Official Languages Committee on Nov. 29th, 2016

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

Let’s say you allocate $12 million for early childhood.

[Jean-Pierre Gauthier]

Yes.

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

Are you in a position to know, in a clear and precise way, whether that amount of $12 million was actually used for early childhood?

[Jean-Pierre Gauthier]

In their report, they indicate that they have actually spent, say, $11.5 million of the $12 million they were allocated and they tell us why there was a discrepancy.

I have here last year’s report from Ontario by way of an example. Their first commitment was to increase the number of students in French-language schools from 98,695 to 100,000. In the last report we have, for 2014-2015, the number of students is shown as 101,837. That shows, therefore, that the objective has already been met in the second year.

Ontario’s report covers all the targets that it set and all the commitments it made. That is how we are able to know whether provinces are making good progress in terms of their objectives. Of course, it is possible for a province to tell us along the way that the objective was too ambitious, that it is trying to achieve it, but is not able to and that it wants to revise things. In cases like that, we talk about it.

We are always very conscious of the fact that this is exclusively provincial jurisdiction and our role is one of support. We are not there to tell them what to do, but we still have good business-like discussions with them. That allows us to monitor their use of federal funds. So we are in a position to match that with their reports on how they have spent the money we have allocated to them in each of the areas of investment.

We have six areas of investment for minority schools, and those same six areas apply to investments in second-language learning. So we have 12 sections for those objectives. People assure us that they have spent the money in the areas they were supposed to.

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

The provinces tell you how they spend the money, but does anyone tell the organizations about those discussions?

A number of witnesses appearing here have told us that they have no idea how the money was spent.

[Hubert Lussier]

I will say two things about that.

First, some provinces are more transparent than others.

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

I like hearing that.

[Hubert Lussier]

I won't say any more.

Second, we have to remember that, when we invest $1 in a given area of provincial activity, it is very likely that the province itself is investing an amount far in excess of ours. That means that the one federal dollar is hard to trace when there are ten others from the province.

At the end of the day, have $11 been invested? Or $10 or $12?

We rely on the reports signed by the competent provincial authorities who tell us that the federal dollar was invested where it was supposed to be.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Samson, you have the floor.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Thank you.

I have a lot of questions to ask, but not a lot of time. So I will try to move quickly.

With all due respect to you, the school boards are telling us clearly that they are not being brought into the game. As organizations, they are covered by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. So they should be able to enjoy a certain independence and to share their priorities with you directly. We should be able to identify direct funding for them.

I am reading the report of the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages, published in 2005. That is 12 years ago. It is clear to me that the status quo is no longer working. I quote from one of the recommendations:

That the federal government and its partners develop a new framework for the administration of the Official Languages in Education Program…

So that should perhaps come out of the roadmap. It also recommends:

…reviewing the process of negotiation of the protocol and the involvement of the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada;

As well as:

…ensuring the direct participation of French-language school boards in the negotiation of education agreements;

Twelve years later, zero. No progress. This is a major concern. Reading on, I see that it recommends:

…separating minority-language and second-language programs in the negotiation of education protocols and agreements;

Today, 28 school boards across Canada are complaining loudly, as are their communities. Do not forget the three pillars in your roadmap: education, immigration—which is also falling short because we are not even close to the target—and communities. The educators and the communities of our world are saying:

“We're not in the game.”

They are not in the game. They should be in it as partners, as signatories. We need accountability. I know that you are doing good work on that, but it is my opinion that the Treasury Board sees the reports from federal institutions, as my colleague has just said, and, I gather, does not consider reports from the commissioners at all. So institutions can say what they like, but when others say that that is a problem, it should be considered in the reports.

The Fédération nationale des conseils scolaires, which represents all French-speaking school boards outside Quebec and which represents all francophone students in official language communities across Canada, says that it must be in the game. School boards want to be signatories in a tripartite model.

What is your opinion about that? Quickly, if you please.

[Hubert Lussier]

With all due respect, sir, our opinion matters little. Our efforts and actions to get the best results possible matter a lot. That is our duty. How are we managing the files? What advice are we giving to the minister? What are we doing?

First of all, as you know, we have constant conversations with the French-language school boards, as represented by the Fédération nationale des conseils scolaires. We will be meeting them in a few days—tomorrow actually—and we are perfectly up to speed on their positions. We reflect them in the discussions we have with the provinces. We also have a colleague who, as we speak, is holding discussions with the ministry of education in each province.

As you know, we hold discussions with ministries of education and school board representatives together, as much as possible. It is not always accepted by some provinces and we regret that. We have instituted mechanisms allowing three-way talks to be held in a tripartite committee. The mechanism goes back a decade or so, and allows the provinces, the French-language school boards, and ourselves from the Department of Canadian Heritage to take part in discussions on major issues.

We are going to continue to move those discussions forward with a view to involving and consulting with school boards in as rigorous a way as possible. At the end of the day, the fact remains that the agreements we sign are with provincial and territorial authorities.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Mr. Lussier, I should respectfully say that I am not talking about individuals, but about the system.

Tripartite agreements work with First Nations. You have the provinces, the federal government, and the First Nations. They are asking for the same thing. They are an institution under the charter.

I often hear that the problem is that provinces have jurisdiction in this area. I have a solution that may interest you.

Why could there not be an agreement between the feds and the Fédération nationale des conseils scolaires? That would deal with education. Then there would be a second MOU, the one that already exists, between the feds and the provinces. In that way, there would be horizontal accountability with the school boards and the provinces. There would be two MOUs: one between the feds and the school boards and the other, which already exists, between the feds and the provinces.

I am not talking about Nova Scotia. Our way worked well, but things can still be improved. Last month, I spent two days with school boards from all over Canada. They are not in the game. The status quo is no longer acceptable. As a government, it is our responsibility to take action on this. I know that it may not necessarily be the officials’ responsibility. I put that to you as a recommendation. It’s 2016; the time for action has come.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you for your suggestions, Mr. Samson.

We now move to Mr. Choquette.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Gentlemen, the reason you are here today is because I asked you to appear before us. You may remember that.

I must say that I'm a little disappointed with the presentation, because I wanted to know more about your accountability framework. I understand how it works in technical terms, but I do not have the figures on accountability yet.

Can you provide the committee with all the documents, databases and other public sources that include the financial results for the official languages programs? That is what we need. I understand that you cannot give us all of that today, but please do that research and forward it to the committee. That will enlighten us.

We started doing some research, but we could not find all the information, because it’s complicated. We were not able to find many of the documents. I want you to send it to the committee so that we can better understand and analyze all that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

That will be addressed to the clerk.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Of course, not to me directly. It will enlighten all the members of the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Very well.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Let's go back to the much touted accountability framework that the Commissioner of Official Languages mentioned. You have established the framework, but it is secret. The commissioner said that it not being public makes it difficult to evaluate the performance of official languages programs.

As MPs, how can we do our work if your frame of reference is not public? Why isn’t it?

[Jean-Pierre Gauthier]

As we said earlier, the framework itself is part of a Treasury Board submission. However, the evaluations or all of its components are accessible to the government, including the horizontal evaluation and risk management strategies. The framework is the recipe, but all the content is clearly accessible.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

What I am referring to is what the Commissioner of Official Languages said. There used to be a horizontal management framework, which was public. It was not perfect, but there was one in the first two roadmaps. Afterwards, it disappeared. It took several years to get one. You have finally developed one, but it’s secret. The commissioner asks that it be made public. Those are not my words.

[Hubert Lussier]

We will make it public. We have permission.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Thank you very much; that is very good news.

I would like to talk about the reports produced by federal institutions. The Treasury Board reports take the form of questionnaires, which you referred to earlier. These are self-evaluations that are short or long. However, as you mentioned, they are not made public and generally do not contain financial information either.

Given that the assessments are not made public and that, worse yet, financial data are not necessarily present in the reports, tell me how members of Parliament, citizens or members of official language minority communities could ensure that the parts for which you are responsible are respected?

[Marc Tremblay]

Mr. Chair, first of all, I would like to make a correction. I indicated that the reports with the responses provided by the federal institutions to the questionnaire sent by the Treasury Board Secretariat are public documents. In fact, the federal institutions forward them to the clerks of parliamentary committees under policy requirements. They are also forwarded to the Commissioner of Official Languages. So those documents are fully transparent.

As to whether financial information is included, the purpose of the document is not financial accountability. Other financial planning reports are public documents and reflect the financial planning and public accountability of federal institutions.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Tremblay, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but time is running out. I understand your answer. Thank you very much. I'll check it out.

Is it not true that there are no official languages requirements for reports on plans and priorities and departmental performance reports?