Official Languages Committee on Oct. 4th, 2023

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

When you want to attract immigrants, you have to enlarge the target population. I agree.

We must change the way we deal with labour shortages. For example, here in Canada, we are trying to attract nursing professionals and doctors. What role can professional associations play? Do our colleges and universities also have a role to play?

[Roger Pichette]

They certainly have a role to play. As you said, Mr. Drouin, the flexibility or lack of flexibility of the professional associations plays a role. Those who showed the most flexibility are those with the most newcomers.

If you look at the statistics of the associations of engineers, of nurses, or other professionals, you are going to find out who has reasonable flexibility and who has so little flexibility that immigrants with medical degrees end up doing Uber transportation or other types of jobs.

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

I see that Mr. Castonguay raised his hand, but my next question is for both of you.

Do you think we should have more embassies in French-speaking countries, although there are—I know very well—coups and instability in some of those countries? Should we have a greater presence and more local processing centres instead of forcing people from Gabon, for example, to go to Dakar, which creates a geographic obstacle for them?

I know that in Canada we benefit from being able to travel across the country, but in Africa it is different. Often, you have to fly to Paris to go to another country in Africa.

Do you believe that Canada should increase the number of its embassies and processing centres in French-speaking countries?

Mr. Castonguay, you have the floor for about 33 seconds.

[Prof. Charles Castonguay]

I do not really like being associated with Mr. Bock-Côté. You have to think outside the box. I am trying to make you realize that we are dealing with a problem of underfertility, not only among francophones, but also among anglophones, in Quebec and outside Quebec. However, the latter manage to recruit new anglophones in quantity, while French is in deficit in this regard.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you very much, Mr. Drouin and Mr. Castonguay. You can come back to this later. The time is already up.

Mr. Paquet, we will try our luck, live.

[Stéphane Paquet, President and Chief Executive Officer, Montreal International]

All right, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

You have the floor for five minutes. If I interrupt you, it will be because I have been told that there are technical problems.

[Stéphane Paquet]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for welcoming me to your committee, which you referred to earlier as the best committee in town.

I am going to start by saying a few words about Montréal International. I will tell you a bit about who we are and what we do.

Montréal International is Greater Montréal’s economic development agency. Our mandate is to...

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Excuse me, Mr. Paquet.

I do not know what is going wrong, I am not a technician, but it does not work on this side.

[Stéphane Paquet]

It worked when we did the tests earlier.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

I am the Chair of the Committee, but I have no solutions to this problem.

I know you have been quite patient so far and have passed all the required tests.

I suggest that you continue to listen to what is happening here and, if you wish, send your comments in writing to our clerk. Committee members would be most grateful.

We may consider a future invitation, if possible, to have you in person or virtually, when the issue is fixed.

[Stéphane Paquet]

I will send you my notes on what I had to say.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Please accept the apologies from Parliament Hill and from committee members.

Mrs. Goodridge, the floor is yours.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Personally, I can hear well what Mr. Paquet is saying.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Mrs. Goodridge, I can confirm that technically, when the sound comes in, everything is perfect. In fact, it is not just good sound, but perfect sound. The problem seems to be between the room and the interpretation booth.

Mr. Paquet, please accept our apologies. You have no idea how embarrassing this is. However, we must move on to other questions.

Please send your notes to the Clerk, who will forward them to the committee members. We will resolve the issue and invite you, if possible, to a future meeting.

Mr. Godin, the floor is yours.

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

Mr. Chairman, I think we could suggest to our guest that he provides not only his speaking notes, but also, specific recommendations if he has any beyond his speech. This will allow us to table a useful report. I think it would have been interesting to hear what he had to say, because he knows the reality of our businesses in Quebec and in Canada. Unfortunately, technology does not allow it at this time.

Mr. Paquet, I would be grateful if you could send us the text of your speech and your specific recommendations.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

I absolutely agree with that.

We will now move to the next questions.

I now give the floor to the second deputy chair of the committee, Mr. Beaulieu, for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would also like to thank our guests for joining us.

I think Mr. Castonguay wanted to add something, so I am giving him the opportunity to do that.

[Prof. Charles Castonguay]

The underfertility of the English-Canadian and French-Canadian peoples is well known.

I will speak now about what is less known. Based on the census data, Quebec is becoming a province just like the others, since there is now a net anglicization of francophones in Quebec. According to the last census, this anglicization affected 40,000 people. On the island of Montreal, this involves 5% of young adults whose mother tongue is French. This is close to what we see in New Brunswick, where the anglicization rate is almost equivalent to that of eastern Ontario. It is a continuum. We are all in this together. That is how I see it.

I also see that the assimilation rate of young adults whose mother tongue is French in Alberta is 63%, a finding that also hurts. The problem is not just related to underfertility. These anglicized francophones will raise their children in English. This is a loss for the French-speaking population. They become more comfortable in English than in French; it is that simple.

The language used at home is an excellent indicator of the official language in which the individual is most comfortable. I invite you to read the 2006 Statistics Canada survey report. Among the authors, let me mention Jean-Pierre Corbeil and Sylvie Lafrenière. They found that the language used at home goes hand in hand with the official language in which individuals are most comfortable. Indeed, it is the official language most often used in public, for example to request services from the federal government, municipalities or provinces. They are really interconnected vessels.

These statistics on the language used at home, which becomes the mother tongue of children, are really stunning. They really need to be considered. The committee needs to look at that. Does the committee really think that Canada’s linguistic duality depends on "the vitality of official-language minority communities”? This is from the first sentence of Minister Ahmed Hussen’s 2019 strategy. I could not believe it.

It is said that Canada’s linguistic duality is based on the vitality of French-language minority communities, but what about Quebec? The other community, which is called the majority, becomes, in its behaviour, a minority like the others. In fact, it is a minority like the others in Canada, where there is an official minority language, and that is French. This is what the United Nations told us in a certain judgment.

Let us be practical. There are some 10,000 French-speaking allophones outside Quebec, whereas, according to the last census, there were 1,300,000 “francotropic people"—as I call them—outside Quebec. The latter were of French, Belgian, Romanian, Latin American and African origin. Of that 1,300,000, about 10,000 people have become French-speaking. The others have switched to English, because it is the most convenient language, the one that pays the most, and that is where they see their future.

In Quebec, francization occurs among francotropic people, such as Spanish speakers, Portuguese speakers from Brazil and Portugal as well as Romanians. Many Africans, especially those from former francophone African countries, are French-speaking. The Haitians are French-speaking. If Quebec now attracts a majority of recruits, compared to English, that is good. However, the competition is still fierce. Currently, French slightly outweighs English as the language adopted by newcomers whose mother tongue is not one of the two official languages.

That includes Africa and a very significant portion of the world, largely due to francotrope immigration from these countries. These newcomers assimilate to French because of a predilection for the language, based either on a linguistic affinity between their language and other languages derived from Latin, like French, or because they come from former French colonies or protectorates.

For historical reasons, Vietnam was once a recruitment country. A majority of newcomers with Vietnamese as a mother tongue could be expected to assimilate to French. They do not assimilate to French outside Quebec, however. Haitians do, but only by a slim majority. Among immigrants whose mother tongue is an African language, it rarely happens.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Mr. Castonguay.

[Prof. Charles Castonguay]

Mr. Godin, since you asked me for a practical suggestion, I suggest that you speak to the current minister.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Mr. Castonguay. You will be able to speak to this topic again later. I have the difficult task of managing speaking time.

Ms. Ashton, you have six minutes.

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

Thank you very much.

My questions are for Mr. Pichette.

First of all, the government says it has reduced immigration application processing times, and that wait times are the shortest they have ever been since the pandemic.

Do you consider the current wait times acceptable?

[Roger Pichette]

If you ask our clients that question, they will tell you that the process can never be fast enough. Ask people on the other side of the world and they will also tell you that the process is slow. In my opinion, however, your statement is not at all unreasonable. I tend to agree with what you said about the reduction in wait times since the pandemic, but we also need to establish whether they are temporary or permanent.

If permanent, they are definitely the shortest they have been since the pandemic. I agree with that. However, the labour shortage situation means that application approvals can never be fast enough from a company's perspective. Companies would always prefer to have a 19‑week wait time for a worker from Morocco, for example, shortened to five weeks. They will always be glad to gain these three months.

Is it acceptable? Nothing is ever going to be fast enough for the private sector, but catering to every company's wait time preferences is not a reasonable objective.

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

Like a number of witnesses, you raised the question of on-the-ground support.

Do you think that consular support services should be expanded for sub-Saharan African immigrants?