Official Languages Committee on April 11th, 2024

[Patrick Arsenault]

In fact, for the Collège nordique francophone, having been able to participate actively in Colleges and Institutes Canada, in the Réseau pour le développement de l'alphabétisme et des compétences and, ultimately, in the Association des collèges et universités de la francophonie canadienne provided us with a similar type of discussion forum. I believe that a centralized issue table could be beneficial.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

I apologize for having influenced the decision of the other two witnesses, Dr. Frémont; that was not my intent.

Mr. Aito, I very much appreciated the point you raised, which was research focussed on francophone minorities. That, in my opinion, is the key. I heard a comment earlier to the effect that research conducted in English is treated much more seriously. Do you have any comments about that?

[Emmanuel Aito]

That's correct. What we established is a centre that focusses on research in minority communities. We subsidize this centre with federal funds. The only problem is that we can't have the support of our own university.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Aito.

Dr. Frémont, would you like to add anything?

[Dr. Jacques Frémont]

I just want to say that the University of Ottawa has twelve research chairs on the Canadian francophonie. They are entirely funded through the university’s budget. I will also add that research is conducted entirely in French.

I think we have to distinguish between the three big research granting agencies, where there is indeed a challenge. Applying for funding in French, that gets complicated. To be pragmatic, researchers therefore prefer to apply in English, which is lamentable.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

I’m with you on that.

Thank you very much, Mr. Frémont.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Mr. Samson.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

I’d like to make one last comment, Mr. Chair, and I thank you for your patience.

Someone mentioned that the FCFA produced a brief on post-secondary education. I’d like to make sure this report gets sent to the committee so we can look through it.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Mr. Samson.

I have to leave the meeting soon, because I’m going to the House of Commons to table a committee report that deals specifically with francophone immigration. The committee’s first vice-chair will replace me during my absence.

I now give the floor to the Bloc Québécois, more specifically to the second vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Official Languages.

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

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank the witnesses for being here.

Mr. Frémont, you spoke earlier of a study which compared funding for francophone students and funding for anglophone students. Could you tell us a bit more about that?

[Dr. Jacques Frémont]

I will talk about the University of Ottawa. We have general grants, but we also have matching grants that, based on our understanding, come from money that Ontario receives from the federal government, to which Ontario adds its own money. It’s on the level of the matching grants that there’s an annual shortfall of 50 to 80 million dollars relative to what it costs us to offer our programs in French.

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

Thank you.

As you know, there’s a difference between what happens in Quebec and what happens outside Quebec. If we compare the demographic weight of anglophones and francophones, we see that in Quebec, compared to francophone universities, anglophone universities are overfunded by the government of Quebec, by the federal government and, above all, by federal research funds.

Several francophone organizations outside Quebec are asking for greater accountability and for grants and funding to be independent of provincial contributions, because their situation is the opposite. In other provinces, provincial governments seem to give less money. The government of Quebec will oppose this, because it wants to have some latitude.

Do you think that an asymmetrical approach, which is the general direction taken in Bill C-13, could help us improve things? Francophone institutions outside Quebec, which have less weight, are asking for greater accountability in terms of the response from provincial governments.

[Dr. Jacques Frémont]

It seems obvious to me, if one is familiar with the Supreme Court of Canada’s jurisprudence, that the asymmetrical approach is entirely acceptable and it works. Furthermore, it’s my understanding that the revised version of the Official Languages Act does integrate some of that asymmetrical approach. Indeed, it’s not the same thing for everyone: Minorities don’t experience the same situations, depending on whether they are in Quebec or elsewhere in the country. I therefore think there’s absolutely no problem with taking an asymmetrical approach.

What I do not understand about your question is the link with accountability and transparency. I admit that, for our part, we are looking at it from the outside. However, when public funds are spent, demanding accountability and transparency seems straightforward to me.

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

If organizations are asking for federal funding to be independent from amounts granted by provinces and territories, like in federal-provincial agreements, that already causes fewer problems in Quebec because the provincial government already overfunds anglophone universities. My question was more along those lines.

[Dr. Jacques Frémont]

Okay. I understand.

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

That’s good.

[Dr. Jacques Frémont]

Thank you.

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

I will move on to another subject, and I would like comments from all three witnesses on it. We hear that federal research granting agencies underfund francophone universities and post-secondary teaching institutions, and that the funding structure itself has to change to adapt better to small universities. What do you think?

[Dr. Jacques Frémont]

It’s a real question. I come from a U15 Canada member university, a group of 15 Canadian universities conducting intensive research. Last year, we generated $480 million in research funding. We are a big research machine.

The fact remains that research funding in Canada is essentially based on peer review. This grants greater and greater preference to research consortia involving big institutions and smaller institutions. Canada already has a hard time maintaining its international research competitiveness. It’s clear that if Canada wants to use the same money and further spread out its funding, that leads to problems with the quality of the science. What’s coming along behind that is the brain drain problem. The United States is extremely competitive. Europe is competitive. Every single year, we lose researchers who continue their research elsewhere, where there is more money. So, it’s a very tricky situation.

I follow francophone institutions that conduct research, and often, it’s almost survival research. That’s where there could be more collaboration, but the same problem affects small anglophone institutions that don’t have access to their share of research.

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

How can we change the funding structure to further promote French-language post-secondary education?

[Emmanuel Aito]

The Cité universitaire francophone works like other faculties at the University of Regina. Our university is, of course, subject to institutional processes. Despite the obstacles we face in our institution, we encourage our professors and researchers to work in French, which is very difficult. Obstacles have to be overcome. Nonetheless, that’s the policy we implemented.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Joël Godin]

Mr. Beaulieu, your time is up. If someone wants to repeat your question, it is up to them.

Ms. Ashton, I now give you the floor for six minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Gentlemen of the panel, welcome.

As you know, the goal of this study is to implement recommendations and then submit them to the federal government.

During the first witness panel’s appearance, and during your testimony, we heard several times that there is an essential need for stable core funding. Within the framework of the study, if you had to make one main recommendation or priority recommendations for this committee, do you think the funding issue should be the most important?

[Dr. Jacques Frémont]

Thank you for the question.

It’s clear that’s the most important point for the University of Ottawa and the Canadian francophonie. We have to find a way to make the provinces accountable and ensure that the work is really being done and is going in the right direction to support not only special projects, but infrastructure as well. Indeed, supporting programs involves costs.

At our university, there are fewer francophone students. For programs offered entirely in French, groups have about 30 students instead of 60 or 70. That means they cost more, and so does maintaining them. I’m all in favour of collaboration, but establishing collaboration and implementing new projects, which the federal government is emphasizing more and more, that requires staff.

I will give you an example. We currently have 25 digital pedagogy specialists to support our French and English programs and courses. If we were to collaborate with other institutions, we would have to allow those institutions to access our digital pedagogy specialists. That means we would need more of them and we would have to manage those resources. So that involves costs. What I’m saying is that it’s not just out-of-pocket costs, it’s also infrastructure costs. Those are the types of costs that must be supported.

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

Thank you very much.

Mr. Aito, do you think this recommendation should be the most important for this study?