Official Languages Committee on Dec. 10th, 2024

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

Do you have the current figures?

[Christian Gagnon]

The current figures are in the Protocol for Agreements for Minority Language Education and Second-Language Instruction, 2019‑2020 to 2022‑2023, between the Government of Canada and the provinces and territories.

The protocol recently expired, so—

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

That's fine. You have answered my question. I just want to put the fact in context. We are in an English-French bilingual country and I think anglophones in Quebec have as many rights as francophones outside Quebec, and it is important to invest in immersion.

[Christian Gagnon]

Well, you are talking to me about immersion and anglophones, which are two different things. Immersion education in Quebec works very well, and I have nothing against that, myself.

But I am talking to you about the money that is paid by the provinces. The federal government gives the provinces several hundreds of millions of dollars. I think that in the last protocol it was $355 million up to 2023. Some of the provinces pay out most of those funds to the francophone minority schools, but others, like Newfoundland and Labrador, only pay one third of that money to francophones—

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

Thank you, Mr. Gagnon. Unfortunately, I have to interrupt you because I have only two minutes left, and I would like to talk to the Fédération nationale des conseils scolaires francophones.

Mr. Cloutier, you say that you have 180,000 students attending your schools to get their general education in French, although the last census revealed that 581,000 rights holders were eligible for instruction in French. What can be done to increase enrolment by students who are eligible but are not attending your schools?

Give us some potential solutions for accelerating the process. We have been falling behind for several years and we have some catching up to do.

[Simon Cloutier]

We are facing a big problem. As I said in my presentation, there need to be investments at all levels. At present, it is difficult to keep our students in school because we don't offer an education that is equivalent to what is offered elsewhere. We don't have the funding to do it. As far as the existing schools, there would have to be equivalent infrastructure, and equivalent programs would help us a lot.

In addition, the census also showed that the 593,000 rights holders are not all represented by a school in their vicinity. All across Canada, there are places where the children have to take a bus for an hour or an hour and a half, morning and evening, to attend a francophone school. In some regions, there isn't even a francophone school. There need to be major investments in order to offer our programs in every province, territory and region. This is not the case at present.

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

In fact, I understand clearly that there is a need for teachers, infrastructure, funding for pedagogical tools, and access.

If you were a legislator, what is the first thing you would do? My time is limited here, but we also have limited time to protect francophones outside Quebec. What is the first thing you would do?

[Simon Cloutier]

Our purpose here is to stress that the federal government has a major role to play. Education comes under provincial and territorial jurisdiction, and obviously those governments have to invest in francophone schools. However, we believe the federal government also has a role to play.

For several years, we have watched as funding for the official languages in education program has lagged behind to the point that it will be difficult to make up. However, now that we have the census data, I think the federal government also has a role to play in funding infrastructure. It is done elsewhere—

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Mr. Cloutier. We will have to continue later.

The next question will be from the Liberal Party.

Mr. Iacono, the floor is yours for six minutes.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being with us this morning.

Mr. Gagnon, Canada signs agreements with all of the territories and provinces. The objective of those agreements is to support education in the minority language, but they also include clauses about instruction in the second language. Do you believe the federal government should be signing these agreements with the provinces?

[Christian Gagnon]

Francophone minority schools are notoriously underfunded. I have been hearing the other speakers say the same thing just now. In Quebec, on the other hand, education in English is very well funded, from pre-kindergarten to post-doctorate. In fact, there is really an oversupply of education in English in Quebec.

This is far from being the case for francophones in English Canada. As I said, under the protocols signed for many years, some provinces have spent half of the federal money, if not often two thirds, on immersion, rather than to support the minority schools, which are having so much trouble with their resources.

I think the objective of the federal spending should be to support minority francophones, much more than to teach French in immersion to anglophones. In fact, the provinces should bear sole responsibility for the cost of immersion for anglophones and leave the federal government to provide support entirely for francophones. We should be asking the anglophone provinces to pay for their immersion courses themselves.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Gagnon.

Ms. Yetman, you said earlier that the amounts provided have been the same since 2009. Do you agree with me that the amounts allocated by the federal government reflect what the provinces asked for? The federal government actually allocates amounts based on the amounts the provinces ask for, not on the amounts requested by the rest of the world. The reason the amounts have stayed the same is that these are the amounts the provinces have asked the federal government for, is it not?

[Heidi Yetman]

I didn't know that, but I can say that education in general is underfunded everywhere.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

We certainly understand that the field is underfunded, but education comes under provincial jurisdiction. And yet all of a sudden we are being told that the federal government is not doing enough. Can the federal government just give out more money as it sees fit, without being told it is exceeding its jurisdiction? In this case, the federal government has to do what the provinces ask it to do, does it not?

[Heidi Yetman]

But there are two official languages in Canada, so I think that is important.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

It is not a question of whether to be bilingual or not. It is a question of adhering to the parameters and powers.

The provincial and territorial governments are the primary funders in the case of education, under the Canadian constitution. Can you tell us what arguments for minority language education your organization makes in its dealings with the provincial and territorial governments?

[Heidi Yetman]

The Canadian Teachers' Federation is composed of 18 member organizations. Some of them are in Ontario. One example is the Association des enseignantes et des enseignants franco-ontariens. Each member organization also has francophone divisions. We always support the requests they make to the provinces.

I can give you a recent example. In the case of Canada’s national school food program, which has just been launched with the help of the federal Liberal government, we urge our member organizations to ask that their provincial governments sign an agreement with the federal government. We support their lobbying efforts in their dealings with the provincial governments.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I yield the rest of my time to my colleague Darrell Samson.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Mr. Samson, you have 50 seconds left.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Right. Thank you.

For now, I am going to ask Mr. Gagnon and Ms. Yetman two quick questions. I will keep my six minutes for other questions.

My first question is this: are you aware that the federal government is going to make immigration by teachers a priority?

[Heidi Yetman]

I was not aware of it. That's great. We need teachers.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

It's extremely important, so you will be able to find out more about it. In fact, they have just announced that this will also apply to early childhood educators.

Mr. Gagnon, a strategy that should be used in the future is for judges to retain full jurisdiction over their decisions so that a province would be forced to go to a judge's office to tell them that it has done something or that it has done absolutely nothing, which would be unacceptable. We will talk about that later. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Mr. Samson. Thank you for sticking to the time.

The third question will be from the Bloc Québécois.

Mr. Beaulieu, the floor is yours for six minutes.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Gagnon, you seemed not to have finished your presentation. Did you have something else to add?

[Christian Gagnon]

When the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the Conseil scolaire francophone de la Colombie‑Britannique creating ten new schools, there were other parties involved in the case: seven provinces and territories that opposed section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Those provinces and territories supported British Columbia's position that creating those francophone schools costs too much and that it is appropriate in a free and democratic society, under section 1 of the Charter, to violate section 23 of the Charter and not build the schools that francophones are entitled to under the Constitution.

The truly sad thing is that section 23 and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in general are supposed to be important elements of Canadian identity. The fact that so many provinces and territories support violating section 23 is truly striking. Imagine the hue and cry it would set off if section 1 were cited in Quebec to close English schools because there are more than necessary.

So this is a truly deplorable situation and that was my reason for saying that immersion should not be included in the federal protocol. Federal money should be used to counter the anglophone provinces' underfunding of education in French for their francophone minorities.