Official Languages Committee on Oct. 18th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to the 34th meeting of the Standing Committee on Official Languages.

Pursuant to the standing order of Monday, May 30, 2022, the committee is resuming its study of Bill C‑13, An Act to amend the Official Languages Act, to enact the Use of French in Federally Regulated Private Businesses Act and to make related amendments to other Acts.

Today's meeting is in hybrid format pursuant to the motion adopted by the House on June 23, 2022. Members may take part in person or through Zoom.

To ensure an orderly meeting, I would like to outline a few rules for the witnesses and the members who are here with us today.

Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. If you are on the videoconference, please click on the microphone icon to unmute yourself. Please mute your mike when you are not speaking.

To hear the interpretation, those participating through Zoom have the choice, at the bottom of their screen, of three channels: the floor, English or French. Members attending in person in the room can use their headset after selecting the desired channel.

A reminder that all comments by members and witnesses should be addressed through the chair.

Members in the room who wish to speak need only raise their hands. Members participating via the Zoom application must use the “Raise Hand” function. The clerk of the committee and I will do our best to keep the list of speakers in order. Thank you for your patience and understanding in this regard.

Pursuant to our routine motion, I wish to inform the committee that all witnesses have completed the required login test prior to the meeting.

I would now like to welcome our witnesses.

To start with, we will be hearing, as an individual, Mr. Roger Lepage, who is a lawyer, as well as Mr. Étienne‑Alexis Boucher, the president of Droits collectifs Québec.

Throughout the meeting, we will proceed interactively and have the members ask questions of the witnesses.

To the witnesses: you will each have five minutes to make an opening statement. Afterwards, there will be a round of questions.

I would like to warn you that I will be quite strict with my timekeeping.

On that note, we will start with Mr. Lepage.

Mr. Lepage, you have five minutes.

[Roger Lepage, Lawyer, As an Individual]

Good day to you all.

Thank you for inviting me to talk about this very important bill which seeks to update the Official Languages Act.

My presentation deals with the fact that schools and day cares are key institutions for the transmission of francophone language, culture and identity.

We have to right the wrongs of the past and to do so, we absolutely have to update the Official Languages Act. Assimilation is an institution in western Canada. Thanks to the efforts of Dalton McCarthy, who wanted “one language, one country, one flag,” it was illegal to teach in French in certain provinces outside of Quebec, including Saskatchewan, until 1969.

In 1885, they hanged Louis Riel. Afterwards, there were massive assimilation efforts to erase the francophone population.

In 2021, we see that even Quebec francophones are being assimilated into anglophone culture. We need the Official Languages Act to be enforced asymmetrically in Quebec, just as it should be outside of Quebec.

I'm now going to talk about the number of French-language schools in each province and territory outside of Quebec. In 2021, there were only 707 francophone schools for 173,000 students. That can seem like a lot, but it is just a tiny percentage compared to the number of students in English-language schools.

In Alberta, for example, there are only 3,660 students in French-language schools. In Ontario, the biggest province, there are 76,000; in British Columbia, there are about 6,500 students; in Prince Edward Island, there are only 1,163. In Manitoba, you're looking at 6,000 students and in New Brunswick, about 30,000. Nova Scotia has only 6,500 students and Saskatchewan approximately 2,000. Newfoundland and Labrador counts only 350 students and in the Northwest Territories and the Yukon, that number is 221 and 343 respectively. I was in Nunavut yesterday, I've actually just come from there, and the school board has only 115 students.

You can see that there is a huge disparity in the numbers of students and that some numbers are low.

If we come back to Saskatchewan, we can see that there are approximately 2,000 students in 15 francophone schools. However, the total number of students in Saskatchewan is 110,000. The number of students in French-language schools does not even represent 1% or 2% of the population. Moreover, it is hard to get Statistics Canada to provide figures on the number of rights holders in order to justify the number of students needed to build schools. This is a priority issue. We still need to build a network of schools. We are lacking local schools. Students have to travel huge distances. There is a real lack of equality and a lack of space in many French-language schools everywhere outside of Quebec.

We need to bring in the non-rights holders in order to right the wrongs of the past and welcome students from immigrant families. The appeal launched by the Northwest Territories on the right to take in non-rights holders will be heard by the Supreme Court of Canada during the winter of 2023, and we are hoping that the court will rule in our favour.

There is also the issue of insufficient funding for francophone school boards. As I said it earlier, I was in Iqaluit last week, and they are still lacking the necessary funds to have administrative officers and train them.

You will see eight recommendations in my document.

The federal government should pay 50% of construction costs for a network of local schools everywhere in Canada. We also have to do something about immigration. The percentage of francophone immigrants should be brought up to 12% by 2024 and 20% by 2036, because immigration is important to us and we need to have a way to counter assimilation. Even amongst immigrants, the assimilation rate is very high.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Mr. Lepage.

You will be able to provide more details when answering questions. I try to be strict with timekeeping. I will be watching the clock when our members put their questions to the witnesses. I know that they have already prepared their questions, and I would like to give them enough time to ask them, because you, the witnesses, are very helpful to us.

We now go over to our next witness, Mr. Étienne‑Alexis Boucher, the president of Droits collectifs Québec.

Mr. Boucher, you have five minutes.

[Étienne-Alexis Boucher, President, Droits collectifs Québec]

Good morning, esteemed members of the honourable institution of the House of Commons.

I am obviously very pleased to have the opportunity to help you with your study. That said, my political convictions and my experience as a champion of the French language lead me to believe, in light of the past, that the federal state will never be able to adopt a legislative framework that will allow the francophone nation of America, our nation, to flourish and allow French not only to survive and be promoted, but also to expand and prosper.

I was disappointed to see the first version of the reforms to the Official Languages Act. While these reforms are clearly necessary, they do not convince me that the federal state has understood the urgency of the situation and, as the previous witness said, the need to right the wrongs that were systematically committed against francophones everywhere in Canada.

I won't go over all the legislative history, which is utterly reprehensible.

I can give you concrete examples, such as the appointment of the Governor General, which was not in keeping with the spirit of the Canadian Constitution and the Official Languages Act. That person is the representative of the head of the Canadian state and despite her impeccable CV, she does not speak one of the two official languages of Canada. I'll let you to guess which one.

We've also seen the provinces act unilaterally and unfavourably towards the francophone community. Take, for example, the closure of the vast majority of programs offered at the Laurentian University. A mere 20 years ago, there was the attempt to close the Montfort Hospital.

Basically, francophone communities everywhere in Canada have always been subject to a certain form of discrimination, and it is hard to see how the current reforms to the Official Languages Act will be able to right the wrongs, given that they are based on false premises.

Firstly, an approach based on the individual, rather than on the territory, such as the approach championed by Quebec's Charter of the French Language, is an approach that has never ever in the history of the world allowed a minority language to prosper. An approach based on the individual that allows a minority language to prosper does not exist.

Even in Quebec, where French is the majority language, we can see that the federal government's approach, which is the systematic bilingualization of public services within Quebec, is not working.

Then there is the federal government's inability to abide by the current version of the Official Languages Act. Year after year, Canada's Commissioner of Official Languages submits highly critical reports on the federal government's management of the act. In Ottawa, there is a joke that says there are two official languages in Canada: English, obviously, and French translated into English. We do not believe that these problems will be solved by the current reforms, because profound changes are needed.

Solutions do exist, however.

We could, for example, set up a broadcasting and telecommunication council in Quebec. That would mean handing over to Quebec the responsibility of managing broadcasting and communications, which could be a good solution.

We should also recognize the asymmetrical situation of French and English. May I remind you that under international law, anglophones in Quebec do not constitute a linguistic minority, both figuratively and literally. The United Nations High Commissioner stated in a decision that it did not recognize the minority status of Quebec's anglophone community.

Other solutions are available. The Charter of the French Language could take precedence over the Official Languages Act. We could also, as I said earlier, adopt an asymmetrical approach recognizing French as the only official language that is struggling everywhere in Canada.

I will be pleased to answer your questions over the next hour.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you very much, Mr. Boucher.

We will start the first round of questions. Every party will have six minutes. We will be working in an interactive fashion and as you know, dear colleagues, I will make sure you do not go over the six minutes allotted to you.

We will start with Mr. Joël Godin, the first vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Official Languages.

Mr. Godin, you have six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr....

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

Mr. Chair, on a point of order.

I don't know why, but the interpretation is incredibly loud.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Yes, I'm not sure that the technician is aware that we can hear the interpretation in the background. I don't know where the problem is coming from. Maybe it's a headset with the volume cranked up too high.

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

I think that all the microphones are on max.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

All right. Is it better now?

Mr. Godin, I stopped the clock.

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

I am sure you are a man of your word.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Mr. Godin, please proceed, you have six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank the witnesses for being here with us this morning.

My questions are for Mr. Lepage because here at the Standing Committee on Official Languages, we obviously consider the entire country and we are working on a bill that seeks to update the Official Languages Act in Canada.

Mr. Lepage, you provided proof that French is declining everywhere in Canada and I think we are all in agreement on this fact. In your presentation, you gave a series of statistics on the number of francophone students in provinces other than Quebec. Then you spoke of righting the wrongs of the past.

I think that updating the Official Languages Act is a step in the right direction. It is true that we cannot undo all the wrong done to the French language in the past. We have to be realistic.

I now have more pointed questions to ask you. I would like your advice so that we can do our work properly and ensure that the bill has teeth, is effective and stops the decline of the French language.

Do you think that having a central organization is vital to being able to efficiently update the Official Languages Act?

If we do not amend the bill in order to designate Treasury Board as the central organization, do you think that our efforts would be a waste of time and that the French language will decline further?

[Roger Lepage]

Thank you for your question.

I think it is important to have a central organization that enforces the Official Languages Act and is responsible for it, because if a number of stakeholders are responsible, no‑one actually is.

Mr. Godin, I agree with you. It would be important to have a central organization within Treasury Board, because it will have to secure a lot of funds to truly right the wrongs of the past. The most important thing to do is build French-language schools and set up French-language school boards everywhere in Canada.

What I am currently seeing, whether it be here, in Saskatchewan, Nunavut or elsewhere, is that they are still trying to set things up. They are trying to build up a network of French schools. We urgently need a network of local schools everywhere. The central organization would ensure that the federal government paid approximately 50% of the costs...

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

Thank you, Mr. Lepage. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but you know that our chair is quite strict on timekeeping.

I just want to ask you my question once more very clearly.

Is it vital that a central organization be under Treasury Board's direction to ensure the effectiveness of the act, yes or no?

[Roger Lepage]

Yes.

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

Yes. Thank you.

I have another question for you.

Can you tell us if the problem on the ground is a lack of a francophone kids for the French-language schools in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta? Or is it a lack of accessibility?

[Roger Lepage]

It is a lack of accessibility because over time, we see that there aren't enough French-language schools. There aren't enough bus services. People are enrolling their kids in French immersion schools or in English schools. Once they do that, those kids are lost to us.

What we see is that once a French-language school opens, it fills up quite quickly. In Iqaluit, Nunavut, where they have just built a French school, they are already expanding. The schools being built are too small. People think that there aren't any rights holders, but once services in French are offered, the schools fill up.

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

Thank you, Mr. Lepage.

As we work on this study, it is truly encouraging for us to see that there is a demand for French schools. I understand now that it is a lack of willingness on behalf of governments. This is why the act has to have more teeth.

I have something to say about the language clause.

[Roger Lepage]

All right.

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

As you know, the language causes are tricky. Those of us in the Conservative Party are especially aware of how important it is to respect provincial and territorial jurisdiction.

I'd like to hear what you think of an idea of mine. It's a way the language clauses could be amended.

Would it be possible to implement the language clauses using additional funding, in order to negotiate with the provinces and territories?

I'll give you an example. If $100 million were available for joint projects between Canada and the provinces, an additional $10 million, say, could be provided to the provinces looking for funding to implement the language clauses and build specific infrastructure. Something like that would not infringe on provincial jurisdiction, while giving official language minority communities some breathing room.

How does that idea sound to you?

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

You have 30 seconds to answer, Mr. Lepage.

[Roger Lepage]

We have to abide by the Constitution, which states that education is the exclusive jurisdiction of the provinces. The federal government has to find a way to cover half the cost of building schools in Canada's minority language communities and to encourage provinces to put up the other half.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Mr. Lepage.

I am strictly enforcing time limits, Mr. Godin, to make sure everyone gets a turn.