Official Languages Committee on Nov. 1st, 2016

[James Shea]

I'm not sure if you're speaking about your governance or our governance. I'm going to speak about our governance from the point of view of the Quebec Community Groups Network.

We have community associations, both regional and provincial, that belong to our group. We have governance from an elected board of directors, and every community association has an elected voice within the Quebec Community Groups Network. We have a network of over 50 organizations across the province. We rely on the input from them to develop this. We believe that would allow us to position ourselves as the spokespersons for the English-speaking community of Quebec.

My director general might want me to say something else with respect to your governance, but I'm speaking in the sense that.... Like Mr. Housefather and the rest of us, we have chosen. I'm a volunteer and I've chosen. I'm a resident of Quebec. I have no difficulty identifying myself as an English speaker.

I do so, even though I speak French.

There are parmi nous those who speak both languages. We are a bilingual community, but we come from a culture and an identity within Canada that allows us that opportunity to be an official language.

We are a minority language within Quebec. That in itself has its challenges, and it certainly has its challenges with respect to the Government of Quebec, but we're prepared to work with that. We don't want to be the problem. We want to be part of the solution, but we want to engaged in that solution. Then more of us would be elected to come here to represent, as Mr. Housefather has and as you have, that point of view.

I'm sure that those of you who are MPs from Quebec have English speakers who have voted for you, in a sense. We want to participate in that. We want to be part of it. I think that's the reason we are here. We don't want to be marginalized, in a sense, and respectfully, you have allowed us to be here. I think our commitment is to be part of the solution, but we don't want to lose our identity either.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you, Mr. Shea.

[James Shea]

Sylvia, did you want to complement my...?

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

I think your time is up now.

We'll go with Linda Lapointe.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Good morning and welcome. I'm very happy that you are with us this morning.

I'll speak to you in French, but it's okay for me. I represent Two Mountains, Saint-Eustache, Boisbriand, and Rosemère. I have the Commission scolaire Sir-Wilfrid-Laurier in my riding, in Rosemère, so I'm very happy that you are with us. I know you have a very big riding. Laval–Laurentides–Lanaudière is very big, I know. You have many challenges.

Earlier, we talked about the retention of young people. I have been living in the Rivière-des-Mille-Îles riding for a number of years. I previously lived in Rosemère, a bilingual city.

The anglophone minority of Deux-Montagnes now represents 20% of the population. Those people are very involved in their community.

In Rosemère, 15% of the population is anglophone. There is really a huge difference between those two cities. I live in Boisbriand and it's not the same thing as in Deux-Montagnes and Rosemère.

Let's now look at the issue of youth retention. We have talked about bilingualism. I know the Sir Wilfrid Laurier school board is working hard to ensure young people have a good command of English first, but also of French. Earlier, you talked about a high school graduation rate of 85%, I believe.

At the federal level, how do you explain that successful retention?

[Jennifer Maccarone]

I will gladly tell you.

As we mentioned earlier, our schools represent the community. We care about that. We never say that we go to our children's school, we say that we go to our school.

We take that to heart. That's very important. In many cases, it's a place where families and people in the community attend events, receive health services or information on what is happening in their community or town, in the language that they are most comfortable with. A school brings people together. That's true for both anglophone minority communities in Quebec and for francophone minority communities outside Quebec. The francophone communities are growing for the simple reason that their community is important to them and the people are very engaged.

The fact that we are truly engaged is a real success of the anglophone public education system. In addition, since we are a small group, it is easier for us to opt for innovative services and programs. That's necessary. We are not funded in the same way and we are not all in the same city. Actually, we are often spread out across the vast area.

I mentioned the Sir Wilfrid Laurier school board because it has 35,000 square kilometres, but in the case of the Central Québec school board, we are talking about 400,000 square kilometres, the same size as Spain. So it's very important that those people work together and find a way to provide services.

I am an anglophone, but I don't walk around saying that. I am a Quebecker and am proud to be one. I'm also proud to be the mother of two Quebec children and I would like them to stay with me in my home for the rest of their lives. Being bilingual is important for them. It's a valuable asset. We believe in our province. That's what we teach in our schools. Perhaps it's special, but it's an asset.

We have to embrace it.

We have to make the most of it so that the graduates are bilingual. When you talk about Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, you can say that the Sir Wilfrid Laurier school board ranks first in the province for the ministry exams in French as a mother tongue.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you. That is much appreciated.

Mr. Buck, I have a question for you.

On innovation and economic development, you say bilingualism is an asset. Could you please explain that? How can you

turn it into an attraction?

What can Quebec businesses do?

You are talking about additional funding to go outside the country, but economically, how can the people from the rest of Canada come to Quebec?

There must be jobs and those people must be bilingual. It's very important for the vitality of anglophone communities, but also for the francophone communities outside Canada.

[John Buck]

Thank you, Ms. Lapointe.

Let me say that the investment fund is to encourage Quebec businesses to extend their activities outside Quebec, but within Canada. So these are national investments.

The best response I have for you is something that was prepared for us in 2013 by the Conference Board of Canada. With the support of Industry Canada at that time, RDÉE Canada and CEDEC commissioned a report called “Canada, Bilingualism and Trade”. I'm pleased that all of you have it in front of you.

I'm pleased to say that it's on the desks of most people involved in official languages right now, I think because it builds the argument that talks about bilingualism being an economic advantage for us in a competitive environment. In the economy, our ability not as individuals but as a nation to engage with French-speaking countries for contractual purposes and what have you is an economic advantage. Likewise, our ability to do so in English is also an advantage.

For the first time, we believe, that is actually quantified in this report. There's actually a very solid argument that for every dollar invested in bilingualism, we see an economic return. That's very important.

The opportunity that we discuss with respect to Quebec-based businesses understanding and engaging in markets outside of Quebec is very much associated with language. I'll give you a very practical example of this close to where Madam Boucher is located.

It's the Chambre de commerce et d'industrie de Québec.

With the chamber, we did some work a few years ago. We worked with the insurance companies and some of the high-tech companies in the area. We asked what would be the impact on their bottom line if they were able to access English-speaking markets. The vast majority of those companies were not engaged in accessing those markets at that time.

They said they would love to, but that the one thing that was impossible for them to do was engage bilingual workers who would enable them to do that. They said that was great, but they didn't know how to do it because they couldn't find the workers. There's a very direct economic advantage to those individuals simply picking up a phone or writing an email in English to be able to access those markets elsewhere.

The consequence of that, of course.... When we talk about community economic development and this being so important, our goal is not exclusively to make that business wealthy or to make its shareholders wealthy. It is also to create the demand for those bilingual employees who are going to need to be part of a growing and expanding business. In some ways, we are stimulating the demand to sustain our communities.

The same is true if we look to the rest of Canada. I had the privilege of working in Toronto for a number of years, and I knew very well that the market I was working in, the financial industry, was reluctant to engage in the Quebec space.

CEDEC hosted a conference last March. I'm very proud of it. It was called “Doing Business in Quebec”. We attracted over 200 businesses, business owners, and entrepreneurs from across the country to come to Montreal to Place Bonaventure to talk about what it is like to do business here and what the advantages are. We had groups like Investissement Québec there. We had any number of groups that were there to really accompany these businesses that were looking at this as an opportunity. Most of them told us that they never really considered Quebec because they thought they had to work exclusively in French if they were working here, and they didn't know how to do that.

Bilingualism is a major asset. We actually believe that it creates significant economic opportunities, not only for the anglophone community in Quebec, but for the entire country. That is why we have made that recommendation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you very much, Mr. Buck.

We will take a 10-minute break before the second round of questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

We are resuming the discussion.

I now invite Anthony Housefather to start the round of questions.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to share my time with Ms. Lapointe.

I want to thank you again for all we've heard.

I have two specific points and questions that I'd like to get to.

On the first one, I'm coming back again to the source of frustration that Mr. Shea previously mentioned. Is part of it that you feel that the Conférence ministérielle sur la francophonie canadienne gives a lot of input into official languages and that Quebec's official language minority is not present at the table, and therefore the views of the Quebec English-speaking community are excluded in that regard, and that there has to be some way for you guys to provide input into that?

My second question relates to funding to Quebec. Quebec uses an opt-out and runs its own program in parallel to the federal system, which transfers powers to Quebec. I know one of the sources of frustration is the fact that the English-speaking community feels that monies that are supposed to be directed toward the English-speaking community do not necessarily arrive at the English-speaking community, or alternatively, that there is no provision that requires the Quebec government to provide parallel English-speaking services that the federal government would have been supposed to provide. I know the previous Conservative government started introducing this issue into its ententes.

Let me give you an example, and then I want to hear especially from Ms. Maccarone on educational funding.

I just found out recently, after complaints from many of my constituents, that the Canada student loans program allows you to go to any university in Canada and be funded with loans, including universities in Quebec. If I'm an Ontario student going to McGill, I can be funded. However, medical students from Quebec cannot be funded to go to any medical school outside of Quebec other than the University of Ottawa, which disproportionately affects English-speaking Quebeckers wanting to go to medical school because we only have one, McGill University. Therefore, people going to the University of Toronto, Dalhousie University, or wherever cannot get any loans, even though it's federal money going to that program.

I'd be very happy to hear feedback from you on those two questions, maybe first on the loan issue and the educational funding and the diversion.

[James Shea]

Could I at least address the first part of the question? You did address it to something that I said.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Yes, of course. Sorry.

[James Shea]

The positioning of the Quebec Community Groups Network is that we are a national minority language in the pan-Canadian sense and not in the Québécois sense, so if there is a frustration, the Quebec Community Groups Network wants to be recognized in the same manner as the FCFA, la Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada, because we represent a minority language within Canada, and within Quebec, of course.

I wanted to address that question and then defer to my esteemed colleague Ms. Maccarone; who is my esteemed colleague in more ways than one.

[Jennifer Maccarone]

I think your question about the funding is very important. One thing that we know we're missing is that element of accountability. That's where the concern comes from us.

Yes, there is some funding that is coming, and something perhaps particular to our province is that there is a lack of accountability. Correct me if I'm wrong, Sylvia, but approximately $75 million comes to the province in terms of Entente Canada-Québec funding. A certain portion of that is then directed toward public education and those funds, yet we don't manage those funds. They don't come directly to our directors general or our school boards in an effort to manage and assist us in taking care of our communities. They are funnelled through the provincial government, where we know that there is no accountability for us to use the funds to the best of our ability or to dictate where those funds are going in an effort to support our community to continue to grow.

That is really a significant concern that we have.

[Sylvia Martin-Laforge]

If I may, I would like to double back to Mr. Choquette's question around governance.

I feel that the federal government is sometimes timid in the way it asks for accountability from Quebec in terms of language clauses, in terms of accountability on monies coming in, so each department has to figure out how in their work with Quebec they will ask for la reddition de comptes. That's certainly the case in education, and is certainly the case in other departments.

When there was a centralized oversight mechanism, back in the action plan days—it was the PCO at the time, the Privy Council—the horizontal framework for official languages, because of its critical nature to the federation and to Canada as a centre, was taken care of at PCO. That was the oversight.

I think there should be given some consideration to regaining that oversight in a very special spot in the Government of Canada, where there would be clout. There's no question that other departments see PCO as the clout place. Down the road, if somebody else asks about the Conférence ministérielle, I would be happy to answer that question as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Go ahead, Madame Lapointe.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you very much.

I have another kind of question. How do you know there is a healthy community? Can you measure it, Mr. Shea?

[James Shea]

Thank you for the question. I guess we can demonstrate it. We can demonstrate that through the activities we participate in and support and engage in across the province.

I'm not going to speak from an economic development or from the education perspective, but from a realistic participatory.... There are communities across Quebec where people engage in community. They engage in community organizations, just as they may engage in school support or in parishes or churches and whatnot. Our organization can demonstrate healthy communities across the province.

I guess if I were to speak for them, which is my responsibility, our member organizations require the same input, the same support as minority language groups, as we aspire to look for at the provincial level, so it's a matter of ensuring the proper funding.

It might sound like a lot to provide $120,000, for example, to a regional organization. I can speak to that because I was president of one for a period of time. There are challenges of maintaining identity with respect to funding. Maintaining visibility and an office and all of that comes tremendously from the volunteer component.

To answer your question, you demonstrate that through volunteerism. The English-speaking community has demonstrated across the province its ability to participate, if you want to, in community activities that are not identifiable as anglophone, as English-speaking activities, as well. I think that's the concept of community vitality that we aspire to. It's to participate in community vitality at the local level as part of that community.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you very much.

We will now turn to Mrs. Boucher.

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

Good morning.

I'm very pleased that you are here with us today.

I just want you to know that you have all been on our list of witnesses submitted at the very outset of our work. In my opinion, as you said before, you've been part of the solution for a long time.

In 2016, bilingualism should be in our DNA. I try to speak English, but when I have more personal questions, of course I ask them in French. I'm always interested in that.

Mr. Shea, earlier in your brief, I noticed something that caught my attention. You said that “the ESCQ is able to participate as an equal at the national official languages table”. I understand that you were not there.

Can you explain why you were not at that table? I think the official languages are English and French. Have you previously been invited as an equal at the national table?

[James Shea]

I can't speak to the past, but it is important for us to be a partner. Being a partner is like a marriage. We participate as best as possible.

For us, it's about participating as an anglophone minority, even if we encourage anglophones to communicate in French as well. We want to seize all the opportunities of being at the national table.

We're here today, and we appreciate that opportunity to be able to do it. If you sense the frustration, I guess it's a struggle. It's our goal to be.... I guess respect has to earned and not just deferred automatically. I hope that we have earned that respect from you today.

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

You have all my respect.

[James Shea]

Thank you.

Perhaps our director general wants to make other comments.