Official Languages Committee on Feb. 16th, 2017

[Marcus Tabachnick]

It's transferable from generation to generation, and it's for all. If one child has it, then they all have access the same way. We encourage families to get an eligibility certificate for every child, because eventually they'll have their own families, and if they have the certificate, their children can make use of it.

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

Okay.

[Geoffrey Chambers]

An eligibility certificate could provide access to a next generation, even if the certificate itself wasn't used. I had a certificate, but I went to a French school even though I could have gone to an English school. But should my kids, under whatever circumstance, go to an English school, then I have the certificate.

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

That's the only way that minority language data is collected in Quebec.

[Geoffrey Chambers]

Yes, and right now, as a practical matter, if I went to a French school, I probably wouldn't bother to go through the quite onerous process of getting the certificate and keeping it for 25 years in order for my kids to have that right, the documentation of the right, which they could actually use. So there is a question around the mechanics, which we could get at with more energy and possibly with some successful dialogue. If we had the data from the census, we could argue with the provincial government that, look, there's a mechanism here that's supposed to have this effect but actually has that effect, and it's not fair to the community. But we can't prove that now.

[Marcus Tabachnick]

The reality is that when you take your five-year-old by the hand to go and register for school, you're not thinking about your potential grandchildren. That's the reality of it, and that's why we need to know how many there are.

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

It does go very fast, I can tell you that.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Marcus Tabachnick]

I know.

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

In effect, the census that's done every four years is of no value to you. Is it of any value at all to English-language minorities in Quebec?

[Geoffrey Chambers]

Speaking from the QCGN point of view, yes, there are lots of other settings in which the census data is very valuable.

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

For minority rights, I mean.

[Geoffrey Chambers]

Yes, well, for official language minority rights, the first language spoken and still understood, there are lots of contexts in which access to services isn't restricted by the access to education principles. If you want to go and get health and social services in the Gaspé in English, that's not based on whether or not you have the certificate. It's based on whether you're more comfortable talking to your doctor—

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

Right.

[Geoffrey Chambers]

The data we have now does support our advocacy in those areas, and it's been very useful, but it doesn't go that far in education.

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

I have one minute left here.

You mentioned that it affects your small communities. The English population, to my knowledge, is in Montreal. Or is it in Montreal? Where is the English population in Quebec?

[Sylvia Martin-Laforge]

There are over 800,000 in Montreal and about 200,000 in the regions.

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

So when you say “small communities”, are you talking about neighbourhoods?

[Sylvia Martin-Laforge]

If you go up to Gaspé, or Rouyn-Noranda, or Métis-sur-Mer, you'll find small communities there, but that's not unlike the francophones in the rest of Canada. It's not to say that Montreal doesn't have challenges.

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

Like Saint Boniface.

[Sylvia Martin-Laforge]

Yes, absolutely.

Our small communities are very similar to small communities in the rest of Canada where there are francophones. We have the same challenges. We have different challenges in Montreal, but there are challenges.

[Geoffrey Chambers]

Our numbers in Montreal, taken as a global number, don't really reflect the differences living in the east end, the West Island, the South Shore, or Laval. It's all different. It's not better or worse. There are ways of supplying resources and support in all the settings, but the settings are quite different.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Nater]

Thank you, Mr. Vandal.

We have to move on, but I'm sure there'll be an opportunity to follow up on this.

[Marcus Tabachnick]

I was just going to say that in terms of small communities, we have schools with as few as 10 students. As I said, two-thirds of our schools are under 200 students. So there are a lot of small communities, and small schools that are serving smaller communities, right across the province.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Nater]

It is now over to you, Mr. Lefebvre.