LANG Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 3rd SESSION

Standing Committee on Official Languages

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Wednesday, March 31, 2004

º

1650

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Raymond Simard (Saint Boniface, Lib.))

Ms. Ghislaine Pilon (President, Commission nationale des parents francophones)

Mr. Rodrigue Landry (Consultant, Commission nationale des parents francophones)

º

1655

»

1700

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Raymond Simard)

Mr. Scott Reid (Lanark—Carleton, CPC)

Mr. Rodrigue Landry

Mr. Scott Reid

Mr. Rodrigue Landry

Mr. Scott Reid

Mr. Rodrigue Landry

Mr. Scott Reid

Mr. Rodrigue Landry

»

1705

Mr. Scott Reid

Mr. Rodrigue Landry

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Raymond Simard)

Mr. Christian Jobin (Lévis-et-Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, Lib.)

Mr. Rodrigue Landry

Ms. Murielle Gagné-Ouellette (Director General, Commission nationale des parents francophones)

Mr. Christian Jobin

Ms. Murielle Gagné-Ouellette

Mr. Christian Jobin

Ms. Murielle Gagné-Ouellette

Mr. Christian Jobin

Ms. Murielle Gagné-Ouellette

Mr. Christian Jobin

Ms. Murielle Gagné-Ouellette

Mr. Christian Jobin

Ms. Ghislaine Pilon

»

1710

Mr. Rodrigue Landry

Mr. Christian Jobin

Ms. Murielle Gagné-Ouellette

Mr. Christian Jobin

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Raymond Simard)

Mr. Marcel Proulx (Hull—Aylmer, Lib.)

Mr. Rodrigue Landry

Mr. Marcel Proulx

Mr. Rodrigue Landry

Mr. Marcel Proulx

Mr. Rodrigue Landry

»

1715

Mr. Marcel Proulx

Ms. Ghislaine Pilon

Mr. Rodrigue Landry

Mr. Marcel Proulx

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Raymond Simard)

Hon. Claude Drouin (Beauce, Lib.)

Ms. Ghislaine Pilon

Hon. Claude Drouin

Mr. Rodrigue Landry

»

1720

Hon. Claude Drouin

Ms. Murielle Gagné-Ouellette

Hon. Claude Drouin

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Raymond Simard)

Ms. Murielle Gagné-Ouellette

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Raymond Simard)

Ms. Murielle Gagné-Ouellette

»

1725

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Raymond Simard)

Mr. Scott Reid

Mr. Rodrigue Landry

Mr. Scott Reid

Mr. Rodrigue Landry

Mr. Scott Reid

Mr. Rodrigue Landry

Mr. Scott Reid

Mr. Rodrigue Landry

»

1730

Mr. Scott Reid

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Raymond Simard)

Mr. Rodrigue Landry

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Raymond Simard)

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CANADA

Standing Committee on Official Languages

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NUMBER 007

l

3rd SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

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EVIDENCE

Wednesday, March 31, 2004

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

º  (1650)  

[Translation]

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. Raymond Simard (Saint Boniface, Lib.)): I would ask the witnesses to please accept our apologies.

    Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(f), we are pursuing our study on the federal government's contribution to early childhood development under the Action Plan for Official Languages.

    With us today, from the Commission nationale des parents francophones, Ghislaine Pilon, Murielle Gagné-Ouellette and Rodrigue Landry.

    You have 10 to 15 minutes to make your presentation and then we will open the floor to questions from the members.

    Ms. Pilon.

    Ms. Ghislaine Pilon (President, Commission nationale des parents francophones): Thank you, Mr. Simard. First, I would like to thank you for taking the time to listen to us.

    I would like to explain to you who we are, what the Commission nationale is. We represent francophone parents outside of Quebec through our provincial and territorial francophone federations. There are nine provincial federations and three territorial federations, comprised of francophone parents where francophones are in the minority. We support the work that they do on a national scale.

    As Mr. Simard told you, we have an official languages plan which focuses primarily on early childhood. Our action plan comes with a national plan which states that we should increase from 68 to 80 per cent by 2014 the number of people with rights.

    We have undertaken research to explain where we're going and where we're coming from. There is an emergency in the area of early childhood development. Mr. Landry, our researcher, will explain the results to you. They are of concern, but there is hope for early childhood, because we have an action plan which aims to set up early childhood and family centres alongside our community centres or our francophone schools in minority settings.

    I would now like to hand over the floor to Mr. Landry, who will explain the statistics and the research we have done to you.

    Mr. Rodrigue Landry (Consultant, Commission nationale des parents francophones): Thank you for having us.

    I am the Director General of the Institut canadien de recherche sur les minorités linguistiques, the Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities. This institute is funded by the federal government and carries out research on official language minorities, so on francophones outside of Quebec and on anglophones in Quebec.

    I agreed to do this research work for the Commission nationale des parents francophones. I will now give you an outline of my research, because we don't have time to go into the details of the study.

    It is important to understand that section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was a source of hope for francophone and Acadian communities. It gave them the right to French-language education and acknowledged that they had exclusive governance authority.

    According to our study there are many parents who do not take advantage of these rights. For many years, the problem was due to a lack of access to French schools. There has been great progress since 1982, the year the Charter was adopted. Today, even though there still are problems with respect to access, the problem is characterized by a lack of parental involvement.

    So today the problem has less to do with claiming one's rights or services, although this aspect of the problem still remains, and more to do with the social marketing strategy for French-language schools. We have to show parents the advantages of these types of schools and invite them to get involved.

    I will now move on to the main results without dwelling on the methodology behind the study. We noted a decrease in the target school population. Since 1986, amongst school age children, i.e. children between the ages of 5 and 17, there has been a 17% decrease. I will spare you the actual figures. For children between the ages of 0 and 4, or preschool age children who will be going to school, we've seen a 27% decrease. These are figures from the 2001 census. These figures are significant: the fact that the decrease is greater in the preschool group is an indication of a progressively greater decrease over time.

    These decreasing numbers can be attributed to two factors: a very low fertility rate—for anglophones as well as francophones, the rate is about 1.6 children per family compared to 5 at the end of the 1950s— as well as a fairly high anglicization rate. However, we have noticed that in exogamous families there is an alarmingly low rate of children who are taught French. Let me define the term "exogamous". Exogamous marriages are marriages between people who speak different languages. In this case, we are dealing mainly with one francophone parent and one anglophone parent. We have noticed that this has a marked effect on the language spoken at home, even though the children of these parents are still entitled to French education rights.

    The proportion of children born into exogamous families is growing. In 1986, 53% of children were born in these families. According to 2001 census data, this number has increased to 64%. This means that, out of all the children who have a right to go to French school, 64% are born of mixed or exogamous couples. This means that in 2001, only 3 out of 10 children entitled to attend French schools had two francophone parents.

    Of course, the results vary from province to province. I'm giving you the national average.

    The high proportion of children born of exogamous parents has a marked effect on the whole population of entitled children. Let's look at a few statistics. Under table 1, as an illustration, let's take all children between the ages of 0 and 17. When both parents are francophones, 93% of children have French as their mother tongue; when only one parent is francophone, the figure drops to 23%. We know that 60% of children have only one francophone parent. And because of the high percentage of children born of exogamous unions, only 49%, or 1 child out of 2, has French as his or her mother tongue.

    On the next page, you see that 1 out of 2 entitled children has French as a mother tongue, that 4 out of 10 children use French as their main language at home, that only 55% of children speak French on a regular basis at home, and that only 63% know French well enough to engage in a conversation in French.

º  (1655)  

    So, we note that the target population for French schools may keep shrinking and that it will increasingly be made up of children of exogamous parents.

    Before discussing the recommendations, I'd like to highlight an important fact that must be grasped: exogamy is not a direct cause of linguistic assimilation. Linguistic assimilation is due to the language patterns chosen by the parents.

    In that respect, the message is much more positive. Indeed, when francophone parents speak French to their children and when those children are schooled in French-language schools, by grade 12, their skills and francophone identity are the same as those of other francophones. Furthermore, their English is as good as that of anglophones. So we can conclude that children of exogamous families are for all practical purposes the most bilingual in Canada. This is a little known fact amongst parents.

    When you conduct a survey, and you ask parents what they feel the best possible situation for their children would be, approximately two thirds of them answer that the ideal situation would be for the children to be schooled equally in French and in English. These parents seem to believe that schooling is everything and that in schooling their children both in French and in English, they will attain an excellent level of bilingualism. They completely forget about the social context which has a great deal of influence on language.

    Results demonstrate that the highest level of bilingualism possible is obtained when children are taught in French 80% of the time and in English 20% of the time. Even though this level of bilingualism is far superior than that resulting from immersion, immersion seems to be the program most often chosen by exogamous parents in trying to compromise between both languages and both cultures.

    Is exogamy a scourge or hidden potential for the francophone community? As far as we're concerned, we see it as having hidden potential. In table 2, there are statistics which we probably will not have the time to look into in any detail. However, when you look at Manitoba, for instance, there is 4% of the school population and there should be, all things being equal, 4% of the clientele. However, because of assimilation and other factors, only 2.2% of this population is in French schools. Given the number of entitled children born of exogamous parents, Manitoba has a potential of 7.4%. That is a tremendous potential.

    There is hidden potential on at least four fronts. For the individual, who would have two mother tongues, he or she would have a high level of additive bilingualism and would have succeeded in terms of his or her identity. With respect to schooling, there would be higher enrolment in French schools and an increase in the critical mass of students required to improve the services. For the community, because children of exogamous families have, as we've just said, a francophone identity that is as strong as other francophones and because they are as skilled as other francophones, they could contribute to the survival of their community just as well as the children of francophone parents. Finally, for the country, it would be a way of fulfilling Canada's constitutional responsibilities, of ensuring the equality of both official languages, and of promoting the development of minority communities.

    I would like to conclude with our three-part strategy.

    First, we would raise awareness among the entitled population and the Canadian public. Through a national campaign, we would ensure that entitled parents know their rights. I'm sure that if you asked parents what section 23 is today, you would find that very few of them know what it is. Parents would have a better understanding of the conditions underlying additive bilingualism and of the positive results brought about by French-language schooling. Along with this we could have a marketing campaign in the community so that parents wanting help could receive it.

    The second component, which is related, would require that parents know that a good level of bilingualism is related to schooling in French schools. That would involve support services for the family. We would want to ensure that the child can socialize in French during his or her preschool years.

»  (1700)  

    The strategy being proposed by The Commission nationale des parents francophones, of combining an early childhood and family centre with existing schools, could be an excellent way of ensuring that children have French-language social interaction and are ready to go to French school.

    The third element would be a positive and open support structure. Given the fact that the client base would be less homogenous, very clear communication strategies would have to be in place to ensure that the parents know that their children are being well cared for and that the centre aims to promote the development of the child to his or her full potential. There would also have to be a strategy in place that would ensure the protection and promotion of the French language given its minority status.

    All of this could be accomplished through a collaborative partnership between government, community stakeholders and schools. For a successful outcome, the francophone community would have to take charge of its own destiny and the federal government would have to recognize its own constitutional responsibilities.

    Thank you for your attention.

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. Raymond Simard): Thank you very much, Mr. Landry. We will now proceed to members' questions.

    Mr. Reid, you have seven minutes.

    Mr. Scott Reid (Lanark—Carleton, CPC): Thank you.

    You said that education in a French environment was preferable to immersion. Why? Is it because in immersion, schooling is done in French but socialization takes place in English, English being the language spoken in the hallways? Is it as simple as that?

    Mr. Rodrigue Landry: Yes. By the way, I'm very pleased you asked this question because it allows me to explain things more clearly.

    Immersion is an excellent program, but it's a second language program for anglophones. I have tested immersion students everywhere in Canada. They do not develop a francophone identity. They do fairly well in French. They don't do as well as francophones, but they do far better than students who take traditional language courses. They don't lose their skills in English because they're schooled in French.

    With francophones, if we focus on the weaker language, we manage to strengthen the French language, even though children still have difficulties in French, even more so than in English. They become just as competent in English because they often take the same English classes as anglophones. English is everywhere in their environment, on TV, etc. Moreover, in exogamous families, they often speak English at home.

    Given all these factors, for children to become bilingual, you have to focus on the weaker language. That's what will give you the best results.

    Mr. Scott Reid: Have you noticed the same thing in all regions of Canada outside of Quebec? In the riding of Madawaska—Restigouche, in northern New Brunswick, francophones are not living in the same type of environment there as those who would like to have schools in the region of Toronto, for instance.

    Mr. Rodrigue Landry: That's another excellent question which allows me to clarify another point about context.

    When I talk about lower vitality, I mean highly francophone regions. I'm not saying that francophones from Caraquet and Edmundston, New Brunswick, become strongly bilingual. They have a difficult time learning English because they live in highly francophone areas. But the situation is different in Nova Scotia, for instance; we carried out a specific study there because the issue of French schools was very controversial. We demonstrated that students had equivalent results to anglophones in English, and that those who had received the most schooling in French had the highest scores in French.

    Mr. Scott Reid: What region of Nova Scotia are you referring to?

    Mr. Rodrigue Landry: I'm referring to all Acadian regions and to Halifax.

    Mr. Scott Reid: Very well.

    Mr. Rodrigue Landry: We went to all of the French secondary schools in Nova Scotia.

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    Mr. Scott Reid: That is all for the moment. Thank you.

    Mr. Rodrigue Landry: We also did this in all of the Canadian provinces.

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. Raymond Simard): Thank you, Mr. Reid.

    Mr. Jobin.

    Mr. Christian Jobin (Lévis-et-Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, Lib.): Mr. Landry, you know that the Canadian government established an action plan to help minorities in the various provinces. Do you feel that this action plan is sufficient to help, for example, early childhood, through Human Resources and Skills Development Canada? Twenty-two million dollars had been earmarked for early childhood education. Has part of this money already been used? Is it adequate and how much money has been spent up until now?

    Mr. Rodrigue Landry: I am a researcher. I am not involved in the policy field.

    Ms. Murielle Gagné-Ouellette (Director General, Commission nationale des parents francophones): In the government's federal official languages plan, $22 million was earmarked for early childhood education. This is certainly a good start. Three point eight million dollars has been allotted for capacity building. The Commission nationale des parents francophones has just received funding for a project to support parent groups to develop their ability to seek funding from the provinces, because we know that this issue also comes under provincial jurisdiction. Seven point four million dollars has been set aside for family literacy. This money will certainly help to train family literacy practitioners, who in turn will certainly help us in the early childhood and family centres.

    In addition, $10.8 million has been allotted for applied research. We sit on an advisory committee that helps people do this research. This $10.8 million amount will enable five day care centres or nursery schools in the country to study the children.

    Is that sufficient? No it is not. The purpose of the Commission nationale des parents francophones is to set up early childhood and family centres in each of our primary schools. We have 400 schools. We already have some existing structures in our provinces. Some of our provinces have early childhood educational resource centres and others have preschool centres or day cares, but it is not enough. In order to achieve an impact, we need to give priority to the early childhood and family centres, known as the CPEFs.

    We have worked with the Ministère de l'Emploi, de la Solidarité sociale et de la Famille du Québec [Quebec Ministry of Employment, Social Solidarity and the Family], which has given us tremendous support in the area of human and material resources. We work in close cooperation with this department.

    Mr. Christian Jobin: If the $22 million amount or the money you mentioned is inadequate, how much do you need to meet the requirements?

    Ms. Murielle Gagné-Ouellette: During our initial research, two years ago, we estimated that $33 million per year were needed in order to set up CPEFs Canada-wide.

    Mr. Christian Jobin: How many do you have now?

    Ms. Murielle Gagné-Ouellette: We do not have very many. We are really at the mercy of the provinces. We also know that the federal government signed a $2.2 billion contribution agreement with the provinces as part of the federal-provincial-territorial initiative on early childhood development, which supports provinces in the area of early childhood. However, not very much of this money gets to the francophones. When the provinces receive this money, it is unfortunate, but they are dealing so many other urgent matters that francophones are often forgotten. So we are experiencing a great deal of difficulty.

    Mr. Christian Jobin: If we could increase this budget, I think that we could protect young francophones from the outset, because everything begins at the day care centre. Sometimes they lose their French because they are in an anglophone environment.

    Ms. Murielle Gagné-Ouellette: Since there are no French day care centres, the children go to English day care centres and do not speak French when they start school. I have nothing against anglophones, but if we want the francophone children to get off on an equal footing and have the same opportunities for success as the children in a majority situation, they need to speak French from the beginning. We spend one, two or three years Frenchifying the children. When they get to first year and don't speak French, we have to Frenchify them and then provide teaching later on.

    Mr. Christian Jobin: You first of all have to turn them into francophones.

    Ms. Murielle Gagné-Ouellette: This is unfortunate, but we are talking about the survival of our communities. We have to look after the babies from the outset. If we provide them with resource centres, early childhood centres, the parents will be able to receive training and they will be encouraged to keep their language. They will be motivated to do so.

    Mr. Christian Jobin: If there is one place where we need to invest more in order to protect the francophone minorities, it would be right there.

    Ms. Ghislaine Pilon: That would be a good thing, because these children will be going to French school.

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    Mr. Rodrigue Landry: In my opinion, if we carried out the three components of the plan, that one would probably be the one which would have the greatest impact on the francophone community. You know, scarcely one out of two children go to French school.

    We need to increase the proportion of young people who will be going to French school in the future. The socialization that occurs over a 12-year span at the school gives them a francophone identity and skills in French that enable them to in turn make a contribution later on. Otherwise, we lose half of our population before school age. The big problem with clause 23 is that it applies to public schools. As a result, we lose half of the young people before they even begin school. Later on, we have problems at the post secondary level.

    In addition, I think it is very important that we not neglect awareness-raising. In my conferences, I often allude to a young francophone mother who said that she was exogamous and, for a long time, did not know that this was the case. For her, at any rate, this word meant nothing. When she met her spouse, they spoke to each other in English, because he did not speak French. Then the children arrived and it was easier to continue in English. To be honest, they didn't even ask themselves the question. This is how the young people are not attuned to what is going on. They do not know that their child is losing his entitlement forever. These are things that these people do not know.

    If the parents were more conscious of the problem, they would be prepared to make an effort, to speak to their children in French and to send them to a francophone day care centre. The school would then take over and make its impact.

    Mr. Christian Jobin: When the Dion action plan was being drafted, a plan which freed up $751 million, did you make any representations?

    Ms. Murielle Gagné-Ouellette: Early childhood was not even on the radar screen of the Dion plan until we made our representations. Mr. Dion asked us to present our plan.

    Mr. Christian Jobin: Thank you.

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. Raymond Simard): Thank you, Mr. Jobin.

    Mr. Proulx, the floor is yours.

    Mr. Marcel Proulx (Hull—Aylmer, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ladies, Mr. Landry, thank you for appearing before us today.

    Mr. Landry, I suppose that when you refer to exogamous families, you are referring primarily to families where one parent is francophone and the other is anglophone.

    Mr. Rodrigue Landry: That's right. That is an exogamous family.

    Mr. Marcel Proulx: Basically, that is what it is about. There are no doubt situations where French coexists with another language than English. En British Columbia, it may be Chinese.

    Are there any additional difficulties in such cases, or is it easier? Did your study deal with this factor?

    Mr. Rodrigue Landry: We identified other children who could go to French school. The list is contained in the report.

    Before I talk about that, I would like to answer your question. I am aware of no studies where this particular aspect was analyzed. Nevertheless, there are some statistics. In such cases, the assimilation rate is nearly as high as it is when the second parent is anglophone. In other words, regardless of whether the second parent is allophone or anglophone, English becomes the lingua franca. Unless the second allophone parent knows French, the parents do not have a common language to communicate with each other, and as a result, English becomes the common language and the family language.

    Furthermore, the Dion plan itself provides statistics. It is interesting to note that when the anglophone parent understands French, 70% of the children can at least converse in French, but only 30% of the children can do so if the anglophone parent does not understand French. That means that the bilingualism of the parent has a positive impact. Nevertheless, we cannot expect all anglophone parents to become bilingual.

    Mr. Marcel Proulx: I understand that, but you were right, a little earlier, when you said that a lot depended on the family's strategy.

    Mr. Rodrigue Landry: I talked about the family dynamics chosen by the parents. They could put these dynamics to better use if they were more aware of them.

    As I was saying, when we ask parents what would be the best solution, they automatically talk about 50-50. They do not think about the social context. You could say that they are not aware of it. I do not know if this is the right place to be raising this issue, but I often illustrate this with a story involving my father during the war. He often ate soup that was half horse meat, half rabbit meat. He said that it was 50-50, a horse and a rabbit. You see the image right away. When the parents say that it's 50-50, it's a bit like the story with the horse and the rabbit. English is so dominant in North America that the 50-50 situation is a type of immersion. The result is that people have some knowledge of French, but their identity is primarily anglophone.

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    Mr. Marcel Proulx: Unless, as you were saying, the parents decide, right from the first day, that the children—

    Ms. Ghislaine Pilon: Even before birth.

    Mr. Rodrigue Landry: Yes. When the parents have themselves been educated in French and work in French, there is a much greater likelihood that they will send their children to French school.

    Mr. Marcel Proulx: Thank you.

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. Raymond Simard): Thank you, Mr. Proulx.

    Mr. Drouin, please.

    Hon. Claude Drouin (Beauce, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

    It's my turn to welcome you. Thank you for this wonderful presentation that enables us to really get a grasp of the dynamics in francophone families outside of Quebec. I think that this is very important.

    My question is a little bit silly. You talked about a national campaign. This is, in my opinion, essential and it is unfortunate that parents are not aware of what an asset it is for our children to be able to speak both official languages.

    I became aware of that when I arrived here in 1997. Because in my region, in Beauce, people are 99.7% francophone, it was quite difficult for me to go to the restaurant here and order what I wanted. Fortunately, I am not fussy when it comes to food and I often said “same thing”. Nevertheless, I realized that it was an advantage and not a drawback to be able to speak both official languages.

    How can you convey the message in this national campaign so that exogamous families realize what opportunities they have and how important it is to pass on this heritage to their children? We must tell these parents that this is an opportunity that only occurs once, because if you skip a generation, it is difficult to go back.

    Ms. Ghislaine Pilon: According to the act, if you skip a generation, you lose your right. For instance, children who are entitled to do so today, who do not go to French school and do not speak French, lose the right to send their children to French school.

    Our communities are shrinking more quickly because of this provision. This is important. Aboriginal people are aboriginals for life. But as far as we francophones are concerned, it is over. Some of my friends did not send their children to French school and now these children speak very little French. Their children will not be entitled to attend French school.

    Our communities are shrinking. If 50% of our children are not in our French schools, in 20 years, we will no longer have French schools.

    Hon. Claude Drouin: I'd like to come back to my question. How could we structure this campaign so that it meets its goal, that is to increase awareness within exogamous families?

    Mr. Landry, when you were doing your research did you think of anything particularly striking? I think sometimes that you need to use something quite striking in order to get the public's attention.

    Mr. Rodrigue Landry: In my opinion, it could be as simple as the scenes one sees on national television. We all know the scene in which young children ask their parents for something and the mother says: "Well, if your father agrees...". So you could have the child speaking in French with his mother—perhaps one would need subtitles so that viewers could follow the story—then the mother would speak to the father and that dialogue with the father would take place in English. At that point you could have: "Did you know that if your family is exogamous your child could be perfectly bilingual?" We'd have to find a word instead of "exogamous" so that everyone would understand, but you understand what I'm talking about. Then we could add: "For more information, please contact, etc."

    If that were broadcast to the public, people would start to talk about it, just as they did for immersion, which became quite the trend, to the point where even francophones thought that this was the miracle solution for their children. One mustn't forget that in Alberta, for example, immersion existed before French schools. Therefore parents thought that this was the solution.

    It became apparent quite quickly that immersion, although better than an all-English program, was not the ideal solution. Even when education is 80% in French, that is not enough to make our children fully competent in French.

    So this is a campaign that will wake people up. People will start to talk about it and they will become more aware. That is when community-based social marketing kicks in. That is when we start helping the parents who call in and send them information.

    There are some excellent booklets that were put out, for example, by the Government of Alberta. One is a little book that was published in French and in English. In English it is entitled: I'm With You! Exogamous Families' Guide to the World of Francophone Education. It lists all the principles and summarizes research demonstrating the advantages for children, problems they may encounter, etc. This sort of publication helps make them more aware of the issue.

    However, parents will not read those publications unless something draws their attention. If we truly want to have a major impact, I'm convinced that we cannot do this simply by working one on one or going door to door. We have to raise the awareness of the Canadian public in general, not only francophone parents, in order to be able to lay the groundwork for good bilingualism.

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    Hon. Claude Drouin: I think that is an excellent idea. In fact, it would be a good idea to show what advantages this will give people in the future. For example, at previous hearings, we heard that it is easier for a francophone to learn Spanish; the same would apply for an anglophone learning German. If our young people learn two languages at a young age, then they will be able to learn a third and even a fourth language. That is a resource. Furthermore, it will open doors for them and give them terrific career opportunities. One only has to think of the Canadian public service.

    A young bilingual man or woman will have some very interesting job opportunities, whether that be in the public service or in the private sector. In this current age of globalization, the more languages one speaks, the greater the advantages. I think a lot of important work has to be done and that we should join together in order to help our young people take advantage of these enriching opportunities. Thank you very much.

    Ms. Murielle Gagné-Ouellette: We have been involved in school administration outside Quebec for 10 years and we have never had a true awareness-raising campaign. I think now is the time. I think that a community-based social marketing campaign would not only support the development of education but also that of the community as a whole.

    Hon. Claude Drouin: Thank you.

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. Raymond Simard): Thank you, Mr. Drouin.

    With your permission, I would like to ask two questions. You said earlier that you are a national organization. However a large part of your support comes from the provinces.

    We know that provinces are involved at different levels in the area of official languages, but sometimes this leads to inconsistencies. How do you deal with that situation?

    Ms. Murielle Gagné-Ouellette: With great difficulty. Certainly in the nine provinces and three territories, federations and parent committees do a lot of work. In some cases, there's very good collaboration with the provincial governments, however in others, the governments do not even want to sit down to discuss these issues with francophones. It is therefore very difficult to deal with this situation on a national level. On the other hand, we have just reached an agreement on a project that will allow us to provide statistics and make presentations to our federations. In that way we will be able to move these issues ahead. We hope that the provincial governments will be able to move ahead.

    The federal government has given the provinces $2.2 billion over five years through the early childhood development initiative. We have asked that a part of those funds be set aside for francophones for cases like these. We know that the provinces have many well-justified priorities. However, as francophones, we are often left with the last few drops in the bucket.

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. Raymond Simard): Thank you.

    Do you have people working for you in the field? Are the people who work for you volunteers? Do you have agreements with groups such as the Division scolaire franco-manitobaine? Many schools have day cares. I'm trying to understand if early childhood centres are the same as day cares or if they are an additional centre. Could you please give us a simple explanation of how that works?

    Ms. Murielle Gagné-Ouellette: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    First, I'd like to point out that federations often only have one or two employees, depending on how the communities are organized. We depend to a great extent on volunteer work, and parents do a lot of that. In fact, we are in the process of calculating the number of hours volunteered. In many cases, parents are exhausted because they are involved in school administration.

    Of course we have the support of school boards. What we are doing helps them with recruitment. When rooms become available in schools, they provide them to us free of charge. That is the sort of support they provide us with. They are key partners in all provinces. Furthermore, they are advocates for early childhood development, because this is what provides continuity for our community and our francophone schools.

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    The Vice-Chair (Mr. Raymond Simard): Thank you.

    We will now start our second round. Mr. Reid.

    Mr. Scott Reid: Thank you.

    I would like to ask another technical question. Is the environment provided by a bigger school more conducive to preserving the French language? I would think that in a small school it is difficult to have sports teams and extracurricular programs. I'm not sure of this, but can that be a problem in small schools?

    Mr. Rodrigue Landry: It is certainly a problem. We haven't spoken about it, but perhaps the study mentions it. For my part, I have raised this problem in other documents I have written.

    The first problem is that it is difficult to get children to come to French schools and the second problem is keeping them there. Statistics show that we're still losing a certain number of children, especially after the eighth year, when they go on to high school. Some parents don't think that there are enough choices in French schools. For example, one young person may be an excellent hockey player and want to be part of a school team. The only way of doing that is by going to an English school. There are many such situations, which can be very difficult and even heartbreaking. I've spoken to parents who feel torn between their identity and what their child wants to experience. These decisions are not easy.

    You have raised another delicate issue. However, there could agreements by which a young francophone could continue to study in French while playing on the hockey team of a nearby English school. These are things that could perhaps be arranged. The main point, however, is that we need to convince parents that French schools offer their children the best chance of retaining both languages and both cultures.

    Mr. Scott Reid: I believe there are schools where there are only francophone students and immersion classes where almost all the students are anglophones or allophones. Are there any schools or classes where those ratios of different types of students are somewhere in between those two extremes? What kind of results have been obtained in these schools or classes in terms of the students' ability to speak French?

    Mr. Rodrigue Landry: Are you talking about immersion schools?

    Mr. Scott Reid: There are immersion classes...

    Mr. Rodrigue Landry: But immersion classes are...

    Mr. Scott Reid: ... where I believe all the students are non-francophones.

    Mr. Rodrigue Landry: If you go to Moncton, for example, you will see many Leblancs, Arsenaults and Cormiers in immersion classes. Parents from mixed marriage often choose immersion as the compromise. They choose the English system but they try to support French through immersion. That is the compromise that they choose.

    Unfortunately, there is no way of obtaining statistics on this. School boards do not provide us with statistics and they do not keep track of the mother tongue of their students. Quebec is the only province that keeps reliable statistics on the mother tongue of students in their English and French school systems. There are no reliable data for francophones outside Quebec.

    I have visited many schools and I can tell you more or less what happens in an immersion class. I describe this in my research results. In immersion classes, French is spoken in the class, but as soon as the bell rings, English is spoken. French is not a living language for them. They learn French somewhat in the same way I used to learn Latin when I was in a classical college. I did five years of Latin, but I never spoke Latin during recess. This is not an important language for these students. It's as if they do not realize the importance of continuing to speak in French. And the anglophone environment in which they live does not help.

    Unfortunately, even in our French schools there are many young people who speak English among themselves, but at least the environment is generally more francophone. Because the environment is francophone, we can then work on identity, choices, etc.

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    Mr. Scott Reid: Thank you.

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. Raymond Simard): Thank you very much, Mr. Reid.

    If there are no more questions on this side, I will ask one last question.

    I know that in minority communities, immigration is greatly relied on in order to increase the numbers of people speaking French and even the quality of French. Can you tell me whether or not immigration has had an impact on the provinces you have been dealing with?

    Mr. Rodrigue Landry: I have statistics on that and I will give them to you from memory. I know that, in general, this certainly has potential. I think that the federal government recently amended its legislation and that this has encouraged more francophone immigration into francophone areas, but I cannot tell you whether or not that has had an impact yet. In Canada in general, even including Quebec, there is a 40% rate of assimilation of allophones into English versus 3% into French. Even in Quebec, there is a 22% assimilation into English versus 20% into French. So even in Quebec, where only 8% of the population is anglophone, allophones become assimilated at the same rate, or at an even slightly higher one, into English as they do into French. We can't blame governments for that, because this is the phenomenon of the overall attraction of English in North America. It is a global phenomenon, according to some researchers. There's one researcher who speaks of the global imperialism of the English language. This is a very strong movement and fighting this giant is not always easy.

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. Raymond Simard): Thank you very much.

    On behalf of the committee, I would like to thank you for your excellent presentation. We acknowledge the challenges that you're faced with and we thank you for the excellent work you are doing. Thank you very much.

    The meeting is adjourned.