Mr. Chair, Hon. members, good afternoon. I am truly pleased to be able to see you in person.
I am happy to be able to join you as you study Bill C‑13. I'd like to thank you for having invited the AF0, the Assemblée de la francophonie de l'Ontario, to testify in connection with your work. As an advocacy organization, we represent approximately 744,000 Franco-Ontarians.
With me today is the AFO's Executive Director, Mr. Peter Hominuk.
The AFO welcomed the tabling of Bill C‑13 on March 1. The Franco-Ontarian community and its partners in other provinces and territories have been working for over six years to convince the government of the importance of modernizing the Official Languages Act.
As written, the bill contains interesting initiatives for our community, such as bilingualism for Supreme Court judges, a review of the act every 10 years, as is the case henceforth in Ontario, and the entrenchment of the Court Challenges Program.
As the committee carries on with its study of this bill, which is dear to the francophone communities, I would like to take this opportunity to speak about the importance of certain amendments proposed by the FCFA, the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne, which we support because they address important issues that we consider essential if the bill is to have the maximum possible impact once adopted.
The most important aspect has to do with the role of the Treasury Board as the central coordinating agency for the implementation of this act. The second addresses the importance of Bill C‑13 in the development of Franco-Ontarian communities, particularly in intergovernmental agreements. The third and final important issue is the francophone immigration policy.
There is a fundamental problem with the act that has persisted for 50 years, and it's the fact that Canadian Heritage cannot require other government departments to do anything. We strongly recommend that the Treasury Board be designated in the bill as the only central agency responsible for implementing the act and for centralizing all coordination powers.
I want to be clear about this: we don't want to take away the policy role performed by Canadian Heritage, nor reduce its capacity to develop and administer programs. However, Canadian Heritage cannot, owing to its very nature, oversee consistent implementation of the act in all the other departments. Only a central agency can do that effectively.
The matter of incorporating the language clauses also deserves your consideration. As written, Bill C‑13 does not require the negotiation of language clauses in federal-provincial-territorial agreements. And yet these clauses are essential for ensuring compliance with federal official languages commitments when funds are given to the provinces and territories. A recent example of this can be found in the federal-provincial negotiations on child care. We still don't know whether the child care program contains language clauses. Things remain somewhat vague. At the moment, the modernization of the act gives the government an opportunity to strengthen the linguistic duality and require that it be taken into consideration in agreements signed with the provinces and territories, which bodes well for all francophones in Canada.
I will end my address by talking about immigration.
Francophone immigration is one of the keys to maintaining the vitality of francophones in minority communities. The bill states that the immigration policy has to include a target and accountability measures, but objectives are not specified.
As you know, the federal francophone immigration target has not come close to being met, and has not for many years. If the trend continues, the government will be unsuccessful in meeting the 2023 target, and this will contribute hugely to the decline in the demographic weight of our community.
One of the consequences of failing to meet targets is further shrinking of the francophone and bilingual workforce. This has an impact on every sector: the private sector, the public sector, and even not-for-profit organizations, for example. There are simply not enough skilled workers to serve francophones. To counteract this shortage, immigration is essential, as is the full education continuum, from early childhood to post-secondary education.
The bill should specify the goals of the francophone immigration policy being put forward in the new version of the act. If that is done, the new act might breathe new life into our communities.
Thank you for your attention. I'll be happy to answer any questions.