:
Welcome to the 83
rd meeting of the Standing Committee on Official Languages. Today is Tuesday, May 28, 2013. Pursuant to Standing Order 108, we are studying second official language immersion programs in Canada.
[English]
Before we begin,
[Translation]
I have two things to tell you.
First, we only have one witness for the Thursday meeting, and also one for our meeting next Tuesday. So I am going to cancel Thursday's meeting and call both witnesses for next Tuesday's meeting.
[English]
That's the first thing I wanted to tell you.
Secondly, we will have bells at 4:10 p.m. today. It's a 30-minute notice for the votes.
The first thing I wanted to ask members of the committee is, do you want to adjourn at the 30-minute bell or do you want to adjourn 10 minutes into that bell or 15 minutes into that bell? I need some guidance on that.
I'm sorry. I mean suspend—suspend 10 minutes into the bell, 30 minutes...?
Mr. Galipeau.
As Ms. Perkins began to say, our brief to the committee provides an overview of French second language education in Canada and contextualizes long-standing CPF recommendations on how to improve current FSL programs, when children should be introduced to FSL programs, improving access to these programs, especially for immigrants and academically challenged children, the introduction of programs to assist post-secondary students, and official languages and education program agreements.
Today, we will expand on CPF's stance regarding the OLEP agreements and how we can make them even more beneficial to French second language learning in Canada. We'll cover two key areas: a), accountability and transparency, and b), an outcomes-based approach.
Regarding the first point, each province and territory negotiates a separate agreement, flowing from the master agreement negotiated by Canadian Heritage and CMEC. This can be positive in that it allows each provincial or territorial action plan to address the particular needs of its jurisdiction and education system. Yet in many instances it has proven challenging to obtain information on these agreements, to be part of the process that helps inform them, and to track the results of the expenditure of funds.
The principal challenge, in our minds, resides in understanding the path the money takes once it reaches the provinces and territories. Does it go to classrooms, to projects, to administration, to FSL-only activities, or into general revenue? This is important to know because money is invariably at the root of the constraints on FSL and FI program growth. Things such as no transportation, no teachers, no classrooms, and no special supports for students with special needs or learning challenges.... Even now, we do not know the true start-up costs of an early French immersion program. If you're a school district trying to determine if you want a program or not, this is a crucial question to be able to answer.
I see that Ms. Perkins is back with us. Shall we...?
:
Sure. We'll give this a go again. Good old technology.
Financial reporting alone, however accurate or complete, does not measure the complete success of FSL programs across Canada, and we'd like to encourage the adoption of an outcomes-based approach in the next round of our OLEP agreements, one using real and measurable targets. Again, our experience is that in the past our OLEP agreements have not leveraged federal funding as successfully as they might have, and we believe it is time for the federal government to provide greater leadership in setting meaningful targets.
[Translation]
For example, only one agreement, the one with Ontario, sets as a goal an increase in the number of students with learning disabilities. No agreement addresses the problems that immigrant children have in accessing French as a second language programs.
Canadian Parents for French asks that the next agreements encourage the development of policies that will provide students with learning difficulties and immigrant students fair access to French as a second language programs.
[English]
Also, while past agreements have sought to maintain or increase the number of students in FSL programs with kindergarten to grade 12 retention rates of roughly 36% for FI and 6% for core French, aggressive targets increasing student retention should be a feature of new agreements.
Canadian Parents for French recommends that all OLEP agreements should encourage policies that address the issue of retention of students in FSL programs.
[Translation]
Canada's official languages roadmap has created a vision for the future of the official languages and for bilingualism in Canada. We believe that the agreements are tools that can make that vision into a reality.
[English]
CPF recommends that all OLEP agreements establish measures to assess the effectiveness of FSL programs, and upon the closing of these agreements in 2017 a report be drawn up illustrating the successes of these programs and a list of best practices for our future agreements.
Thank you.
I would like to say a few words before handing things over to my colleague Jean-Pierre Gauthier, who will make the presentation.
I would certainly like to thank you for giving us the opportunity to talk about second languages, a key topic for the Department of Canadian Heritage for many years. My colleagues Jean-Pierre Gauthier, Director General of the Official Languages Branch, and Yvan Déry, Director of Policy and Research in the Official Languages Branch of the Department of Canadian Heritage, are with me today to answer your questions.
[English]
With your permission, I'd like to explain the context briefly of what Jean-Pierre is going to speak about. The presentation he's going to make deals with minority language as well as second language education.
As you know, minority language education refers to the schooling of students of official language minority communities, therefore those who receive English schooling in Quebec and French elsewhere in Canada.
Although second official language learning and official language minority education are two distinct lines of business, with two different complementary objectives that belong to two separate programs at Canadian Heritage, from the point of view of their delivery mechanisms and the requirement for a strong collaboration with provinces and territories, they follow the same logic and use common instruments. Therefore, we will make a presentation in the following fashion.
:
My thanks to the members of the committee, and thank you, Mr. Chair. In order to maximize the time for questions, I propose to provide a brief overview of the presentation that has been circulated to you. Without further introduction, I will begin.
The first page of our presentation provides you with a reminder of the legal framework that governs minority language and second language education. Section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is also mentioned. This section defines the right of Canadians to have their children educated in their first official language.
We also mention that a provision of the Official Languages Act requires the to take the measures deemed necessary to assist the provinces to offer English- and French-speaking Canadians in minority situations an education in their own language and to provide young Canadians with an opportunity to learn their second official language. Those, therefore, are the bases on which the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages may become involved in education matters, in collaboration with the provinces.
The next page tries to put things into context and to provide a little clarification on the existing mechanism that produces the agreements that we have with the provinces and territories on education matters.
[English]
The first thing to mention is that this collaboration has been in place for about 40 years, and it proceeds in two steps. The first step is to have an overall multilateral agreement with all the provinces and territories and the federal government to establish the baselines, to establish the allocation of resources, and to establish the key parameters collectively.
After that, as a second step, we have bilateral agreements that we negotiate with each province in turn. For these we have discussions with the respective provinces or territories to try to capture their objectives in terms of their education system and what they want to focus on in the coming term—
The multilateral protocol for agreements that we have in effect provides us with broad parameters. We negotiate bilateral agreements with each province according to their needs. On page 4, you see a quick overview of the content of the protocol for agreements.
First, the annual funding for immigration has been set at $259 million. You can see that the major part of the funding is set aside to support provinces in minority-language education or second-language learning. Those two aspects combined come to $234.5 million. A little less than 10% of the funding is allocated each year to two youth programs managed by the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada. These programs provide exchanges; they also allow language monitors to join teachers in classrooms in order to help with and enhance the teaching of the first or second language. That gives you an idea of the scope of the protocol for agreements in financial terms.
As we talk about the factors that go into the federal-provincial-territorial agreements, we must deal with the way in which the performance and the outcomes are evaluated. Page 5 explains that the agreement protocol sets out six outcome domains that are agreed with the provinces. Within those outcome domains, each province is asked, in each bilateral agreement, which initiatives it wishes to undertake in the areas of second-language or minority-language teaching. The table gives you some examples of the kinds of initiatives that provinces or territories can undertake in order to reflect the outcome domains identified in the agreement protocol.
Page 6 shows how the accountability system is subsequently structured. We are well aware that this is an area of provincial or territorial jurisdiction. The provinces therefore establish their priorities according to their overall priorities in the area of education. During the discussions that they have with us, the provinces also identify and specify performance targets and indicators that they are going to use. We document the objectives, the targets and the indicators as established by the provinces and we are content with them. Each year, we make sure that the funds spent by the provinces match the planning established under our agreements.
First, the provinces and territories submit annual financial reports. Every two years, we ask them to measure their progress in terms of their targets. A discussion between our offices and the provinces then takes place. The goal is to make sure that the progress and the efforts that have been made are fully measured.
[English]
In addition, you have the regular processes in the departments—that is, evaluations and internal audits—that are also applied to these agreements for these programs.
Finally, in terms of reporting, we have the annual reporting of the department, which captures the essence of our activities.
You'll find on pages 7 and 8 a selection of examples of those targets to illustrate a bit better what kinds of things we are talking about. If I take the first example, it will give you, for teaching of the second language, what kinds of targets have been established by, for example, the Northwest Territories with respect to the participation of students.
You have the target they set at the beginning of the agreement, and in the right-hand column you basically have the results of what they achieved so far, at the interim report stage, which is year two, 2010-11. We just concluded year four on March 31, and we're expecting reports from the provinces and territories that will give us a complete overview over the whole four years of the last protocol agreements we have.
Just in passing, you have the same thing on page 8, but this time it's for teaching in the minority language as part of the activities we have with provinces and territories. Again, it's a selection of targets and the kinds of achievements provinces have reported back to us in their biennial reports on progress and results.
[Translation]
Let us now move to pages 9 and 10. By taking a step back, we try to get an overall picture of which results and which achievements we can identify as activities in the area of second-language and minority-language learning.
On page 9, we can see the achievements in second-language education. About 2.4 million young Canadians are learning English or French as a second language. That is a little more than half the school population. We also see that immersion programs are highly popular, with strong growth and demand.
Among the achievements in the second-language area, we also see innovative second-language teaching methods like, for example, intensive learning in one language. At the moment, 8,000 students are involved in the provinces and territories.
We also see improvements in the measurement of learning, but that is an area that you have already heard about. This is the ability to properly measure and certify the level of language mastery attained by a student. In a second language, of course. Thought and work is needed in this area, and steps are being taken to properly measure the quality of the learning.
We can also see that particular attention is paid to exchanges and cultural activities in immersion in order to enrich the experience of learning a second language, so this is not simply an experience limited to a classroom.
The next page, page 10, shows more or less the same approach, but this time it deals with minority-language education. About 240,000 young Canadians are studying in their language in a minority situation. This student population is increasing, whereas the general student population across the country is dropping slightly. This is encouraging.
We see that schools want to play a greater role in their communities. They want to be part of community life. So a number of schools also want to become involved in community activities after school hours or on weekends. They want to provide services like public libraries, for example. To the extent possible, things are brought together in different facilities. You will see figures from various places, like the 37 community learning centres in Quebec, where there is an attempt to play a greater role in minority situation schools. They do not want to limit themselves to teaching the Department of Education's program. They want the school to play a role in the community as well.
Efforts are also being made a post-secondary level. You can see in the presentation that there are programs in more than 40 colleges and universities in minority situations. I would also like to highlight the work that is being done by our colleagues at Health Canada and Justice Canada, each of which is trying, in its own area of activity, to develop a program in various colleges and universities.
There is a list of other more specific achievements at the bottom of the page, but I will not spend time describing them. I will quickly wrap up with the last page.
[English]
In short, the current protocol agreements that we have in place ended on March 31 of this year. That was the end of the fourth year. We are well advanced in negotiating the next agreement, which will be for five years. We've pretty much finished, so we're optimistic that we will have the agreement in place. That will set the stage to get discussions going with the various provinces and territories to establish a bilateral agreement. That is the document by which we gain authority to start funding their activities, whether it be for second language learning or minority schools.
I will stop at this point.
:
The 53% rate is not new.
You heard what Mr. Jean-Pierre Corbeil said last week. He talked about the 53% and the 43% or 44%. The 53% includes the students from Quebec. Mr. Corbeil said that the 44% represents the people outside Quebec. That explains the difference.
We have been over the 50% mark for students who take French or English as a second language for some years now. We cannot really achieve 100%. We will never reach 100%, because we must understand that we are talking about students who happen to take French courses in a given year. However, in most provinces, that varies a lot, even in the provinces where French as a second language or English as a second language are mandatory, because that only lasts for a certain number of years during school.
For instance, in Ontario, second language training is mandatory from grade 4 to grade 8. Ontario students must take French as a second language courses. This means that 100% of English-speaking Ontarians will take French courses in school or vice versa for Franco-Ontarians. However, we will never get 100% of students in Ontario taking French courses in the same year. First and second graders are not taking the courses, and twelfth graders are not required to take them.
In short, a 53% rate is meaningful. It is a large percentage, but if we were to calculate the number of students who have an opportunity to learn the other language or to at least get introduced to the other language in school, we are closer to 100% than 53%. We don't have the exact percentage, but we know that French as a second language is mandatory in all the provinces to the east of Manitoba. It is optional in western Canada, but it is still used extensively. All the school boards offer French as a second language courses and, where courses are offered in more than one language, French is chosen by the majority as a second language. The 53% is therefore a meaningful rate, but the real number is even higher if we include all the students who, at some point during their schooling, choose French as a second language.
:
Once the protocol for agreements is signed, which is imminent, discussions will start by asking the provinces to give us an action plan for the five-year agreement period. We will see the initiatives they are proposing by outcome domain.
Discussions are currently under way on whether we are satisfied with the proposed initiatives, whether they are clear and whether we are in a position to monitor them. We will ensure that the proposed targets are relevant, adequate and measurable, and a discussion will follow from that. We will also be able to voice our preferences. They are on the last page. I went over it, but some of the federal government's preferences are listed on page 11, and we would like to invite the provinces to pay attention to those subjects. One province may not want to review all the initiatives it is proposing for one outcome domain, while another might consider the area of early childhood, for example, or pay greater attention to the post-secondary sector. That is what is discussed with the provinces.
It is clear that, with respect to the province, the education plans submitted to us or the education system are part of the provincial education plan as a whole. Stemming from that, the province has a certain number of constraints and, obviously, a certain number of objectives in its area of jurisdiction for the entire population. They are also part of a larger framework. That is what we discuss.
:
Since I don't have the document in front of me, it is a little hard for me to respond. However, I would say that, in general, we are living with the agreements, the OLEPs, as we have called them for several years. So we have a good understanding of them. That's sort of our frame of reference. Generally, within our network of parents, no one really questions the priorities. In other words, they appear to be managed. There are things we would like to see, but perhaps there hasn't been as much progress as hoped. For example, I'm thinking of
[English]
linguistic proficiency outcomes
[Translation]
or things like that. It is important to point out that every Canadian parent likes the idea of having national standards.
[English]
Sub rosa, that's what you want, or that's what you need.
[Translation]
Otherwise, how are you going to evaluate your child's progress? How will you know whether your child has really learned French, what level the child is at and what the child's competency is? Canada's education system does not provide a very easy answer to this.
We are looking for greater stability and greater consistency through OLEPs, while recognizing that some provinces and territories may have other ideas. However, to answer your question, I would say that these priorities are ours as well.
I would like to thank the witnesses for being here today and congratulate Mr. Lussier on his promotion. The last time we spoke, he wasn't assistant deputy minister. Congratulations.
I don't think you took Mr. Dion's comments seriously. The problem with the federal government's involvement in second-language learning across Canada, through the provinces, has been around for over 40 years. I remember horror stories from that time. The provinces were very happy to receive federal money, but used it to pave roads, especially during provincial election time.
I'm not aware of similar things now. However, organizations that promote linguistic duality across Canada still have some doubts. They wonder whether federal money, given blithely to the provinces for second-language education, is really being used for its intended purpose.
You also said that the 10 provinces have made reports and that, if we had not seen them, it was because we were not serious enough about looking at them. Did you do a report on those reports? Does an analysis of all the reports exist? If not, do you expect the official languages czar, Mr. Fraser, to do it? Mr. Fraser is not responsible for the money, but you are.