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 100th 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.