Official Languages Committee on Nov. 17th, 2016

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

You said that the principal services were in literacy. How many people does that involve? Can you calculate how many people have needs like that?

[Gaël Corbineau]

I was involved in compiling the official statistics for this area. For the Atlantic provinces, it is 42%. So you have to do the math. It would be 42% of 3,000 francophones,

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

Thank you.

You were here when there was a consultation in 2015. I hope that I will not be talking to you about immigration—

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

That comes later.

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

So I must not talk to you about immigration right now.

[Gaël Corbineau]

I thought I was here to talk about immigration, actually.

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

Yes, but we won't talk about it right now. I will talk to you about it in my next turn.

Earlier, you said that the successes were in immigration and health in French. I am impressed. You have succeeded in delivering health services in French.

[Gaël Corbineau]

That is an evolving situation. We are talking about the roadmaps, specifically the most recent ones. In our presentation, we did not want to go back over 40 years of development. Some things existed beforehand. We still do not have services in French in bilingual medical clinics. We are not there yet. However, we have made a lot of progress at community level and those projects have worked well.

A number of examples come to mind. We started projects on healthy eating, on physical exercise, and the projects have remained in place. We funded that kind of initiative in schools. When we started, for example, students went to a swimming pool every week. The funding stopped after three years, but the schools continued the activity. It created a momentum that has continued since.

We also organized physical exercise sessions for seniors and similar activities through the health network. Since then, two sport activity rooms have been opened, such as on the Port-au-Port peninsula.

These are very rural regions. They have no private fitness centres. The only other services are those that come from the communities themselves. The community managed to get organized and to set up two rooms with sports equipment that people can use year-round at a modest cost. It was that kind of activity that the health network was able to bring to the communities.

As for services in French in institutions, there is a huge amount of work to be done. The work is being done in collaboration with the health network. However, an enormous amount of work remains. We will speak about that again shortly. We have been trying to work on it for two years.

There is one situation peculiar to Newfoundland and Labrador that we will bring up when get into immigration. The French-speaking presence in Newfoundland is aided by the proximity of the Saint Pierre and Miquelon archipelago.

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

Yes, of course.

[Gaël Corbineau]

This is a very specific situation that the other provinces do not have.

Since last year, I have been the co-chair of the health sub-committee that is part of the regional cooperation between Atlantic Canada and Saint Pierre and Miquelon. The committee’s mandate is to further the work in health being done with the authorities on the Saint Pierre and Miquelon archipelago. For 30 years, residents of the archipelago have been coming to Newfoundland in medical evacuation situations. They come to Newfoundland more than 1,000 or 1,100 times per year for health care that is not available on the archipelago because their hospital does not have specialists in all fields.

So areas like that provide us with health funding in Canada that we can use as leverage for services of that kind.

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

How many people live in Saint Pierre and Miquelon?

[Gaël Corbineau]

About 6,000.

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

We have heard a lot about early childhood. My colleague will certainly continue with the topic. Do you have enough early childhood service capacity in French?

[Gaël Corbineau]

We have early childhood services in French, but they are not enough by a long shot. That is not one of the successes, because a huge amount of work still remains to be done. Currently, there is only one francophone day care in the province and that day care is in St. John’s. There is room for several more.

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

You say that you serve three remote communities.

[Gaël Corbineau]

There are none in the other communities.

One day care is about to be established. A group recently became involved; we had to change the province's legislation on cooperatives to move things along. It was a matter of principle.

Basically, the act only allowed the word “cooperative” to be used in English. The people on site, who had our full support, did not want the name of the organization to be in English. The matter moved forward and the legislation was changed last June. You have to go step by step. A francophone day care should open soon in Labrador City.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you, Ms. Lapointe.

We continue with François Choquette.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My thanks to the witnesses for coming.

Your comments are very interesting. People often forget that Newfoundland and Labrador has French-speaking communities. I appreciate your being here today to remind us of your presence in the province.

I have some questions about Employment and Social Development Canada. The Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne (FCFA) has criticized the fact that some money from the roadmap has not yet been spent or allocated. You spoke about that too.

[Gaël Corbineau]

Are we talking about the same amounts?

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Yes, that is what we are talking about.

That is why we rattled the cage a little. The amounts were allocated after the FCFA exerted some pressure. That happened quite recently, if I understand correctly. Does that whole area include seniors, children and women?

[Cyrilda Poirier]

It includes young people too.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Is this a new component of the roadmap? How do you explain that it took so long? A little earlier, we were told that the consultations had perhaps not been done correctly. If this is not a new component, it should not have taken so much time, should it? What is the explanation?

[Gaël Corbineau]

I don't know.

[Cyrilda Poirier]

To my knowledge, the FCFA has not received an explanation. When we were told about the amounts—it seems to me that it was last winter—it was like a $3.5 million present, or like manna from heaven.