood. When people call a service provider in French in order to be served in French and yet are served in English, they wonder why they should bother further.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you very much, Mr. Rioux. Thank you all.

Mr. Clarke, it is now over to you.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to make this very quick since Mrs. Boucher has questions she'd like to ask.

As you know, I'm a man of action. Back in June, I asked the Prime Minister whether he was going to modernize the act before the election, and he answered yes. As I still strive to be a man of action, I have a motion to put forward today in the presence of our witnesses. It reads as follows:

That the Committee ask the Canada Lands Company to appear regarding the implementation of Part VII of the Official Languages Act, more specifically the consultation of francophone minority school boards in the administration of the surplus federal lands and real property disposal process.

I think it's a motion that will meet with unanimous support, and I hope the committee will vote in favour of it. All the motion does is seek to have representatives of the Canada Lands Company appear before the committee so members can ask questions about the company's administration and when it plans to listen to you, as is required.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

I have an amendment to the motion. This would be very useful in my view, given that all the Canada Lands Company is doing is playing by the rules. In other words, it's not necessarily going to consult the French-speaking community if the federal government has not made it clear that it must do so. I always say that people won't rush to offer up solutions on their own if they haven't repeatedly been asked to do so.

I would amend the motion to have the committee invite the President of the Treasury Board at some point, be it before or after the meeting with the Canada Lands Company. The fact is that the act sets out an obligation, so we need to hear what the President of the Treasury Board has to say about it. Of course, it would then be very important to talk to the people at the Canada Lands Company.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Mr. Choquette, would you like to comment?

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

You can finish your point about the amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

The amendment would specify that the President of the Treasury Board as well as representatives of the Canada Lands Company appear before the committee. Is that correct?

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

That's correct.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Chair, I see no problem with having the President of the Treasury Board appear before the committee.

I have here a Radio-Canada article from May 4, 2018. It's about the sale of federal buildings and Senator Gagné's displeasure with the Minister's response. As I see it, the Minister of Public Services and Procurement is the minister responsible for the matter, so I think we should invite her to appear as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Mr. Arseneault, you have the floor.

[René Arseneault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Would we have all three appear at the same meeting?

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

They wouldn't all appear at the same meeting, necessarily.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

I agree that the two ministers share the responsibility and that the Canada Lands Company takes care of the allocation. It would be helpful to hear their perspectives. I know they are aware of the issue, but it would be a good idea to hear what they have to say and ask them questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

We are therefore requesting that the President of the Treasury Board, the Minister of Public Services and Procurement—Ms. Qualtrough—and a representative from the Canada Lands Company appear before the committee.

I'll leave it to the clerk to set aside an appropriate time slot in the committee's schedule.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

It should be as soon as possible.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Very well.

(Amendment agreed to)

(Motion as amended agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])