Official Languages Committee on Aug. 12th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu.

Mrs. Romanado, you have the floor.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to add to my colleague's comments. In my riding, students from the Marie-Victorin school board attended the WE Charity event. More than 200 young people attended in 2018. So, it's very well known on Montreal's south shore, in my riding of Longueuil-Charles-LeMoyne. WE Org has a real presence in Quebec.

I just wanted to support my colleague's argument.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mrs. Romanado.

Mr. Arseneault, you have the floor.

[René Arseneault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Mr. Chair, the premise of the motion really bothers me, and I'll explain why. I'd like my colleagues to understand what I mean, without feeling offended.

First of all, I'm not from the province of Quebec. We, francophone members of Parliament from all walks of life who aren't from Quebec, are in a minority here. Look around the table.

Being from New Brunswick, I can tell you that a very superficial search on the Internet about WE Org shows that the organization is present in Quebec and that it has held many activities that many young people have participated in over the past few years. I say that with some reservation, because I'm not from Quebec.

Mr. Chair, if I say that the premise of the motion bothers me, it's that we're telling the Canadian people, since we are in committee and we represent the Government of Canada regardless of our political affiliation, that WE Charity is unilingual, which we don't really know. I'd say that this organization is bilingual. It has a bilingual presence, and its website is bilingual. When I consult it, it appears in French, without me even having to change the language.

So the premise really bothers me, because by passing this motion as written, we'd be telling the Canadian people that we've already determined that WE Org is a unilingual English organization that has no presence in Quebec. That's what we're telling the Canadian people in front of everybody, and that really bothers me.

However, before even studying the content and purpose of the motion, we need to know whether or not WE Org is a unilingual organization, even though we will never know for sure since it no longer has a contract. We know the history. So how does launching such an inquiry advance official languages? First, we have to determine whether or not WE Org is unilingual and whether or not it has a presence in Quebec. That's the starting point of the motion. Until that's established, the rest is futile.

The premise of the motion really bothers me. I can already tell you that, as the first sentence is worded, I'm going to oppose it. We'll come back to that.

I repeat, through this motion, we are telling the Canadian people that we have determined, without any serious investigation, that WE Charity has no presence in Quebec and that it is unilingual.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Arseneault.

Go ahead, Mr. Deltell.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Chair, I don't know if my colleagues are aware of the events of the last 10 days. We learned that a public relations firm, NATIONAL, had been specifically mandated by WE Charity, without a call for tenders, to basically deal with francophone cases across the country and in the province of Quebec. So, we conclude that the organization is not in a position to assume this responsibility.

We're not the ones saying it. Indeed, WE Charity felt the need to award a contract, without a call for tenders, to a private firm to look after Quebec and the francophone community. If these people were so good and so bilingual, why did they ask NATIONAL to take care of Quebec and the francophone community? They could very well have asked NATIONAL to help them do this work across the country.

Earlier, the hon. member mentioned an event that took place in Montreal. I imagine she was referring to the one that took place at the Théâtre St-Denis on February 3 and which brought together 2,000 people. I just saw the list of speakers. One of them was the Prime Minister's mother. I say this in passing.

Was she paid for this work and if so, how much? Is that part of the $350,000 given to the family?

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

A point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Mrs. Lalonde, you have the floor.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

Excuse me, dear colleague, but we're here to discuss a motion by your colleague Mr. Godin. Why are we talking about the speakers? I think it would be more appropriate to stick to the agenda.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

I was just clarifying what the hon. member said earlier. She's the one who mentioned the events that took place and the fact that all the speakers spoke French. I am pleased to recall the presence of some of the people who spoke, including the Prime Minister's mother.

If WE Charity is fundamentally Canadian, has roots in Quebec and looks after francophones, why did it ask NATIONAL to look after francophones? It's precisely to answer this question that our motion asks that the people from WE Charity appear before the committee and explain why they asked NATIONAL to provide services. This would be a good thing, since we wanted to ask the people from NATIONAL why they accepted this task and what they did.

I could quote Joël-Denis Bellavance's article published last week in the La Presse, but as a parliamentarian, I prefer that they come here and answer specifically the questions of my friend Mr. Arseneault, who I respect and appreciate. He's absolutely right when he reminds us that the francophone community doesn't just mean Quebec. I tip my hat to him and thank him for that clarification.

We must determine why WE Charity awarded a contract, without calling for tenders, to a private public relations firm to look after Quebec and the Francophonie. If these people were so Canadian, so bilingual and so rooted in Quebec, they might not have had to do it that way.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you.

Ms. Lambropoulos, you have the floor.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

I'm going to clarify one point.

WE has also contracted PR firms for English Canada, so it's not something new to them. They have done it for French Canada, and they have done it for English Canada as well.

In terms of Mr. Beaulieu's point, I think during the pandemic, the majority of organizations and businesses closed their doors. Even my constituency office is still closed. So I understand the situation. Having said that, we have to look at how these people are doing their business online right now. WE Charity's website is fully bilingual. I think that's very telling.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Mr. Green, the floor is yours.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

I appreciate the opportunity to be here with you all today. I've been through a lot of these meetings. I'd like to begin by hoping that points of order can remain points of order—real, true points of order—not just interruptions, because that's been the case in the past.

Comments were made earlier about a superficial look at the francophone nature of this organization. I would agree there has been a superficial look, although not by the motion, but by the government in its lack of due diligence. Of course, it's just my first day, but anybody could pick up the mandate of this committee that says the Standing Committee on Official Languages shall include among other matters the review of and report on official language policies and programs.

It would seem like a very basic, generally accepted fact that a national program of this scope and of this nature would fall under a program. I think the revelations alluded to earlier by my friends down the way on some of the facts that have come out.... My interest in this particular motion is on the due diligence, the very basic and simple due diligence or lack thereof, because I think that at the heart of the WE scandal is the position of the opposition, and particularly me, that this is a question of whether or not the government did its due diligence in protecting the very basic rights of francophone Canadians across the country.

It's very germane to this mandate and it has also been noted that in yesterday's ethics committee meeting, the former Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson stated that ancillary discussions or investigations, in fact, help put on the public record for the Ethics Commissioner additional information that could be germane to their investigation. I do believe that in the format of this committee and its mandate, this particular aspect of protecting the rights of francophone Canadians is germane to the investigation, and it is certainly about defending the rights of both official languages. I'm surprised there's even this much robust discussion about it because this is the mandate of this committee.

Again, to reiterate the fact that national public relations was called in at such a time leads me to call into question the authenticity of the claim that proper due diligence was done, because I can share with you that in my past work, both as a city councillor, somebody who sat on the Hamilton Community Foundation, somebody who distributed funds through our enrichment program, that if a program came purporting to represent both official languages—if you tried to apply for the Trillium grant or something of that nature—due diligence would be put in place to ensure that that was actually the fact. It would be part of the request for qualifications in the initial application.

I have a hard time believing that was the case, and if that is not the case, then it again begs the question around the political nature or interference into the awarding of this contract, or for lack of a better term, the term that's being used is “contribution agreement”.

I'm very keen to see if that is the case and if some of the shortfalls in due diligence may also fall under section 18 of the Conflict of Interest Act, which is the anti-avoidance clause. Is the hiring of national public relations part of the avoidance of even getting to qualify for a program of this size and scope?

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Green.

You now have the floor, Mr. Godin.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In fact, I'm surprised to hear the questions from the other side of the table. The committee has a responsibility to be vigilant about respect for official languages in the exercise of Parliament's functions and procedures. A number of issues have already been raised. The other side of the table is arguing that WE Org is bilingual. For our part, we're wondering why it needed to turn to a national organization to ensure francophone representation to Quebeckers or francophones outside Quebec. These are already questions that need to be answered. The study will enable us to obtain answers to these questions.

We must not take exception to the fact that the premise of our notice of motion is misrepresented, quite the contrary.

The fact is that WE Org was awarded a contract, supposedly by mutual agreement because it was the only organization that could provide this service in a country where there are two official languages. The members of the party opposite may not have realized that this organization wasn't bilingual, but the organization's representatives had the wisdom to recognize that they didn't have the skills to offer their services in French. So they simply gave that contract to someone else. However, if another firm had the characteristics necessary to provide those services in English and French from coast to coast to coast, and if NATIONAL could do so, there were surely several others.

So what did the Minister do to protect one of the two official languages—French—in awarding a government contract by mutual agreement?

That's one of the questions the committee has to ask, and I think it's a very legitimate one. We have to remember that our purpose is to allow the committee to make recommendations. Right now, we're in the midst of a pandemic. We've been living it for a while, and we'll continue to live it, but we don't know how long it will last or how it will go. There will be other programs; I hope the current government is creating programs to help Canadians. However, in the course of creating those programs, there may be other situations similar to this one.

Our goal is to protect both official languages. In this case, it's French, but in another case, it could be English. Understandably, there are fewer francophones in Canada than anglophones. That's why there is an official languages act.

It is very relevant that we act quickly by giving the committee the tools it needs to be able to make recommendations as quickly as possible, in order to protect the interests of anglophones and francophones.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Godin.

Mr. Généreux, it's your turn.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd just like to remind all members that the Minister of Official Languages, Ms. Joly, has mentioned several times that the committee is completely independent and that she even did so in the House of Commons.

Once everyone is aware of this, we can make the decision to undertake a study as a committee, as we have done several times in recent years.

That we don't like the premise of the motion is one thing. I'd like to ask Mr. Arseneault if he has a proposal to make. As I understand it, he is not bothered by the substance of the motion, but his premise is troubling. We could accept an amendment that would change the premise.

It isn't a question of judging the motion itself and how it's written, but rather of bringing all the players together to really get the answers to the questions raised by the controversy about WE Org. We'll put the question to its representatives. Let them come out and prove to us that they are bilingual and capable of providing bilingual services across Canada. Unfortunately, it takes more than a website to do that.

Mr. Arseneault, do you have a different premise to propose? We're open to the idea of an amendment to change the premise of the motion. We'd like our committee, which is independent, to go ahead and vote to undertake this study starting next week or on one of the dates mentioned by Mr. Beaulieu. We're not three days away. The date isn't an issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Généreux.

Mr. Chong, the floor is yours.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I fully agree with my colleague, Mr. Godin. I'll support this motion. It's very important that this committee study this urgent issue.

The government has maintained two things throughout this whole WE issue. The first is that the bureaucrats recommended that the government proceed in delivering this program through the WE Charity and that the government, the Liberal cabinet, were just simply passive bystanders in this recommendation and simply accepted the bureaucrats' recommendation.

Initially, when this whole issue came up, Minister Ng's office, for example, said that she had not met with the WE Charity. It later came to light that she had met with them on April 7. Minister Chagger initially said that she had had no conversations with the WE organization, and then it later came to light that she had spoken with them on April 17. In fact, I think that came to light yesterday.

The WE organization initially delivered a proposal to the government on April 9, well ahead of the cabinet meeting that took place later in May, a month and a half later. Then we found out that Minister Morneau's office contacted WE to rework the application, clearly working with them quite closely in order to produce this memorandum to cabinet and the proposal from the WE organization.

This has all come to light and runs contrary to the government's assertion that it simply accepted the bureaucrats' recommendation.

Then the second thing the government has maintained throughout all of this is that the WE Charity was the only organization in this country, including the largest employer in this country, the Government of Canada, the public service, capable of delivering this program. Then we found out in recent days that they couldn't deliver it to a quarter of this country's population, to the 25% of Canadians whose mother-tongue official language is French.

I think this committee should be seized with this issue. I've sat on this committee for a number of years, and I can tell you, Mr. Chair, that we have been seized with issues far, far smaller than this. This is a billion-dollar program that was being proposed that would affect Canadians from coast to coast to coast, 25% of whom speak French as a first language.

This program is of the scale of the road map for official languages that we've had ever since Monsieur Dion proposed the first federal action plan for official languages, called the “Dion plan”, some 15 years ago.

That action plan was for a billion dollars, and we held, I think, easily dozens and dozens, if not 100, meetings studying those plans and coming up with reports on how to improve the next five-year action plan on official languages. Surely we can spend a few meetings looking at the impact on official-language minority communities and official-languages communities of a billion-dollar program that would have been be delivered by an organization that couldn't deliver it to a quarter of this country's population.

For those reasons, I hope that the committee supports the motion and that we get some expeditious hearings on this to ensure that we protect French-language minority rights in this country.

It's at times of crisis that our institutions are tested, and they either endure that test and come out stronger because of it, or they crumble. We've already had incidents during this pandemic where official-language communities are not being respected. We had an issue when Health Canada waived francophone, French language, requirements for health devices. It may be excusable because of the pandemic, but we have a responsibility as a committee to protect French language minority rights and majority rights in this country, as we do for other official-language minority communities in Canada.

Therefore, I hope this committee supports this motion.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Chong.

I now give the floor to Mr. Arseneault.

[René Arseneault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am very touched by the sensitivity expressed by the Conservative Party with respect to bilingualism. I think it's unfortunate that this isn't reflected in the French debates of the Conservative Party leadership candidates.

Going back to what my colleagues Mr. Godin and Mr. Deltell were saying, I never said that WE Charity was fully and completely bilingual; I never said those words.

If, following the testimony of WE Charity representatives, we learned that they can indeed offer services in English and French everywhere in Canada, regardless of whether people are perfectly, moderately or weakly bilingual—we don't know, and that's the premise of the motion—all the rest of the motion would fall apart.

Let's be logical. I don't accept the premise, because I don't know the answer. I don't know whether WE Charity is perfectly capable or totally incapable of providing services in both official languages in Canada. That's what we have to determine first. If we were to find out that they are, in fact, able to do that, the whole rest of the motion would fall apart. Let's be logical. That's the premise of the motion.

I'll take the opportunity offered to me by my colleague Mr. Généreux and ask the following question: Should the Standing Committee on Official Languages not be concerned, or at least study the way in which bilingual services, regardless of the type, are provided to third parties in Canada? How are bilingual services and their performance ensured? How is performance measured? I have no idea.

My colleague Mr. Généreux and I have been on this committee for five years. We've studied many issues and produced many reports, but never a report like this. Why not take this opportunity, in this context, and ask the right questions, regardless of to whom? That's what the Standing Committee on Official Languages must do.

I would say to my colleague Mr. Chong that I'm part of a linguistic minority in Canada and that I am committed to defending the 25% of francophones in Canada, as he said. That doesn't include francophiles and allophones who are also learning French. That's not the issue. The issue is that we're taking for granted a truth that we don't know, here, in order to question ministers. That's the truth. That's the reality of the opposition party.

Let's be logical. If we really want to do this, what's the point of determining whether WE Charity can offer bilingual services or not, when there's no longer a contract out there? We're wasting our time.

Let's take Mr. Généreux's opportunity and make this motion a winning motion for the Canadian government and for the Standing Committee on Official Languages. Let's study how to ensure respect for official languages when the Government of Canada delegates its powers to a third party organization to provide services on its behalf. That's what I'm proposing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Arseneault.

Ms. Lambropolous, you have the floor.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just wanted to make a comment.

I'd like to speak to the comments made earlier by my colleague across the way.

All of the issues that were mentioned by Mr. Chong are already being studied by three different committees. That's not why we're here today. Today we're here because we are trying to make sure that organizations serve Canadians in both English and French all across the country.

The reason I have a problem with the motion, just as my colleague said, is that I don't think it's true. We're basing it on an assumption that it is not present in Quebec and is only offered to English speakers.

I worked in a school in Quebec where my students benefited from WE, so I cannot sit here and say that this isn't a lie or that it is not a false assumption. I have first-hand experience with this organization in my school in Quebec. I don't understand how much clearer I can get on that.

There are 400 schools in Quebec that are with WE and have somehow taken advantage of programs offered by WE. There are 948 teachers in Quebec who have worked with WE. They have worked with their students in leadership to bring kids to countries to build wells and help with international development, so I have a problem with this.

Every single person watching this committee today, and every single person on this committee, can go on WE's French Facebook page, UNIS, to see a three-hour conference taking place in French, with four French speakers, four Montreal French youth. These are the people benefiting from this organization. About 115,000 young people in Quebec benefit from WE, whether they are French or English, and not one English person at that conference would have understood what was being said, because it was all in French.

That's fine. They're across the country and they offer services in both languages. We cannot sit here and put a motion forward, or vote on a motion, that is a literal lie, and in my view it is, because I know the facts.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Ms. Lambropoulos.

If anyone wants to speak, just let me know.