Evidence of meeting #117 for Official Languages in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was communities.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Mélanie Joly  Minister of Tourism, Official Languages and La Francophonie
Emmanuella Lambropoulos  Saint-Laurent, Lib.
Mona Fortier  Ottawa—Vanier, Lib.
Jean Rioux  Saint-Jean, Lib.
Denis Racine  Director General, Official Languages Branch, Department of Canadian Heritage
Yvan Déry  Senior Director, Policy and Research, Official Languages Branch, Department of Canadian Heritage
France Fortier  Acting Director, Operations and Regional Coordination, Official Languages Branch, Department of Canadian Heritage

9:20 a.m.

NDP

François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC

I am in the final minutes of the time I have.

Will we have Statistics Canada's enumeration of rights holders before the next election?

9:20 a.m.

Conservative

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

No.

9:20 a.m.

Minister of Tourism, Official Languages and La Francophonie

Mélanie Joly

Listen, we revived the long-form census…

9:20 a.m.

NDP

François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC

Yes, but will it have all the questions we need?

9:20 a.m.

Minister of Tourism, Official Languages and La Francophonie

Mélanie Joly

… that the previous government had abolished.

9:20 a.m.

Conservative

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

That is not what we want to know.

9:20 a.m.

Minister of Tourism, Official Languages and La Francophonie

Mélanie Joly

For us, it will be important to use the new data in 2021, because, with that data, we will be able to come with good—

9:20 a.m.

NDP

François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC

Will you go and see your colleagues in order to ask them…

9:20 a.m.

Minister of Tourism, Official Languages and La Francophonie

Mélanie Joly

I am sorry, I just want to finish my sentence.

9:20 a.m.

NDP

François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC

Yes, I know.

9:20 a.m.

Minister of Tourism, Official Languages and La Francophonie

Mélanie Joly

With good data from Statistics Canada, we can then have good programs and strengthen our official language minority communities. As I told you, in the regulations we revised, we included a new definition of official language minority communities.

9:20 a.m.

NDP

François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC

Yes, but that is something else.

Enumerating rights holders…

9:20 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Denis Paradis

Mr. Choquette, I have to move to another speaker.

9:20 a.m.

NDP

François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC

I understand, Mr. Chair.

9:20 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Denis Paradis

Mrs. Fortier, the floor is yours.

9:20 a.m.

Mona Fortier Ottawa—Vanier, Lib.

Thank you for being here today, Madam Minister.

As you know full well, I have been an activist for 30 years. Currently, my role is member of Parliament for the constituency of Ottawa—Vanier, which allows me to work with the government and to have a seat at this table.

A few weeks ago, I told my colleagues that I was extremely proud. When I was young, I hoped to be at this table. It is a pleasure for me to be here. I thank you for having recognized the work of my predecessor, Mauril Bélanger, for his defence of French during his time as a parliamentarian.

I would like to discuss the recognition of Ottawa as a bilingual city. The good news is that, last December, there was a resolution to make the City of Ottawa bilingual. In the action plan, I noticed that there is a funding measure to support and sustain the City of Ottawa in fulfilling its new role.

What is our government's position not only on the bilingualism of the City of Ottawa, but also on the way it is going to make those resources available?

9:20 a.m.

Minister of Tourism, Official Languages and La Francophonie

Mélanie Joly

Thank you for that question, my dear colleague. I also have to thank you for the leadership in official languages matters that you have shown throughout your entire career. I think also thank you for having helped to have Ottawa recognized as a bilingual city.

My thanks go to everyone who has worked on this issue and provided a huge amount of effort for years, especially the movement for an officially bilingual capital of Canada and all its allies in the government. I know that it is very important for our chair here today.

We also celebrate the leadership that the former Ontario government of Ms. Wynn has provided on the issue. For us, it was really important to finally recognize Ottawa as a bilingual city.

My fellow members, thanks to your work and to all those you represent, we have invested $2.5 million to provide more support for Ottawa communities who finally want to work to recognize French and the active offer of French services. We will be working with the communities that are going to submit projects so that we can distribute the $2.5 million.

9:25 a.m.

Ottawa—Vanier, Lib.

Mona Fortier

That is excellent. That was in line with the action plan.

Let us move to the modernization of the act now. I have already had conversations with Ottawa people who would like the soon-to-be-bilingual status of the city to be better reflected in the act. Do you have any comments? Do you believe that strengthening the status of our national capital as an officially bilingual city could be part of the exercise of modernizing the act?

9:25 a.m.

Minister of Tourism, Official Languages and La Francophonie

Mélanie Joly

All good news is welcome, I feel. I will be happy to have that conversation with you, with those involved in Ottawa, and with my parliamentary colleagues, because it is not every day that we amend the Official Languages Act. We have a golden opportunity here, a historic opportunity to have those conversations and I hope that we will have them in the coming months.

9:25 a.m.

Ottawa—Vanier, Lib.

Mona Fortier

The other topic I want to discuss is the “by, for and with” you mentioned. I particularly appreciate the “with” because we often just hear “by” and “for”. The “with” is really important; we see in the action plan that priority has really been given to civil society and that communities will genuinely be able to work for their own development.

I would like to understand how the government will be working with the provinces and territories to demonstrate the importance of the “by” the “for” and the “with”. Could you explain the way in which you will be working, not only with civil society, but also with the provinces and territories?

9:25 a.m.

Minister of Tourism, Official Languages and La Francophonie

Mélanie Joly

For us, certainly, more direct support for communities was fundamental. As I was saying, we have heard their heartfelt pleas. The way to ensure the vitality of language communities involves providing services by, for and with those communities. That will create and keep jobs in the communities, and it will develop that feeling of linguistic security that is so important for their vitality and their long-term development. As a result, the largest part of the $500 million in new money that we have invested will go directly to official language minority communities.

At the same time, we have decided to hold constructive discussions with the provinces and territories, especially in the area of education. It seemed important to us to obtain an accounting of the use of the money made available by the federal government in education in order to ensure that the money is really being used to support official language minority communities specifically. We have decided to keep that funding stable. As I said to our colleague Emmanuella Lambropoulos, we have also made sure that we respond to some of the requests, such as better support for recruitment and training of teachers of French as a first and a second language, and for infrastructure.

9:25 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Denis Paradis

Thank you very much, Mrs. Fortier.

For the next comments, the time will be shared by René Arseneault and Jean Rioux.

9:25 a.m.

Liberal

René Arseneault Liberal Madawaska—Restigouche, NB

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Please let me know when half the time is up.

9:25 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Denis Paradis

We are not pressed for time.

9:25 a.m.

Liberal

René Arseneault Liberal Madawaska—Restigouche, NB

My thanks to you, Madam Minister, and to the officials who are here with you, for coming to answer our questions.

I am hoping to focus on the practical side of the wonderful announcements that we have heard from your lips. I come from a minority community, I am Acadian and I feel that culture must begin at school. I will leave that topic to my colleague Darrell Samson, who is an expert in education. Outside school, however, we must also hear our language spoken, we must read our poets and our novelists and hear our musicians and singers. So this involves community media, such as community radio.

Last spring, before the session adjourned for the summer, we heard an alarm sounded by community media who told us that it was only a matter of weeks or months before anglophone community radio stations in Quebec or francophone ones outside Quebec would be closing their doors. It really was a distress call and we are only just responding to it. Can you tell us what the reaction has been to the announcement of $14.5 million and what that money means for the interns and the other front-line people?