Official Languages Committee on Feb. 24th, 2016

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

They can discuss not just that topic, but also the overall immigration situation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Very well.

Do you want to continue asking questions? You have two minutes.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Actually, I'd like to take Bernard's idea a bit further. It would also be helpful to have information on the resources at the department's disposal to provide language training to these newcomers.

I saw your estimate that around 98% of Canadians speak one official language or the other. Is one of your objectives keeping that percentage high? Do any of your objectives target the 2% of Canadians who speak neither official language? It is, after all, a tremendous asset when it comes to citizenship. Would you mind discussing that?

[Hubert Lussier]

That's not one of the Government of Canada's objectives, explicitly speaking. I would venture to say that the small percentage of Canadian citizens who speak neither official language denotes either older people or newly arrived immigrants who have not yet had a chance to learn an official language.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

I have one last question.

Every year, reports are submitted. I imagine the Commissioner of Official Languages will be submitting his. Do those reports show that the percentage of English speakers learning French is on the rise?

[Jean-Pierre Gauthier]

As I was saying earlier, we provide second-language learning support to the provinces, mainly through immersion programs, which are very popular. We know that quite a lot of young people today are learning the second language. The latest official figures peg that number at 340,000, and it's on the rise, according to our most recent data. That's the case with immersion, in particular, which is a good indicator of the general trend. So the percentage is rising.

We don't do a lot of opinion polls, but those we do have indicate that, over the long term, the general population living in majority language communities, be they anglophone or francophone, increasingly supports both official languages.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Thank you.

I think all members today have to make sure they are fully bilingual.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

We'll end with François Choquette.

It's already past 5:30. I'll give you two minutes to wrap up.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Thank you. I'll try to keep it brief.

In your presentation, one of the initiatives in the section on communities is networks and access to justice services. The Commissioner of Official Languages released a report entitled “Access to Justice in Both Official Languages: Improving the Bilingual Capacity of the Superior Court Judiciary”. Do you have any involvement in implementing those recommendations?

[Jean-Pierre Gauthier]

The bulk of those efforts will come from our colleagues at the Department of Justice and from the people at the Canadian Judicial Council, who participate in judicial appointments. We are familiar with the report and following the issue. It's one of the things we talk about with our counterparts at the Department of Justice, in order to stay on top of official languages trends and progress, overall.

It's part of our coordination function, which we discussed earlier. Occasionally, the commissioner asks us to play a supporting role, but the central role clearly belongs to our Justice Canada colleagues.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Stakeholders often highlight the importance of having services offered by and for official language minority communities. In British Columbia, that's no longer the case with immigration. Bilateral, provincial and federal, agreements were reached.

How does the Department of Canadian Heritage ensure that services are offered by and for official language minority communities through policies, for example?

[Hubert Lussier]

You're right. Previously, in terms of minority community service delivery, the reflex was to have an organization from the community provide the service. It didn't hold true all the time; it was simply the natural reflex when an organization in the community was available to carry out that function.

Recently, some departments decided to seek tenders for the delivery of certain services from organizations outside the community, and agencies from the majority community were selected in some cases. That situation has indeed caused tension and disappointment in minority communities, who wanted the same organization to continue delivering the service.

The tendering process was transparent and all criteria were followed. The Department of Canadian Heritage was not involved in the decision-making around the delivery of those services. You should probably invite officials from the departments who made those decisions to explain them to the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you, gentlemen, for your presentation today.

My fellow members, that concludes our meeting.

We'll meet again after the break week on Monday at 3:30, as scheduled.

Thank you again, Mr. Lussier and Mr. Gauthier.

The meeting is adjourned.