:
Good morning, Mr. Chan, Monsieur Bélanger, Monsieur Godin, and members of the committee.
The Quebec Community Groups Network is pleased to have been invited to provide testimony today. We congratulate the committee for assuming a leadership role in shaping the Government of Canada's official language strategy, following the road map report. We wish to offer our full support, and the support of the community sector serving Canada's English linguistic minority communities, the English-speaking community of Quebec, as you undertake your long-term study.
Listening to Canadians on issues pertaining to linguistic duality and the development of official language minority communities is fundamental. We have noted the increased efforts to consult our community, and we are hopeful that individual English-speaking Quebeckers will experience positive results in the short-, medium-, and long-term. The Minister of Canadian Heritage has made himself available to meet with the QCGN twice in as many years and took the time to visit our community this summer and hear from our front-line community sector workers.
There have been demonstrable efforts to understand the specific challenges of our community by many elected officials. Opportunities for the issues and concerns of the English-speaking community of Quebec to be heard and included have also been made available through the continuing efforts of current parliamentarians like Monsieur Bélanger and Monsieur Godin, and previous House members like Monsieur Nadeau and others.
Our community is also deeply grateful for the ongoing support of your Senate colleagues. The Senate Standing Committee on Official Language's report, “The Vitality of Quebec's English-speaking Communities: From Myth to Reality” followed an historic visit to Quebec last fall. The report is a remarkable document, capturing the experience of living in our unique linguistic minority community. The Senate recently requested a government response to the report's recommendations by March 12, 2012.
We would also like to share with you the noticeable increase of effort made by federal departments and institutions in consulting with the English-speaking community of Quebec. From the Department of Foreign Affairs to the Canadian border security agency, it is clear there is a genuine interest within government to learn more about our community and find ways to enhance our vitality.
This welcomed change has been driven by three converging factors: the increased capacity of the English-speaking community to engage with the federal government; the untiring support of the Commissioner of Official Languages; and the thoughtful and practical support provided to QCGN and the community sector by the Department of Canadian Heritage.
We feel there is a genuine interest in our community from Parliament and the Government of Canada. We are also benefiting from an increasingly accurate and sophisticated understanding of the unique nature of our linguistic minority, a community that seeks integration with the majority in which it exists and whose communal focus is not the survival or protection of a language but the preservation and sustainability of our community.
Some on this committee may recall our comments in April 2010 testimony and appreciate that we have come some way in terms of gaining the opportunity to participate in the national discussion regarding Canada's official languages as an equal partner.
Committee members may also recall our frustration towards Canadian government strategies towards official languages that do not take into account our community's reality. For example, programs that depend on federal-provincial cooperation for the provision of services and community support are not developed with the realization that the Government of Quebec does not recognize the existence of an English-speaking minority community.
The effect of this is that services delivered within areas of provincial jurisdiction, like health, education, and employment, are done so at an individual level. This is seductively appealing, since it is easily managed and quantitatively measurable. Were the services provided in English or not? The problem is that it does little to support community vitality, the long-term capacity to provide services within institutions belonging to and governed by the community.
In some cases, the relationship between Ottawa and Quebec cuts off federal programs from our community completely. For example, programs within the current federal strategy, the road map, in areas of immigration, manpower development, and early childhood development are for all intents and purposes not accessible to our community, although some recent progress has been made in a very limited way.
We noted the testimony of the Department of Canadian Heritage, the Official Languages Secretariat, during the committee's meeting on October 18. As the head of this secretariat, Monsieur Gauthier and his staff are playing a key role in the ongoing mid-term evaluation of the road map. We have communicated to the department that we remain very concerned that this evaluation, both at the individual department as well as at the horizontal level, will not properly reflect the impact of the road map on our community. The reasons are twofold and are of a logistical and systemic nature. The results, we fear, will provide unreliable data regarding the English-speaking community of Quebec for decision-makers and political leaders.
First, the evaluation process involved consultation with community sector organizations but was somewhat convoluted in its design from the beginning, and finally it was delayed by the election. I think maybe the election was one of the delays, but there are certainly other design delays. The resulting delays moved community consultations into the summer period, when a number of our organizations are either short-staffed or shut down completely in an effort to save money.
I talked about a logistical issue. Then there's a systemic issue.
Second, many of the programs being evaluated have little or no equivalent in Quebec. For example, $20 million through a recruitment and integration of immigrants program—that's from CIC; $13.5 million for the child care special project; $12.5 million placed in the youth programs initiative. There are no equivalents in the road map for the English-speaking community.
While the English-speaking community has received a few thousand dollars from Citizenship and Immigration Canada for research, they remain reluctant to consider designing an ongoing initiative that will respond to the needs of renewal in our regions in Quebec. We have received nothing from the child care project, as I have mentioned, and we don't have a youth community sector group and therefore are unable to take advantage of the youth initiatives program.
These are not abstract problems. Canadians living in the English-speaking community of Quebec do not have access to some programs and services contained in the road map or consideration in the policy and program design of the millions of dollars that support official languages in regular funding streams. This community needs to be reassured that the road map's replacement strategy will contain more targeted efforts by the federal government and its partners in supporting the development and vitality of our community.
Earlier, we mentioned the Senate standing committee's recent report on the vitality of our community. The report contains 16 remarkable recommendations.
For the purposes of today's meeting we would draw your attention to recommendation 3 of the Senate report, which says:
(a) Urges all departments covered by the Roadmap (2008-2013), in consultation with the English-speaking communities, to review communications strategies for increasing awareness of the funding available in all regions of Quebec.
(b) Immediately review, in consultation with the English-speaking communities, the Accountability and Coordination Framework and establish specific criteria and indicators so that all federal institutions are able to take into account the specific needs of those communities.
(c) Require federal institutions involved in developing the next official languages strategy to consider these criteria as a means of identifying allocations to both official-language minority communities and explaining imbalances, if any.
This is really not an argument for more money; it is a call for designers of the next federal official languages strategy to realize that although Canada's English and French linguistic minority communities face a number of similar challenges, their political realities are vastly different and their community structures dissimilar. We've said it before: one size does not fit all.
We are convinced that the federal leadership responsible for official languages understands the English-speaking community of Quebec much better than it did when the road map or its predecessor was being designed. In fact, I think our community understands its needs better.
There seems to be an appetite within government departments and institutions to find positive measures to enhance our vitality. The momentum exists. Let us help each other seize this moment to ensure a healthy and sustainable English linguistic minority.
[Translation]
Thank you.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[English]
I'd like to welcome Madame Martin-Laforge and Mr. Thompson here today. It's a great pleasure to have you at the committee. It is not the first time, and I think the relationship with the committee has been good in the past. We hope we can help your community, the minority in Quebec.
You were talking about the transfer of money. It's like a contract between the federal government and the provincial government on jurisdiction that really is not federal--it's provincial--like health care, education, and so on. I want to hear more from you about what voice the community should have in this regard.
I want to hear about it because we do have the same problem across the country within the francophone community. We complain, for example, that money is being sent in-province for the francophone minority, and francophones feel that the money is not coming in. We raised the question to the Commissioner of Official Languages this week, and the answer was that he's only there to investigate federal, not provincial, institutions. He had no authority at all.
I still believe the Commissioner of Official Languages could have gone to the minister in charge of a certain department and said, “Your department has sent money to a certain province. Are they not accountable for where the money went?” He could still have gone to the federal department to get the accountability, to see if the money went to the right place. The province has been complaining, people have been complaining, did the money go to the province, while in the community they don't feel they've had it.
I understand, Madame Martin-Laforge, that you're saying the same thing too. You're saying you feel that money goes to Quebec, but you don't feel it goes to the community where it was supposed to be sent. I'd like to hear more from you on that.
:
You mentioned seniors. It is clear that seniors are a priority. Statistics show that the anglophone population is aging faster in Quebec than elsewhere in the country.
There are efforts underway to create a seniors' network in order to determine what can be done in Quebec, from a strategic perspective, for anglophone seniors. Traditionally, anglophone seniors, because of the generation they belong to, are not as bilingual as young people. These seniors are 55 years or older.
We are seeing seniors go back to the regions they come from. They are retiring. They went to Toronto or elsewhere in Canada and now they are coming back to the regions they come from. They are not particularly bilingual. These are Canadians who left for various reasons and who are now coming home, to Quebec, but they do not have a very proficient level of bilingualism. This is creating pressure on health services and other services. It is important that we give them a strong network so that they are able to stay where they have chosen to come back to, whether that be Thetford Mines or Gaspésie.
At the other end of the spectrum are young people. Something that is important for our communities is the renewal of our population. People leave, people come back. We cannot chain our young people to a basement and keep them there, but attachment to community is important. There is a strong community in Thetford Mines. Whether the community is anglophone or francophone is irrelevant but the attachment to community is important. It is important that people see that they can come back to their communities and have access to services in their mother tongue.
There are many other issues, but they often revolve around these two target groups, that is, young people and seniors, and their feeling of belonging to their communities in their regions in Quebec.
:
A large number of our group of 38 member associations are in various regions. I hear stories on a daily basis about what is happening in Rouyn-Noranda, the Gaspé, or the Eastern Townships. These are individual stories that help make up communities that want to live on and
[English]
—you know, to live, play, and work in their community. How do you live, play, and work? How do you do everything that makes you a vital contributor to a community?
[Translation]
We hear some very interesting stories, stories from the heart. People are trying to find ways in these regions to retain these individuals, but also to give them a feeling of belonging in those regions.
[English]
I'm going to be a townshipper, or I'm going to be a person from Shawinigan, but I'm also going to be a Quebecker and a Canadian.
It's that level of attachment.
[Translation]
There are several individual projects in these communities that are contributing to this development.
Madame Martin-Laforge and Monsieur Thompson, thank you for being here. Welcome.
Congratulations, by the way, on the Sheila and Victor Goldbloom awards that QCGN organized last weekend. I think we should note as a committee that Joan Ivory, Gemma Raeburn-Baynes, and Aline Visser, three stalwart members of the anglophone community of Quebec, were awarded the prize; well done.
My first question is not for you. Imagine that. My first question is for Mr. Gourde. It's a question I've asked him twice now. It is whether the evaluation of the road map that the department is now conducting will be made public. I hope to have an answer, because knowing whether or not it will be would be significant in determining how we conduct our hearings.
I wonder whether there is an answer.
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I think that Health has been incredibly important to us in this work. HRSDC is contributing in different ways.
If I might go one step further into a department, if I were looking to connect to Monsieur Gourde's comment earlier about trying to find a specific initiative around seniors, I might look to HRSDC, which has a stronger alignment with their strategic directions around seniors.
For the English-speaking community, it's to go deeper into those departments that would have, in their strategic orientation, something that could help us out around seniors, around youth, around immigration, and the rural secretariat, for example.
If I have a couple of minutes, I'd like to say that in our regions we did some review of what immigrants could bring to the regions. While in some regions it's pretty good, and the immigrants and CIC could bring us something, there's another piece that could bring us even more, concerning migrants—people coming from other places in Canada. It would be the renewal of our regions with people coming from elsewhere in Canada.
We are looking more specifically within our priorities at which departments within their core—from their regular funding currently—could give us something.
:
In terms of an overall evaluation, this is appropriate only when there are key questions the departments have to respond to before undertaking their own evaluations. The difficulty with anglophone communities is that each initiative has been experienced differently. The same applies to health. In terms of developing an evaluation, there was an understanding of the situation in Quebec and how this procedure was going to take place. In terms of the other evaluations, either the situation was not taken into account or it was never even raised. You would know because you are studying this that the content of a program is used as the basis of an evaluation. If there are any cracks in the process, the evaluation will not take some things into account. Therefore, if the evaluation is about
[English]
child care, for example, well, the English-speaking community wasn't even in that piece of work. So they're not going to consider that there was a gap in the piece.
My concern, and our concern in the English-speaking community, is that where we have been included in the design of the program--properly included--the chances are pretty good that the department will come out with an understanding of where the gaps are.
Health is a good example. HRSDC, with the enabling fund, is another example. There are places where a quid pro quo within an initiative makes it easy. But in places where there's no quid pro quo, or there's nothing, or we haven't been consulted, or we haven't said that we needed something--and it could be that, too--then they have a problem.
[Translation]
It is as easy as saying there is no information on how much money, within the context of a program, is allocated to the minority anglophone community and how much is allocated elsewhere. It is easier to tell for some programs, especially health programs, but it is very difficult for others.
:
A new program put in place under the roadmap has been very positive for the English-speaking community. It is
[English]
the cultural development fund. If we had our hand up to say that it should be increased, that would be a very important one for our community. They've done some interesting things because they've brought arts culture into the regions. It's an important piece of work to democratize out of Montreal the artists and dance and so on.
So the cultural development fund was a new piece, at a modest amount of money, that I think our community would be right behind.
There's also health, for sure. There we can demonstrate even more easily the impact on individuals.
I think we can for arts and culture as well, because you have people in the regions who are clamouring to be able to partake in cultural activities. I think the enabling fund is....
There's also economic development. It is such an important piece in being sure that English-speaking community individuals can go to work, can have work, can stay. If there's no work, you don't stay.
So economic development is really important.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mrs. Martin-Laforge and Mr. Thompson, welcome to the committee.
I noted two things that you said. First of all, you said that the use of the language was an example of commitment to the community. This type of commitment is characteristic of a community's development.
You also said that you emphasize economic development. In addition, you said that our minister has demonstrated commitment. There is no doubt, this government is really emphasizing bilingualism and the development of minority communities.
I am an anglophone from British Columbia who makes an effort to speak French. I was very proud of our minister, during the last Olympic Games, which were held in the riding I represent. Both official languages were represented. When the presence of both languages was lacking, the minister took action to ensure that French was spoken during the closing ceremony.
The members of this committee have made the same type of commitment. I think that every committee member likes what you are doing and what the minority communities in their region are doing.
What do we need to do to have a roadmap, without any commitment from the government?
[English]
What would it take to get you to the place where you've done so well that we don't need government involvement anymore, to the point where the community engagement and the economic development make linguistic robustness and strength a theme that transcends our government?
:
I'm an optimist. I have to say that. I am an optimist, and I would like to see a day where the English-speaking community.... I won't speak for the French,
[Translation]
francophones outside of Quebec.
[English]
I could speak for francophones in Quebec, but let me just speak for the English-speaking here.
I'm an optimist to say that we will be, 15 years down the road, in a place where the threat of an English-speaking minority in Quebec will not be considered the current threat. It will not be considered a threat in 15 years. That will take 15 years of working, finding common areas to work on for our community within the Government of Quebec, where we can demonstrate that if you take something away from somebody else, it doesn't take it away from everybody, that we can work together, that we are a contributing group, that a strong English-speaking community is not a threat to the francophones.
I've lived in Toronto as an anglophone and I didn't feel part of Toronto. I'm back in Quebec. I'm a Quebecker. I'm an anglophone from Quebec. I don't feel part of....
Lots of people don't understand what that feels like, to live in Quebec and be an anglophone, to go to Toronto and not feel part of Toronto and the rest of Canada. I love B.C., but I'm not.... I'm an anglophone Quebecker. I want to stay in Quebec, and I want to live and I don't want to feel like a threat.
I'm not atypical of my community. Even in my generation, I don't think I'm atypical. I think people want to see, in 15 years, that kind of living, without that political threat.
:
Thank you, and thank you very much for being here today.
I have one foot in both worlds, both of them in minority languages, being a franco-Ontarian from Toronto. My mother's family is mostly, nowadays, on the West Island of Montreal but comes from different areas of Quebec. But of course Montreal is where the best economic opportunities are for anglophones in Quebec currently.
I just want to talk first about the road map and the mid-term evaluation, or perhaps the lack thereof. As Mr. Bélanger brought up, there may not be anything public that comes out midway through. Mr. Trottier brought up the question of whether there are things in the road map that aren't working very well. You yourself were talking about the need, perhaps, to focus on certain key issues rather than broadening the scope.
I just want to ask what your thoughts are on how useful a mid-term evaluation would be, because of course even as this road map is ongoing, the next one is being planned. How useful would it be for you and others to have that mid-term report so that you could start the planning?
:
They want to know how to access, in their language, information about services. While government officials look for programs and services, seniors want to know where to go—and not only seniors, but caregivers. There is a big concern that they cannot understand well enough or get services because they don't know where they are.
As much as in Laval, where it's a growing English-speaking community, Vaudreuil-Soulanges is exploding in its English-speaking community. They want to know where the services are. They want to be able to attract people to give them services—for example, nurses, whether they be francophone or anglophone, as long as they can speak English and understand well enough to give the service.
It's interesting about seniors. It's anglophone seniors, but you're talking about Greek seniors. We had people from the Italian community, from the Greek community, and from the black community. So seniors are not about just the traditional Scottish English-speaking community; it's crosscutting in terms of who it helps.
I have to tell you something, if I have a second. Gemma Raeburn-Baynes was one of the winners in the little booklet I gave to you. She does a lot of work with youth and seniors. She's a volunteer extraordinaire. She said on TV, “When somebody recognizes you outside of your community, it's significant”. I found that fascinating. We are a community of communities in Quebec.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I will be sharing my time with my colleague, Mr. Aubin.
When you appeared before the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages, you noted that “a number of initiatives in the roadmap do not have a component for the English-speaking communities of Quebec—for example, in the areas of literacy and child care.”
Mrs. Martin-Laforge, we travelled across the country. We met with minority francophone communities. We were surprised to see the programs in the communities. They were being provided thanks to roadmap money that had been sent to the provinces. The money was used to help support programs for literacy, early childhood services or keeping young people in their community. For example, Albertan families were able to have day care centres in their francophone schools. That ensured that the children attending the francophone day care would then attend the francophone school.
Unless I am mistaken, you seemed to be saying earlier that, in Quebec, this issue has not received attention.
Should the government proceed with another roadmap, would it be important, in your opinion, that consideration be given in Quebec to the issue of literacy, as has been done in all communities.
:
Often, it is difficult to implement a Canada-wide initiative in Quebec. It is because of the jurisdictional issues. So we are wondering how community initiatives under the roadmap can be offered on the ground.
Earlier, I said that the best practice for Quebec, in terms of the roadmap
[English]
--I'm sorry, English, French, bilingue.
They say we live longer and don't have Alzheimer's; I hope that's true.
The health model has been the best model for us. I don't know if folks in the committee will be seeing members of our community from the Community Health and Social Services Network, but that model has worked extremely well, to help the community, vitality, and individuals, to connect that very important...the individual and the community, and the connection to the province.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Like you, earlier, I spoke about the importance of the anglophone community that comes from regions like mine. You talked about the economic importance, but I would also like to talk to you about the historical importance. Unfortunately, it is often forgotten in Quebec. These communities have made a difference at different times.
I would like to point out that, in 1995, during the referendum, contrary to what was reported, the 30,000 votes that were missing were perhaps in the Montreal region. This anglophone community quietly mobilized and voted massively in favour of keeping our country. This community made a big difference in the history of our country.
These people have never been recognized for their contribution. Simply and quietly, they showed, in democratic fashion, that they were attached to their country and that this was important to them. They made a big difference in the history of our country.
I am proud today to say this, because I felt this at the time. I was there, in 1995. I know this community, I know what they did had an impact on what we are today, a beautiful and great country.
Through our programs, do you think that we should be doing more studies on our history and on the history of these communities that are located everywhere, in Quebec and outside of Quebec?
:
It should have been. Maybe we'll get a chance to ask him at some point if he appears before the committee.
On the matter of the Olympics, yes, it was a good show for two weeks, but that's two weeks, and 400,000 anglophones outside of Montreal, the ones you call from the regions, probably did not go. I understand the symbolic importance of the Olympics, but I also understand the daily importance to these 400,000 anglophones of access to education, access to early childhood services, and access to health services in their own language, especially the older folk, because you withdraw into your own mother tongue when you're at a certain stage in life and you're faced with certain illnesses. I know whereof I speak. I've had occasion to witness that in my family.
I want to put that in perspective. I don't denigrate the importance of what you said, Mr. Weston, but I don't think the comparison is a good one, and that's why we had a feuille de route and that's why we had an action plan.
:
To answer your question I'm going to rely on comments from our members. I think that would be an important place. I think—I not only think, I know—our members believe that the QCGN provides a value-added to their organizations. It's not all even, but our members are working on the ground to deliver services to individuals in their community.
Where they are less able to come together and talk together about.... The region of the Gaspé, the region of the Magdalen Islands, the region of the townships--they don't have the opportunity to come together and talk about the community at large. They work in their own communities, but they don't have that opportunity to network and to talk to each other about what they are doing with youth, what could be done at a more macro level.
Let me give you an example. I think this is a beautiful example I have for you. We were consulted by Sports Canada this summer on their action plan. They brought together the francophone minority communities and the anglophone minority communities, and they said we're doing the Sports Canada action plan, what do you think? The English-speaking community went there, and we went with four community members from the regions. We were talking about what Sports Canada can do for the English-speaking community of Quebec. At the same time, we know the Canada Games are going to be happening in Sherbrooke in 2013. So as a result of working with our regions, a project has been designed out of funding to ask that all of the regions come together to demonstrate that in Quebec there is a strong English-speaking community at the Canada Games of 2013.
Without our helping our individual communities to make it available, to have them come to discuss, it wouldn't have happened. I still don't know if it's going to happen, because the funding might not be given, but there is the potential, in 2013, that people from all over Canada, at those Canada Games, will come to Quebec, to Sherbrooke, and see, my God, there's a vital English-speaking community here. It has the potential to show that, and it has the potential to bring young people in to offer services and to be guides and to be volunteers, from Gaspé, the Magdalen Islands, to talk together, to meet other people from Canada.
I think that's pretty valuable. I hope I'm right.