Mr. Chair, members of the committee, ladies and gentlemen, good morning.
I would like to begin by thanking the committee for its interest in minority-community early childhood services. It is a subject I care deeply about.
As the mother of two young adults raised in British Columbia and an early childhood educator, I have, both personally and professionally, watched the development of French-language early childhood education over the past 20 years. I would like to tell you about my personal experience, which is similar to that of many exogamous families in Vancouver and other parts of the province.
In 1992, Vancouver had no French-language early childhood education to speak of. My children had to attend preschool in English. Without access to any supports, the decision to send my children to French-language school presented a real dilemma. Nevertheless, I decided to enrol them in French-language school, so it was not until they turned five that my children realized that French was a living language. They learned French but never really identified with francophone culture, and today, they do not consider themselves French-speaking Canadians but, rather, francophile English-speaking Canadians.
That is why I strongly believe that French-language preschool services are of paramount importance. Identity is formed at a very young age, and it is a common responsibility to support minority-community families in building their children's identity. My personal experience has shown me that, alone, we cannot successfully pass on our language and culture to our children.
Turning to my work life, I should point out that I am a qualified educator with 20 years of experience. I joined the Tartine et Chocolat Daycare when it opened in 2009. Our day care is an incorporated not-for-profit organization managed by an association of volunteer parents, with the support of the Fédération des parents francophones de Colombie-Britannique.
Tartine et Chocolat provides French-language day care for children aged 3 to 5, preparing them for French elementary school. Our centre is open year-round, from eight o'clock in the morning to 5:30 in the afternoon.
The day care is located in an old portable in École Anne-Hébert's schoolyard. The French-language school board provides the space for free, but we pay the upkeep and maintenance costs. Our day care has 16 full-time spaces and has been operating at full capacity since it opened. Our waiting list is long, and the demand is growing steadily. The preschool centres located in the board's schools are limited by the space available in the school.
Most of the families we accommodate are exogamous families from culturally diverse backgrounds. Often isolated, the French-speaking parent faces the challenge of bringing French into the family and supporting its acquisition. Over the past 20 years, by dint of perseverance, programs for young children have been developed, including the Franc départ program, which provide such important community support. However, most parents work full time and are desperately searching for French-language early childhood education through day cares so that they can keep their jobs. When children have the opportunity to be in a French-language day care setting up to the age of five, they arrive in kindergarten with a good command of the language and a high degree of self-assurance in their francophone identity.
Unfortunately, despite studies on the subject and their definitive results, the challenges and ongoing lack of resources limit the work that can be done. French-language early childhood centres face systemic challenges and urgent needs that threaten their survival.
First, early childhood services in British Columbia, especially Vancouver, face a dire shortage of suitable, stable spaces to meet their clients' needs. In January 2017, we and two preschool services received a letter from the French school board indicating that we would be evicted if solutions could not be found in the near term to accommodate the schools' growing student populations. Despite a short-term solution, we have been operating since then under the certain knowledge that our day care will have to find other accommodations or close its doors.
The only service of its kind in east Vancouver, our day care lacks the logistical and financial support to deal with this situation. We have a severe shortage of qualified French-speaking employees to fill educator positions because of the complexity of the interprovincial credential recognition process, particularly between Quebec and British Columbia. What's more, salaries do not reflect the cost of living. Owing to the shortage of qualified staff, employees often have to work in demanding and sometimes unacceptable conditions. Staff have few or no benefits, no group health insurance plan, and no pension plan, and as a result, the occupation receives little recognition and the early childhood field is not very attractive.
It is frustrating not to be able to accommodate francophone families that have a child with special needs. For example, the building has not been modified to meet the child's mobility needs. We do not have enough qualified French-speaking support staff, and specialized organizations provide service in English only. I have seen a number of families, discouraged by the lack of available services, switch to the English-language education system as a result.
In conclusion, despite the challenges, the network of preschool centres continues to grow, with compelling progress and positive results achieved in recent years. We expect our federal government to deliver the support and resources needed to provide the assistance and development to which French-speaking Canadians are entitled, so that future generations can also have the same sense of pride.
I thank you for the opportunity afforded me today to share my experience as an educator and a mother, as part of your efforts to identify meaningful solutions in the French-language early childhood field.