Good afternoon, Senators. The members of Canadian Parents for French of Alberta thank you for your invitation.
My name is Victoria Wishart and I am the president of the Alberta branch of Canadian Parents for French. I am accompanied by Michael Tryon, the executive director of our organization.
Canadian Parents for French - Alberta is part of the nationwide, research-informed, volunteer organization that champions the opportunity to learn and use French for all those who call Canada home. We support and provide services to Alberta’s 45,000 French immersion and 178,000 core French students.
By now you are likely well aware of our organization’s history, milestones, and successes, so we won't repeat much of that information, but it is important to know that this year, in 2018, CPF Alberta is celebrating 40 years of having served Alberta’s French second-language community. In the few minutes we have here today we would like to share with you a little bit about our current situation here in Alberta. We will be speaking about three of the significant challenges we think we are facing.
The first of these, and my colleagues have already touched on it, is French teacher availability.
For 18 consecutive years, French immersion enrolment has increased in almost every single school district. We know that when a new program is created, it needs at least three things: a classroom, some books, and a qualified teacher.
The responsibility to manage classroom space rests with the local school district. Whether in English or French immersion, the district administers student placement, so classroom space is normally manageable. What is beyond the control of a school district is the supply of qualified teachers. Anecdotally we are hearing that almost every school district is short of French-speaking teachers, is having challenges sourcing them, or both.
Alberta currently has one dedicated French language post-secondary institution, Campus Saint-Jean, which is training pre-service teachers. On average, they are graduating 75 eligible candidates per year. This does not even come close to meeting Alberta’s demand, let alone the demand of the remainder of western and northern Canada.
We believe that the teacher shortage is now the number one reason that school districts find themselves unable to expand existing programs or to create new French immersion programs. Unfortunately, there is no formal research around this subject, but CPF Alberta and its partners are in the process of rectifying this.
We would like to speak about our top three recommendations to rectify this teacher shortage situation.
The first is to improve, expand, or offer different French immersion teacher training programs, while creating incentives for teacher training in French. The second is to create labour mobility agreements between domestic and international jurisdictions to standardize French teacher certification requirements while providing quality and qualified teacher employment opportunities in Alberta. The last is to increase authentic language immersion opportunities for post-secondary students, pre-service teachers, and teachers, by providing bursaries to encourage attendance.
The second significant challenge we face in Alberta is ensuring that French immersion is seen as a distinct and inclusive program that is officially recognized in this province and in Canada. Unlike native francophone programs, French second language programs, such as French immersion and core French, are not constitutionally guaranteed. These are considered programs of choice and are offered at the discretion of local school districts. In Alberta, there is no provincial legislation requiring school districts to offer a second language. This puts our parents in the unique position of having to lobby community by community for a program that enables their children to become proficient in both official languages.
Recent decisions at both levels of government in Alberta have caused the playing field in our province to be less level and inclusive. My colleagues touched on this earlier, but we'd like to say that from French-immersion families being financially affected by funding decisions around school transportation—this is the busing issue—to the reallocation of staff and resources that negatively impacts FSL students and programs, French immersion has had a bit of a bumpy ride in Alberta this year.
If the French second language community were to be officially recognized as being a bilingual community, not only would we be better able to support the French first language community in its initiatives and in achieving its goals, but the way and means to address these inequities might be facilitated. This would greatly enable local parent advocates to effectively lobby for new programs where there is the demand. No child should ever be denied a French-language learning opportunity.