Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning to you and all the committee members.
First, I will talk about the Réseau des cégeps et des collèges francophones du Canada, or RCCFC.
RCCFC was founded in 1995, and its mission is to establish a genuine partnership among Canada's college-level francophone educational institutions. There are many provincial associations, such as the Fédération des cégeps and Colleges Ontario, but ours is truly a national association, from sea to sea. It is a network that provides peer support, mutual assistance, promotion, and exchange for the development of college-level education in French across Canada, while promoting the use of digital technologies and remote technology training.
RCCFC's mission is also to support the development of the Canadian francophone community by providing it with the expertise of its network institutions. RCCFC also intends to make college-level francophone education more visible to the various government bodies in the provinces and territories and to the federal government.
RCCFC's members include all francophone colleges in majority communities and most francophone cégeps in Quebec. No other organization has this particular type of membership. We are also the only college-level francophone organization that covers the northern territories, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories, and certain aboriginal communities. This mix of institutions under various jurisdictions is very rich and results in stimulating exchanges. RCCFC's main mission is to organize specific projects to support the emergence of francophone value added across Canada.
Unfortunately, however, our tools are fragile and limited. For example, the interprovincial cooperation program, which is funded by Canadian Heritage, permits only limited action in support of colleges and cégeps wishing to create new instruments for French-language technical education across the country.
We believe the next action plan will have to focus heavily on interprovincial partnerships for the exchange of best practices, the implementation of joint projects and professional and student mobility.
The partnerships that Quebec cégeps have with colleges in Quebec and the other provinces are particularly productive. Quebec's cégeps are 50 years old, whereas virtually all francophone colleges in minority communities are younger. One of those young colleges, Collège Éducacentre, in British Columbia, has just been recognized by its province as a college.
Based on the consultations that RCCFC conducted with the management of some 15 cégeps in 2015, those institutions are concerned and want to help reinforce the position of French as an official language in Canada by cooperating with their counterparts. With Canadian Heritage's assistance, RCCFC provides the only platform for exchange and cooperation among francophone colleges across the country.
Helping educators get to know each other better and to work together also helps build the Canadian francophony and assist in consolidating our country, which is based on its two founding peoples and two official languages.
RCCFC's role is to act as a hub for colleges and cégeps across the country. For a number of years now, however, funding for our organization's programming has trended downward. With very little money and few employees—there are only two of us—we nevertheless have a significant impact. We would be able to do more official languages promotion through our members if we had the staff to help diversify our funding sources. For a small organization with virtually no resources, it is difficult, if not impossible, to compete with larger organizations that are used to seeking funding from Canadian Heritage and other organizations. This factor should be taken into consideration in analyzing projects.
We believe the next action plan will have to support organizations and initiatives that generate actual deliverables, whether it be teaching tools or cooperation and expertise-sharing projects such as those of RCCFC. The rigid nature of accountability requirements must also be reviewed. In this area, we are absolutely required to stick to the form, but that is not conducive to proper accountability in many cases. Excessive emphasis on entering information in small boxes obscures the essential nature of our organizations' actions.
Flexibility and creativity are needed for our official languages to flourish. We cannot anticipate all contingencies when planning for a two- or three-year period. Unplanned actions must be taken in response to sociopolitical developments and current events. Accomplishments under the action plan must not be judged solely as outcomes measured against initial objectives. An “every relevant action” box should be provided for the purpose of reporting results that are achieved outside the little box. That is often where the best results are achieved because that is where the creativity is. I have achieved my best results by breaking rules and venturing off the beaten path.
I must emphasize, with pride and pleasure, that the organizations of Canada's francophone community that are directly and indirectly involved in education genuinely work together and harmoniously join forces for our official languages, in this instance for French.
We are witnessing a paradigm shift in the situation of official languages in this country. The contribution of immigration is resulting in the increased use of French in certain cities. The opening of the campus of Collège Boréal in Toronto is an example of this new paradigm. The vast majority of students there are immigrants and the institution is expanding.
This phenomenon can also be observed in other major cities such as Edmonton, Regina and Winnipeg. The contribution of francophone immigration is essential for French to remain present across Canada. The immigration policies of all provinces, not just Quebec, must focus on accepting francophones based on certain criteria.
As we speak here today, the Table nationale sur l'éducation in Quebec City is setting forth the broad outlines of the strategic plan for French-language minority education.
A new trend that has emerged, and which has been the subject of national consultations over the past year, is the shift from secondary to postsecondary education in French. Nearly 400,000 young Canadians attend immersion schools, but too few of them continue their studies in French at the college level. Many students, even those from French-language secondary schools, study in English at the postsecondary level.
If we worked on identity-building starting in early childhood and established strategies for reducing language insecurity, more students from minority communities would be able to study in French at the college level. We must also demonstrate that there is a French-language workplace in many provinces and territories. Professional mobility must also be encouraged.
Although Quebec freely welcomes francophone workers from other provinces, it is difficult to have credentials recognized from province to province across Canada. In some instances, it is easier between France and Quebec than among the provinces and territories of Canada.
The recognition of credentials must not be solely the responsibility of the professional associations. Our members are prepared to set to work building these bridges and thus promoting greater mobility for francophone graduates and workers across the country.
The cultural community is a leader in this area. The broader francophone community's creations in music, theatre and the arts travel across the country. The francophone community's expression knows no barriers and art has the power to create a sense of belonging and pride in using the same language to express who we are.
The new action plan must reflect our rapidly evolving situation. The deployment of digital technology has already helped young francophones acquire greater proficiency in English. They are no longer embarrassed or reluctant to speak both official languages, and that ability is absolutely viewed as an asset.
The popularity of immersion schools and the many students studying French as a second language are also very encouraging signs. The survey results published by the Commissioner of Official Languages are also highly encouraging. Linguistic duality is increasingly becoming a Canadian value, and our role as an educational institution is to reflect that reality. To do that, we need support, and that is where the action plan is essential.
We at RCCFC are the interface of francophone college-level education in Canada. Our position enables us to play a central role in promoting linguistic duality. We are working to build complementary relationships with our colleagues from the Association des collèges et universités de la francophonie canadienne, the ACUFC. That is why we support the thrust of a government policy based on the three guiding principles and four areas described in the ACUFC's brief.
Thank you for listening. I will be pleased to answer any questions you may have.