Official Languages Committee on Nov. 3rd, 2016

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, François Choquette]

Good morning, colleagues.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we are continuing our study on the roadmap and immigration in the francophone minority communities.

It is a pleasure for me to introduce our witnesses.

By video conference, we have Robert Therrien, executive director of the Conseil économique et coopératif de la Saskatchewan. Then we will hear from Lynn Brouillette, acting director general of the Association des collèges et universités de la francophonie canadienne. She will be joining us shortly.

We will begin with you, Mr. Therrien. You have 10 minutes to tell us about the roadmap for official languages.

[Robert Therrien, Executive Director, Conseil économique et coopératif de la Saskatchewan]

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you for the invitation to appear before you this morning.

I would definitely like to talk to you about the roadmap.

The Conseil économique et coopératif de la Saskatchewan, or CECS, is a member of the Réseau de développement économique et d'employabilité du Canada, RDÉE Canada, to which I will be referring. We benefited from the last roadmap, that of 2013-2018.

The RDÉE is established in all provinces and territories of Canada. The funding we receive enables us to assist francophone entrepreneurs in preparing business plans and market studies, for example, and to work with companies on business expansions, purchases and successions.

We also work closely with the official language minority communities in Saskatchewan, mainly in establishing community economic development projects.

You may wonder what community economic development is. Consider the example of Ponteix, an official language minority community that we helped to develop an emergency centre. That roughly $750,000 project made it possible to create three permanent and several part-time jobs in the community. The emergency centre provides ambulance, paramedic, and firefighting services.

In the official language minority communities, we use the francophonie as a value added. When we help a community, the community as a whole benefits from our services, both the majority and minority communities. The fact that francophones are in the community is a value added and promotes the economic development of those communities.

We believe that economic value is the basis of all other development. In other words, economic development is the main driver of everything that happens in culture and even education. If there were no jobs or viable and vibrant businesses in the communities, there would be no population and it would be unnecessary to have schools in our small communities where there is a francophone presence.

As you know, our economy has been quite strong for some years now, but a slowdown is currently under way. Like our neighbours in Alberta, we see the impact of that slowdown on employment and the economy in a community. The creation of a solid economic development base is central to a community's vitality.

We have also helped another minority community in the northwest part of the province, and that enabled it to establish a seniors home, which is also a three-level health centre. Six permanent jobs and three part-time positions were created as a result.

People often get the impression these jobs do not make a big impact. An outside consultant conducted a study on the impact of our investments in the official language communities. In a community of approximately 600 inhabitants, six permanent jobs and three part-time positions are equivalent to 800 jobs in a region such as Ottawa. What we do has a significant impact on the official language communities in rural or remote regions, as some people call them.

The funding we have received also helps Saskatchewan's official language community as a whole.

We are now able to find more efficient ways to manage the money we receive, spend, and so on. We are working to create an administrative services cooperative for Saskatchewan's entire francophone population and for the community's provincial and community organizations.

RDÉE Canada recently published a white paper entitled Prospérité économique des francophones et acadiens, or Economic prosperity of francophones and Acadians. Together with Quebec's official language minority community, we have worked to develop a Canadian economic development plan for the official language communities. I cannot provide you with a copy of the white paper for the moment since this is a video conference, but I can definitely send you one if you are interested or if our RDÉE Canada colleagues in Ottawa have not yet sent you one.

Our value added is increasingly apparent in the global economic context. A study the Conference Board of Canada conducted a few years ago clearly showed that the francophone community's contribution to global economic development constituted a value added. Despite that fact, the demographic weight of the OLMCs was a problem as those communities represented only 6% of the total population of Canada, a 3% decrease relative to 1971.

In 2011, the number of francophones in Saskatchewan increased for the first time in decades. However, their representation as a percentage of the population is still in decline. The rise in the number of francophones is obviously due to francophone immigration, which has mainly affected Saskatchewan's two major cities. It is still essential for us to maintain this demographic weight and to belong to the bilingual Canada we know.

Again on the subject of francophone immigrants—and I know we will be discussing this later—they represented only 2.4% in Saskatchewan, which is far from the 4.4% target established by the federal government a few years ago. For us, francophone immigration represents our community's long-term vitality. It is therefore essential to take all possible measures so that francophone immigrants and their families can come and settle here, help populate our schools, take part in our community's activities, and help us maintain our demographic weight within the community.

Early childhood is another component we are examining. We have enormous problems. Our inadequate infrastructure prevents us from offering early childhood day care services. Whether newcomers or not, the fact that people do not have access to these kinds of services in the official language of their choice—French in this instance—often means these children wind up in anglophone or other child care facilities. It is essential for us that special attention be paid to early childhood.

In the past, we have nevertheless benefited from tourism projects as a result of roadmap funding. The Prairies region and the four western provinces are working on various projects, and doing it together.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, François Choquette]

Mr. Therrien, I will have to stop you there. You may continue your presentation during the period of questions.

I would like to note that Lynn Brouillette, acting executive director of the Association des collèges et universités de la francophonie canadienne, has arrived.

For members who may have been wondering who the people at the back of the room were, they were young francophone parliamentarians who were attending our proceedings. We have welcomed young people from Alberta, Quebec, Belgium, and elsewhere who have come to see the work we do.

Before moving on to questions, we will immediately hear what Ms. Brouillette has to say about the roadmap.

You have 10 minutes or so to make a presentation. Then we will move on to the period of questions.

[Lynn Brouillette, Acting Director General, Association des collèges et universités de la francophonie canadienne]

Good morning, Mr. Chair and ladies and gentlemen members of the committee.

On behalf of myself and the board of the Association des collèges et universités de la francophonie canadienne, which is known by the acronym ACUFC, I want to thank you for your invitation to give you our comments on your studies on the current roadmap and on francophone immigration in the official language minority communities.

In this first, slightly longer part of my remarks, I will focus on the roadmap and the next action plan for official languages. Then, following your questions, I will more briefly address the issue of francophone immigration in the francophone minority communities.

First, I would like to tell you about the association and its contribution to promoting the Canadian francophone community and official languages. Then I will outline the connection between that contribution and the subject of your committee's studies for each of my presentations.

ACUFC is a unique model of inter-institutional, interprovincial, and federal-provincial and territorial collaboration for carrying out collective initiatives across Canada. Its membership consists of 21 francophone or bilingual colleges and universities located in francophone minority communities. All are situated outside Quebec.

ACUFC aims to expand access to post-secondary education in French across the country and thus to provide a true continuum of French-language education from early childhood to the post-secondary level. Mr. Therrien, who is testifying by video conference, spoke about early childhood and child care centres. We train the professionals for those centres in our colleges.

Our student clienteles include youth, obviously, old-stock francophones, and French speakers from French second language immersion programs, but also immigrants, international students, and adults involved in continuing learning and the job market.

The colleges and universities of the Canadian francophone community play an essential role in ensuring the vitality and sustainability of the francophone minority communities they serve. They are pillars in their communities and contribute to both the development of their human capital, cultural development, and economic growth by training the highly skilled and bilingual labour force of today and tomorrow.

This state of affairs is clearly outlined in the brief we sent you last summer as part of the cross-Canada consultations on official languages launched on June 17. Our colleges and universities are clearly the standard-bearers of our official languages and the Canadian identity, inclusion, vitality, and resilience of those communities, and ultimately of our country's prosperity.

Now I want to tell you about the initiatives and convincing results we have achieved with the funding we received under the roadmap for Canada's official languages 2013-2018 in health and justice, two essential fields for francophone minority communities.

As you know, access to health and justice services in French is an additional challenge for those communities. In these two fields, service recipients are vulnerable, and the language barrier exacerbates their situation. It is therefore essential that we train professionals who are able to provide services in both official languages in these two fields.

In health, a consortium was created thanks to the first action plan for official languages in 2003. The Consortium national de formation en santé, or CNFS, was established and has continued to develop over the past 13 years with support from the two subsequent roadmaps. Health Canada is the recipient of the funding that is allocated to us.

Even though education and health are provincial and territorial jurisdictions, federal funding is essential for our communities because it has a significant leverage effect in the provinces. That has helped us to achieve convincing results and to carry out many innovative initiatives under the aegis of the Consortium national de formation en santé. For example, 68 new French-language post-secondary health programs have been established in the 13 years since 2003.

Furthermore, 32 existing programs have been enhanced. In addition, 6,700 professionals capable of providing health services in French have been trained. We know that 94% of them work in francophone minority communities and that 91% work in their home province.

As language is a health issue, we have developed genuine expertise in actively offering French-language health services and have produced a framework for modelling that active offer. We believe that model can be transferred and adapted to other essential service areas in the official language minority communities.

Programs have also been developed and are being offered jointly by our member institutions. Here are some specific examples that will provide an overview of the kind of cooperation we have established and the impact it has had.

Four of our member colleges located in three different provinces offer a post-diploma college program in community health services management.

As you can see, federal government funding helps us take action at another level. These projects have become collective projects that enable us to transcend borders. Sometimes we feel as though we are in an eleventh province and able to work together without interprovincial barriers.

Another promising program is the auxiliary nursing science program at the Collège La Cité, here in Ottawa, which was also offered at the Collège Éducacentre, in Vancouver. This is really from one end of the country to the other. As a result of this type of partnership and the cooperative arrangements we have put in place in the past 13 years, 68 new programs have been established in that 13-year period. The fact that we have created two-, three-, or four-year post-secondary and university-level programs is quite a tour de force. There is strength in numbers, and that is as true today as it has always been.

In justice, we achieved a significant result, the creation of the Réseau national de formation en justice in February 2014, following a feasibility study that the association's national secretariat conducted. ACUFC administers and coordinates the network's activities. Nine of our network's member institutions belong to this justice network. The full list of network members is provided in a package that we will be distributing to you later.

Following the research conducted since 2004, the network will shortly submit a proposal to the federal government for the next action plan for official languages. The network will develop cooperative approaches to make tangible improvements to provide equal access to justice in both official languages, by significantly increasing the number of graduates from post-secondary French-language justice programs, enrolment in on-the-job training, and the production of and access to legal and jurilinguistic tools for jurilinguists, justice professionals, and litigants.

Our health and justice initiatives have proven the strength of national institutional associations such as ACUFC, which help us carry out collective national projects, share resources, and, consequently, generate significant economies of scale. Our initiatives focus on achieving actual results and establishing effective partnerships so we can have a direct and lasting impact on the francophone minority communities.

In conclusion, I have a number of recommendations. The solutions we are proposing to the Government of Canada for the next action plan for official languages may be summarized as follows.

First of all, we recommend providing increased access to post-secondary education in French in the communities. I discussed early childhood, and that is one example among many.

We also recommend expanding access to intellectual and institutional capital in French and providing broader access to public, parapublic, and private French-language services that are actively offered and linguistically and culturally adapted to the needs of our communities.

We are satisfied that the solutions we propose involve structural factors that will help the Government of Canada realize its vision for official languages, the social contract that was reached many years ago, as the Minister of Canadian Heritage repeatedly says.

Lastly, by reinforcing the capacity of our colleges and universities, the government will achieve its objectives for bilingualism and the vitality of the communities, which are two major components of the next action plan, as the Minister of Canadian Heritage noted when she appeared before your committee and that of the Senate last week.

Thank you very much for your attention. I will be pleased to answer your questions.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, François Choquette]

Thank you very much, Ms. Brouillette.

I am sure we will be putting many questions to the two witnesses with us here today.

We will immediately begin the first round of questions with Ms. Boucher, who will have six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning to both witnesses, and welcome to the committee. It is always very interesting to have you here. I have a lot of questions in mind.

Mr. Therrien, you work in the economic development field. We have learned in recent weeks that all the economic development agencies are to be centralized.

In view of the fact that you are in a region, do you fear the consequences of that decision? What will your challenges be? You will no doubt have more challenges because you have also heard that there will be fewer jobs, that the situation will stagnate, and that there will be unstable employment. Life is not always easy in a minority setting.

How then do you view the future? What would be the best long-term solutions for keeping jobs in the rural areas since the economic development agencies will be centralized? There is only one minister now, whereas there were previously several ministers in several regions. What is your perception of employment in your region in Saskatchewan?

[Robert Therrien]

With respect to Saskatchewan's economy and future, our province relies to a large degree on resources. That sector has always been cyclical. I lived in a rural community for the first 40 years of my life, and I am familiar with the agricultural cycle. It appears that potash mining and oil drilling are cyclical phenomena with ups and downs. The population of Saskatchewan is used to managing and dealing with those cycles.

As regards the centralization of the economic development agencies and the fact that there is only one minister, from what I know about these matters, we will not be losing the regional agencies that support us. They will not be directly part of the roadmap for our basic funding, but definitely will be for special initiatives in this area. We will continue dealing with those federal agencies in our region. I do not anticipate too much of an effect for the moment, and perhaps I do not know all the details, but I do not think there will be a major impact.

As for the economic future of the official language minority communities, one thing that concerns us is that the funding we receive from our regional agency has not increased in nearly 15 or 16 years, which has reduced our ability to provide services. We want to continue providing the same services and programs across the province because we are a provincial organization.

Does that answer your question?

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

Yes. That is fine.

Ms. Brouillette, we have heard from many organizations. They have told us about something the committee has often discussed, and I would like to hear what you have to say on the subject. We have learned that some francophone organizations in certain provinces that work closely with immigrants have lost their funding to anglophone organizations that say they can provide services in French.

Have you experienced this kind of situation? What would be the best way for the present government to compensate for this state of affairs, which we have heard about on several occasions?

[Lynn Brouillette]

That is a good question.

This is something we regularly hear about. It is something we rarely see nationally, but it is the kind of thing we particularly hear about on the ground. We have to be on the look-out because this is a situation we constantly face in our francophone minority communities.

When funding is granted to an organization, it should be ensured that the organization is in fact subject to francophone governance and is indeed able to serve francophones. The organization should ideally have francophone governance since that often makes a difference.

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

Thank you.

Do I have any time left?

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, François Choquette]

You have 45 seconds left.

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

Fine. I said what I had to say.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, François Choquette]

Now we will turn the floor over to Mr. Vandal.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First I will address Mr. Therrien.

In your presentation, you described your tourism partnerships with the other provinces.

Can you tell us a little more about those partnerships?

[Robert Therrien]

Certainly.

Allow me to cite an example of a result we achieved with the funding we received. We are working with our neighbouring provinces, Manitoba and Alberta, on a project entitled “La Route 1885,” the route of Louis Riel. It is a tourism project to promote the French fact in the Batoche region where the route is located.

Again with regard to tourism, we have benefited from an app that was developed by the Province of Alberta but made available to the four western provinces. We use that app, which is based on new technologies, to promote tourism in French.

Lastly, we will soon be introducing a project in our province that should increase tourism in various regions. So those are a few examples of the impact we are having with tourism projects.

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

Could you tell us more about Batoche, a national site of great importance to the Métis nation?

Has the trail already been started in Batoche, in western Canada?

[Robert Therrien]

No, we are in the process of implementing the project. The trail should be completed and open to the public within 12 months. We have been working on this project for a year and a half thanks to the funding we received. We are working on the project in partnership with the anglophone communities in the region.

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

Every July, there is a major gathering in Batoche, the Back to Batoche Days Festival.

Is there a francophone presence now at celebrations like that?

[Robert Therrien]

Yes, there is a francophone presence at celebrations like the one in Batoche because they are open to everyone. Many old-stock inhabitants are Métis, who have francophone names but no longer speak the language, having lost their French over the years. That is why the French presence in Batoche is not a big one, but there is nevertheless something of a presence.

Batoche is located near Saint-Isidore de Bellevue, a mainly francophone community.

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

Thank you.

Now, coming back to the roadmap, how have Saskatchewan and your communities benefited from the roadmap 2013-2018?

[Robert Therrien]

I cited some specific examples. I mentioned the emergency centre that was established in one community as well as the seniors home.

In addition, tourism is linked to the roadmap and to special economic development initiatives.

Roadmap funding has provided us with assistance for job creation, business creation, and so on.

We have special economic development initiatives, on the one hand, and we receive funding, on the other.

Earlier I mentioned the Réseau de développement économique et d'employabilité, which provides support to the communities. That funding is managed by the enabling fund for official language minority communities, which comes from Employment and Social Development Canada. As a result of these measures, we have been able to support the communities through various projects.

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

Are there any challenges—

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, François Choquette]

You have very little time left.

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

Then I will skip my turn and speak at another time.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, François Choquette]

Now I turn the floor over to Mr. Lefebvre for six minutes.