Official Languages Committee on April 6th, 2022

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Théberge.

My next question is for Ms. Roy or Mr. Dupuis.

Everyone agrees that there's a large potential francophone immigration pool in Africa. The Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa are undergoing significant demographic growth. It was noted earlier that there are systemic barriers or biases in the programs in which the applications of very large percentages of students from Africa are denied.

Do you care to comment on that? I think it's a major concern for the future.

Ms. Roy, you mentioned new targets, 12% in 2024 and 20% in 2036. How did you arrive at 12% in 2024 and 20% in 2036?

I obviously understand that the 4.4% targets are completely ridiculous. That's been a sad failure for 20 years. Why those specific figures? I'm curious.

[Liane Roy]

I'll answer first and Mr. Dupuis can definitely add to my response. I've been following this issue for a very long time.

It's very important to eliminate barriers for international students. One issue in particular is always a problem, and that's the fact that students are required to demonstrated that they will return to their country after completing their studies. We think that results in a dichotomy because we have a labour shortage across the country. These students, who are trained in Canada, could help offset that shortage when they obtain their study permits. One of the major obstacles to obtaining a study permit is that they have to prove they will return to their country. That's often the sticking point. I won't say any more than that because I want to get to the second question you asked.

We commissioned a demographic study on francophone immigration and its demographic weight in our francophone and Acadian communities. We released that report on Monday, at the same time as the targets proposed by the federal government. Those targets weren't pulled out of a hat; they come from that very serious study. This is the first time we've had a study that provided so much evidence to help us meet those targets. We wanted a target designed to achieve the objectives of restoring, growing and developing our communities to ensure they're strengthened. We had to take a careful look at all those figures.

I'll stop there and yield the floor to Mr. Dupuis so he can clarify certain points that I made.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

All right.

Please answer briefly. I'd also like to ask Mr. Doucet a question.

[Alain Dupuis]

The demographic study shows that we would have to achieve 16% annually to meet the 4.4% target. That's what we'd need to restore the demographic weight of our francophone communities by 2030. We clearly need a much more ambitious policy backed by new resources.

We can no longer hope that IRCC's general immigration programs will meet the specific needs of our communities. We need custom measures for the Canadian francophonie, such as a distinct francophone economic immigration program with yearly targets and partnerships for employers and communities based on the communities' labour requirements. That's only one measure, but we have to custom build an ambitious policy to meet those targets.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Mr. Boulerice. Thank you, Mr. Dupuis.

We will begin the second round, starting with questions from Bernard Généreux.

Mr. Généreux, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to all the witnesses.

I could take a picture of all these people today. You obviously aren't all the same people, either witnesses or committee members. I was here in 2009, nearly 12 years ago, and we were considering exactly the same issues.

After the billions of dollars the federal government has invested in the past seven years—we waited seven years to propose a reform of the act—here we are today with sharply declining francophone immigration in the minority communities, and in Quebec as well, as Mr. Dupuis said.

Ms. Roy, you relied on the study that you commissioned in determining that the new target should be raised from 4.4% to 12% and then potentially to 20%. Personally, I agree with the idea. The problem is that the current government doesn't have the will to do it despite the huge sums of money it distributes hither, thither and yon in all sectors in Canada.

Do you sincerely think it wants to increase francophone immigration?

[Liane Roy]

Following the discussions we had with Minister Fraser's office and the parliamentary secretary, and those that Mr. Dupuis and his team had with various officials, I think there's a willingness to listen, dialogue and cooperate with us on those targets and the policy.

We know we'll never meet those targets, and we realize this is an ambitious project, but we have to do things differently, as I said in my remarks. We have to do francophone immigration differently. You don't do immigration in minority communities the same way as in majority communities.

Consequently, it's important that francophone immigration policy be developed by and for francophones. We have to have a say in that policy. When we held our press conference on Monday, we introduced a series of measures and programs that should be included in that policy. We referred to them earlier, and we touched on the issues of international students, family sponsorship and refugee resettlement.

So we'd like to have programs designed through a francophone lens to ensure we can meet these targets. That's what will be needed to restore our demographic weight.

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

Ms. Roy, we've been talking about "by and for" francophones for many years.

To a certain extent, I see a form of hypocrisy here. As Mr. Beaulieu and Mr. Boulerice said earlier, regarding francophone immigrants from African countries and the Maghreb, there's a certain form of discrimination right now, and the blame is laid on the algorithms of a piece of software, as a result of which some applicants aren't accepted because they don't have enough money or for I don't know what reason.

What's necessary is a political will that we're not seeing right now. You talk about the policies you'd like to see put in place with the government's assistance and "by and for" francophones. The government will listen to you and give you money hoping you'll stay quiet for a few more years.

In reality, policies have to change from within the federal government. Mr. Castonguay discussed this earlier: what we're experiencing right now is an absolute aberration compared to what we would like to have. These are two completely different worlds.

Mr. Dupuis, I don't know whether you can respond to what I just said, but it's as though all of us had our heads in the sand. We're going backwards and don't realize that the problem is in the political environment, which prevents the emergence of specific measures that will produce results.

[Alain Dupuis]

It's clear to us that an entirely new strategy is required. We can no longer aspire to more francophone immigration by trying to change a few criteria in a few programs. We need programs that are tailored to our communities.

I think that all the parties now have the political will to take action. This is the third time we have appeared before this committee to sound the alarm. How many more times will we have to come and testify to explain that there's a major crisis and that a new policy is needed? We have some solutions…

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Mr. Dupuis.

You'll be able to continue a little later.

We will now give the floor to Mr. Iacono for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to begin with a comment. It's very easy to criticize what the government of the day is doing or has done over the past six years. What did the previous government do over a ten-year period? Not only did you do nothing, but you blocked funds. So rather than criticizing, I think we should expend our energy on finding solutions, particularly when we have witnesses. It's not just a matter of criticizing the government of the day, but looking in the mirror before commenting on others.

My question is for Mr. Chaisson or Mr. Doucet. With a view to attracting more francophones, the Permanent Resident Program and the Express Entry process, for example, assign them more points.

What other initiatives should IRCC introduce to increase francophone immigration to Canada?

How successful will it be over the long term?

[Alexandre Cédric Doucet]

Thank you for your question, Mr. Iacono.

My colleague, Mr. Chaisson, can finish answering this question. Without repeating myself on matters pertaining to fields of jurisdiction and the decentralization of immigration in the province of New Brunswick, I think that we also need to look outside the box. At SANB, we are trying to rely as much as possible on the IRCC targets. We are attempting to put forward other concepts that could be introduced, including constitutional concepts. If my reading of the Constitution is correct, official languages is not a field of jurisdiction. Usually, when a subject is not mentioned in the fields of jurisdiction, the federal government is responsible for it. If you are willing, I'd like to refer to former Senator Jean-Maurice Simard, who argued that because official languages are not a field of jurisdiction as such, it's up to the federal government to deal with it. It could therefore sign agreements directly with institutions.

What institutions could do a better job of recruiting and retaining than the postsecondary institutions which are already doing so on an everyday basis, but lack financial resources from the federal government? I believe it would be easy to implement certain concrete ideas, but there is a lack of creativity on the part of the federal state at the moment.

I'll give the floor to Mr. Chaisson, if he has anything to add.

[Ali Chaisson, Executive Director, Acadian Society of New Brunswick]

Thank you.

I would just say that the problem lies with the Department of Citizenship and Immigration. I don't agree that it's the fault of Canada's Parliament or governments of any stripe. It's the department's problem. It sets peculiar objectives.

Unfortunately, apart from my respect for the Standing Committee on Official Languages, I must say that we have rarely been called upon by the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. And yet, that committee is responsible for criticizing and studying what the IRCC does. The Standing Committee on Official Languages ought not to be a catch-all. As soon as a problem arises, it shouldn't always end up with this committee. At some point, part of the burden will have to be shared.

In dealing with this specific issue, a particular conclusion will inevitably be reached, which is that IRCC put all its eggs in one basket—the Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver regions—and to hell with the rest! IRCC regional funding is directly determined by the number of immigrants a province receives. If one province is at the low end at the outset, then that's where it will stay. At a certain point, as President Doucet was saying, it would perhaps be a good idea to try something else. We need to be a little bit more creative.

With respect to francophone immigration, when Quebec signed an agreement with the federal government, the IRCC officials breathed a side of relief because they would no longer have to deal with French. x

But a few years later, francophones came back and said they said to themselves that they were still burdened with the problem of French. People at the department still have not adjusted to the fact that they need to serve the francophonie outside Quebec.

That, members, is the problem.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Mr. Chaisson,

Thank you, Mr. Iacono.

Mr. Beaulieu is the next person to speak.

Mr. Beaulieu, you have two and a half minutes.

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

Although I have a lot of respect for Mr. Chaisson, I don't agree with him at all.

It's all very well to blame public servants and IRCC, but there have to be people higher up giving orders. It's as if we were saying that governments, no matter at what level, are all doing the same things and have no power over their department. Whether it's one level of government or the other, it's the all the same, and neither is it very constructive.

I'm very skeptical, and I think there's going to have to be a major effort to get results. We're being told that things will be okay because there have been discussions with the Department of Citizenship and Immigration. But Bill C-13 is asking for a blank cheque. It doesn't have anything concrete, and nothing but good intentions.

I believe there is a very simple method that could be used. The refusal rate, which is at 80%, needs to be reduced, and the approval rate raised to 50%. It's that simple. It seems to me that it can be dealt with.

What do you think about this, Mr. Théberge?

[Martin Théberge]

As I was saying, we can't concentrate on only one thing, and shouldn't look at immigration in isolation.

In our brief that was tabled, and in my speech, I mentioned several factors, and various avenues that we should be focusing on.

I'll also take the liberty of reacting to what was said just now. For francophone immigration, we can't just focus on regions like Toronto, eastern Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick. We also need to concentrate on locations like Chéticamp and Caraquet.

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

I fully agree, but I have something to add.

IRCC services in Montreal are terrible. They operate mainly in English. The rejection rates are as high in Quebec as they are everywhere else.

I think we're all in the same boat, and that we need to get together to change things.

[Martin Théberge]

Let's not forget that the community has begun working together very successfully and that a lot has been accomplished. We introduced services, added promotional activities and other things like that, and yet even today, the francophone community immigration organizations have neither the power nor the right to serve refugees, or certain communities.

We want to collaborate with governments and work hard, but as the FCFA pointed out, this needs to be done "by, for and with" francophones.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Mr. Théberge.

This will be the final question in this round, because we have to temporarily suspend the meeting.

Mr. Boulerice, as the replacement for Ms. Ashton, you have two and a half minutes.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We have a very courageous committee chair today, who's working despite having COVID-19.

Mr. Doucet, I very much liked your intervention on one-size-fits-all federal policies, in which attempts are made to apply the same thing to New Brunswick as to Newfoundland and Labrador, not to mention Nova Scotia.

For New Brunswick. When your population is 30% francophone, it makes no sense to apply a 4.4% target.

I wanted to give you the opportunity to comment again on the specific federal-provincial agreement you were talking about. You provided a long list of issues, like education and health, in which changing things could lead to a different approach for New Brunswick francophones.

I'm going to give you the opportunity to talk to us about this.

[Alexandre Cédric Doucet]

Thank you very much for your question.

I believe that the one thing we've been requesting for a number of years now is an alignment between the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the federal Official Languages Act. We would therefore like New Brunswick's linguistic specificity to be included in the act.

Fortunately, with the work done by the Société de l'Acadie du Nouveau-Brunswick and several other New Brunswick organizations, we've already succeeded in getting that into Bill C-13, tabled on March 1. ^xMore specifically, there's a new section 45.1, which talks about federal recognition of New Brunswick's linguistic specificity in terms of the equal status of both languages and both official language communities.

Including that in the Official Languages Act can compensate for earlier damage. So when immigration is added on, even given the five-year agreement and the various jurisdictions, when I see this compensation, I see dollar signs.

When I see that in the federal-provincial negotiations, with New Brunswick, in this instance, I believe it gives the province of New Brunswick and the federal government the equipment they need to negotiate something together. And the burden is not only on New Brunswick, but also on the federal government.

That's what we'd like to see in the official languages plan that could stem from Bill C-13, tabled^x on March 1.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you very much, Mr. Doucet and Mr. Boulerice.

I'd like to thank all the participants for a good debate and some good answers. We feel honoured by your presence today.

If you feel there might be additional information that could be useful to us for this study, you can always send it in writing to our clerk, who will distribute it to all the committee members.

We are now going to suspend the meeting for a short while to allow our guests to leave and to welcome the next group of witnesses.

The meeting is suspended.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

We will now be hearing from witnesses who have never appeared before our committee in our six years.

We have Mr. Mohamadou Sarr, Assistant to the Assistant Dean for Research and Graduate Studies. We also welcome, from my region, Mr. Cyriaque Kiti, the Chief Executive Officer of Afremac Consulting Inc., and Alain Laberge, Director General of the Franco-Manitoban School Division.

You will each have five minutes to present the matters that you would like to tell us about today. When there is approximately one minute left, and again when there are only 15 seconds left, I'll indicate it on a piece of paper.

On that note, in order to save time, I'll ask you to go first Mr. Sarr.

Mr. Sarr, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Mohamadou Sarr, Assistant to the Assistant Dean for Research and Graduate Studies, Université de Sherbrooke, As an Individual]

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and committee members.

I'd like to thank you for having invited me to talk about my experience as an immigrant, first of all, and also as someone who spends a lot of time working with immigrants.

In my comments, I want to place an emphasis on students, because they represent a clientele of interest to Canada, and in fact of interest to many countries. According to an article that appeared in the magazine Les Affaires, tuition fees are now between $20,000 and $70,000 a year, or even more.

In its 2018-2019 budget report, the University of Toronto pointed out that tuition fees from foreign students accounted for 30% of its revenue, which is more than the provincial grants that account for an estimated 25%. A net decline in the number of foreign students would place some universities at risk, as occurred recently with Laurentian University. Canadian universities are adopting a variety of strategies to attract international students, particularly at the postgraduate level.

In 2017, Quebec received 12% of the international students in Canada, compared to 48% in Ontario and 24% in British Columbia. It's clear that there is a discrepancy for francophones to make up. A more comprehensive strategy is required rather than simply looking at things from one angle.

I am talking about international students because generally speaking, international students attend elementary school in their own country. They will have also have gone to high school there, and perhaps even for some of their university studies. They often come precisely when they can be productive to society. When it's for graduate studies, there is an element of wealth creation. So I want to stress that a global strategy is needed.

Statistics show that over two-thirds of students remain after graduating. Once someone has graduated, it's often much easier for them to find a job, and to integrate and adapt. Less of an investment is required from that standpoint.

I would suggest trying to attract as many francophone students as possible. I'm sure you'll all remember that a few years ago, during an election campaign, a government promised to exempt international francophone students. For example, if Quebec were to sign an agreement with France, French people would be attracted and it would be much easier. But really, the most francophones are in Africa.

Because France is a developed country, it's much more difficult to attract experts from there.

Why doesn't it work? There's a feeling that there may be a quota. Perhaps we don't want a lot of Africans. That's something people feel. However, there is a genuine possibility of going there and finding highly qualified people who would contribute to wealth creation, and who would be acting as ambassadors. Africa has changed a lot. I'm talking about Africa and the Maghreb. I could say more about it during the round of questions, because I wouldn't want to go past my allotted time.

Globally, it's much easier to attract students, particularly for institutions in the other provinces, in Acadia for example.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Mr. Sarr.

We will now give the floor to our adopted Acadian, Mr. Cyriaque Kiti, for five minutes.