Official Languages Committee on Feb. 7th, 2018

[Bryan Michaud]

I will answer, considering that I was mostly the one who held the discussions.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Could you answer quickly, please?

[Bryan Michaud]

Yes. It is almost one-third for francophone newspapers, one-third for francophone radio stations and one-third for anglophone media.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Okay.

We agree that an amount of $1.8 million is not earth-shattering. We are not talking about billions, but $1.8 million.

Do you know whether anyone in the government has heard your request for the funding? Has the minister already heard you?

[Carol Jolin]

We made presentations. Just last week, we met with Ms. Joly.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

That's good.

I agree that the media in minority settings must receive help, in whatever shape or form. I have no problem with that.

Recently, the government decided not to tax Netflix, or the distributors actually. Since the governments' advertising revenue goes to these companies outside the country, they do not want to tax them for the services they provide to all Canadians. For you, the opposite is true; when you sell advertising, you have to tax your clients.

[Carol Jolin]

Yes.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

You want additional money. At the same time, the government decides not to tax those in which it invests money that it used to give you. The money you are requesting could come from taxing those companies. That would actually help you.

We are talking about additional expenditures, and you are not the only ones asking the government for money, of course. However, you make no recommendation about the revenue. Would it be appropriate to recommend going and collecting revenue from those companies? Does your white paper have a recommendation for getting additional revenue somewhere?

[Carol Jolin]

Certainly, recommendations need to head in that direction. The white paper had already appeared when the whole Netflix story came out.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

So you would agree that the government should force the customers of those companies—the companies are not the ones being taxed, but the customers—to also be taxed for the services they receive. Basically, there is no reason why those people are not taxed either.

[Carol Jolin]

We are still waiting for the spinoffs. From the amount of money that will be invested, how much will go to things being done in French?

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

In closing, I will say that the BBC taxes every household with a TV $261 a year. The people therefore have to pay for the television signal that, in Canada, is subsidized much more significantly than Radio-Canada.

So there's a fundamental difference because there is a specific tax on the service, to ensure that revenue goes to that company.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you very much for your comments, Mr. Généreux.

My thanks to the witnesses for enlightening the committee. Thank you very much for coming to meet with us today.

[Carol Jolin]

Thank you for having us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

On everyone's behalf, many thanks.

We are now going to suspend the meeting for a few minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

If you don't mind, we are going to continue the meeting.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3), we are continuing our study of the review of literacy and numeracy support programs in Canada.

We are pleased to receive Monika Bertrand, Director General, Employment Program Policy and Design Directorate, Department of Employment and Social Development, as well as Éric Perreault, Manager, Office of Literacy and Essential Skills.

Ms. Bertrand, Mr. Perreault, welcome to the committee.

We will continue, as we always do, by giving you 10 minutes for your presentation. We will then go around the table so that the members of the committee can ask you questions and make comments.

Ms. Bertrand, the floor is yours.

[Monika Bertrand, Director General, Employment Program Policy and Design Directorate, Department of Employment and Social Development]

Good afternoon and thank you very much, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.

My colleague and I are pleased today to have the privilege of addressing the Standing Committee on Official Languages, especially on such an important topic as the development of skills in official language minority communities (OLMCs).

Joining me is Éric Perreault, the department expert in terms of programming, literacy and essential skills, and also in commitment with our partners, including OLMCs. In addition, as you can see from the department's commitment in the 2013-2018 Roadmap, the vitality of official language minority communities is a very important issue.

Today, I would like to tell you a little about our department's commitment to the roadmap, but especially the commitment of our branch, the importance of essential skills for the job market and the vitality of OLMCs, the strategic changes over the years, and the next steps.

The department has invested about $80 million over five years to support three initiatives that are part of the roadmap: the Enabling Fund for Official Language Minority Communities, the Social Partnership Initiative in OLMCs—in which we are interested a little more today, since it is our expertise—and the Literacy and Essential Skills Initiative in OLMCs.

Literacy and essential skills programs seek to replicate good practices for skills upgrading. We are also investing in innovative approaches to improve the quality of employment and training supports. We do not provide services. Under the most recent roadmap, the activities funded under this initiative focus on workplace essential skills.

I would like to talk about the importance of the link between employment and essential skills. Most Canadians, two-thirds, work and participate in the labour force. They are working or want to work. According to the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, the only program that assesses the skill level of individuals, employed Canadians have higher literacy skills than those who are unemployed, and they also achieve better results than Canadians who are not part of the labour force.

We talk a lot about level 2. Level 2 literacy is the minimum desirable for learning and working. There is therefore a very strong correlation between employment and skill levels.

For Canadians in the labour force, it is also known that those with higher essential skills perform better in the labour market. We know that people with a higher essential skills are more successful in finding a job. Their incomes are higher. We also know that some jobs are requiring increasingly higher essential skills. However, workers with low skill levels are at greater risk of losing their jobs and being unemployed in the long term. They also have difficulty gaining new skills to transition to other jobs.

Literacy and essential skills are important issues for all Canadians but they are even more so in the context of OLMCs. Those living in official language minority communities tend not to obtain as good results as other Canadians.

At national level, depending on their geography, almost 52% of francophones outside Quebec have level 2 or below in literacy.

However, there are also regional differences. Some differences are clearer than others. In New Brunswick, for example, there are significant differences compared to the national level. Factors such as age, gender and level of education in general increase the gap between the two language groups.

The Government of Canada's commitment under the roadmap is intended to strengthen the vitality of official language minority communities. I think that we can all agree that economic development is a key element in developing and maintaining that vitality. Efforts to stimulate the economy and take advantage of economic possibilities depend in large part on the ability to attract employers and develop entrepreneurship. The starting point in that equation is access to and development of qualified labour. It is also the quality of life for that community and its members. The vitality is enhanced if the members of that community are employed and have adequate income and good education.

For us, literacy and skills are essential for employment, and to support the development of training programs and essential skills. Those skills form the basis of what employers need in order to prosper and grow.

Over the past years, governments have been placing more and more emphasis on the delivery of results. As part of this increased focus on results, government in general, including Employment and Social Development, has moved numerous programs away from core funding towards project-based funding.

We did that in 2014. We decided to move from core funding to project-based funding, which allows for a broader range of organizations to be given consideration for funding. It improves transparency, because obviously you have to apply for funding. As well, you don't blindly give funds to organizations on an ongoing basis.

Then there's the aspect of reporting on results. When we do project-based funding, we very clearly outline the expectations in agreements. We outline the expected results. We have performance measurement indicators in our agreements, and there's always results reporting.

The elimination of core funding was part of a much broader Government of Canada approach in terms of results and delivery, and was not targeted specifically to any one organization. Of course, when we ended core funding, there was a complaint, an important complaint, launched with the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages. The complaint was that ESDC did not address the literacy needs of OLMCs by failing to recognize the realities and challenges specific to OLMCs and how they differ from those of official language majority communities. The final report of the OCOL was received in October.

ESDC agrees with the recommendations. The recommendations were to reassess its direction and eligibility criteria for literacy and essential skills funding to better take into consideration the specific needs and priorities of OLMCs in this area, and to assess the consequences of eliminating the core funding for RESDAC and its provincial and territorial network and to take appropriate measures to mitigate any negative impact.

We have in the context of this report, but also in the context of our regular evaluation findings.... Of course, this is a very important report, but we always continuously evaluate our programs. Our most recent evaluation said that, with respect to our literacy and essential skills programs, the federal role is very important, there is a need for these types of programs, and that our project results are successful but that more can be done.

More can be done and more must be done. We have already started by working with the University of Ottawa in our engagement. We have asked the research chairs in Canadian francophonie at the University of Ottawa to identify the literacy and essential skills needs of adults living in OLMCs. The final report is expected soon.

We are working with RESDAC. They are leading the impact collectif project. A presentation was made.

We are engaging with RESDAC and other OLMC stakeholders to exchange information in our respective research initiatives.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Ms. Bertrand, let us try to keep a little time for the committee members.

[Monika Bertrand]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Personally, I would like to have heard you speak more about literacy and perhaps a little less about essential skills.

I do not want to set the tone for my colleagues' questions and comments, so let us immediately move to Mr. Généreux.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Perreault and Ms. Bertrand.

Ms. Bertrand, in 2014, did you receive a political directive? If not, did the department decide to make the change and move to project-based funding instead of core funding? You can answer yes or no. Was it a political directive or not? If it was, I will live with the answer. It is not a problem.

[Monika Bertrand]

I think in general there has been an effort to focus on results and delivery. I cannot tell you if it's a political or departmental decision, because I wasn't around at that time. In terms of the focus on results, I think it's sort of a general desire from, I suppose, politicians as well as bureaucrats.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

The desire of the minister was to have results. If I understand correctly, what you just said is that RESDAC and all the other ones, because they're not the only ones that were cut at that time.... Didn't they spend the money correctly? What was the problem with those organizations?

[Éric Perreault, Manager, Office of Literacy and Essential Skills, Department of Employment and Social Development]

If I may, I will make a kind of general comment.

With core funding—and I am not singling out any organization in particular—it is generally much more difficult to express concrete results than when you fund by project.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

What is the difference?