Mr. Chair, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Collège nordique francophone in Yellowknife, I'd like to thank you for this opportunity to speak to you.
My name is Patrick Arsenault, the executive director of the college, and I'm speaking to you from Chief Drygeese Territory.
Were it not for the Collège nordique, there wouldn't be any post-secondary French-language education north of the 60th parallel. Without federal government support we wouldn't be able to increase our capacity to better serve our local francophones and others who come to join us here. We are solidly rooted in our community and are keen to promote our northern identity. Our college was created by and for the community.
Federal funding allows us to respond to demand and to build student confidence in taking advantage of what's available in French in the Northwest Territories at the post-secondary level. The funding comes mainly through two programs: support funding for post-secondary studies and bilateral agreements for minority-language education. We also receive funding from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, or IRCC, to teach English to newcomers. At the moment, despite our efforts, allophone and francophone immigrants to the three territories have no available options to learn French or to improve it for immigration purposes.
In 2023, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of allophone NWT parents wishing to enroll their children in a French school. And yet these parents still do not have access to French-language courses, a state of affairs that would appear to be inconsistent with the new 2023–2028 action plan for official languages. We worked hard with IRCC to develop a model that might fill this gap, and we are hoping that funds will soon become available to rapidly implement the project.
There are 11 official languages in the Northwest Territories and we are one of the five members of the Canadian federation that has French as an official language. As a result of our expertise in language teaching and our commitment to reconciliation, we have partnerships with the indigenous nations of our region for teaching two of the nine official indigenous languages.
We also developed French and English adaptive learning resources for newcomers by adding indigenous cultural referents and learning modules for indigenous languages.
For post-secondary education, federal funding is our only real vehicle for development. In 2022–2023, we had 645 students in our credit and non-credit courses. However, beyond these numbers, it's extremely important to take their impact into account. For us, just one trained person can create a new service that was not there before in some very important fields, such as early childhood. Here, everyone can have an impact commensurate with their ambitions and talents.
In 2018, we developed our first multi-year business plan even though there were no programs to which we could submit it; we nevertheless forged ahead to demonstrate not only our rigorous and detailed planning, but also the potential of French-language training in the Northwest Territories. We were pleased when, in 2021, the federal government announced additional funding for post-secondary education, making our plan eligible for funding. It really made a difference, and it is still doing so.
To conclude, I would like to point out three major challenges for us. We have to make sure that French-language programs become available for immigration in the three territories; the funds need to be permanent for post-secondary education in French, with separate categories for elementary, secondary and post-secondary levels; lastly, a financial commitment mechanism specifically for our institution needs to be looked into, in collaboration with the territories, so that the funds made available to minority-language learners can achieve their goal.
Thank you for your attention.