Official Languages Committee on Oct. 4th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

I now call the meeting to order.

Welcome to the 68th meeting of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Official Languages.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3) and the motion adopted by the committee on April 21, 2023, the committee is meeting to continue its study on increased francophone immigration to Canada.

Today’s meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of June 15, 2023. Members may attend in person or by using the Zoom app.

To ensure the meeting runs smoothly, I would like to pass on some instructions to the witnesses and members.

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

As far as interpretation is concerned, those participating via Zoom have the choice at the bottom of their screen of either the floor, English or French. For those in the room, you can use your earpiece and select the desired language channel.

Although this room is equipped with a good sound system, sound feedback may occur, which can be extremely harmful to interpreters and cause serious injury. The most common cause of audio feedback is an earpiece being placed too close to a microphone. So we ask all participants to exercise great caution when handling their earpiece, especially when their microphone or that of the person sitting next to them is on. In order to prevent incidents and to protect the hearing health of interpreters, I ask participants to make sure that they speak into the microphone assigned to them and that they avoid holding their earpiece in their hands when it is not in use. The earpiece should be placed on the table, away from the microphone.

I remind you that all comments from members and witnesses should be addressed through the chair.

For members in the room, if you wish to speak, please raise your hand. For members who are on Zoom, please use the “raise hand” function. The clerk of the committee and I will do our best to keep track of the speaking order, and we appreciate your patience and understanding in that regard.

In accordance with our routine motion regarding connection testing, I wish to inform the committee that all witnesses have completed the required connection testing prior to the meeting. Unfortunately, at this time, Mr. Paquet is experiencing technical difficulties, which we are trying to resolve as quickly as possible.

I would now like to welcome the witnesses: Mr. Pichette and Mr. Castonguay are in attendance, and Mr. Paquet is participating virtually.

I would also like to welcome the new members of the Standing Committee on Official Languages, the best committee in town: Mr. Lehoux, a regular, and Ms. Taylor Roy.

Each witness will have five minutes to present. Then there will be interactions with the members for a set period of time and I will later explain how it works. For now, we are going to listen to the witnesses.

Before I go to Mr. Castonguay and start the clock, I must tell you that I have the difficult task of managing speaking time, so I may have to cut you off. That also applies to members. The stricter we are on speaking time, the more likely it is that everyone can ask their questions.

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

[Prof. Charles Castonguay, Retired Professor, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My presentation is entitled “Canada's Language Policy: Stubbornly Going the Wrong Way”.

The 2021 census confirmed that the French character of Quebec is now under threat. In the meantime, the current Canadian policy to promote francophone immigration outside Quebec seems quite irresponsible. In 2021, the percentage of Canadians who speak French as a language of use at home dropped below 20%. In Quebec, the francophone majority has fallen to record lows, reaching 76% for native speakers and 79% for the language used at home. On the other hand, the weight of English in Quebec is increasing on both fronts. Assimilation to English drives these trends. Assimilation of French-speaking Canadians now using English at home is steadily increasing, from 280,000 in 1971 to 460,000 in 2021.

Since 2001, a similar trend has emerged in Quebec. Between 2001 and 2021, the anglicization of Quebeckers whose mother tongue is French has seen their number increase from 8,000 to 40,000. The anglicization of native francophones is now progressing as fast in Quebec as outside Quebec. As for Canadians whose mother tongue is not one of the two official languages, 2.9 million now use English, while the number who now use French, almost all of whom live in Quebec, is only 290,000, or exactly ten times less. Across Canada, English gains more than 3.3 million speakers through assimilation while French has a net loss of 170,000.

The 2021 census also tells us something new about francophone immigration. For the most part, they are immigrants whose mother tongue is French or immigrants whose mother tongue is not one of the two official languages and who are more comfortable in French than in English. Previous censuses have shown that, outside of Quebec and New Brunswick, the majority of immigrants whose mother tongue is French become English-speaking, and most of them do so in the first generation. On the contrary, the vast majority of those who settle in Quebec do not become anglicized.

Logically, these immigrants should be encouraged to settle in Quebec or New Brunswick rather than elsewhere. In 2021, Quebec, in particular, had 87% of the Canadian population whose mother tongue was French, but only 77% of immigrants whose mother tongue was French. In other words, Quebec is already not receiving its fair share of these immigrants. On the other hand, since the 2006 census, a growing majority of Quebeckers with mother tongue other than French or English have assimilated to French rather than to English, proof that there is good news sometimes. On the contrary, outside Quebec, Canadians whose mother tongue is neither French nor English did not show any tendency towards higher francization. In 2006, more than 2.2 million had become anglicized, compared to a minuscule 10,700 who had become French-speaking.

In 2021, whether or not these immigrants were, at some point in their lives, more comfortable in French than in English, nearly 2.7 million of them, or 400,000 more, had assimilated to English, compared to 12,500, a microscopic 1,800 more, to French. Clearly, for French to flourish properly in Canada, immigrants whose mother tongue is not French nor English but who are more comfortable in French than in English must be encouraged to settle in Quebec. The same must be done for immigrants whose mother tongue is French.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Mr. Castonguay.

You can tell us more by answering questions along the way, as you know.

We will now go to Mr. Roger Pichette, from BB Immigration, for five minutes.

[Roger Pichette, Lawyer, BB Immigration]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To respect the time allocated to us, we have chosen to present five recommendations and to share with you two small pitfalls to avoid in the work you have been mandated to do, always with the objective of increasing the success rates of francophone immigrant applications in Canada.

The first recommendation is to strengthen the role of authorized representatives with francophone populations of Africa and Francophonie. The goal is very simple: we must prevent these people's money to be taken by charlatans who are not helpful and, even worse, sometimes cause the first application to be denied. I will make suggestions in this regard in a moment.

The second recommendation is to allocate additional resources to embassies responsible for the large francophone and francophile populations. Once again, I am not reinventing the wheel by telling you this. Just on Monday, I compared the work permit applications for the five largest anglophone populations to the seven largest francophone populations. The processing times for applications from the French-speaking populations are double those from the English-speaking populations. This is something that can be easily acted upon.

The third recommendation is to allow officials to gather additional information when an application that is overall solid contains insufficient details. This was a common practice in the past but it unfortunately tends to fade or even disappear. The file may be very solid, but it may be missing something like a comma or it needs clarification, or another version of a document may be required. This now leads to a denial, whereas the official reviewing the application could simply send a letter requesting clarification, in order to do a more specific analysis and make a decision based on the application.

The fourth recommendation is to provide more descriptive and detailed reasons for denial. People who choose Canada will not give up after their application has been rejected a first time. If the reasons they are given for the denial are so nebulous that they do not know at all the reasons for the decision, they will make a second and a third application, which will be rejected again. In addition, you will see that artificial intelligence will cause problems.

This brings me to the fifth recommendation. We must work to minimize the biases introduced by the use of artificial intelligence in the processing of applications. Canada’s attractiveness means that we will keep receiving more applications, and we will not be able to handle that influx without artificial intelligence. Given the origin of francophone immigrants, we must work to minimize the biases introduced by artificial intelligence. A person can understandably be rejected a couple of times, but some applicants risk being excluded for life if we rely only on robots. We therefore believe that artificial intelligence tools should be tuned to better reflect this reality. After all, the fact that a case is handled by artificial intelligence should not result in a less fair decision.

In closing, I would like to make two suggestions to avoid certain pitfalls.

First, temporary immigration should not be excluded from your thoughts and recommendations. Unfortunately, this was a mistake made in Quebec, which greatly delayed the debate and made it purely semantic. Our programs allow immigrants to go through temporary status to get to permanent status. Please include temporary immigration in your thoughts and recommendations.

Before I answer your questions, I would like to say one last thing.

Bilingualism needs are not directly proportional to the number of applications in French sent to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. At BB Immigration, we are no better than others. The majority of practitioners have to do the same. When we see that it will be easier and more efficient to process the request in English,

we're just going to switch to English and do it in English for the benefit of our clients.

The need for departmental and consular bilingual services should not simply be determined by the number of applications in French

I hope I managed to stay within my allotted time. I am now ready to answer your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Mr. Pichette. You still have a full minute.

[Roger Pichette]

In this case, I’m going to talk about settlement services. Your motion talks about settlement services. The needs for settlement services are extremely diverse. There are people who arrive here with a binder full of information about the area where they will settle, while others arrive with a bag only.

In our view, it seems unwise to put a lot of effort, energy and government money into settlement services. Perhaps it would be better to promote the bilingualism of the resources already available in the various Canadian and Quebec communities, in order to ensure a better integration of francophone immigrants in these communities.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Mr. Pichette.

Since Mr. Paquet has not arrived yet, I will suspend the meeting for a few minutes.

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

Let us not suspend the meeting.

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

Let us continue the meeting, and then, if Mr. Paquet can join us, we will hear him. If not, we will continue with the witnesses who are here.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Agreed.

I will now give the floor to Mr. Godin for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Castonguay and Mr. Pichette, thank you for being here in person.

Mr. Castonguay, I listened to your presentation and found it very interesting. I must tell you that we came to the same conclusion: French is declining in Canada and Quebec. However, I would have liked to hear you talk more about how to counter this situation and stop the bleeding of French in Canada and Quebec. I just wanted to tell you.

Mr. Pichette, what I like about your remarks today is that you are on the ground and that you live every day the concerns of immigrants who want to come to work in Canada. You mentioned the need to strengthen the role of our representatives in Africa, because it is a very important part of the Francophonie.

Can you explain what is blocking the system? We know—correct me if I am wrong—that a lot of French-speaking Africans want to come here. What is the holdup? Where do you get involved in the process? Would you suggest to us tools that would make us even better and that would help you bring in more immigrants.

[Roger Pichette]

Thank you very much, Mr. Godin.

In these countries, everyone knows someone who has been to Canada. These are very tight-knit communities, and people will rely on what they hear from their third neighbour rather than consulting a lawyer, a notary or a regulated Canadian immigration consultant. They will believe the wonderful story they are told and cannot afford to pay a lot of money. They are going to go through a process that is often bound to fail, because they are misled by people who are often unscrupulous or have absolutely no experience in this area.

So when I talk about strengthening the role of representatives, it is really to make it clear to people that they should not give their money to just about anyone if they want to immigrate to Canada, but that they should work with people whose skills we have verified. We have professional associations that are supervised and whose members can provide appropriate advice.

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

If I understand correctly, you are suggesting that Canada should have a certification program for immigration professionals abroad, more specifically in Africa, in order to make sure that they are more efficient, more professional and more respectful of the administrative relationship. Is that correct?

[Roger Pichette]

Certifications already exist. A regulated consultant is subject to Canadian regulations. The same goes for lawyers and notaries in Quebec.

We need to do some public education abroad. We must explain to people that not everyone is able to help them properly. We must try to convince them to keep their money for their project. They can do it by themselves or with the help of the right people, not with the dream merchants that we unfortunately see too often in these markets.

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

The poor are being exploited, as one might say.

I will move on to another stage of the process once the person has successfully applied to the Department of Citizenship and Immigration. Earlier, you talked about an application being rejected once, twice or three times, sometimes because of a small detail. What would be the solution to speed up the process and to have more French-speaking immigrants come to Canada?

[Roger Pichette]

Frankly, I do not know if we can do both. Sometimes a longer process can avoid applications being rejected when in fact they should not. As I was saying earlier, asking for clarification on a document for which the applicant did not provide an official version can be a way to avoid a denial.

I will give you an interesting example. Recently, a reason has been given repeatedly to deny temporary resident status. You will see that it is so meaningless that it is then very difficult to make a subsequent application. The only justification you are given, after months, is that the reason for your visit to Canada is not compatible with a temporary stay, given the information you provided in your application. That’s it. It's over. We do not give you any information. Good luck with your second application.

As I told you, these people want to come to Canada. You certainly have an idea of how attractive Canada is for these people, who are literally fascinated by our country. Therefore, they are not going to give up: they are going to apply again blindly, then they are going to be denied a second, a third and sometimes a fourth time, before they really understand why their application is not moving forward.

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

Thank you, Mr. Pichette.

I would also like you to explain what happens after a first denial. Does the applicant who wants to immigrate to Canada have to start again and wait for a long time, or is it possible to apply for a review, analysis and correction to update the application file?

[Roger Pichette]

Obviously, there are always legal remedies. However, you will agree with me that an African immigrant cannot easily go to the Federal Court of Canada to challenge a decision. He could also make access to information requests, but that it is not always straightforward, as you know. Therefore, in real life, if someone asks me what to do after a denial, I tell them in 85% of cases that the best strategy is to file a new application, to wait again for the same duration and, if the applicant does not know clearly why the application was rejected, to pray that it will work this time.

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

To your knowledge, is the processing time for francophone immigration applications much longer than for English-speaking immigration applications?

[Roger Pichette]

The figures I presented to you for this week seem to indicate that. The majority of English-speaking immigrants come from India, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, China or the United States. In these five countries, the processing time for a work permit application is 9, 8, 6, 11 and 5 weeks, respectively. In France, it is 15 weeks; in Tunisia, 19 weeks; in Morocco, 19 weeks; in Algeria, 18 weeks; in Senegal, 11 weeks; and in Ghana, 13 weeks.

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

Should we conclude that the various stakeholders do not necessarily have the same resources? That is what you said in your presentation.

[Roger Pichette]

I can only assume that, because I do not have the exact figures, but it looks very much so.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you very much, Mr. Pichette and Mr. Godin.

I am told that Mr. Paquet is not here yet.

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

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I thank the witnesses for being here.

Mr. Castonguay, one of your statements shocked me, but I am not surprised. I am used to it. In 1965, a song by Mr. Raymond Lévesque told us that schoolchildren in Alberta did not have access to French-language schools. Today, they have access to it. Francophone resilience outside Quebec is very strong. We just need to support and understand it.

Whether it is the francophonie in Quebec or the international Francophonie, francophones are a minority worldwide. It is up to us to do the work. I am used to working in a minority environment and being called a francophone on an artificial life support. Columnist Mathieu Bock-Côté, for example, spoke to me when he eulogized francophones outside Quebec.

Given the fertility rate, whether in Quebec, in the rest of Canada or elsewhere in the world—for example, it is 1.7 children per woman in Quebec and 1.83 in France, I believe that immigration is the way that the Francophonie will survive. So I am reaching out to you. It is up to us to work together to address this issue. The largest French-speaking population is in Africa, and this where the future of the Francophonie lies.

Mr. Pichette, you made some very good suggestions. You talked about charlatans and people abusing other people’s goodwill, and I have a problem with that. I do not know how we can deal with this, knowing full well that we have to be the best. We have no choice. In the Francophonie, we must be better than all the others in immigration, because we are already part of a minority. Whether in France or Canada, we are a minority.

How can we be more effective, more efficient, in attracting French-speaking immigrants from Africa?

We have no choice but to rely on Africa. The birth rate is high and young people make up more than half of the population over there. Young people want to work and they do not have a job. In Canada, Quebec is a great place to welcome them.

You mentioned the importance of having more resources in embassies. Why do you say that?

[Roger Pichette]

We want the people who process the applications to have the time to do it the right way, so they can afford to ask for clarification before sending a denial letter.

It would also help employers who are reluctant to use workers from the Maghreb, for example, rather than from France. If it takes four more months to bring someone from the Maghreb, employers will still turn to France, even if it may prove less advantageous for all sorts of reasons, such as attractiveness, the situation relative to the eurozone, and so on.

You are right, Mr. Drouin. Young francophones are in Africa. They are increasingly educated and they are eager to come to Canada. This is why an increase in resources would allow those responsible for processing applications to have more time to do their work properly.

Also, when Canadian consular services provide information sessions, they could warn people against charlatans and explain who the authorized representatives are. When such a warning comes from someone standing beside the Canadian flag, in other words, from the government of the country where the applicants want to go, they certainly listen very carefully.

It may seem that I am looking out for my own interests, since I am a lawyer, but my practice is governed by a code of ethics, not by what my second cousin did in 1992 when he came to Canada.