Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Chair, members of the committee, thank you for inviting the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada to speak to you this morning about the issues related to the census as a tool for the enumeration of rights-holders under section 23 of the charter.
Let me begin with a question that statistician Jean-Pierre Corbeil asked last week. In his presentation, Mr. Corbeil stated that the census serves to enumerate rights-holders under section 23(1)a) of the charter only, that is, by their first language learned and still understood. He then stated the following:
The question is how this one piece of information is relevant to the intended goal.
To answer this question, let us consider the projections published a few weeks ago by Statistics Canada regarding the evolution of immigration and the official languages in Canada by 2036. One of the findings that emerges from these projections is that, as the share of immigrants in Canada's population increases, the proportion of Canadians whose first language is French or English decreases.
We are already seeing this trend in our communities. In my network of contacts, in Manitoba, there is Lassana, originally from Mali, whose first language is not French, but who uses French every day. He speaks French to his wife, who is Chilean and Spanish-speaking. Their daughter attends a French-language school. Technically, they are rights-holders, even though French is neither his nor her first language.
Examples like Lassana and his wife are increasingly common in all parts of the country. They are not exceptions, but rather the new face of Francophone communities that are evolving and becoming more diverse. That is the daily reality in a number of our communities. Identifying a francophone was no doubt much easier in 1982, when the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms came into force. It is much more difficult today since a growing number of people who were not born in Canada or who have a different mother tongue still live their lives in French. Linguistically-mixed couples are no longer just francophone and anglophone, but also those who speak French and another language.
In this context, it would be tempting to say that using a single question about mother tongue as a way of enumerating rights-holders is in a sense the same as saying that the legislative intent of the charter was to establish a rigid definition of who is a francophone. That of course was not the legislative intent, which is why section 23 includes a number of subsections, which must be interpreted broadly, in keeping with the spirit of the charter, namely, to guarantee that people living in a French-language minority community can receive their education in French.
Section 23 establishes eligibility conditions that encompass the majority of rights-holders, but, after three decades, the Government of Canada has not yet developed the necessary tools to properly identify or enumerate all those individuals. We point this out because, in 2017, using mother tongue as the only criterion is no longer tenable.
The only tool available to resolve this issue is still the census. That is why, from census to census, francophone and Acadian communities mobilize to address this issue. As Francophone communities in Canada become more complex, it is only natural to review the census occasionally in order to determine whether it still accurately captures these communities.
To return to section 23, one could elicit more useful information if the current questions about language were reworked. For example, asking the questions “In what language were you educated?” and “In what language were your parents educated?” would identify not only those individuals whose mother tongue is not one of our official languages, but who were educated in French, in part or entirely, as well as those who are sometimes called “francophones from the lost generation”. I am referring to parents who were educated in English although their parents had been educated in French. Enumerating these individuals to allow them to enrol their children in a French-language school would be consistent with the corollary objective of section 23 as a form of reparation, an objective that has been recognized by the courts.
More broadly speaking, the prevailing demographic trends call for a review of the way in which francophones are enumerated in Canada.
We support the recommendation made by the Association canadienne-française de l'Alberta two weeks ago that the question about mother tongue should be changed to make it clear to Canadians that they do not have to choose between French and English in their answer. That is just part of the equation, however. There is an appetite for a definition, a measurement tool, that would make it possible to identify everyone who truly lives in French in Canada, regardless of their heritage, mother tongue or the circumstances in which they live in French.
This appetite is reflected in the inclusive definition of a francophone that has been put forward by the Ontario government. This is not a simple issue and, since we are not statisticians, we do not have any magic solutions to offer you today. Thought must be given to this issue, which is complex because francophone communities are complex in 2017.
Before I conclude, I would like to share some more general thoughts about access to French-language schools. In recent years, there have been at least two cases of disputes between a school board and a government pertaining to access to a French-language school. These cases are now before the courts. In the case of the French-language schools in the Northwest Territories, the NWT court of appeal ruled two years ago that governments are entirely justified in controlling admission to minority-language schools, in view of the costs involved. The court also ruled that the charter right to French-language education applies to Canadian citizens and therefore excludes immigrants. Taken together, these two aspects could considerably reduce enrolment at our schools and be detrimental to our communities.
In another case involving school rights in Yukon, the Supreme Court confirmed that governments have the power to control access to minority-language schools. We have noted this. That said, perhaps the federal government should encourage the provinces and territories to interpret section 23 broadly, generously, and in a way that is consistent with the legislative intent. Considering that immigration accounts for more than 15% of the population in our communities, it would be very harmful for governments to use a narrow interpretation that bars access for permanent or even temporary residents from French-speaking countries, on the pretext that they are not Canadian citizens.
Thank you for your attention and I will be pleased to take your questions.