Official Languages Committee on Nov. 29th, 2016

[Jean-Pierre Gauthier]

We have a number of possibilities. To spare you too many details, I would say that we are trying to influence rather than coerce, rather than exercise authority that is questionable from a constitutional point of view.

I fully understand the subsection you have read. If we refer to the Official Languages Act, a section in part VII calls upon us to respect the jurisdiction of the provinces as part of the implementation of our commitment. Beyond this constraint-based approach and the exercise of any authority, I think we are very successful in convincing the provinces, in working with them, in supporting them in their progress and in promoting them, as well as in supporting civil society, including community organizations, to build and advance their demands in order to convince a larger number and to improve the situation.

In the last 10, 15 and 20 years—the 1982 charter, which is a little over 30 years old—progress has been phenomenal in terms of the number of school boards, schools and places in official language minority schools.

Huge progress has been made, especially through support, the power of influence and the ability to convince the provinces to move forward. It is not only a matter for the federal government, but for society as a whole, including official language minority communities. It is true that challenges went all the way to the Supreme Court and also helped settle major issues. So it's a combination of approaches.

The preferred tool in our toolkit is a set of incentives available to the provinces, with financial participation from the federal government in order to have those rights recognized and enforced.

[Hubert Lussier]

I would like to add one point, namely the court challenges program, which will be reinstated. For a number of years, it has survived in the form of the language rights support program, which has been used by many school boards to advance the interpretation of rights, including the one for section 23 of the charter.

[René Arseneault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Mr. Lussier, I know you are reluctant to give us your opinion, but I consider you an expert on official languages. If I had to go to court and bring an expert on the matter, it would be you. Everyone would recognize you as such because of your years of experience. Could your office, or someone on your team—you lead a large team—look at a way to respect provincial jurisdictions while doing stuff even more quickly?

Personally, I am part of an invisible minority, I am not from Quebec, I am a francophone outside Quebec. Francophone minorities outside Quebec are the ones who suffer and pay the price. This is a tremendous tragedy and the effects are multiplying. When you cannot get things done, the effects are felt over a number of years, whether in terms of birth rate, or even for children who will never be able to attend a French school in grade 1. It is devastating.

Has your office studied some way, by using the sections of the charter and of the Official Languages Act, to thread your way into respecting provincial jurisdictions in order to act more quickly? Is there a way to do so, and do we have the means for it?

[Jean-Pierre Gauthier]

In fact, the position we're taking now is to respect—

[René Arseneault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

I get that; you do not use coercion.

[Jean-Pierre Gauthier]

We respect the exclusive jurisdiction of the provinces over education. Right now, we cannot allow ourselves to intervene in a top-down way, so we are going back to our incentive approach. That's the school of thought we have long been following in terms of language rights, particularly in education.

[Hubert Lussier]

It hasn't stopped us from doing things that the provinces did not always like. The creation of the tripartite committee I mentioned was a hard sell, as they say.

We had to convince the provinces, which were very reluctant, to sit down with us—from the Department of Canadian Heritage—and with the school boards, to discuss common issues.

That has led to joint projects, which I think have advanced the objective you have stated. We have funded, often through the Fédération nationale des conseils scolaires francophones, projects in which some provinces have partnered to explore some avenues: how to improve recruitment and promotion campaigns to find parents who are rights holders, develop early childhood programs and the whole issue of cultural support, which was largely designed in these discussions.

We are still in discussions today. I do not want to say anything different from Mr. Gauthier, but we are constantly reflecting on how to support progress. Some of the suggestions we get from school boards complicate our lives. Mr. Samson's question is constantly before us. We are giving it some thought. We must respect the jurisdiction of the provinces. At the same time, however, I will not hide the fact that we are looking for solutions or mechanisms for new architectural arrangements through which school boards may be more involved in making decisions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you very much, Mr. Lussier.

[Arsenault]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

We'll take a break for a few minutes and then continue. Mrs. Boucher and Mr. Choquette will be the first two members to ask questions after the break.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

We'll resume the meeting right away.

I'll turn the floor over to Mrs. Boucher.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, everyone. I have a number of questions.

I think your job is quite difficult. It is true that this seems complex for organizations. We do not always understand the numbers and we get mixed up, because we hear little or nothing about accountability.

We've talked a lot about education, and about protocols with the provinces. I submit a point raised by Mr. Choquette; for once, I agree with him. As a member of this committee, I have a great deal of difficulty understanding why the organizations or witnesses appearing before us often do not have access to those numbers. We're having trouble receiving them. I realize that, with the Treasury Board, it is even more difficult to get an overview of what is being done in terms of official languages.

On page 3, you explain the Treasury Board's responsibilities and duties in relation to official languages in terms of general direction and coordination. As the Treasury Board, do you know which departments are more problematic than others? You must know that.

Canadian Heritage is responsible for official languages, but there is also Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, Health Canada, and Environment and Climate Change Canada. Which of those departments are less likely to meet or will not meet their bilingualism goals?

[Marc Tremblay]

Departments and federal institutions report separately on their performance according to the requirements of Treasury Board policies. So it is possible to check each one's data.

Clearly, the president's report deals with the application of the act as a whole, for horizontal coordination, and provides the overall picture of the institutions. However, for all the data in the 14 or 15 statistical graphs, there are department-specific data that can be examined.

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

Could those graphs be given to the committee for reference?

Right now, we are working on immigration. We have heard a lot about immigration matters. If we had more data, we would have a fuller picture of the departments that are more problematic than others in terms of official languages. That would help us a lot in our work.

[Marc Tremblay]

It might be helpful for you to tell us which data you need. Otherwise, we would have to provide you with hundreds and thousands of pages of documents or reports for the 200 federal institutions.

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

Right. We can discuss it later. It would be interesting to get this information from the Treasury Board. It would give us a good picture of the departments that are more problematic.

I'll come back to Mr. Lussier and Mr. Gauthier.

I was the parliamentary secretary for official languages 10 years ago. I see now that, even after all this time, we are still having the same discussions, even though things have improved.

How can we ensure that we don't have this discussion anymore? How can we, at the federal level, make it clear, with your help, that both official languages are essential to Canada's vitality, period?

We also need to make clear the importance of the vitality of linguistic minorities. I'm from Quebec. When you're from Quebec, you have the impression that you're fighting. However, it's important to look at the situation in the other provinces with francophone residents. Mr. Samson, Mr. Lefebvre, Mr. Arseneault, Mr. Vandal and Mr. Boissonnault's situations come to mind. They are in francophone minorities. So they are fighting even more than we can in Quebec, or at least to the same extent as the anglophone minority in Quebec.

How can we make people understand how important the vitality of our francophone communities is?

[Hubert Lussier]

I don't want to sound pessimistic, but I think it will always be necessary to do support and clarification work with the various departments.

I speak from experience because I haven't always been immersed in official languages. I did other things in my life. When you're at Health Canada, Industry Canada or another department, you think your mandate is health or economic development, and you're fully committed to it. It isn't obvious to everyone that health and economic development also has a dimension related to official languages.

We are all—every one of us around this table—responsible for this work. If the young public servant who comes to a department with an economic, social or other vocation does not come from a minority community or was not immersed in that environment, he or she will not know. That young public servant could, at some point, become a director or director general.

This is our role, and we are putting structures in place for this. I think that proselytizing will constantly be required.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you, Mr. Lussier.

We will start a three-minute round of questions with Mr. Choquette.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will try to be brief because three minutes isn't long.

I would like to come back to what you just said, Mr. Lussier, about the importance of all departments. Coordinating all of this is your responsibility, at the Treasury Board and within Canadian Heritage. I think if you had an official languages requirement for reports on plans and priorities, for instance, that would help you greatly. It could lead them to think for themselves.

Have you ever thought about that in your meetings with CADMOL, for instance? Why are there no specific requirements in departmental reports, plans and priorities or performance reports?

[Jean-Pierre Gauthier]

We're talking about a very specific discussion; we're talking about the reports as such. At this level, we are going to discuss transparency among ourselves. We look at our accountability, we present these instruments, and that leads to a discussion. The format requirements for the reports, which must be included, and so on, are clearly within the purview of the Treasury Board.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

That's right.

Have you done any reflection, research or studies on this?

[Marc Tremblay]

Some colleagues at the Treasury Board Secretariat are responsible for the Centre of Excellence for Evaluation. New policies on results are being developed and will be in place soon.

As for accountability to parliamentarians for spending, there is a question of the effective presentation of information. This information applies to all federal programming, which gives a picture of the results for all federal programs at a level of detail that is intended for all of these programs.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Tremblay, I would like to support the remarks of John Nater, who said that requesting triennial studies was foolish. This should be done annually.

Tables on your website show all data under horizontal initiatives. However, the sources to be consulted are not indicated for the total amount of investment for the program in question. When it published the annual report, Canadian Heritage says it does not have the data.

Let's talk about horizontal initiatives. Basically, we see that the total indicated for certain initiatives—notably those that fall within the official languages support programs—does not represent the total expenditure. Then, we see that there are others, but we cannot find them. It's similar to what we were saying earlier.

What should we do to improve this, so that we have the full picture for people working in official language communities?

[Jean-Pierre Gauthier]

That's a very good question. We've had the opportunity to talk about it a few times already.

I'd like to go back to official languages support programs. Part of the funding for these programs is associated with the roadmap, and part of their historical funding precedes even the 2003 action plan, which isn't reflected in the roadmap total. It's a bit protracted, and we hope to be able to clarify this because it unnecessarily complicates the discussions.

There are also activities related to official languages that are not captured. Think about Radio-Canada/CBC. It isn't in the roadmap, but doesn't it play a role? The Translation Bureau isn't in the roadmap, either, except for the Language Portal of Canada.

So we decided in the roadmap to present a set of initiatives devoted to official languages. It's important, but there are also a lot of things that are done with regard to official languages in other programs of general application, and it is very difficult to extract this information.

The purpose of this cautionary note is, basically, to keep those things in mind. There is a pesky technicality for official languages support programs, but we have to live with that. As for the federal system as a whole, there are other things that are related to official languages that are not part of the roadmap.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you.

Mr. Samson, you have three minutes.