Mr. Chair and dear MPs, on behalf of the Fédération des parents francophones de Colombie-Britannique, thank you for coming here to study access to early childhood services in French. It am very pleased to be here today and to talk to you about this subject, which is so dear to my heart.
The Fédération des parents francophones de Colombie-Britannique has been active in education since it was established, in 1979. It represents the parents of the roughly 20,000 children who have the right to French-language primary and secondary education, here in British Columbia.
Our federation brings together 47 associations of parents, 32 associations of parents who are active in the Conseil francophone de la Colombie-Britannique, and 15 associations of parents who manage a preschool, whether a daycare or preschool centre, that offers a program in French.
The federation's mission is to gather, represent, support, and empower parents in their role as primary educators and to foster their commitment to and participation in creating a lively and exemplary francophone community. The federation pursues this mission by supporting parents and informing them about the choices available to them, and about recommended behaviours to foster optimum development of their children's French language skills and francophone identity. The federation also assists and informs groups of parents who volunteer at French-language schools or who start up or manage preschool centres.
Since its inception, the federation has demanded the specific legal guarantees that are necessary for the establishment of a high-quality and accessible French-language education system throughout British Columbia. Further, it has actively contributed to the establishment of this system. This long-term undertaking led to the creation of the CSF in 1996, which is responsible for managing the French-language education system, from kindergarten to grade 12, throughout the province. The student populations at our schools have grown steadily since then, year after year. We are especially proud that the CSF now has over 6,000 students.
This success can be attributed to the concerted efforts of parents, the community, and school administrators, but also to those of preschool centres, which for the most part are located within French-language schools. The vast majority of French-language daycare and preschool centres in British Columbia are run by non-profit organizations, most of them parents' associations, which rely on the fees paid by the parents who use them for their operations.
For over 20 years, the early childhood sector has been an essential component of French-language education. Access to French-language education in British Columbia does of course require a network of schools that provide instruction in French as a first language to eligible children and to those whose parents want to enrol them.
That being said, French-language education must be with a wide lens. It starts in early childhood with the infants who attend daycare centres, then the toddlers and preschoolers, and so on all the way to the post-secondary level. The entire continuum of minority-language education should in fact have constitutional guarantees.
Through their educational program that focuses on developing oral French skills, French-language daycare and preschool centres are excellent tools for the francization of our children and thereby help prepare them for French-language school. These programs have a huge impact on the children's sense of belonging to the community and help build their identity. Early childhood is a direct gateway to kindergarten. Preschool and daycare services are essential for our communities because they support parents in their role of passing on the French language and culture to their children.
It seems in fact that these findings are no longer challenged. Experts in child development, sociolinguists, the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages, the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages, and your committee have all recognized, officially and publicly, in various reports and studies, that access to French-language early childhood services is crucial to the vitality and development of our francophone minority communities, in particular because this access helps pass on the language and culture to new generations.
Your committee recognized the importance of this access in 2012, in your report entitled “After the Roadmap: Toward Better Programs and Service Delivery”. The members of the committee who are here today recognized this again in 2016, in your report entitled “Toward a New Action Plan for Official Languages and Building New Momentum for Immigration in Francophone Minority Communities”.
The Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages underscored how important early childhood education was for our communities' development, and has been calling on the federal government to take action in the area since 2005. The problems in early childhood development have, nonetheless, remained the same. For example, demand for French-language preschool infrastructure continues to outstrip supply by a wide margin. If we go by Statistics Canada figures—which are flawed owing to the systematic undercoverage of rights holders under section 23 of the charter—the province has approximately 4,000 children aged four and under whose first language learned is French. However, just 450 preschool spaces exist, roughly equivalent to 113 spots per child cohort.
To give you some context, I should point out that, this year, more than 650 students are enrolled in CSFCB kindergarten programs. That means that some 500 students currently enrolled in kindergarten did not have access to French-language day care. This indicates that British Columbia would need at least 2,600 additional day care spaces—in other words, 650 multiplied by four—if we assume that children spend the first year of their lives at home with a parent. I said “at least” because, as you know, Statistics Canada data prevents us from knowing the true number of rights holders under section 23. How can we plan early childhood services without knowing how many children under the age of five there are?
Turning now to human resources, I would note that our communities are harder hit by the province-wide shortage of early childhood educators, given that our community vitality depends on access to French-language early childhood services.
Collège Éducacentre plays a key role in training this workforce but, on its own, lacks the capacity to train the number of French-speaking early childhood educators needed.
These problems all stem from the lack of financial support for early childhood development and are well-known to the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development. They are having dire consequences on the French transmission rate among children with one French-speaking parent.