Official Languages Committee on Sept. 27th, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Pursuant to Standing Order 108, we are continuing our study of the Action Plan for Official Languages 2018-2023: Investing in Our Future.

I am very pleased to be with you here in Regina this morning.

I would ask committee members to introduce themselves briefly, starting with Jean Rioux.

[Jean Rioux, Saint-Jean, Lib.]

Good morning.

My name is Jean Rioux. I am the member for Saint-Jean, a riding south of Montreal that extends in part to the border.

My riding has witnessed a significant event for the francophonie: the return of French-language university training to the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean. I think that's important for the French presence.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

René Arseneault has the floor.

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

My name is René Arseneault, and I am an Acadian from New Brunswick and the member for Madawaska–Restigouche. I am one of those people who have always resisted and still resist the invader. The invaders where I live don't fight battles or wars; they are the forces of assimilation. That's our daily struggle.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

I turn the floor over to Alupa Clarke.

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

Good morning, everyone, francophones from the west and from Saskatchewan.

I am a Alupa Clarke, a French Canadian from Quebec, from the old capital. I am the deputy critic for official languages of the Conservative Party of Canada, and I want you to know that this is very important for us and for our leader. I will be reporting to him on our trip.

We are getting ready to prepare a report on the modernization of the Official Languages Act starting this fall. Consequently, ladies and gentlemen, I'm eager to hear what you have to say.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you.

I now turn the floor over to Sylvie Boucher.

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

Good morning.

My name is Sylvie Boucher. I am the member for Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix, where the magnificent G7 summit was held.

I was parliamentary secretary to the Minister of La Francophonie and Official Languages from 2006 to the end of 2007.

I have sat on the Standing Committee on Official Languages since I was re-elected in 2015. This is one of the only House of Commons committees where you see very little or no partisanship. We believe that language is very important, and we often fight together for the same vision: to keep the francophonie strong across the country.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you.

François Choquette has the floor.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Good morning, everyone.

My name is François Choquette, and I am the member for Drummond, a Quebec riding that is located between Montreal and Quebec City and includes the city of Drummondville.

I have been a member of Parliament since 2011 and mainly worked on the environment from 2011 to 2015. In 2015, I began to sit on the Standing Committee on Official Languages. I am one of the committee's vice-chairs.

I have had the good fortune to meet with many communities across Canada, but I have not yet met any communities from Saskatchewan, except when I had the honour to meet you in Manitoba last year.

I am also a French language teacher by profession and have taught many immigrants and newcomers. So I have some experience in the field.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you.

I am Denis Paradis, the member for Brome—Missisquoi, about an hour south of Montreal. My riding is located near the Vermont border in a region that features wineries.

I was Secretary of State for La Francophonie in a previous government.

Welcome, everyone.

This morning, we'll have the pleasure of hearing from Denis Simard and Ronald Labrecque from the Assemblée communautaire fransaskoise, Carol-Guillaume Gagné and Mélissa Castonguay Cossette from the Association des parents fransaskois, Francis Kasongo from the Collège Mathieu, Kouame N'Goandi from the Conseil économique et coopératif de la Saskatchewan, Alpha Barry from the Conseil des écoles fransaskoises—Ms. Grimard is unable to be with us; and Anne Leis and Frédérique Baudemont from the Réseau santé en français de la Saskatchewan.

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen.

We are going to hear your presentations. As usual, we will give each organization about five minutes. Then we will go round the table, and committee members may ask questions or make comments.

Mr. Simard, we will begin with you.

[Denis Simard, President, Assemblée communautaire fransaskoise]

Excellent.

Good morning,Mr. Chair and committee members. My name is Dennis Simard, and I am president of the Assemblée communautaire fransaskoise, the ACF.

I am here with our executive director, Ronald Labrecque.

I will have to leave around 9:45. I work for Habitat for Humanity, and today we are announcing that 10 new houses will be built next year and are introducing the 10 families who will live in them. I will have to leave, but Mr. Labrecque can answer all your questions in my absence.

I want to thank you for being here in Regina today as part of this study of the Action Plan for Official Languages 2018-2023: Investing in Our Future. Fransaskois community stakeholders are very grateful for this opportunity to appear before you and to tell you in person about their experiences and perceptions.

We are here on behalf of the ACF, the organization that represents the Fransaskois community. The ACF represents 53,000 French-languge speakers who are residents of Saskatchewan. According to the 2016 census, 14,435 individuals have French as their first language.

We congratulated the government on this ambitious action plan the moment it was announced. However, we have a lot of catching up to do after 10 years without any increase in funding for our organizations. We haven't mentioned the impact of the increased cost of living or the lack of a new agreement between Canada and the Fransaskois community that would be consistent with our ambitions. The remedial 20% increase this year will not enable us to develop the plan for society that we must establish.

It is a constant challenge for the Fransaskois community to keep what we have. Whether it be the francophone media, government services, schools and school programs, health services or the sustainability of our institutions, we can take nothing for granted and must remain constantly vigilant. Services and programs may be questioned, decline or disappear from one moment to the next.

Here's a recent example to illustrate that. In the past 10 years, Saskatchewan has managed to double the number of students enrolled in the immersion program across the province. That's a great success. However, now we see that increasing numbers of school boards are dropping core French courses in the public schools. In fact, the number of students enrolled in core French courses in Saskatchewan is about half what it was 10 years ago.

Many Fransaskois schools are overcrowded as a result of increasing demand and an inability to adapt our infrastructure. You could say that some provincial and regional community organizations are in an acutely precarious position as a result of a lack of financial resources.

There is a consensus among education stakeholders on the idea of putting all educational phases on a minority French-language education continuum in Canada. It is important to support students early on in their learning and acquisition of the French language, as both a first language and a second language.

The report your committee published this past May, entitled "Growing Up in French in Western Canada: A Review of Federal Support for Early Childhood Education," is very clear on the importance of early childhood services for linguistic security and identity development. The path to francophone schools management in Saskatchewan has been a particularly hazardous one. Today, 25 years later, the challenges are still there: overcrowded schools, lack of infrastructure, need for re-francization programs, integrating newcomers, the gap between the supply of early childhood programs in francophone schools and the supply of those programs in majority schools. These points must be resolved.

French-language education still receives unequal treatment relative to English-language education in Saskatchewan. The successful transmission of French in a minority community is the result of close cooperation among the school, family and community spheres. French-language education must be supported from early childhood to the postsecondary level. A report on early childhood in minority communities published by the Commissioner of Official Languages in October 2016 clearly shows that this phase is "a critical period for language acquisition." Language experts agree. Consequently, it is vitally important for the communities that early childhood and preschool programs be included in the education continuum.

Our colleagues at the Conseil des écoles Fransaskoises have discussed this situation with you on several occasions, focusing more particularly on the challenges associated with financial cooperation by the province on junior kindergarten programs for children three and four years of age.

Funding for francophone postsecondary institutions faces equally troubling challenges. Funding for those institutions comes in large part from supplementary funding under bilateral education agreements. These funds are allocated near the end of the fiscal year, and the institutions do not know what amounts that will be allocated to them. It is virtually impossible for these institutions to function properly in the face of this uncertainty. This year, for example, a francophone nursing science program was added at the University of Regina. Despite that fact, the operating funding normally allocated to the Cité universitaire francophone was cut so deeply that it destabilized many services that had been provided for decades.

You must keep in mind the role and importance of infrastructure in Saskatchewan's official language minority community. Many school and community centres have been built in the past 40 years. Those institutions have spaces where French language and culture can spread. These are places for gathering and exchange where the cultural experience enables communities to excel, create and define themselves. Resources available to date prevent us from doing more than the bare minimum to maintain those centres. The action plan provides for investment in community infrastructure, and that has been very well received by our community.

School facilities in the education sector are obsolete in many cases. Infrastructure at many schools can no longer perform its original function, and there is a critical need for renovation and construction. There is also a chronic shortage of primary schools for francophones in Saskatchewan's largest cities as existing buildings cannot meet the demand. This gives cause for concern, and the community has come together to demand an adequate solution.

Infrastructure in the health sector would help support French-language health services. This sector is a troubling and major issue for an active and healthy community. Clinics would help bring together health professionals to provide services in Canada's two official languages, thus serving the francophone community, which is very often forgotten in this sector.

Two court cases, R. v. Mercure and R. v. Alberta, attest to the efforts the Fransaskois community has made to obtain official linguistic recognition by the government of Saskatchewan. In these two cases, the evidence adduced of the constitutional nature of language rights failed to convince six of the nine judges of the Supreme Court of Canada. The logic behind these proceedings for francophones is to restore the legitimate and historical status of the French language in the minds of the majority and provincial authorities, while recalling the measures put in place to protect it.

In the circumstances, and after a half-century of official bilingualism in Canada, provincial services should be active champions of linguistic duality. However, they are not and are still far from being so.

The Francophone Affairs Branch plays an important role in our relations with the various provincial departments and services. Substantial resources would help them achieve that goal in order to build an inclusive and comprehensive Saskatchewan community enhanced by its linguistic strength.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Mr. Simard, I would ask you to conclude your presentation because there are many more witnesses to be heard.

[Denis Simard]

That's fine. I'll have to skip a page or two.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

You may also respond to questions and comments shortly.

[Denis Simard]

The first francophones in the west were Métis. The ACF acknowledges that permanent dialogue must be maintained with indigenous people and Métis across the Canadian francophonie. The ACF signed a pact of solidarity with the Métis nation of Saskatchewan in 2012. It also recognizes the importance of developing projects that reflect indigenous people and cultural pluralism in Saskatchewan. In this reconciliation context, we ask the federal government to support this effort to dialogue with indigenous people and Métis.

In conclusion, Canada is a country that appeals to millions of people from around the world who have chosen to settle and live their lives here. For those who have grown up with the Official Languages Act and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, respect for differences and minorities, as well as tolerance and openness toward others, form the basis of our society.

The Canadian government's action plan for official languages must be bold and courageous and an authentic reflection of Canadian values, while respecting the country's territorial, bilingual and multicultural reality.

On behalf of the Fransaskois community, thank you for listening.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you very much, Mr. Simard.

Mr. Gagné, we are listening.

[Carol-Guillaume Gagné, Chief Executive Officer, Association des parents fransaskois]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank you, at the outset, for listening to us. We officially invited you in April, when I was with Mr. Barry and another colleague from the board. Thank you for accepting our invitation. It feels good to know that our elected representatives sometimes listen to us. It's reassuring. Thank you very much.

First, let's look at the action plan and the funding you have begun to allocate.

As you can see, an initial amount is allocated to Canadian Heritage, which is quite promising for our community. I'm talking here about a 20% funding increase. That has already helped to improve all our programming. It's a good start. As my colleague Mr. Simard said earlier, it's a start, because I have to say we have a lot of catching up to do.

Given the situation and the IBC, we still have a long way to go even with that 20% increase. We are still underfunded. I can see it in my organization. We still provide services that are not adequately funded. Sometimes we provide services that are not of the desired quality. We are unable to provide services of quality equal to that of the services provided by the majority. We still offer lower-quality services to the minority. How can we continue to attract our families and clients in these circumstances? We aren't playing by the same rules. We can't operate this way.

If the government doesn't continue increasing funding for our services, we'll still be here talking about it in 10 years. We'll still be in the same situation, by which I mean that parents will assisting the community's efforts because they believe in the cause, not because we are providing something of quality. It would be unfortunate for matters to come to that.

At least I can congratulate the Department of Canadian Heritage for its receptive attitude toward the idea of services provided by and for the main persons concerned. That is a sign of respect for our community. We've been having regular discussions with the department's representatives for two weeks now and have witnessed this openness and respect. They want to try to understand how they can grant funding based on our situation on the ground. I tip my hat to the Department of Canadian Heritage for that. It's showing real openness.

However, we can also see that perhaps it should stop scattering money left and right to please everyone. One day or another, it will have to determine the lower threshold at which organizations should be funded.

Let's look at the numbers. An organization must have management. In many cases, it hires an assistant. There are normal operating costs. You may calculate minimum funding of $60,000 or $70,000, whereas the government instead provides $20,000 or $30,000 in funding to organizations, hoping they can prepare high-quality programming. That's not logical. Perhaps it should establish a lower threshold that organizations are guaranteed so they can offer something of quality.

That's a finding that all managements have made, and we'll have to take a look at it. This is directed at the Department of Canadian Heritage, but all other organizations as well.

We were with IRCC once again this week. The situation was the same. We aren't underemployed. We also have to have decent salaries. If our organizations want to retain labour, they must offer high-quality services and good salaries. Our organizations have very high turnover rates as a result of their underfunding. We can't go on this way.

In addition, the action plan allocates $20 million to support childcare services. That's another very promising amount. The federal government has allocated a new amount so we can open new childcare spaces quickly, together with the provincial government. This is a tripartite effort that we're making with RDÉE Canada, the Association des collèges et universités de la francophonie canadienne and the CNPF.

Now I'll ask our association's administrator to say more about that.

[Mélissa Castonguay Cossette, Administrator, Association des parents fransaskois]

My name is Mélissa Castonguay Cossette, and I am here as the APF's administrator, but I am also the director of a francophone educational centre in Gravelbourg. I also sit on the parents committee of the École Beau Soleil, which is part of the Conseil des écoles fransaskoises, and on the committee of Gravelbourg's Association communautaire fransaskoise. So I sort of spread myself around. I am directly concerned by early childhood. My children attend the centre where I work. They are at the school, and we participate in the APF's activities as often as possible.

We at the APF are very pleased to see that $20 million will be invested in early childhood to support the training and professional development of educators and to help open more francophone educational centres in Saskatchewan. There is a glaring shortage of spaces in the educational centres, and waiting lists are very long. Parents put their names on a list as soon as they know they are expecting a child to ensure they have a space for the child at a francophone educational centre. Despite that fact, they do not always manage to get their children into a centre because the sector doesn't have enough spaces for babies, mainly, and toddlers.

This $20 million investment will really help to create new centres and provide more early childhood services, which will promote greater retention. There is a risk that children who do not attend a francophone educational centre may enrol in majority institutions, not continue their studies at a CEF school or follow the francophone community in general.

The APF always works with its partners, the Collège Mathieu and the Conseil économique et coopératif de la Saskatchewan. This is a major partnership effort. We are very pleased to be able to continue working as partners to find strategies for establishing better childcare services and better services for our educators. It is very hard to retain educators in the francophone early childhood sector in Saskatchewan. We have very good educators who take courses given by the Collège Mathieu. Those courses are subsidized by Saskatchewan's Ministry of Education, which is excellent. The girls come and work at an educational centre once they've completed their training. Once they've earned a level 3 and a diploma, they can easily find work elsewhere and earn better salaries. Salaries at Saskatchewan educational centres are not very high relative to those at other institutions. We often lose our educators. We train them, and we are pleased, and then they go away. The process then has to start over with new educators. Changing educators is not always ideal for the children, or for the centre.

If you want development by and for the communities, why not let our community choose the strategies it wants to put in place instead of setting funding limits and percentages? We were told that 33% of funding had to go to entrepreneurship and 66% to training. We would've liked to have a little more decision-making power because we're the ones who are on the ground and who know our community's early childhood needs. It's essential that the criteria and solutions proposed under the new early childhood funding framework be flexible and adapted to the needs of our communities.

In Saskatchewan, we really need to work on recruitment and labour retention and to create new educational centres in the communities that want them. Some Fransaskois communities have been waiting a long time for an educational centre. The $20 million will definitely help us help them.

We are counting on you to continue supporting the communities and the Association des parents fransaskois.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you very much, Ms. Castonguay Cossette.

Now we will hear from Mr Kasongo..

[Carol-Guillaume Gagné]

Have we already used up the five minutes allotted to us?

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

You ran to more than eight minutes. I exercised a little patience.

[Carol-Guillaume Gagné]

All right; that's fine.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Mr. Kasongo, we are listening.

[Francis Kasongo, Executive Director, Collège Mathieu]

Good morning, Mr. Chair and honourable members.

My name is Francis Kasongo, and I am executive director of the Collège Mathieu, which will celebrate its 100^th anniversary next week, on October 6 and 7. You will be welcome to attend the event if you delay your departure.

First and foremost, I wish you the warmest of welcomes, particularly here in Regina.

In view of the time allotted to me, I will stick to the essential points of my presentation.

During the 2016 cross-Canada consultations on official languages, postsecondary educational institutions, particularly francophone institutions, asked the federal government to consider the contribution that colleges and institutes make to the vitality of the francophone minority communities and anglophone communities in Quebec, to learning, to the promotion of second languages and to the integration of immigrants in a context of diversity and multiculturalism.

After those consultations, in which I took part, the following recommendations were made.

First, as many francophone postsecondary institutions serve a dispersed rural population, it is essential that we develop a training delivery mechanism. This must include the development of rural campuses and the creation of digital tools that can be used to expand the offer of French-language programs across Canada and to reach a public dispersed over large area.

Second, the government should support partnerships between postsecondary institutions to offer greater diversity of programs to francophone minority communities.

Third, funding should be reserved for French-language training for professionals in sectors essential to the vitality of the minority communities, in particular, health, education, early childhood and justice.

Fourth, a budget envelope should be set aside to enable minority institutions to bear the additional expenses associated with the provision of minority-language training.

Fifth, language management efforts made in the postsecondary sector should be expanded to provide postsecondary institutions with the means to continue the work begun by the school boards and to train graduates who will be called upon to work in the minority sector and to meet the challenges associated with transmission of the French language.

Bilingualism is a central feature of the Canadian identity and an enormous asset for Canadians as a whole. However, it requires special care that relies above all on education, which is essential to the transmission and promotion of our two official languages and to the vitality of our community, the Fransaskois community.

Collège Mathieu, like other postsecondary educational institutions, such as the University of Regina's Cité universitaire francophone, offers training programs and services every year to Saskatchewan francophones and francophiles. Collège Mathieu offers credit programs, language training and customized courses to 700 students from all francophone communities. The college, of course, is well aware of its responsibility within the Fransaskois community since it contributes to a strengthening of that community's vitality, to greater access to French-language services and, lastly, to the promotion of a bilingual Canada by helping students gain access to postsecondary studies in their mother tongue, assisting newcomers in learning one of our official languages and encouraging the learning of a second language.

It is useful to note that the role our institution plays very often goes beyond education. Our institution is becoming a veritable crossroads for francophones and francophiles where the minority language can both be transmitted and flourish.

The main question is this: does the action plan reflect the cross-Canada consultations on official languages that Canadian Heritage conducted in 2016.

Generally speaking, the action plan does reflect the cross-Canada consultations that Canadian Heritage conducted in 2016 because it addresses most of the recommendations respecting postsecondary institutions by providing for funding to develop new study programs and to increase the enrolment capacity of existing programs for language training, francophone immigration and bilingualism promotion. These are only some of the recommendations to which the current action plan responds.

In conclusion, Collège Mathieu is a major, even essential, player in French-language postsecondary education in Saskatchewan. Thanks to the financial support provided under the action plan and as a result of the federal-provincial agreement on education, it makes a significant contribution to the development and vitality of the Fransaskois community by offering, as it has done for the past 100 years, study programs and services across all of Saskatchewan and even outside the province.

The federal government's recent unveiling of the new Action Plan for Official Languages 2018-2023: Investing in Our Future clearly affords postsecondary educational institutions such as Collège Mathieu many opportunities to expand their selection of study programs, particularly in the health field, and to refresh their infrastructure, even though that is not expressly stated in the action plan. It is useful to note, however, that delays in allocating and transferring grants and contributions are clearly too long and jeopardize the activities of institutions such as the Collège Mathieu.

The literacy component intended for francophone minority adults does not appear to be funded under the present action plan. However, improved adult literacy could very well address the need for labour in the job market and promote citizen engagement in the community.

The lack of accountability mechanisms in federal-provincial agreements is another aspect that concerns us. To some extent, it does not help a postsecondary institution such as ours benefit from certain programs developed in accordance with provincial criteria.

Thank you.