Mr. Chair, members, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. My name is Ali Chaisson, and I am the executive director of the Société de l'Acadie du Nouveau-Brunswick, the SANB.
The SANB, which was founded in 1973, is the political voice for the Acadian nation of New Brunswick. It is dedicated to defending and promoting the rights an interests of that province’s Acadian nation.
I thank you sincerely for inviting me to testify as part of your proceedings on the modernization of the act. This is important since Parliament appears to have forgotten New Brunswick in the last revision of the Official Languages Act, in 1988. The SANB is here to ensure that doesn't happen again.
First, the SANB unreservedly supports this modernization process. The deficiencies noted by the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne, the FCFA, and others are felt in Acadie and New Brunswick. For example, we hardly need recall that the Supreme Court of Canada informed the SANB in 1986 that the right to speak the official language of one's choice before New Brunswick's courts did not include the right to be understood in that language. And yet that right is guaranteed by subsection 19(2) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. New Brunswick is also an interesting case study for your committee in determining who should be responsible for implementing the Official Languages Act.
In New Brunswick, the premier of the province is responsible for administering the act. In actual fact, however, that responsibility is often delegated to the minister responsible for official languages, which is an affront to the spirit of New Brunswick's Official Languages Act. The SANB largely supports the demand by FCFA du Canada, which, for years now, has been calling for a thorough reconstruction of the administration of the Official Languages Act. This would require that the Treasury Board be given responsibility for its administration. The Privy Council Office cannot perform that role.
Now I will address the specificity of New Brunswick's linguistic regime. Did you know that more than 10% of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is devoted to New Brunswick? All the provisions here shaded in blue in the charter pertain specifically to New Brunswick. I invite you to consult Annex A and see for yourself. The parts shaded in blue specifically concern the situation of New Brunswick. Ours is the only province that is expressly named in the charter. Subsections 16(2) and 19(2) enshrine parliamentary, legislative and judicial bilingualism across the province. Subsection 20(2) provides as follows:20(2) Any member of the public in New Brunswick has the right to communicate with, and to receive available services from, any office of an institution of the legislature or government of New Brunswick in English or French.
In 1993, the charter was amended by the addition of section 16.1, which entrenched the equality of New Brunswick's English and French linguistic communities, "including the right to distinct educational institutions and such distinct cultural institutions as are necessary for the preservation and promotion of those communities." That was the only resolution that survived the failures of the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords. It is also the only provision in the entire Constitution that recognizes the rights of linguistic communities in Canada.
The relationship between New Brunswick’s two official language communities must therefore be seen through the prism of equality between the Acadian nation and the anglophone community. And yet New Brunswick's constitutional specificity is nowhere reflected in the Official Languages Act. Consequently, that act should be modernized for two reasons: first, because Parliament appears to have forgotten subsections (2) of sections 16 to 20 of the charter when it adopted the new Official Languages Act in 1988; and, second, so that the act reflects the addition of section 16.1 to the charter, which dates back to 1993.
The SANB asks you to recommend four specific amendments to the Official Languages Act that would help recognize the constitutional specificity of New Brunswick.
First, the SANB requests that Parliament acknowledge the specificity of New Brunswick's language regime in the preamble in an interpretation clause of the Official Languages Act. That will create a "New Brunswick lens" through which the act must be interpreted and will thus ensure that this specificity is systematically taken into consideration in administering the act. A draft of the addition we propose is provided in paragraphs 41 and 42 of our brief.
Second, the SANB requests that the federal government be required to communicate with the public and to offer services in both official languages across New Brunswick rather than only where it deems that demand is significant or adequate.
In New Brunswick, the public have a right to use English or French to communicate with all offices of the institutions of New Brunswick and to receive services in the official language of their choice across the province. There is no notion of significant demand in subsection 20(2) of the charter. Why then is the federal government not required to do at least as much as the Province of New Brunswick? In the SANB's view, this is nonsense. To change this situation, the government need only add a brief second subsection to section 22 of the act. Proposed wording for that subsection is provided in paragraph 52 of our brief.
Third, the SANB asks that the Official Languages Act be modernized to require the federal government to consider New Brunswick's linguistic balance in its immigration policies. Immigration is a particularly important area of intervention for the Acadian nation.
It goes without saying that federal immigration policies cannot promote the vitality of francophone minorities without considering the specific linguistic composition of the provinces. With francophones representing more than 32% of its total population, New Brunswick needs permanent federal immigration support tailored to ensure the preservation and development of that population.
This is because, whenever the percentage of new francophone immigrants is lower than the percentage of francophones living in the province, New Brunswick’s unique linguistic balance is disrupted. Isn’t that the likely consequence of the federal government’s target of 4.4% for French-speaking immigrants outside Quebec. Applied to New Brunswick, that rate of francophone immigration would in reality constitute an assimilative rate.
Regardless of the government in power, New Brunswick’s unique linguistic character must inform federal immigration policies and their implementation. To that end, the SANB is proposing the addition of a section to part VII of the federal OLA to specifically frame the federal government’s role in francophone immigration. The draft wording of that section also appears in paragraph 59 of our brief.
Fourth, for section 16.1 of the charter to be actually implemented in the Official Languages Act, the SANB asks that the government commit to promoting the exercise of the rights it guarantees, notably the right of the Acadian and anglophone communities of New Brunswick to distinct educational institutions and such distinct cultural institutions as are necessary for the preservation and promotion of those communities.
The SANB also asks that this commitment be accompanied by the obligation for the federal government to consider, when exercising its spending power, the distinct institutions guaranteed by section 16.1 of the charter. For example, the Official Languages Act should require the federal government to consult the Government of New Brunswick and the interested representatives of that province's English and French linguistic communities in negotiating with them the adoption of a five-year federal-provincial agreement on the support to be provided to those communities' distinct educational institutions and such distinct cultural institutions as are necessary for the preservation and promotion of those communities.
What key Canadian values does the Official Languages Act represent on the eve of its fiftieth anniversary? In my humble opinion, those values must be apparent in an absolute recognition of the past and potential contribution of our country's francophones. From that recognition, a very specific policy must emerge on the development of the francophone and Acadian communities and an implementation characterized by a concerted approach by all departments and agencies.
The demands of our communities stem from a vision of the country in which the two official languages are equal.