In that case, Mr. Chair, I will skip the introduction since it is the same as the earlier one. I won't remind you of the importance of this for our communities and for maintaining their demographic weight. You are probably already very familiar with it.
As we have already said, the multi-year funding of the francophone immigration networks in our provinces by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada was an important step in the development of our communities.
As a result, we have been able to establish long-term partnerships with stakeholders, including employers, chambers of commerce and anglophone organizations working in this field.
Unfortunately, there are still several challenges that we must face every day. The lack of direct French-language services in the province is certainly the most problematic. We lack services in the schools, as well as reception and integration services, especially in remote regions.
The lack of opportunities to take the Test d'évaluation de français in our province is very problematic. This situation forces our newcomers to go to the islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon or to Halifax to take the test. This is particularly the case for temporary applicants who wish to make the transition to permanent residence through Express Entry, as well as for permanent residents wishing to obtain Canadian citizenship.
Mr. Chair, I would like to point out the irony of the situation. The consular authorities of the French government have resources available and are recognized in our own province to conduct their French tests, in particular in partnership with Memorial University, while our own Government of Canada does not. However, these services are in their own country. The lack of direct services for temporary residents has long been an administrative anachronism that has certain negative impacts.
In our province, as it certainly is in others, the vast majority of francophone newcomers come for a job, which they sometimes already have lined up, and have a temporary work permit. When they step foot in our province, we have added value to offer them. We want to make sure that they come to contribute to the dynamic nature of our communities and that they know that their children can attend our schools. We are still unable to serve them, despite years of demanding a change in the situation.
This deprives us of a whole new francophone population. Because they are not properly informed and served, they orient themselves toward the linguistic majority, and their children head right toward being assimilated and will not contribute to our communities.
We should also mention the lack of direct national services for temporary residents. How can we support the temporary workers who come through Mobilité francophone, an initiative we applaud, if we can't offer them services? How can we encourage them to settle permanently in Canada and in our communities? This also applies to the participants of the Canada working holiday program and to international students.
In 2012, we were adversely affected by a very negative measure when the government decided not to financially support community organizations such as ours to travel to the Destination Canada forum. It deprives us of an extremely important promotional forum that worked very well. Our organization has not been compensated by our provincial government and has therefore not attended almost any editions since 2012. Our provincial delegation is no longer promoting our communities and the services available in French. This does not help candidates turn to Newfoundland and Labrador in their choice of destination.
Newfoundland and Labrador has a distinctive feature when it comes to international recruitment. It is 25 kilometres from France. I am referring, of course, to the archipelago of Saint Pierre and Miquelon. Unfortunately, our current agreements do not allow us to promote our province because it is no longer Canadian territory. We are losing a great recruiting opportunity because they often have many friendly and family ties with our province. This is an important retention factor, not to mention that they are accustomed to the climate and are already big hockey fans. However, we can't go there, even though it costs three times less to get there than to Labrador City, in our own province. In addition, 25% of their young people go to Quebec for their studies. These are lost opportunities for us.
We hope that our future agreements with the IRCC will allow us to do this. We should note that other federal departments have already shown their willingness to adapt to our reality in other sectors.
Once is not customary, and I wish to end my speech with some positive notes. Therefore, we are pleased with the federal government's willingness to educate each province and territory on setting targets for francophone immigration. We are currently negotiating with our provincial government and hope to have a target set within a few months.
We have also very positively welcomed the recent IRCC measure to facilitate the retention and return of international students through Express Entry.
Mr. Chair, members of Parliament, on behalf of Newfoundland and Labrador's French speakers, we thank you for your attention.