Official Languages Committee on Sept. 29th, 2016

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

I don't claim to be a judge or lawyer, but are you saying that the provincial governments are not allocating the money as prescribed under the protocol?

[Roger Paul]

I don't want to make any sweeping statements, since we have very little time at our disposal to answer your questions. Nor do I want—

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

The question will probably come up again.

[Roger Paul]

Yes, but there are 50,000 other questions. We spent two hours before the Senate this week, and they asked the same questions. Regardless, if you are asking us whether the money is being spent as intended, in a number of cases, the answer is no.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Very well.

[Roger Paul]

We can give you many examples.

Here's a quick one to illustrate what's happening. During a trial in Yukon, the judge asked the territory's deputy education minister to confirm that all funding intended for French-language education had indeed been allocated to French first-language education. The deputy minister was forced to admit that she had redirected $2 million of French first-language education funding to immersion programming. That's in Yukon, not some large province. The deputy minister redirected that money without asking anyone for permission or notifying the school board.

I ask you, then, is the money being used as intended, as the provinces and territories are claiming. In a number of cases, no. Many such examples exist.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you, Mr. Paul.

Mr. Samson, over to you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Généreux. You did a great job of starting off this round of questions.

I'd like to pick up on the last thing you said, Mr. Paul. Mr. Fraser, the Commissioner of Official Languages, has also repeatedly pointed out in his reports that the money wasn't necessarily being used as intended.

I have three questions and would ask that you take no more than a minute to answer each of them. I'm wondering about the three shortcomings you highlighted with respect to the agreements protocol under the former official languages in education program, or the OLEP.

The first shortcoming has to do with the priorities established under the program. Are those priorities good for the school boards or not?

The second shortcoming revolves around accountability.

The third shortcoming concerns the signatories.

In your view, do the priorities set by the ministries truly reflect the priorities of the school boards in Canada?

[Roger Paul]

As far as your first question goes, when the protocol was being negotiated, the communities weren't consulted. The protocol was negotiated strictly between the ministries of education and the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Next, once the protocol determines how the process will work, the action plan is created. In some cases, the province, through the ministry of education, will choose to review the board's strategic plan and, without asking the school board any questions, determine how best to help it, and all the other school boards. Those determinations then become the priorities laid out in the action plan.

Does the action plan reflect school boards' priorities? Far from it in many cases. The action plan has to go to Canadian Heritage, but, sometimes, that happens six months later. There's a problem when it comes to determining school boards' priorities for language and cultural education.

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

Let's say I were to ask a school board what its five priorities were. Would I find those priorities in the ministry's action plan?

[Roger Paul]

Far from it.

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

Very well. Thank you.

The second shortcoming pertains to accountability. You said that, under the old protocol, there was no way to ensure accountability. I know that some mechanism for accountability is now in place between Canadian Heritage and the provinces.

But is anyone aware of what's going on? Do school boards have a hand in the process by which Canadian Heritage holds education ministries to account?

[Roger Paul]

It depends on the province or territory.

I'll give you the most common example. The province's education ministry gives the school board money to spend on priority X or Y. Then, at the end of the process, the ministry has to answer to Canadian Heritage in a very lengthy report.

I commissioned a study of all those reports for all the school boards around the country. It takes an extremely smart person to figure out that we don't know where the money went, because the expenditures are grouped in broad categories that provide little detail. At the end of the day, there is precious little accountability.

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

So accountability is a problem for the school boards as well.

The third shortcoming involves the signatories.

You're proposing an innovative concept. Why do you think the school boards or the organization representing them should be a signatory to the protocol?

[Roger Paul]

It's to prevent that very lack of accountability and the failure to consult the communities. You asked why I think that, but it's actually all the communities, parents, and school boards who feel that way. There wouldn't be three organizations at the table. The umbrella organization representing the communities and parents, in other words, the FNCSF, would, with their consent, make sure the process was being followed, not to mention properly negotiated from the outset.

We are not trying to interfere with what the provinces and territories are doing. For us, it's simply a matter of oversight. Then, action plans and a few ground rules can be established.

You're doing that already. What we're asking for is nothing new. It's what we've been asking for since 1970. In fact, in 2005, the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages sought exactly the same thing in recommendations 5 and 6 of its report.

On Monday, we asked the committee members whether it was possible to revive those recommendations. They smiled. Nevertheless, what it shows is that recommendations 5 and 6 were sound. They sought more or less what we are asking for. Is it possible to take another look at those recommendations and see whether they make sense in 2016?

The federal government is already doing it. What we are asking for isn't new. You already negotiate education matters directly with associations representing indigenous peoples in British Columbia and Manitoba. You already sign agreements directly with the associations, without necessarily involving the province.

We want to be part of a process that already exists. The current protocol deals not only with French first-language education, but also with immersion and post-secondary programs. That's why we are proposing a separate tripartite protocol. We aren't necessarily interested in a protocol that deals with immersion and post-secondary education; we are concerned solely with K-12 schools and support for language and culture for French-language school boards. We aren't asking for anything unreasonable.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you, Mr. Paul.

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

I'd like to wrap up, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

We'll come back to you later.

I'm going to have to be a bit stricter when it comes to speaking time.

Mr. Choquette, you may go ahead.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being here today. This is an extremely important discussion. As far as the roadmap goes, education is the cornerstone of minority communities. That's even true in Quebec. We'll get into immigration a bit later.

You spoke at length about your recommendation to create a tripartite protocol. We should definitely explore that idea and see how we could make it work. The fact that we are talking about a provincial responsibility is indeed problematic. Something else we need to consider is how do we ensure proper accountability.

You likely know that British Columbia went to court in order to assert its rights. This is what Mr. Power had to say about the ruling:

The ruling has a number of positives. For the first time in Canada, a court has determined that a ministry of education must treat the needs of francophones differently when it comes to education. The judge also called for the creation of a special budget for francophone schools, so that the province could no longer compare the needs of English-language and French-language schools when deciding which ones it would fund.

Would you mind briefly sharing your thoughts on the ruling? Could it help you in your efforts?

[Roger Paul]

There's no doubt that the ruling issued this week is extremely significant for the country's francophone and Acadian communities. But we are far from having what we asked for in British Columbia. We got the Supreme Court's ruling not that long ago. It addresses the equivalence of educational infrastructure within the same region.

In other words, a parent could notice that the French-language school was in terrible condition, unlike the English-language school. Let's assume it's an immersion school, since English-language schools are the ones providing immersion programs. The parent might conclude that their child could learn French at the English-language school, which is in much better condition and has better facilities. After comparing the two schools, a parent has to exhibit real fortitude when choosing to enrol their child in a French-language school.

The British Columbia government, like many others, used to treat all school boards equally. When the school boards were created a mere 20 years ago, what do you think happened to those schools? What kinds of schools did we inherit? Schools that the anglophones didn't want anymore. Today, we are in those schools, which are in disrepair.

In the provinces and territories, the approach hasn't changed. In other words, when it comes to infrastructure, we are treated as though our schools are new. We are told to wait, told that our turn will come one day or in two years, told that, out of some 20 schools, we are going to be given one, and so it goes. I've seen the schools in British Columbia. Having been the executive director of a school board not that long ago, I can tell you those aren't the schools parents will choose.

As for the ruling, the judge ordered the ministry of education to set aside funding. The fact of the matter is buying land in Vancouver is inconceivable. The school board simply can't afford to purchase a piece of land that could cost up to $25 million. Who has that kind of money? The ministry of education. We are told that it's not our turn, that the amount wasn't budgeted for and therefore isn't available. So the court ordered the ministry to set aside funding in order to help the school board if a similar situation were to happen again.

The other issue involves helping the school board in its negotiations with the anglophones, who have lovely schools that are empty. The regulations are the problem. Even though its public money, under the current rules, the government can't compel an English-language school board to turn over one of its schools. I don't mean that it should give up the school for free, but for a reasonable price. Thanks to the court ruling, not only will that be possible, but it will also be mandatory from now on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you.

Mr. Vandal, you have five minutes. Please go ahead.

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

Thank you.

I'd like to come back to the OLEP. It's a long-standing problem that's never been resolved.

Did you raise it when the two previous roadmaps were being evaluated?

[Roger Paul]

Absolutely. Not only did we raise it in the evaluations, but we even discussed it with your committee. Some 15 or 20 years ago, my predecessor, the late Paul Charbonneau, asked for the same thing we are seeking now. It's right there in the brief. It's not new. The Senate committee asked for the same thing in 2005. Twenty years ago, the CNPF put out a report whose title translates to “Where have all the billions gone?” Good question—we don't know where they've gone.

The organization that became the FCFA also produced a report stating more or less the same thing. What we are calling for now will come as no surprise; no one is going to fall off their chair in shock. I think we're well-positioned, for that matter. We don't want to be involved in areas that don't concern us, such as immersion education. We have views, and we believe in linguistic duality. But there's no reason to mix the two envelopes.

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

Would you mind commenting on the evaluations of the two previous roadmaps? The reason we are here is to examine them before a new action plan is established. How would you say those evaluations were handled?

[Roger Paul]

I alluded earlier to the fact that we had asked lawyers, consultants, and researchers to analyze all that. We told them that, for the analysis, we would provide them with the reports for each of the 28 school boards in the country who belong to our network, as well as the reports submitted by the provinces and territories. Occasionally, we had to file an access to information request with the ministry of education to obtain a report. So we asked those experts to analyze the reports and to try to make sense of it all. It proved an impossible feat. We knew the ministry had spent so many millions on such and such priority, but nothing more. And if the information could be identified, the school board didn't even know that it had received a specific amount of funding for a particular priority.

As for what's been negotiated, the funding is supposed to be based on a fifty-fifty split. That's the condition imposed by the federal government. It's prepared to hand over x million dollars provided the ministry contributes the same amount. We found out a few weeks ago that the federal government, in very broad terms, was indeed providing x million dollars. But where's the other 50%?