Official Languages Committee on Feb. 7th, 2022

[Roger Lepage]

That's exactly right.

Currently, in Saskatchewan, there are still four courts in place. We're trying to get four new schools in Regina, Saskatoon and Prince Albert. The government promised us this, but it has been slow to act on this issue. Francophones no longer have the funds to go back to court. There is the Court Challenges Program, but $125,000 per court case is not much when it now costs $1 million to process a case.

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

Thank you, Mr. Lepage.

Is my time up, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Yes, your time is up, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Lepage.

Ms. Ashton, you now have the floor for six minutes.

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

Hello.

I thank the witnesses who are with us today.

Ms. Brouillette, the closure of the French-language programs and the Native Studies program at Laurentian University in Sudbury, and the closure of Campus Saint-Jean in Alberta, have shown that post-secondary education in French is in jeopardy.

The OLEP addresses one-time needs, but my impression is that these funds will not necessarily save the educational institutions that are in peril. So the OLEP is insufficient to ensure the sustainability of post-secondary institutions.

I would like to hear your views on this.

[Lynn Brouillette]

Thank you for the question.

The announcement of this $12-million package is still good news. The problem is mainly that the mechanism only funds one-time projects, whereas the outcome of such an exercise should be to provide core funding to support institutions.

I speak regularly with our rectors and college presidents. They tell me they no longer have the capacity to support so many projects. Sometimes there are even funds available to them, but they don't have the capacity to go out and get them. We applaud this $121-million investment, especially since it will be doubled and made permanent. The problem is with the mechanism, which only allows for one-time projects. That's what's problematic about this envelope.

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

Thank you very much.

My next question is for Mr. Lepage.

Mr. Lepage, thank you for sharing your recommendations with us. I note that some of them, such as those relating to language clauses, were not in the bill to modernize the Official Languages Act proposed in 2021. I have spoken about this in previous meetings and I echo your comment about child care: supply is not keeping up with demand.

Do you think that the failure to include language clauses when the government negotiated agreements for child care was a missed opportunity by the federal government?

[Roger Lepage]

Thank you, Ms. Ashton, for the question.

That's absolutely right. On the one hand, we're very happy to see that the federal government has created $10‑a‑day child care spaces and transferred money to the provinces for that. On the other hand, with no language clause or obligation to respect part VII of the Official Languages Act, this money ends up in the provinces' budgets, where it is distributed as they see fit, without any consideration of the past wrongs that have been done to the francophone minority, wrongs which they must repair.

In our school system, for example, it is essential to have day care centres, because you have to understand that in several provinces besides Quebec, the little francophones—the little rights holders—who come to school do not speak French. Raised in a family where the predominant language is English, they come to school to learn French as their first language. It is therefore very important to have this network of day care centres so that the child, from the age of six months, can learn French; once they arrive at primary school, they will be at the same level as their little anglophone colleague who arrives at an anglophone school at the primary level, ready to learn. Without these day cares and guaranteed funding, we are at a disadvantage.

My recommendation is therefore to include these language clauses and the obligation to respect part VII of the OLA in every transfer of money from the federal government to a province or territory intended for a particular project. This transfer from the federal government to the provinces and territories must include the obligation to positively promote the minority language. If the money is put into a global budget, it will be impossible to know what it was used for.

It is very important that these clauses be included in all agreements. In British Columbia, we saw this problem with the federal transfer of this obligation and employability to the province. The province abolished all French-language services organized by francophones in the area of employability. We had to go to the Court of Appeal to get a favourable decision on January 28, 2022, the decision being that the federal government had failed in its obligation to ensure compliance with part VII of the OLA. This is important.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Mr. Lepage. That is very interesting, but we have to move on to another round of questions.

According to our agreement with the parties, everyone will be able to ask questions for two and a half or five minutes, depending on the political party.

We will start the second round of questioning with Ms. Marilyn Gladu for five minutes.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I also thank our witnesses for being with us today.

My first question is about funds.

Let's talk about funding, because I've heard comments about how it doesn't work today. When the federal government gives funding, the province has to match it, but they've already given their money, so if they don't double up, then you really are short by 50%. Also, the federal government hates to fund anything that's an ongoing program. They always want it to be a project, and a lot of times they restrict capital spending or maintenance spending.

I wonder, building on what Mr. Lepage said, if it would be possible to maybe have the federal government transfer the money directly to the province with some kind of constraint for the improvement of French in the province, but with greater flexibility to spend it on capital maintenance programs and ongoing projects.

I will start with Ms. Brouillette.

[Lynn Brouillette]

Thank you very much for the question.

You have put your finger on the problem. In order to be able to build capacity and stability in the post-secondary sector, we really need funding that allows us to look ahead, that allows us to plan for five or ten years. That's why it's so important to establish a mechanism that will allow programs to be planned and put in place.

In universities or colleges, it takes a number of years to put programs in place, whether they are undergraduate or graduate programs. It takes that long to plan.

So we're recommending that the mechanism be reviewed from top to bottom, and because these are federal-provincial agreements, that the two levels of government work together to review the mechanism entirely. There is currently money on the table, but the mechanism is not working.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Do you think the provincial action plans are relevant?

[Lynn Brouillette]

Provincial action plans are usually made in collaboration with communities and institutions. Usually they reflect the needs of these communities or institutions. The problem is in the way it works, the mechanism used.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Lepage, what do you think about this?

[Roger Lepage]

Thank you for the question, Ms. Gladu.

In my opinion, one of the problems is that the provinces and territories are not well aware of the needs of their official francophone minority. In their view, it is the responsibility of the federal government to fund schools or post-secondary institutions for francophone minorities.

As a taxpayer, I don't really care whether the funding comes from the federal or provincial government. The only thing I care about is that my children have access to school services. That's why I mention in the third recommendation that the federal government should develop a massive education funding initiative in co‑operation with the provinces and territories. This would bring schools up to date, as well as allow for the construction of schools and educational facilities, from day care to post-secondary education.

In 2020, the Supreme Court of Canada highlighted the fact that British Columbia needed 17 new schools. Let me say that it's not just British Columbia that needs them. It's also Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and the maritime provinces.

Personally, I would like to see the federal government develop an initiative to work with the provinces and territories to develop an agreement that addresses the need for new schools.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Mr. Lepage.

I apologize for interrupting you, but time is limited. You may have the opportunity to complete your answer in the next round of questions.

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

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to welcome our witnesses.

Ms. Brouillette, it's a pleasure to see you again.

I would be remiss if I did not mention one of my colleagues from the municipality of Hawkesbury, Mr. Martin Normand. Personally, I chose to follow the path of politics. As for him, he chose the path of intelligence.

Mr. Normand, it is also a pleasure to see you again.

Ms. Brouillette, you talked about the new budget envelope and the problems associated with the lack of core funding. Personally, I see it in a different light.

The federal government has invested $121 million. In my opinion, this creates leverage. We're inviting the provinces to match it.

Can you help me understand why this isn't working? Is this a multi-province problem? Should we just review the funding envelope, the way the funding works?

[Lynn Brouillette]

I thank you very much for the question, Mr. Drouin.

We welcome the announcement of the funds, as this is the first time, to our knowledge, that a budget envelope has been dedicated to post-secondary institutions. In our view, the federal and provincial governments need to negotiate how these funds are distributed. Since education is a provincial jurisdiction, the provinces initially invest very large amounts of money to support post-secondary institutions, but we know that this is not enough. In fact, many of our members have testified before this committee and they have not hesitated to say that we need to stabilize post-secondary institutions; we need to give them the capacity to act while being pillars in their communities and supporting the vitality of their communities.

However, it is not the funds that are the problem at present, as there is a promise of funds specifically for post-secondary institutions. Instead, the mechanism needs to be overhauled because it is not working. Our members have been telling us this for years, and we've seen it. I think even Canadian Heritage realizes that many elements of this mechanism do not work. So it's a well-known fact.

We recommend that both levels of government have a good discussion about this and thoroughly review this mechanism so that it can work properly. Some members have already told me that they would have liked to apply for a particular project or for funding, but were told by the province that it did not have a match to offer as it had already paid one.

It should be noted that our member institutions use the provincial matching funds to cover their operating costs. The provinces tell the institutions to use the money they give them. This means that when an institution wants to do a $400,000 project, it only gets $200,000 from the federal government, and it doesn't necessarily get any other money from the province. They're always caught in this bind, which makes it really difficult. Also, the funds are given for one-time projects. These are the two things that make the mechanism inadequate to stabilize the post-secondary system and to strengthen the capacity of each of our institutions to support communities, which are very fragile right now.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Is this a coordination issue?

I know it's not the federal government's job to approve college and university programs, because that's a provincial jurisdiction.

Are your members telling you that they go to the ministries to get programs approved, but they don't know if the programs will be funded or where the funding will come from?

[Lynn Brouillette]

If I may, I will let my colleague Mr. Normand answer this question.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

You have 15 seconds left, Mr. Normand.

[Martin Normand, Director, Strategic Research and International Relations, Association des collèges et universités de la francophonie canadienne]

That budget envelope is not actually used to create new programs but rather to initiate one-off projects. Speaking of leverage, that's where leverage doesn't necessarily work.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Mr. Normand.

Mr. Beaulieu, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

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

Mr. Lepage, I would like to come back to something you said earlier in your answer to a question from Ms. Lattanzio. You said that anglophone schools in Quebec had a 200‑year head start. Until the 1960s, funding for elementary, secondary and post-secondary education was really lopsided. Anglophone post-secondary learning institutions were overfunded.

The Canadian government considered the francophone majority in Quebec equivalent to the anglophone majority in Canada and that all federal government language funding should go to anglophone Quebecers.

Do you think that makes sense?

[Roger Lepage]

Thank you for the question, Mr. Beaulieu.

I'm speaking to you as an individual. It's quite obvious to me that the francophone community is a minority within North America. I understand that, under the Canadian Constitution, the provinces have their own areas of jurisdiction, such as education. However, in my opinion, in a federation, it must also be recognized that the francophone minority across Canada needs support.

In other words, the federal government must support French in Quebec, not only English. I understand that English is in a minority in Quebec, but the anglophone minority is nothing like the francophone minority outside Quebec. It's much better served than the francophone minority.

In my opinion, if you look at the statistics, it's only natural that the federal government also support French in Quebec.

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

Okay.

I would like to very quickly ask another question.

In Bill C‑32 sponsored by Ms. Joly, the official languages minister at the time, an increase in funding was announced for French immersion schools, but not necessarily for schools designed by and for francophones.

Don't you think it would make sense to start by increasing funding for schools designed by and for francophones?