Evidence of meeting #47 for Official Languages in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was schools.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Denis Paradis
Colleagues, we are ready to begin. I now call the meeting to order.
Before we go any further, I have a budget request for you. The motion reads as follows:
That the proposed budget in the amount of $12,300, for the study of the issues related to the enumeration of rights-holders under section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, be adopted.
The expense form provided by the clerk proposes a $12,300 budget for this study. Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the budget?
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
Mr. Chair, I have a question.
I see on the form the “witness expenses” section. Is that for witnesses who will come to meet with the committee?
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Denis Paradis
Okay.
The budget is adopted, then.
Pursuant to Standing Order 108, the committee is resuming its study of the issues related to the enumeration of rights-holders under section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
It's our pleasure to have with us today the Quebec Community Groups Network with Geoff Chambers, vice-president, and Sylvia Martin-Laforge, director general.
Also joining us, from the Quebec English School Boards Association, we have executive director Marcus Tabachnick, accompanied by another official.
Each group will have 10 minutes for their presentation. We will then proceed with questions and comments from the committee members.
Let's get started with the people from the Quebec Community Groups Network.
Geoffrey Chambers Vice-President, Quebec Community Groups Network
Good morning, Mr. Paradis, Mr. Nater, and Mr. Choquette.
Good morning, members of the Standing Committee on Official Languages. I'm Geoffrey Chambers, vice-president of the Quebec Community Groups. With me today is our director general, Sylvia Martin-Laforge.
Members of this committee are intimately familiar with the central role that education institutions play in the preservation of our official languages minority communities. Some of you have had leadership positions in these institutions, others have children enrolled in a minority system, and all of you continue to demonstrate an interest in and an understanding of the challenges these systems face, and in exploring ways in which the federal partner can help them survive.
The QCGN is here today to lend our support to the recommendations of the Quebec English School Boards Association and Fédération nationale des conseils scolaires francophones on how the census can be improved to improve planning and aid policy development in support of linguistic minority school systems. Both organizations have pointed out the importance of reliable, objective data on the numbers of rights holders under section 23 of the charter. This is data that is not always in the province's or territory's interest to collect.
Without doubt, a linguistic minority community cannot exist without schools that it manages and controls and without the structures that are required to manage and control those schools. It can neither manage nor control these institutions, nor hold provinces and territories to account, without accurate data that reflect our minority language education rights as defined in section 23 of the charter.
We offer the following recommendations to the committee for its study on the enumeration of section 23 rights holders.
One, focus on identifying and enumerating current and future rights holders. Do not get sidetracked in this exercise into investigating who is or is not a member of the English- or French-speaking communities in various provinces. These are also important questions, but definitional discussions that are accompanying the Treasury Board's current official language regulatory review should focus on rights holders. Data regarding minority language education is useful only when rights holders are solely evaluated. In other words, we can't make a recommendation or an argument to our provincial governments based on data that is not symmetrical with the rules of access. We do care about the rules of access, and under other circumstances we might be talking to you about them, but in regard to what we're hoping the census can provide for us, it is data on rights holders that is vital and that is not currently collected and not available to us from other sources.
Two, Statistics Canada must seek competent legal opinion in designing questions that enumerate section 23 rights holders. The resulting opinion must be publicly available to help all stakeholders in the discussion, including you, understand the complexity of minority language education rights. If you do not know who current and future rights holders are, how can you count them, and then how can you argue for services that they are going to require? Investment and establishment of resources can only be done efficiently if the data is good.
Three, during Tuesday's committee hearing, Monsieur Généreux asked Statistics Canada about the feasibility of adding a question to determine parental language of instruction preference for their children. We think this is a very interesting idea that should be pursued.
QCGN has a close relationship with Statistics Canada, which has an excellent consultation record with our community. We look forward to working with them on the questions that arise from our need to understand the matters that are being studied by the committee.
Thank you for today's invitation. I look forward to working with this committee and all that it does to support Canada's English and French linguistic minority communities.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Denis Paradis
Thank you very much, Mr. Chambers.
We'll go now to Association des commissions scolaires anglophones du Québec.
Marcus.
Marcus Tabachnick Executive Director, Quebec English School Boards Association
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Vice-Chairman, and members of the committee, I am Marcus Tabachnick—not that easy to say, but that's what it is—executive director of the Quebec English School Boards Association.
First and foremost, on behalf of our president, who unfortunately got bogged down with car problems on the way here and is not able to make it today, the Quebec English School Boards Association thanks you for the invitation to appear before this committee to discuss the study on enumeration of rights holders under section 23 of the Canadian charter.
The Quebec English School Boards Association welcomes this opportunity to engage in a discussion with you on a topic that is so critical to our minority community. We stated in our previous appearance before this committee how important it is to consult with the English community of Quebec and for us to be fully recognized as a minority language community as defined by the Canadian Constitution and the Charter of Rights. We must remind you that the Province of Quebec does not recognize our status as a minority language community, so these opportunities to meet with you are of special importance to us.
Our association represents the nine school boards plus one special status school board in Quebec, composed of approximately 340 schools and just under 100,000 students.
Education is not only the cornerstone of any society, it is the key element for the vitality and longevity of minority language communities. Our community is struggling to maintain our institutions and even our critical mass. Our rights in education are entrenched. The fragility of our community, though, is heightened by the fact that Quebec refuses to sign on to paragraph 23(1)(a) of the charter, which would provide some much-needed access to our schools to help maintain them, especially our small schools outside of the major urban areas.
We cannot overemphasize the importance of reliable data on the number of rights holders who are in Quebec under section 23. In Quebec, over roughly a 45-year period, or since about 1971, our school population in the English sector has declined from over 250,000 students to 99,500 today, or about 100,000 students, which represents about a 60% drop in enrolment.
The bigger problem for us is that our youth sector continues to decline. Currently our adult and vocational sectors are growing and keeping our numbers stable, but it is our youth sector that is going to sustain our system, not the adult sector.
The current data gathered is not necessarily representative for our minority community when gauging English public schooling eligible families. The Supreme Court of Canada has been clear in indicating that section 23 rights are applicable where numbers warrant. Given the numbers and size of the English community in Quebec, we are entitled to the maximum service given for education in any province.
We also have many different cultural communities in the province, and when asked, these communities would more than likely deem the English language as their preferred day-to-day language but not necessarily as their language spoken at home or the first language learned.
We never have a proper estimate, not only for our community as a whole, but more specifically for our education institutions, when seeking English eligible students. Many rights holders choose to send their children to French schools, private schools, or religious schools, and never apply for a certificate of eligibility for English education. It's based on the numbers of certificates of eligibility that the numbers of potential rights holders are provided to us as data from the Quebec government. As such, many Quebec children are never counted as potentially eligible. Of course, this has a long-term effect on planning, on the school distribution plans we prepare, and, of course, on any outreach or marketing efforts we make to engage people into our system.
The current census does not properly represent an accurate count of the minority rights holders under section 23, and it is the only form we can use as a base for the number of English eligible children in Quebec.
We need to be able to identify our potential clientele. The census does not currently include a question to parents on their own language of instruction and whether it was completed in Canada, including whether they completed elementary or secondary in English or French.
Reliable data on the number of children with at least one parent with rights under section 23 are necessary in order for the purpose of that provision to be fulfilled. The Supreme Court of British Columbia in a ruling last fall deemed that the Province of British Columbia had to collect that type of data. It is clear, however, that the simplest, most effective, and most reliable way to provide access to such data is through the federal census.
Moreover, such data should be collected for the entire country to provide numbers of rights holders in specific areas such as school catchment areas, which only the federal census can do. Therefore, the Government of Canada through the census is the level of government in the best position to ensure that minority school boards and also provincial and territorial governments have reliable data on the number of rights holders.
We're suggesting three potential areas for questions: language spoken at home and mother tongue; whether either or both parents' education was in English in Canada and to what level, whether elementary, secondary, or post secondary; and the number of landed immigrants or new Canadians who have had their education in English outside of Canada.
As we build a case for better access to English schools, that's the type of data we'll need in order to make those arguments for the long-term vitality and viability of our English school network.
Again, we thank you and we look forward to the exchange with you and to continuing discussions into the future.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Denis Paradis
Thank you very much for your presentation.
We'll start this round of questions or commentaries with Bernard Généreux.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, witnesses, for being here this morning.
Thank you for saying I had a good idea. The question I had asked Mr. Corbeil was about kind of a survey question.
Of course, as he said, it's a two-sided knife, or whatever is the expression in English.
Vice-President, Quebec Community Groups Network
It's a double-edged sword.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Okay.
It's because you would get some data and it would put the emphasis on what the people want. Of course, if you ask someone what they want, they're probably going to tell you more what they would like to have but they are not necessarily allowed to have it, and that's the difference.
Mr. Corbeil didn't really agree. He was afraid of what he could get as data if he were to ask a question like this.
Vice-President, Quebec Community Groups Network
Well, there's no question that it could capture a certain portion of the population who aren't rights holders but who would like to be rights holders. I don't think that data is irrelevant to the discussion, so I do think it could create some confusion and challenge to some traditional positions. But I don't think if it's truly the state of play politically, in terms of community individual positioning regarding language questions, that those are bad facts to have on the table, because deciding that we don't want to know that isn't constructive.
So I think you're approaching it correctly. Solving the policy questions that arise from that is a long-term project, but we're going to address those policy questions anyway, so why not do it with facts?
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Exactly what would you change in the survey or in the collection of data in order to get more efficient data?
Vice-President, Quebec Community Groups Network
We think a question of the sort that you suggested would make sense. Getting more deeply into the technical matter of how to structure such a question is something we try to be careful about. We know that structuring census questions is a technical matter that Statistics Canada is very good at, and we don't have that kind of academic background. We wouldn't want to be the party responsible for drafting the actual question. I think getting at the facts in that area would provide us with useful information.
As I think we mentioned in our presentation, we have a high degree of trust in Census Canada. If they're given the instruction to do this, they'll know how to do it, and they'll do a good job of it.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Mr. Tabachnick, I was going to ask you a question about the numbers you gave us with regard to the decline from 250,000 to 100,000. Over how many years did this happen, and was this in the seventies?
Executive Director, Quebec English School Boards Association
It was from the seventies.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
In the seventies a lot of people flew to Toronto after the—
Executive Director, Quebec English School Boards Association
There are all kinds of reasons behind it. In the 1970s, when there weren't the same restrictions there are today, about 55,000 of that population were what today we would call non-English non-French allophones, and about another 30,000 were actually French-speaking families who chose to send their children to English schools. You had 175,000 or so students who today would still qualify under the current rules, and then you had the mix of the others. We just don't have access to the others any longer.
So yes, people left Quebec. Many English-speaking people did leave Quebec, but that population has fallen by more than 50%. If you take out the adult section of our school board, you're looking at about an 80,000 to 85,000 youth sector compared to 175,000 previously.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
People say that most youth in Quebec are more bilingual than they have ever been before. Do you think it's true?
Executive Director, Quebec English School Boards Association
It's absolutely true. You just have to spend a few minutes in many of our playgrounds and you'll see that our children and young people are speaking on one side to a friend in English, on the other side to a friend in French, and over there to a friend in another language, even.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Why do you think that kind of situation has happened among the youth, mostly in Montreal or maybe a little bit in Quebec as well, but I think in Montreal mostly? Is it because of the immigrants, or what would be the reason our children are more bilingual than ever?
Executive Director, Quebec English School Boards Association
We're a system that has to respond to the needs of the families we serve. There is a need. In order for us to keep our young people in Quebec, they have to be able to speak and live and work in the French language. The English system has gone to great lengths to ensure that there is a good bilingual program in every school. We have all versions of bilingual programs, including intensive, which starts from kindergarten.