Official Languages Committee on May 27th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Mr. Dalton, I agree that's an excellent question, but your time is up.

Perhaps you can answer it later, Commissioner.

For the moment, I give Ms. Koutrakis the floor for five minutes.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the commissioner and his colleagues for being here today.

I chose to speak English today because I come from the beautiful province of Quebec. I guess I'm considered a member of the anglophone community of Quebec. My parents immigrated from Greece in 1957, and I came into the world a few years afterwards. When it was my turn to be registered in school, my mother—bless her soul—had the good foresight to say she wanted her daughter to go to a French school, because she wanted me to be able to compete and be educated with everybody else, realizing that in Quebec, francophones are the majority.

When she tried to register me in school at the time, we were not allowed. It was because I wasn't francophone and I wasn't Catholic. In those days, the school boards were based both on linguistics and religion. I was reading your annual report for 2023-24 while looking back at my own experience, and right now I feel that at times my Achilles' heel is my inability to speak French the way I would like to speak French. I feel comfortable in French, I work in French and I love the language. However, I learned it by working at McDonald's as a student; I learned it by working with my father and helping in his business later on; and, more importantly, I learned it when I was doing dictées with my children when I chose to send them to French schools.

The only way I could have been educated in French at the time was if my parents had had the means to send me to a private school, which they did not.

In your report, you say, “My office will continue to reach out to Canadians—particularly those in official language minority communities—to inform them of their rights, but we'll scale back our activities in schools.”

Given that schools are an integral and central part of official language minority communities and that it is mainly in schools that young people learn a second official language, why would you scale back your activities in schools? I would hate to see young people today in a position where they cannot learn both official languages. Why did you scale back?

[Raymond Théberge]

I'm going to clarify that statement.

First, it has to do with our new mandate in the area of promotion. We have to promote compliance now. It has nothing to do with whether or not we support French-language schools, FSL schools or immersion schools. That's not the point. This has to do with the new legislation, which requires us to report on different.... Our mandate for promotion is different. We have to promote compliance with federal institutions in communities.

We do a lot of work in the area of first- and second-language education. We've done a lot of studies in that area. We will continue to do research. We follow all of the various situations in all the provinces, whether it's French as a first language, French as a second language, English as a first language in Quebec, etc. We monitor all the situations. This has to do with our mandate in the new act to promote compliance.

We used to go into the schools not to promote but to explain the Official Languages Act. However, we have developed partnerships with new organizations like CPF to do that for us, and they have a much better network than we do for dealing with schools.

The work will still be done, but it will be done by another organization in terms of promoting official languages, minority language education and that kind of thing. This is still part of what we do.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Is your commission tracking how well the partnerships you've set up together are doing in that regard? Is someone tracking them to make sure they're doing what they're supposed to be doing?

Also, do you feel that you have enough resources right now? Do you have the help you need from the federal government to make sure you achieve your goal?

[Raymond Théberge]

The short answer is no.

[Annie Koutrakis, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

How could we do better?

[Raymond Théberge]

We were provided new resources in the budget with respect to those parts of the legislation that have already been enacted, but moving forward, we'll talk about monetary administrative penalties and the new use of French in businesses act. That's not part of the mix.

My colleague here is very much into promotion. He always tells me he doesn't have any money, so if you listen to him, I think you'll hear that we need more money.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Commissioner and Ms. Koutrakis.

Thanks.

These are very interesting questions.

We will now go to a two-and-a-half-minute round, starting with the committee's second vice-chair.

Mr. Beaulieu, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Were the 847 complaints that you received essentially related to a lack of service in French?

[Raymond Théberge]

Yes, the situation hasn't changed.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

That's almost always the reason for these complaints.

You say that many federal institutions don't take their language obligations seriously. Would you please give us some examples? I guess it's Air Canada and the RCMP, isn't it?

[Raymond Théberge]

Let's say that the top offenders in that department every year are often federal institutions that have a lot of contact with the public. For example, we don't get a lot of complaints from the public concerning the Department of Finance, but—

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

It seems that a lot of complaints concern the Canada Border Services Agency.

[Raymond Théberge]

Yes, there are actually a lot.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

How do you explain the fact that the situation doesn't change? It seems to me the government should have some influence over the public service. If there was a political will, it could issue instructions and change the situation.

[Raymond Théberge]

It's very often a matter of resources, of needs.

Take, for example, the Canada Border Services Agency, which has 1,200 service points across the country. Its resource needs are extraordinary. It's always a challenge to improve bilingualism proficiency in all organizations.

In concrete terms, we need to ensure that federal institutions have the resources to provide language training, for example, so that every employee has an opportunity to take a good training program and become bilingual.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Where positions are supposed to require knowledge of French, should we keep hiring people who have no knowledge of French but who commit to learning the language? Shouldn't we require that they know and can demonstrate that they know it before they even get the position?

[Raymond Théberge]

In principle, when a position is classified bilingual, the candidate must meet requirements, but non-imperative staffing is always a possibility, and we get a lot of complaints on that score.

Since our recommendation is always based on the job description, we always request that the position be filled by a bilingual candidate.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Commissioner and Mr. Beaulieu.

Ms. Ashton, go ahead for two and a half minutes.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to discuss immigration.

You stated in the road map for federal institutions' obligations that you presented that a francophone immigration policy “must therefore be supported by in-depth analyses and include targets that, if achieved, will enhance the vitality of French linguistic minority communities”.

At the same time, many university representatives who have appeared before this committee have told us that a francophone immigration policy wasn't compatible with the ceiling that the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, or IRCC, has announced for international students. Francophone universities are requesting a specific exemption from that policy.

How can we help francophone universities that claim francophone immigration will suffer as a result of IRCC's decision?

[Raymond Théberge]

I think we should take a holistic approach to our immigration policy because there are many aspects to it. There are economic immigration, temporary workers, refugees and, of course, international students.

In minority francophone post-secondary education, foreign students very often represent additional funding for post-secondary educational institutions. Without foreign students, there would be a major shortfall in funding for those institutions.

There is also a significant connection between foreign students and the way they subsequently integrate within the community. Consequently, this has to be viewed as a kind of trajectory: someone arrives as a student, then becomes a citizen and so on.

Earlier Mr. Beaulieu asked a question about funding for post-secondary educational institutions. For 20 years now, francophone post-secondary educational institutions have been underfunded, and federal institutions have been told they can top up their funding by accepting more international students. If that funding is suddenly cut—it's been done and it was a draconian decision—it has an immediate impact on funding for those institutions.

When it comes to francophone immigration policy, I think we have to consider all the various possible pathways that can contribute to francophone immigration, including foreign students.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Commissioner.

Thank you, Ms. Ashton.

Mr. Godin, go ahead for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being here, Commissioner. It's always a pleasure to see you and inspiring to hear you. One could say you represent this institution, and you are a true leader.

Earlier you said that success requires committed leadership. What do you think of the attitude of a member of the Standing Committee on Official Languages who treats witnesses the way Mr. Drouin did on May 6?

What is your definition of “committed leadership”?

[Raymond Théberge]

In the federal public service, we have the Values and Ethics Code for the Public Sector. It refers to diversity, reconciliation, official languages and certain key values. Consequently, exercising leadership in the federal public service means complying with that code. It's also important not to favour certain parts of the code. It's a whole, and you can't simply tick the boxes for official languages, diversity and so on. First, it's a thought process; these are the values that we convey through our comments and remarks as public service leaders.

Second, we are committed to the extent that what happens in our institution is important to us, just as we are concerned about how it affects Canadians.

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

Thank you, Commissioner.

If my understanding is correct, on May 6, our colleague on the Standing Committee on Official Languages wasn't very inclusive or willing to consider all the information that was available and expressed by the witnesses.

Is my understanding correct?