Official Languages Committee on Nov. 1st, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3) we are resuming our study on the Action Plan for Official Languages 2018-2023: Investing in Our Future.

This morning, it is our pleasure to receive the Minister of Tourism, Official Languages, and La Francophonie. We are very pleased to have a minister for official languages and La Francophonie, among others. In addition, it is in the minister's title.

Welcome to our committee, Ms. Joly.

[Mélanie Joly, Minister of Tourism, Official Languages and La Francophonie]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

This is extremely important. It's your first appearance before our committee in the discharge of your new duties.

I will let you introduce the people who are with you. As per our usual procedure, you will have about 10 minutes to make your presentation, and this will be followed by questions and comments from the members of the committee.

Once again, welcome, Madam Minister Mélanie.

[Mélanie Joly]

I like that, “Madam Minister Mélanie”. Thank you, Mr. Chairman Denis, I appreciate your kind words.

I am pleased to be here with you today, and to see familiar faces. I want to emphasize the presence of my parliamentary secretary, Ms. Alaina Lockhart, and I want to thank her for her work.

I wanted to thank the committee for all of the good work it does above and beyond the different political parties that make up the committee; I appreciate your work. We are always looking for official language allies from all parties. It's important.

I also want to thank all of the people who contribute to the work of the committee.

Let me introduce my team: Guylaine Roy, Deputy-Minister in charge of Tourism, Official Languages and La Francophonie; Denis Racine, Director General, Official Languages Branch, and Yvan Déry, Senior Director, Policy and Research, Official Languages Branch.

I am pleased to be able to share with you today the achievements of our government in the area of official languages.

This is also an opportunity for me to talk to you about the action plan for official languages 2018-2023, “Investing in Our Future”, which I unveiled in the spring.

The Prime Minister has given me a strong mandate for official languages, which allows me to continue to meet our government's commitment, while supporting the Francophonie nationally and internationally.

The Prime Minister has also asked me to continue to implement the Action Plan for Official Languages, which proposes historic investments of $2.7 billion over five years, including $500 million in new funding. It's a clear indication of our government's commitment to our communities and our official languages.

Last March, together with the Prime Minister and several of my colleagues, I was honoured to unveil the action plan at Mauril-Bélanger School, the school that, as we know, bears the name of a passionate advocate for bilingualism and official language minority communities across the country. The school is in the riding of our colleague, Mona Fortier, here with us today. Mauril Bélanger, unfortunately, left us far too soon.

Our plan proposes a clear and ambitious vision, new funding, and specific measures to meet the needs of official language minority communities, while ensuring their vitality and promoting English and French across the country.

What is our vision? We believe in Canada's linguistic duality. We believe that it is one of the pillars of the social contract that unites us as a country. Our linguistic duality can be preserved only if it is rooted in the vitality of dynamic communities, only if it is embraced and expressed by millions of people across the country.

We believe that we are in a watershed moment for our communities. Indeed, after 10 years of inaction on the part of Harper Conservatives, even as linguistic communities faced important demographic challenges, it was time to act to protect them.

Canada cannot claim to be a bilingual country if its communities cannot live every day in the official language of their choice. In short, our population's bilingualism and the strength of our linguistic duality depend on the vitality and sustainability of our official language minority communities, and that is what we want to defend and promote.

Bilingualism is a crucial factor in protecting our official languages and supporting those who defend them across the country.

Let's be clear. Our communities are dynamic. I've seen this first-hand on many occasions, whether on National Acadian Day, at the opening of Place des Arts in Sudbury, or during my visits to the Yukon and British Columbia.

I have also seen the challenges these communities face. The 2016 census indicates that our country's overall population is growing faster than the number of francophones across the country, and that among the English-speaking majority outside Quebec, bilingualism is stagnating. So we must take action, and that is why the action plan sets ambitious targets.

Our goal is to restore the relative proportion of francophones outside Quebec, and increase the bilingualism of English-speakers outside Quebec. We want a strong Canadian francophonie and a Canada where citizens' efforts to learn their second official language yield results.

We want to support the unique needs of the English-speaking communities in Quebec, particularly those in rural areas. To help achieve this, we have announced new funding. The new investments provided for in budgets 2017 and 2018 add up to almost $500 million over five years. This amount is in addition to our current and permanent investments, which will be maintained.

In total, we are talking about almost $2.7 billion over the next five years—the biggest investment in official languages in our history.

We are devoting more resources to measures with a proven track record—for instance in the areas of early childhood and education. We always listen to our communities, and that is why we have also begun to implement new measures based on our observations during the consultations. For example, there were heartfelt pleas from community organizations when they told us about their lack of resources. We heard them. That is why we have increased their core funding by 20%. They are major partners, and we will continue to work closely with them to ensure that the action plan brings concrete results to communities.

Indeed, we believe the action plan must be implemented by, for, and with our official language minority communities and organizations. That is certainly something you've heard too. It's a winning approach that allows us to better tailor programs to the needs of communities. We've also taken into account the particular situation of English-speaking communities in Quebec, which face different challenges, from limited access regarding employment opportunities to a shortage of services in English.

The plan also includes some important new measures to guarantee the vitality of our two official languages. Indeed, this will include strong support from early childhood, so that our youngsters may be educated afterwards in the language of the minority, and develop a strong sense of belonging from a young age, which will contribute to the building of their identity. This will also involve the recruitment, settling and integration of francophone immigrants in official language minority communities, in order to maintain their demographic weight and ensure their long-term survival.

I recently had the pleasure of further outlining two initiatives that are particularly important to me. The first affects our young people: we believe that all children should be able to flourish, grow and have fun in their first language. It's a matter of community identity, vitality and sustainability. On September 25, I announced that we were doubling the Community Cultural Action Fund, bringing the total funding envelope to more than $21 million. By 2019, 1,000 official language minority schools will be able to offer more cultural activities to their students. Thanks to this investment, more than 4,000 cultural activities could take place over the next four years. And hundreds of thousands of children will be able to benefit.

Across the country, citizens have also told me how important it is to read community news and stories in your own language, and to hear your own accent on the radio. It is a matter of linguistic security, and of a confidence in your way of seeing the world, and approaching one's environment with the regional colour that informs each of our minority official language communities, whether they are on Isle Madame, in Nova Scotia, or in Whitehorse, in the Yukon.

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

Let's hear it for Isle Madame!

[Mélanie Joly]

Long live Isle Madame!

Our government is also aware that official language minority community media face significant challenges. For the first time in an action plan, the government is responding directly. On October 4, I outlined the implementation of the Community Media Support Fund, with an envelope of $14.5 million, including $4.5 million for hiring interns and $10 million for special projects, to be managed together with the Official Languages Community Media Consortium, which brings together thousands of organizations, throughout the country.

While we are getting ready to mark the 50^th anniversary of the Official Languages Act, I have been mandated to start a review to modernize the act. We intend to conduct the review in collaboration with official language partners and communities and also with parliamentarians and members of the public. This is an important exercise.

Also, I am continuing this work with all of my colleagues to see to it that our official languages remain at the heart of our action. Last week, I was proud to announce, along with the President of the Treasury Board, the proposed amendments to the Official Languages Regulations, which had not been reviewed since they were created in 1991. That announcement was long overdue.

Our proposal responds to requests from community representatives, particularly francophones outside Quebec, who must deal with a completely different reality. Indeed, the fact of being geographically dispersed throughout the country can sometimes cause major challenges when it comes to providing bilingual services. Our changes will mean an improvement in bilingual federal services offered in Canada pursuant to the Official Languages Act. We want additional services to be offered where people need them.

In Alberta, this could mean opening new offices to serve citizens near a French-language school. In Charlottetown—and in all provincial and territorial capitals—this will mean service in French for travellers at railway stations and airports. In Quebec, the English-speaking communities, for example, in Gaspé, could have access to more services in their first language.

The bottom line is that across the country, close to one million Canadians will be better served by their government. The proposed amendments aim to support and strengthen the vitality of our communities across the country, taking into account the reality of those who live there.

No services will be eliminated; on the contrary, we will improve them for everyone. With this initiative, we are contributing to the presence and influence of the French fact in Canada. We will all benefit from it and we can all be proud of it.

Speaking of which, I would like to touch briefly on the influence of the French fact in Canada, and particularly as concerns francophone communities outside of la belle province. However, one thing is clear: the Canadian francophonie is alive and well, it is dynamic and it is also different, depending on whether you hail from Moncton, North Bay, Trois-Rivières or Winnipeg. Having studied this subject closely, you know this only too well.

If Quebec is the heart of a strong francophonie in the country, we know that we must protect French from coast to coast, and that minority francophone communities need our support.

Linguistic rights are written into our Constitution and our Official Languages Act, and we will continue to protect them and promote them. Our government is committed to providing that support, which includes notably the deployment of our action plan. And our government is working hard to implement it. The work is well underway, and I am delighted to continue it with you.

It will be a pleasure for me to answer all of your questions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you very much, Madam Minister.

Without further ado, we will now have our question period with the members of the committee.

We'll begin with Mr. Clarke.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Madam Minister, we are very pleased to have you with us this morning.

[Mélanie Joly]

I am happy to be here.

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

That is fine.

You closed on the very topic of my questions. You talked about linguistic rights and the fact that they have to be applied. Minister Brison and yourself share a responsibility for the act and its implementation, both in the government apparatus and in government agencies.

Over the past three years, have you had to intervene through email, letters, telephone calls or verbally, at Cabinet meetings or with one of your ministerial colleagues, to point out that in a given area of activity in a given department, the act had not been followed?

[Mélanie Joly]

I'm very happy to be able to defend official languages with a strong voice within Cabinet. I am also very happy to have a Prime Minister who believes in the importance of official languages. He has indeed invested in an important action plan, but also committed to more protection for official languages, as well as for official language minority communities, by launching the process to modernize the Official Languages Act.

I often have to intervene with my colleagues. Most people know that when it comes to official languages, we can always...

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

Could you give us an example?

[Mélanie Joly]

... do better. All of the members here, around the table, would agree that we can always do better. However, we have shown, be it through the Action Plan, the review of the Official Languages Regulations or the modernization of the act, to what extent this dossier is a priority for us.

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

We learned, thanks to Mr. Orfali from the Journal de Montréal, that the Canada Infrastructure Bank provided no bilingual services when it opened in the beginning of the year. And yet, it is a Crown corporation. Did you intervene at that time with Minister Sohi, to ask him to remedy that situation?

[Mélanie Joly]

We feel it is very important that bilingual services be offered, both in the public service and at the Canada Infrastructure Bank. That is why we committed to a real improvement in service provision, notably in those provided by the Infrastructure Bank. We are very happy to have appointed a francophone Quebecker to the bank's management. I also discussed things with my colleague François-Philippe Champagne, who agreed that it was unacceptable that...

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

I saw him yesterday.

[Mélanie Joly]

... the current linguistic quality of services offered by the bank were not up to expectations. He committed to remedying that, and of course I am going to work with him to ensure that the bank complies with its obligations under the act.

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

Very well.

A lady in Calgary, Alberta, wrote to me, not too long ago. She feels that the Service Canada Royal Vista office should be providing bilingual services. This lady has been going there often, for several years. There is a sign displayed there that says that citizens can obtain services in both official languages. However, this citizen says that systematically, she can only access service in English.

Personally, I find that situation deplorable, and I intend to send you a letter about it soon. Can you act? Can you speak to Minister Jean-Yves Duclos, since this falls under his responsibility, I believe, and ask him to remedy the situation?

[Mélanie Joly]

It will be my pleasure to receive your letter and to reply to it.

We have brought in various measures, because we find it important that our minority official language communities have access to bilingual services. We feared that the low demographic weight of francophones in some regions of the country would hamper the provision of bilingual services, because of Official Languages Regulations provisions that required a certain percentage of francophones in minority situations in a given region, in order to offer services in French.

In order to avoid a possible lack of French services, we first of all imposed a moratorium, to make sure that in all of the federal offices outside Quebec that normally provide services in French, those services continue to be dispensed.

Afterwards, we amended the Official Languages Regulations to ensure that we increase our French-language service provision outside Quebec, since we knew that this was a big concern. That is what I announced last week, with the President of Treasury Board. From now on, a million Canadian men and women, especially outside of Quebec, will be receiving more services in French.

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

We did see that announcement.

[Mélanie Joly]

Pardon?

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

We saw that announcement. We are well aware of that.

I'd like to ask you another question. Some of the replies you provide to committee reports are long, and others less so. In all of your replies, however, there is a paragraph referring to the Conservative decade and to budget cuts.

Could you give us an example of cuts made by the Conservative government between 2006 and 2015?

[Mélanie Joly]

There was a lot of inertia on the part of the Conservative government.

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

I have a list.

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

The minister was answering.