Official Languages Committee on Nov. 1st, 2023

[Etienne-René Massie]

I would say that the communities face a series of challenges. Often, it is access to services. They have to be able to find someone in their niche who offers those services in the language of their choice.

An entrepreneur in an official language minority community often faces quite a few of the same challenges that all the other entrepreneurs face. Entrepreneurs who are excelling are not the ones who seek out our services. Through our programs, we are really trying to work with entrepreneurs who need help, who need support or services. Some run into barriers or discrimination. For example, the black community has faced these kinds of challenges for a very long time. We offer these services to try to overcome these barriers, which often involve access to capital, access to information, or access to markets. These entrepreneurs are trying to get included in bigger companies' supply chains. These are often the same challenges as we see for many entrepreneurs.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Mr. Iacono and Mr. Massie.

The next few questions will be asked by the second vice-chair of this committee.

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

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to our guests for being here with us.

There is something I would like to know. Right at the beginning, you said that Statistics Canada had a new mandate, to identify businesses that represent OLMCs. Can we get access to the inventory of those businesses? Is it public?

[Marie-Caroline Badjeck]

I can answer the question.

The data used is from the census, but my statistics preserve anonymity. For the list of businesses, I refer to my colleagues at Statistics Canada. It is really the 2017 Census database that my Deputy Minister discussed today.

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

Right. That is the data you use.

Basically, if I understand correctly, you do not finance the businesses directly. I would like to know what the situation is for Quebec particularly.

[Etienne-René Massie]

For our entrepreneurship programs, our approach is to go through intermediaries. For the Canadian Digital Adoption Program or CDAP, for example, we work with the Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec and the Réseau des sociétés d'aide au développement des collectivités to provide this service to small businesses in Quebec.

Regarding the Women Entrepreneurship Strategy...

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

This is about anglophone Quebec small business in this case, is that right?

[Etienne-René Massie]

In this case, the Fédération and the Réseau provide services to entrepreneurs in anglophone and francophone communities in Quebec, in general. It is the same thing, for example, for the Strategy...

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

How do you divide it up? Does that agency provide services to francophones in general, but grants specific additional money to anglophone small businesses?

[Etienne-René Massie]

There aren't necessarily budgets planned, but the data has to be collected.

When we give funding to the intermediaries, we ask them to provide us with data regarding the sex and community of origin of the recipients and with a report on the number of people from official language minority communities who were served. We can use that data to do an evaluation and see whether the service is meeting the needs of OLMCs.

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

Can we know precisely what official language minority community businesses in Quebec have benefited from the program?

[Etienne-René Massie]

We would have to ask the intermediaries to provide that information and I would also have to check whether the studies clause that we require all our recipients to sign provides for the information to be distributed.

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

Can you send us the list of your intermediary organizations?

[Etienne-René Massie]

Yes, certainly. We can provide you with the list of all our intermediary organizations. Everything is on our website and so we can send you all those links.

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

You talked about a committee on which representatives of the OLMCs sit. I was wondering who the representatives of the OLMCs in Quebec are who sit on the committees or whom you consult.

[Marie-Caroline Badjeck]

I do not have the complete list, but, for example, the Community Economic Development and Employability Corporation is one of our members. I know its president was here on Monday. We also have Youth Employment Services. So our committee brings together anglophone and francophone partners from the OLMCs. We can send you the list, if you like.

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

That's good.

We had the Chief Statistician of Canada here, and he told us that he is part of your department. That means that you make the decisions about indicators and what is or is not disclosed. In the case I am talking about, the issue was the breakdown of rights holders, and the Chief Statistician told us that he had to wait for authorization from your department. Can one of you give us some information about that and tell us how it works?

[Marie-Caroline Badjeck]

We can't do that today, because our work focuses specifically on the implementation of the Economic Development Initiative. We work with Statistics Canada for the OLMCs. Rights holders are not our sector, but we can see whether they are part of our portfolio. If you have specific questions, we can pass them on to the appropriate people.

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

According to Bill C‑13 and statements by ministers and other people, the new approach involves also protecting French in Quebec. In the envelope provided for official languages, is there something different that will be for the francophone side? They say that the vitality of linguistic communities depends on their economic development and that...

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. That is the start of an excellent question, the answer to which will have to wait, since your six minutes are up.

I would like to advise the witnesses that any additional information they might obtain for us, to flesh out their answers, can be sent to our clerk, who will then forward them to all our members.

Ms. Mathyssen, today is your first time participating in the work of our committee. You have the floor for six minutes.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses.

I'd like to ask a bit more about the EDI, which you talked about. You spoke about the fact that those numbers are still fairly low with immigrant families, and with women in particular.

I wanted to ask about the lack of French child care options in francophone communities. Have you spoken to a lot of these entrepreneurs about how that limits their ability to build those businesses and innovate in terms of that economic development as well?

[Marie-Caroline Badjeck]

In the conversation we had last fall, some of the priorities that were put forward around demographics were more around the aging population and youth migration, as well as succession planning. Those were the things that were brought up to us in the context of the EDI. That doesn't mean that child care and access to education services in the minority official language are not an issue, but in our discussion, they were quite focused, and those were the things that came up from a demographic perspective.

Again, it was the aging population, youth migration, succession planning and labour shortages. That's what we heard last fall.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

So you don't look at a lot of those other supports that would ultimately go into helping some of these groups access or take better advantage of the businesses they want to build in those social ways. Don't you look at that at all?

[Marie-Caroline Badjeck]

The EDI is part of the official-language action plan, so we're just one small part of a whole-of-government initiative. There are PCH and ESDC. We're all under that big plan that was announced in April 2023 and will be renewed every five years.

We keep our focus on our departmental mandate. Of course, as part of PCH, we report back to PCH every year, so we are aware of what others are doing and there's good collaboration with the department, but again, we stay within our mandate in terms of the focus of our activities with an understanding of what's happening. To be clear, the EDI is part of the official-language plan at large, so there's a lot under there that deals with child care and all those issues.