Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I am grateful to the committee members for coming to see us in Saskatchewan. Like others, I strongly encouraged the committee to travel to Saskatchewan, and I am very happy to see you here.
I am not the president of the Fédération des aînés fransaskaois; I am the delegate. Unfortunately, our president, Jacqueline Plante, is on sick leave at the moment. That happens as people age: health issues come up.
I would like to thank Ms. Kenny for taking a minute of my time to second what I am about to tell you. The Fédération considers people 50 and over to be seniors. Some people think 50 is a bit young, but when people are between 50 and 65, they start getting ready to end their careers. When they get to that point, they have to be ready for it. At 65, people set their sights on living to 100. We all expect to live to 100, we are baby boomers, we are healthy, we are on the move, and we are very engaged. I have been retired for a year, I am very engaged, and I am glad I can continue to be engaged.
Fransaskois seniors live in both rural and urban environments. There are a lot of us in rural areas, and a lot of us are farmers. I should point out that farmers never retire. The average age of farmers in Saskatchewan is 55. That means a lot of them are seniors, still working the land with their wives. There are a lot of them. Sixty per cent of the Fransaskois population are seniors.
As you know, we will be a heavy burden on the Canadian population in the coming years because of the aging population.
Fransaskois seniors have impeccable French. They are the ones who demanded the right to education, family services and children's services. They are the ones whose blood, sweat and tears kept French language and culture alive. Now their top priority is quality of life. They want to remain in their communities. They want services in French and they want to participate in cultural development. That is why it is so important for them to engage in intergenerational initiatives.
We do not want to be shipped off to homes. We want to be healthy and live in our own homes for a long time. That is why home care is one of our big issues along with health promotion and social development programs.
That brings me to the Action Plan for Official Languages 2018-23. There are a lot of good things in the action plan, some good investments. Unfortunately, it does not have much to offer seniors. Its impact is more indirect, mainly in terms of investments in health and social development.
With respect to health, we would like to see those investments improve access to French-language health services for seniors, who will be one of the largest user groups in the next 20 to 30 years.
On the social development front, there have been investments in age-friendly cities and communities. We want cities and communities to be places where it is easy to live in French, places that are adapted to seniors. Age-friendly cities and communities is a World Health Organization program. The model and the approach are good ones.
Seniors care about culture too. We need to respond to that. We are grateful to organizations such as the Conseil culturel fransaskois for maintaining that vitality. We are proud of our young Byrun Boutin-Maloney, winner of the Festival international de la chanson de Granby. He was the first Fransaskois to win a prize at the festival. We have other artists like him. Seniors want to keep being active in arts and culture.
As Ms. Kenny said, unfortunately, the action plan left the Fédération des aînés fransaskois out in the cold. Even though we applied for programs for years, all we ever got was $30,000 per year. We get no support. We know that a lot of organizations want to work with seniors, and the Fédération des aînés fransaskois really is the organization that can help them open doors to work with that group of people, but we don't have the staff to do it. Right now, we have one person doing that half-time. That needs to change, but we didn't get the 20 per cent.
It's too bad the action plan was finalized before the federal-provincial health agreements for mental health and home care were signed. Those agreements didn't include any official language obligations. The provinces are starting to work on home care and mental health issues, both of which are really important to seniors. We know that mental health and home care are particularly important for our aging population.
In Saskatchewan, there are problems with French-language services. Services in French have gone downhill over the past 10 years. We often have to make phone calls if we want service, and even then we have to wait for hours. If we want service, we have to speak English. Actual French services are very hard to come by.
Modernization of the Official Languages Act—