Official Languages Committee on Dec. 10th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

You have 20 seconds left.

[Simon Cloutier]

You are absolutely right and all that is true. Promoting the occupation and raising salaries, that's all well and good, but we also have to fund educational institutions and create more spaces at francophone universities.

The federal government has a role to play in funding post-secondary education in French. We currently have few spaces. You have to understand that francophones and bilingual people are facing limits. There are two systems, immersion education and French-language education, as a result of which we're facing a deepening crisis. So, yes, this is important.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Mr. Cloutier.

Thank you, Ms. Ashton.

Mr. Dalton, the floor is yours for five minutes.

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Thank you very much to the witnesses.

Ms. Yetman, I was a teacher for many years. So I was one of the 360,000 teachers you represent.

Do you represent both teachers at francophone schools in Quebec and those in school boards outside Quebec? Would you please provide us with figures on Quebec schools and French-language schools outside Quebec?

[Heidi Yetman]

I may not have those figures, but we represent francophone teachers in francophone areas across Canada, except in Quebec and New Brunswick.

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

I see.

You mentioned the teacher shortage and the need for more spaces at the universities and other educational institutions. Does the problem stem from a shortage of college and university professors or a shortage of applicants to education programs to teach in French?

[Heidi Yetman]

There's definitely a shortage of spaces for students. I can't speak to the shortage of professors. However, there's a shortage of spaces, especially in the francophone sector. We have to create more university spaces.

We were talking about the importance of French-language education from preschool to the post-secondary level. If there aren't any spaces for students at French-language universities, secondary-level francophone students will want to continue their studies at an English-language school so they're prepared for English-language studies at the university level. It's French-language spaces that we need.

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

All right.

I wanted to talk about universities that teach in French in order to train new teachers.

If there aren't any spaces, that means there's a lot of demand. Universities offer programs when demand is high and put on the brakes when it's low.

[Heidi Yetman]

Absolutely. Some universities have shut down. One university in Ontario offered French-language training but shut down. I don't remember its name.

It's extremely important to ensure that French-language spaces are available at the universities.

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Thank you, Ms. Yetman.

Mr. Cloutier, you said that most of the funding that the federal government allocates was invested in anglophone schools in Quebec and that one third of that money, or rather 29%, was invested in francophone schools outside Quebec.

Would you please clarify those figures?

[Simon Cloutier]

I don't believe I said that; it might have been Mr. Gagnon.

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Yes, pardon me.

Mr. Gagnon, you said that most of the money allocated to minority-language education was granted to anglophone schools in Quebec. Would you please clarify that?

[Christian Gagnon]

That's not exactly what I said. What I did say is that a study conducted in 1996 showed that, from 1970 to 1988, 62% of federal funding from the official languages in education program was earmarked for anglophones in Quebec and immersion schools in the rest of Canada. However, those are figures from another era.

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

I have another question for you.

School board members are elected by universal suffrage, in other words by vote, but minority school boards aren't signatories to the protocol for agreements or bilateral agreements between the federal government and the provinces or territories for minority-language education.

Do you think that constitutes a violation of the school management rights conferred under section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms? Do school boards want to be signatories to the protocol and bilateral agreements or would they be satisfied taking part in effective consultations?

I think you have enough time to answer my questions, but you may also respond to the committee in writing.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Those are excellent questions, and we may have time to come back to them.

Mr. Serré, the floor is yours for five minutes.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to the witnesses for being here. I definitely think their remarks will add to our study.

My initial questions are for Mr. Cloutier and Ms. Morand. Then I'll ask Ms. Yetman some questions about teaching.

You discussed the agreement… Some representatives of other school boards told us that there were a lot of funding challenges as well as negotiations and consultations with the provinces and school boards. You offered us six recommendations. However, as I understand it, we won't be able to resolve anything if we don't correct the way funding is currently distributed.

You discussed section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in your recommendations. You also said that the federal government had given you funding so that you could try to work with the provinces, but that hasn't worked over the past five years.

All parliamentarians and political parties consider it important to resolve this issue. I have been a school board member, and I know how important this issue is. I've also been elected. It isn't just a small group of school board members speaking. This is important.

What can the federal government or the courts do to guarantee some consistency in the way the provinces directly fund their school boards?

[Simon Cloutier]

Thank you for that excellent question. It's extremely important for us.

As I said in my opening remarks, in an ideal world, the federal government should transfer money directly to the francophone school boards. People often say that education is a provincial or territorial jurisdiction, but this is also done in other jurisdictions, as we've previously seen. It's done in health, on the francophone side, and it's done with the municipalities. So I don't think it's impossible to do it in education.

If it's a complicated thing to do, we could split the budget of the official languages in education program. Immersion and French as a first language shouldn't have to share the same budget. Unfortunately, the provincial and territorial governments often use this as a way to divide the community. Other witnesses have said that, in many instances, some provinces allocate more funding to immersion than to French as a first language, while others provide more for French as a first language.

If the federal government divided that budget in two, it would be easy: money would go to institutions that teach French as a first language and to immersion education institutions. No one would be able to change that. That's what we recommend.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

I was a school board member in 2000, and we completely funded the early childhood sector, but that's not what other provinces did.

What do you recommend? Is it roughly the same federal support model?

We definitely understand the importance you attach to early childhood. What could the federal government do to ensure that more funding is provided without however relieving the provinces of their responsibility to fund early childhood?

[Simon Cloutier]

It's more or less the same principle. The provinces are being given the flexibility to invest more or less where they want. I know that the agreements now indicate certain thresholds to ensure that francophones get a share. The problem with these agreements is that amounts are often set as a minimum threshold but are often seen by provincial and territorial governments as a maximum threshold. It then becomes difficult to increase the share for francophones.

Anglophones already have services that are much better established than ours. The federal government should be making sure that funding for francophone education is increased, because there is some catching up to do. Separating the envelopes would be a good way to do that. That way the shares for francophones and anglophones would be clearly defined.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Yetman, the teacher shortage is being called a crisis and an emergency. However, our committee is hearing that immigrants trained in France or Morocco, for example, can't teach here.

Is it the associations, the provincial governments or the federal government that are preventing them from doing so? Are there stakeholders who don't want to administer exams? Is there a problem at the national level?

I don't know if this is a sensitive topic for you. Could we develop a skills accreditation exam for foreign teachers who come to the country to teach in the provinces?

[Heidi Yetman]

That's an interesting question. In fact, last year, it was discussed at our general meeting. All the provinces meet once a year. It's very difficult for a foreigner to navigate the Canadian education system because there's something different in every province. A request was made at our general meeting that we start looking at each provincial system.

In conclusion, it would be interesting for there to be some commonality in the provinces' education systems.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Ms. Yetman—

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Can you send us a report—

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

I'm on it, Mr. Serré.

Mr. Gagnon, if you have to leave, please do so. However, you are welcome to stay if you're able to.