Official Languages committee  Good morning, Mr. Chairman and committee members. My name is Paul Heppelle, president of the Assemblée communautaire fransaskoise in Saskatchewan. I am here with our director general, Denis Simard. I will be sharing presentation duties with Mr. Simard as I am losing my voice. T

Official Languages committee  The current Roadmap targets five priority areas for action. In the area of emphasizing the value of linguistic duality among all Canadians, in 2003, Saskatchewan adopted a policy on French-language services. With Roadmap funding, the province is now funding the Direction des affa

Official Languages committee  In the area for action "Improving access to services for official language minority communities", we note five areas. In health, access to services in French goes beyond mere respect for the language of the individual. This is also a matter of personal safety, for both patient a

Official Languages committee  In conclusion, we unreservedly recommend that the Roadmap for Canada's linguistic duality be renewed and improved, particularly on a multi-year basis. This Canadian government initiative has been and still is of capital importance to us. The Roadmap will guarantee that the Fransa

Official Languages committee  I can cite some examples. Saskatchewan has a higher immigration rate. Immigrants are mainly non-francophones and non-anglophones—allophones, in other words—mainly from francophone Africa and are not rights holders. All the programming that concerns them, in areas such as improve

Official Languages committee  In our province, we are very much involved with immigration. For example, we have just signed a collaboration agreement with Mauritius, which also includes the UN's International Organization for Migration. We have professional recruiters involved in this matter. The first recrui

Official Languages committee  That would be a disaster for us. Radio-Canada is our only French voice in Saskatchewan, in Canada and internationally. It's really the extent to which we lose day-to-day contact with the language that determines the danger of reaching a tipping point and of seeing a community dis

Official Languages committee  Some, yes. In fact, what will the impact be if the budgets of the departments of Canadian Heritage, Citizenship and Immigration, Human Resources and Skills Development, Health, Justice and so on are cut by 5%, 6% or 7%? Is it 5%, 25% or 35%? Already, the average employee in our n

Official Languages committee  Yes.

Official Languages committee  If you add women and the rural situation, for example, that complicates matters further. So this is a major concern for us. It's true that we may have to look elsewhere for funding and to rationalize our activities. As I said earlier, it's hard to argue against virtue, but we're

Official Languages committee  We know that, for every dollar spent on early childhood, $7—and now we're talking more about $8 or $9—has to be spent to have the same outcome later on, at the primary or secondary level. In addition, it has to be understood that the reality of today's society is that both parent

Official Languages committee  Thank you.

Official Languages committee  Unfortunately, yes.

Official Languages committee  Sir, I was mainly talking about the employees in our network, such as the community director, the accountant, and so on. The problem is that we have to consider what we are asked to do. We're involved in rural development; we work with farmers, our youths, our schools, in immigra

Official Languages committee  It's the same thing. We're nevertheless making progress on French-language services. There is a policy. We still have to see an actual and sustained implementation of the policy, but there has been progress. We are very far from having a range of services, even negotiable ones. W