Official Languages Committee on Nov. 3rd, 2016

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, Mr. Therrien, and to you, Ms. Brouillette.

[Robert Therrien]

Good morning.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Ms. Brouillette, I have a brief question concerning ACUFC. How much money do ACUFC members receive under the roadmap? What funding did they receive under the last roadmap?

[Lynn Brouillette]

We have received money directly from Health Canada under the roadmap since 2003. It was the action plan at the time.

We have received $17 million a year for the past 10 years. That money is allocated among 11 colleges and universities to support some 100 programs in the field of health.

We have established 68 new programs since 2003. However, some of that number were already in existence. This funding has made it possible to maintain those programs.

You know as well as I do that student cohorts in minority communities are, in many instances, not as large as those in the anglophone institutions. Funding is required to maintain student cohorts, and the provinces sometimes impose certain quotas, which requires us to increase the cohorts.

Furthermore, we were able to equip laboratories with the funding from health Canada. Those who have had a chance to visit our colleges and universities recently, particularly in the health field, have seen simulation labs borrowed from aviation. This is very sophisticated and expensive equipment. As francophone institutions, we have a duty to be on the cutting edge of technology. We often have to be better than everyone else in order to attract a clientele. I know you all understand that aspect.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Exactly, I went to visit the Collège Boréal and saw the simulation lab there. It really was cutting edge.

You mentioned a figure of $17 million. For how many years has it been at that level?

[Lynn Brouillette]

For the last ten years, we've been receiving $17 million per year for the 11 colleges and universities.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

You've received no increases.

[Lynn Brouillette]

The last two roadmaps, which cover the last ten years, contained no increases.

That gave rise to problems. Let's just say that it really put a brake on the momentum we'd been building since 2003. Nonetheless, we implemented a few new programs. Those new programs were possible because of collaboration, however.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

If you had to make a recommendation to the ACUFC's members about the new action plan, what would it be?

[Lynn Brouillette]

I have more than one, actually.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Go right ahead!

[Lynn Brouillette]

Obviously, I would recommend that health care training be maintained. As I said, we've provided support for roughly 100 programs over the last few years. It makes a big difference when services are actively offered in the health care field.

Since you know the communities very well, you understand that we can't wait for the active demand. That's why we're working on this file. In fact, we're one of the leaders on the question of active offer, having worked on it since 2008.

The way we work together is interesting. Active offer is one of the great projects that we've been able to put together nationwide. We would not have had the success we are having with active offer, if we had only pursued it in a few institutions here and there, and had each worked in our own provinces. We did this work collectively. We drew on the strengths and areas of expertise of our colleges and universities. Academics did a lot of work in this regard.

We have put a skills profile in place. We will also have a certificate for the 100 programs or so throughout Canada. They are health care programs aimed at offering services actively.

It really is thanks to federal funding that we were able to carry out such a collective project. Thanks to such funding, we can truly move on to another phase.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Therrien, you mentioned that early childhood services and infrastructure in Saskatchewan have been a challenge. Have you measured demand for day care, and the available supply? Could you tell us about that?

[Robert Therrien]

With respect to current demand in Saskatchewan, there are still waiting lists for spaces in francophone day cares.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Do you have numbers? Have you measured this phenomenon?

[Robert Therrien]

Two or three years ago, we determined there was a waiting list of 400 kids for francophone day cares in Saskatchewan. To us, that's considerable.

We tried to put measures in place. We tried to help people open day cares in private homes. That proved a sizeable challenge. Admittedly, this is clearly an area within provincial jurisdiction. Nonetheless, the number of francophone day care spaces increases very little each year.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, François Choquette]

Thank you very much, Mr. Therrien.

We now move on to the second round, which will be about immigration.

We could start with you, Mr. Therrien. Do you have a presentation to give concerning immigration?

[Robert Therrien]

The immigration field is still rather new to our community as far as programming and planning are concerned. It's new in the sense that, even though we've known for years that we should have been doing something to increase francophone immigration in our communities, we still don't have the means to make significant inroads in that regard.

As you might know, the demographic weight of francophone immigrants in official language minority communities increased from 6.2% in 1991, to 11.7% in 2011. According to our most recent study, the rate in Saskatchewan is even higher, standing at approximately 15%.

In large cities, the incidence of francophone immigration can even be seen in the schools. Francophone school enrolment in Saskatchewan has increased, and roughly 25% of the children are from visible minority families.

Immigrants who settle in Saskatchewan help us offset the aging of the francophone population. And it's worth noting that, of all Canadian provinces, Saskatchewan has the highest percentage of elderly among its francophone population. This is why we believe francophone immigration is the only way to maintain a vibrant francophone population in our province.

Our role is to facilitate economic immigration in order to meet needs like access to the workforce needed to grow Canadian businesses, and to attract foreign investors to stimulate job creation and ensure job retention for Canadians.

That said, there are still major complications in matching potential francophone immigrants to Canada's workforce requirements.

In my opinion, we must ask ourselves two questions.

The first is: How do we increase the capacity of official language minority communities to recruit, welcome and integrate immigrants?

In my last presentation, I spoke about the importance of economic development. Naturally, immigrants come to Canada to work. And they need to join the workforce as quickly as possible, or, in some cases, start a business to replace jobs or others, so they can remain here, and live a full life in their communities.

The second question is: How do we ensure that immigrants and refugees settle and integrate successfully in official language minority communities? For us, it's essential to have a support network in fields like fields of health, education, culture and law. We need to be able to offer a set of services that will help immigrants integrate into the community.

Right now, we don't have the means. Our organization has 1.5 dedicated person-years for economic integration, and that's for the entire province. People who have visited Saskatchewan might be aware that our territory is vast, and that the francophone communities are very dispersed. It takes seven or eight hours to drive, one-way, from a community in northeastern Saskatchewan, to a community in southwestern Saskatchewan.

Given the distance, and the fact that francophone communities are very dispersed, 1.5 full-time equivalents per year is not sufficient to offer services to the immigrant population.

Our role is to work with employers, both francophone and anglophone. Since our province, and our employers, are majority anglophone, it's essential that immigrants learn English. To succeed in placing francophone workers with anglophone employers, we must make the case that the ability to offer services in French, or to work in French, represents added value.

We have found that employers in rural areas have little familiarity with the immigration process. It's important that we work with them, and that we help them recruit, hire and support an immigrant workforce that can work for their businesses.

It's also worth noting that Saskatchewan is interestingly diverse. While francophone immigrants are mainly of African descent, other people come to Saskatchewan, especially from India and the Philippines. As a result, our diversity is quite good. When the people mix, the employers and new immigrants go through a learning process so that the new immigrants, whose culture is different, can adapt to the workplace.

We definitely need to raise awareness, disseminate information, and offer workshops to new immigrants. We don't think the most recent roadmap contained enough funding to enable us to offer the services necessary to have an impact in the realm of immigration.

Economic integration can happen if there's support for immigrants who want to become part of the Canadian labour market, especially in Saskatchewan. There are a few things we'd like to do. First, we'd like to work more closely with temporary foreign workers, and offer them services to help them transition toward permanent residence. We'd also like to focus on international students, and encourage our colleges and universities to welcome more francophones so we can help them transition to the workforce.

We conducted certain activities in partnership with our development and employability network in Canada. We started offering virtual job fairs, and we're working more and more with Canadian embassies on pre-arrival and other services as part of the Destination Canada job fair, which will be held during the coming two weeks.

Immigrants often say that employers ask whether they have Canadian experience. So there's a shortage of employment internships. There are some programs for young people at present. I strongly support that initiative, aimed at integrating them into the workforce. Those young people are 16 to 30 years old. There are also older immigrants with very little Canadian experience, and right now, there are no opportunities to offer them employment internships aimed at helping them join the labour market.

Lastly, I think that IRCC's permanent programs need to support a francophone immigration continuum that includes economic integration of francophone immigrants. Specifically, employability is an essential stretch of the road to immigrant integration and retention. Without jobs, they won't be with us for long. The problem is that this aspect isn't getting much support. That's why we want the next roadmap to contain a component dedicated exclusively to the economic integration of francophone immigrants.

Thank you for your time.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, François Choquette]

Thank you very much, Mr. Therrien.

We will now give the floor to Ms. Brouillette, of the Association des collèges et universités de la francophonie canadienne. She will address immigration.

[Lynn Brouillette]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

During the summer, the provincial and territorial governments did indeed agree on a target of 5% for immigration within francophone communities. We salute the government for this renewed political will in relation to francophone immigration. However, to achieve these targets, concrete, efficient, and especially, collaborative measures, which complement each other, must be implemented and strengthened

As Sylviane Lanthier of the FCFA recently mentioned when she appeared before your committee, considerable efforts have been devoted to four areas of intervention over the past 15 years: promotion, recruitment, intake and integration.

It's clear that Canada's francophone post-secondary institutions play an important role and contribute in various ways in these areas of intervention. They do this by working closely with organizations and stakeholders at the forefront of this realm, such as the FCFA, RDÉE Canada, Colleges and Institutes Canada, or CICan.

As I mentioned in the first part of my presentation, the categories of students who attend our Canadian francophone colleges and universities obviously include students with deep Canadian francophone roots, students who have graduated from French immersion programs, immigrants, international students, and adults who are pursuing continuing education with a view to joining the labour market. In fact, the immigrant and international student categories are experiencing considerable growth. In some of our institutions, they represent up to 20% of the student clientele.

We help promote the communities to future immigrants and prospective international students by taking part in various ÉduCanada fairs organized by the federal government in selected countries. In addition, over the last few years, we've been taking part in Destination Canada, to which reference was made earlier.

We also play an important role in welcoming and integrating immigrants. I'd like to share some numbers with you on that. There are certainly many interesting programs, that are attracting clientele. All told, our 21 colleges and universities offer 900 programs. On the anglophone side, more than 16,000 programs are offered. So you can see that the offer sizes are quite different. That's why it's important to continue to develop programs, and offer other types of programs. My reference to hundreds of programs might seem to be a large number, but it's only 7% of what's being offered in English. This gives you an idea of the orders of magnitude.

For the past few years, we have also been collaborating with CICan on the Canadian Immigrant Integration Program and on Planning for Canada, to help immigrants prepare before their departure, and to facilitate their social and professional integration into the communities. To ensure a personalized professional orientation service in French, the Association looks after the delivery of this service. We offer future immigrants a central access point, and work on the preparation needed for their professional and economic orientation within Canada's francophone communities. This service helps immigrants better prepare so they can better succeed economically; it does so by providing them information, advice, planning, and online support. This way, candidates can benefit from numerous services, such as access to top-flight search and information resources, and advice on considering solutions and making good decisions for themselves and the family members who will be joining them. We give them an idea of the challenges and opportunities that await them on Canadian soil. We also offer them direct connections with our educational institutions, and with professional associations, francophone immigration networks, immigrant assistance organizations, and any other organizations that can help them.

In closing, I'd like to assure you that the Association's institutional members have succeeded in adapting to the new demolinguistic reality of French-speaking Canada, and now reflect that diversity.

As I said earlier, our student constituencies include francophones with deep roots in Canada, but also, young people from exogamous and immigrant families, immersion program graduates, international students and adults who are or have been employed, speak French as a mother tongue or second language, and are pursuing continuing education.

Therefore, an increased federal government investment in the next Official Languages Action Plan is essential. It would be used to strengthen our colleges' and universities' capacity to implement the infrastructure needed to welcome more immigrants, international students and immersion graduates who need personalized help and special support services in our institutions. In particular, collective projects of the kind we wish to carry out would become possible thanks to such an increased investment.

Thank you for your time. It will be a pleasure to answer your questions.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, François Choquette]

Thanks very much, Ms. Brouillette.

We will immediately begin with Mr. Généreux, for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Brouillette and Mr. Therrien, thank you very much for being with us today.

Ms. Brouillette, I will continue along the lines of what you just said about immersion programs at the end of your presentation. We know these programs are very much in demand in Canadian schools. It would probably be possible to double or even triple the number of immersion students.

You say you nonetheless have a solid clientele from these programs. When the young people finish secondary school, which ends in the twelfth grade in English Canada, do you know what percentage attend francophone colleges thereafter?

[Lynn Brouillette]

Well, I can give you some data on the subject. The data are from the report of the Senate Standing Committee on Official Languages. It's a very interesting report, published in the summer of 2015, concerning the immersion clientele. The report contained some very interesting recommendations.

One of the details I remember from the report is that there are 1.7 million students enrolled in anglophone schools, and more than 380,000 students enrolled in immersion programs. Based on 2014-2015 statistics, 4,000 immersion students attended our 21 colleges and universities.

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

Does that seem like a lot to you?

[Lynn Brouillette]

No, it doesn't.