:
Welcome to the Standing Committee on Official Languages.
Today is Tuesday, March 10, 2015, and this is our 40th meeting.
We are here pursuant to Standing Order 108 for a study of the Department of Citizenship and Immigration's commitment to promoting Canada's linguistic duality and the development of official language minority communities.
Today, we are hearing from Ms. d'Entremont, Commissioner of Official Languages for New Brunswick. We are also hearing from Mrs. Rioux, Director General of the Fédération acadienne de la Nouvelle-Écosse. Finally, we also have with us Ms. Kamariza, who is a coordinator at the Réseau en immigration francophone de l'Alberta.
Welcome, everyone.
[English]
Before we begin, I just have a couple of points of information.
[Translation]
We have received the main estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2016. If the committee wishes, we can ask the Commissioner of Official Languages to appear before us to answer questions on expenditures.
[English]
If it's the wish of the committee, I can organize to have the commissioner appear in front of us to review the estimates sometime in May before these need to be reported back to the House, so that we as a committee can vote on the estimates.
Is it the wish of the committee that I proceed in that fashion?
Okay. I'll organize that for some time in May.
[Translation]
Mrs. Rioux has a flight at 5:30 p.m.
:
Ladies and gentlemen, I am extremely pleased to be here with you today to talk about something that I feel strongly about—immigration. This issue is central to the future of our two official language communities across Canada. During this presentation, I will provide an overview of recent changes in francophone immigration to New Brunswick.
As Commissioner of Official Languages for New Brunswick, I have two main roles. The first is to protect the language rights of New Brunswickers. To do this, I conduct investigations into the application of the Official Languages Act, and I make recommendations. So, I have a watchdog role.
I will mention in passing that the Official Languages Act of New Brunswick applies everywhere in the province, regardless of numbers. Whether you are an anglophone living on the Acadian Peninsula or a francophone living in Saint John, you have the right to communicate with and receive services from provincial institutions in your language of choice.
[English]
My second role is to promote the advancement of French and English in the province of New Brunswick, a role that enables me to take an interest in all factors that ensure the vitality of a language in a given area.
In this regard, everyone will agree that immigration plays a central role in the vitality of our two official languages. This is particularly true today, at a time when the population is aging and the birth rate is low.
According to Statistics Canada, immigration will soon almost become the only source of population growth in Canada. Our future, therefore, depends on immigration. However, immigration must benefit both official language communities. That is why, for the past several years, the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages for New Brunswick has been paying very close attention to this issue.
I should point out a unique characteristic of New Brunswick that must be taken into consideration before I proceed.
As you know, according to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, “The English linguistic community and the French linguistic community in New Brunswick have equality of status and equal rights and privileges...”. Owing to this constitutional equality of status, the governments of New Brunswick and Canada have an obligation to ensure that their immigration policies and practices benefit both communities equally. Is this actually happening?
[Translation]
In 2010, the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages for New Brunswick carried out a study of the Population Growth Secretariat, which was, at the time, the government body responsible for immigration to the province. That study resulted in two clear findings.
First, the secretariat had no official policy or guidelines for ensuring that each linguistic community benefited equally from immigration to the province. In 2010-2011, about 11% of the nominees chosen under the New Brunswick Provincial Nominee Program—a program under which the government of New Brunswick can choose candidates for immigration to the province—spoke French. The francophone community of New Brunswick makes up about one-third of the province's total population.
Also, we noted that the provincial government did not have a strategy, an action plan, or even any targets for francophone immigration.
Those two findings led to two recommendations.
First, the then commissioner asked the provincial government to develop an official policy and clear guidelines to ensure that both linguistic communities benefited equally from immigration. Then, he recommended that a francophone immigration strategy be adopted.
[English]
Data from the 2011 census confirm once again that the francophone community of New Brunswick does not benefit from immigration as much as the province's anglophone community.
An analysis done by the Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities, using data from the last census, shows that in 2011 the vast majority of recent immigrants to New Brunswick, or 81.1%, had English as their first official language spoken, whereas only 11.7% had French. ln addition, only 7.7% of recent immigrants declared French as their mother tongue, compared with nearly 29% who declared English.
The results of the New Brunswick provincial nominee program are not much better. ln 2012-13, the percentage of French-speaking and bilingual nominees—English and French—was only 12.2% of all nominees welcomed to our province.
Of course, it must be recognized that francophone immigration is a multi-faceted challenge. Indeed, it is not simply a matter of recruiting French-speaking immigrants, which in itself is a difficult task. We have to be able to retain them and help them integrate into the francophone community.
ln this regard, it must be recognized that efforts have been made by both levels of government to meet the challenge of francophone immigration.
[Translation]
In 2009, the federal government made a commitment to pay to the province of New Brunswick a sum of $10 million over the course of five years in order to preserve the population's linguistic profile with respect to immigrant recruitment. That financial support ended in March 2014. No renewal of that $10 million has yet been announced.
[English]
Despite significant effort and some successes, it must be said that the recent investments have not been sufficient to correct the existing imbalance that compromises the demographic weight of the francophone community of New Brunswick in the long term. That is why I believe a federal-provincial framework agreement on francophone immigration to New Brunswick must be put in place. This would entail a long-term collaborative approach between the two levels of government to promote francophone immigration to the province.
[Translation]
First and foremost, this agreement would affirm New Brunswick's unique linguistic status and recognize that immigration programs and practices of both levels of government must absolutely maintain the demographic weight represented by the two official linguistic communities. It would also affirm the duty to compensate for past imbalances in immigration rates.
This agreement would build on federal and provincial resources in order to create a strong synergy of action. It would support the work of community stakeholders, such as the Réseau provincial en immigration francophone.
Furthermore, the framework agreement would contain a series of measures adapted to the socio-economic context and needs of the francophone community of New Brunswick. Special attention would be paid to the needs of francophone and bilingual businesses.
Finally, the agreement would provide long-term funding for the recruitment, settlement and retention of francophone immigrants, as well as establish an evaluation framework to measure progress.
[English]
Last July, the provincial government in New Brunswick released the “Population Growth Strategy” and the “Francophone Immigration Action Plan”. With this initiative, the New Brunswick government was finally acting on the two recommendations made by my predecessor: a clear commitment to maintaining the linguistic composition of our province, and the adoption of a strategy for doing so. This is an ideal opportunity to establish this new collaboration, this framework agreement, between the two levels of government.
Over the past few years, francophone immigration has been a topic of interest to the federal and provincial governments. It must now become a national priority, as it affects the very future of official language minority communities. For this to happen, we must now come up with the means to succeed.
That is why on October 30 my colleagues from Ontario, Graham Fraser and François Boileau, and I asked the different levels of government to step up their efforts to increase francophone immigration outside Quebec. In that regard, it is troubling to see that the strategic plan to foster immigration to francophone minority communities, which ended in March 2013, has not been renewed. Where is the new strategy? We are referred to the “Roadmap for Canada's Official Languages”. This argument appears to be a bit weak to me.
I read with great interest the “2014 Annual Report to Parliament on Immigration”, a very interesting document. It even contains a gender-based comparative analysis across policy, program, and research sectors of Citizenship and Immigration Canada. However, an analysis of the results of francophone immigration outside Quebec is conspicuous by its absence.
[Translation]
At meetings, New Brunswick civil servants responsible for immigration have boasted more than once about the defunct Francophone Significant Benefit Program. It was one of the main tools they used to recruit francophone immigrants to our province. It disappeared a few months ago to the consternation of everyone concerned with francophone immigration.
The new Roadmap for Canada's Linguistic Duality 2013-2018 provides an investment of $29.5 million over five years for immigration to official language minority communities across the country, including $4 million for New Brunswick.
[English]
Is this enough, given the results that have been achieved so far? Is this enough for such a fundamental issue? Because the issue here is linguistic duality, which defines us as a nation. Through immigration laws, policies, and practices, governments have a direct impact on the future, the vitality, and even the survival of official language communities. The time has come for francophone immigration to become a true national priority.
[Translation]
Thank you.
I am pleased to be joining you today in my capacity as the Director General of the Fédération acadienne de la Nouvelle-Écosse.
Our organization is a true federation composed of 29 regional and sectoral agencies and clients working to advance the federation's mission.
The federation fulfills its mission by acting as the main spokesperson for the Acadian and francophone population of Nova Scotia; by facilitating cooperation and partnership among all the agencies working in Nova Scotia's Acadian and francophone community; by offering services and programs that address the needs of its members; and by supporting its members in promoting the vitality and development of Nova Scotia's Acadian and francophone community.
In 2003, the Citizenship and Immigration Steering Committee released its Strategic Plan to Foster Immigration to Francophone Minority Communities of Canada. To achieve the plan's objectives, the federal and provincial departments of immigration partnered with key organizations in Canada's minority communities. This spawned francophone immigration in Nova Scotia, an initiative spearheaded by the federation, which officially represents Nova Scotia's Acadian and francophone population at the various levels of government.
In 2006, the federation signed cooperation agreements with the federal government, represented by Citizenship and Immigration Canada, and the provincial government, represented by the Nova Scotia Office of Immigration, to develop promotion, recruitment, intake and integration capacity with a view to attracting French-speaking newcomers to Nova Scotia and encouraging them to remain in the province. Under these agreements and with continuing government support, Immigration francophone Nouvelle-Écosse offers a variety of services free of charge to French-speaking newcomers to Nova Scotia.
The objectives of Immigration francophone Nouvelle-Écosse, which is a project of the federation, are as follows: increase the number of French-speaking newcomers who choose to settle in Nova Scotia, and encourage them to remain in the province; assist these newcomers with their integration in the province; and increase the intake and integration capacity of Nova Scotia's Acadian and francophone communities.
To achieve these objectives, a number of key organizations in the community have come together under a steering committee to put together an action plan supporting the continued growth of francophone immigration. That's where we see how effective our federation is.
The following organizations are part of that steering committee: the Association des juristes d'expression française de la Nouvelle-Écosse, the Conseil de développement économique de la Nouvelle-Écosse, Université Sainte-Anne, the Fédération des femmes acadiennes de la Nouvelle-Écosse, the Regroupement des aînées et aînés de la Nouvelle-Écosse, the Conseil scolaire acadien provincial, the Conseil jeunesse provincial de la Nouvelle-Écosse, the Réseau santé Nouvelle-Écosse, a representative of the Citizenship and Immigration Canada steering committee on francophone immigration and a representative of the immigrant community.
Immigration francophone Nouvelle-Écosse offers pre-departure, settlement, integration and outreach services. These services are greatly appreciated by the immigrant community, who can turn to the dedicated employees of Immigration francophone Nouvelle-Écosse who can guide them step by step in this new environment and life.
Yet despite the excellent service provided by Immigration francophone Nouvelle-Écosse, our province's francophone immigrants are at a disadvantage on several fronts compared with anglophone immigrants. Many services provided by the Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia are not accessible to francophone immigrants. For example: crisis intervention services, including support with legal, financial and mental health issues; family support and counselling, including help with family law and domestic violence; refugee services; workshops given by professionals on a range of topics, such as income tax returns, as it's that time of year; and references to institutions offering second-language courses.
Immigration francophone Nouvelle-Écosse cannot provide any of those services. Moreover, some needs identified by immigrants themselves cannot be met by Immigration francophone Nouvelle-Écosse because these services do not fall under its mandate.
Those are support services for international students, support services to facilitate student integration, French second-language courses and certification, and language skills testing to be granted permanent residency. None of those services are provided because they don't fall under the mandate of Immigration francophone Nouvelle-Écosse.
More concerning is that people who contact the Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia and who could benefit from the services offered by Immigration francophone Nouvelle-Écosse are not referred to our organization because immigrants are not asked whether they also speak French. So they are not given an option between English and French services.
For example, this summer, we learned that 20 immigrants who spoke French and would have liked to use our federation's services were systematically referred to the anglophone system and found out about francophone immigration services only once it was too late. For Nova Scotia, 20 francophone immigrants is a lot.
In addition, some Citizenship and Immigration Canada programs that have been eliminated or recast, such as the Francophone Significant Benefit service and civil service jobs for international students, have created additional problems for employers wanting to hire francophone immigrants.
For example, our federation has for some years now welcomed francophone students who have responded to a civil service job offer. Until now, the process was relatively simple. A job offer was posted, interviews were held, and a candidate was selected who met certain conditions set by the Office franco-québécois pour la jeunesse and the Agence du service civique français.
In February, however, we were told that we now have to pay a fee to the CIC and fill out an online form before making a formal job offer. In principle, these extra steps should not pose a problem. However, it has been a real headache, since the instructions for the new procedure are unclear.
I usually have no problems, but it took me a whole day to get through the first step, which didn't even consist in filling out the form, but only in paying the fees. The “civic service mission” option was not available in the menu. I did select the option “other services”, but that did not work. The other options were “permanent residence”, “temporary residence”, “Canadian citizenship”, and so on.
I selected “other services”, but I should have clicked on “temporary residence”. A colleague from the Société nationale de l'Acadie helped me figure it out. If I clicked on “other services”, I ended up on “application for Canadian citizenship with a criminal conviction”, “with a criminal record” or “with a serious criminal record”. It no longer made sense.
Navigating through that maze is almost impossible, and I have not even filled out the form. Think of all the time we waste in order to do that! Moreover, we can't speak to an officer. If I had these problems, you can be sure that other organizations that are trying to get a trainee as part of a civic service mission will just give up instead of wasting a whole day trying to figure out how to get into the system.
As for the Francophone Significant Benefit, as the program has not yet been replaced, and as the commissioner mentioned earlier, it can be assumed that many employers will turn to employees who are weak in French in order to meet their workforce needs.
In conclusion, although the CIC's programs have made it possible to accommodate a growing number of immigrants to Canada and Nova Scotia, it seems the services provided favour anglophone over francophone immigration because Immigration francophone Nouvelle-Écosse and employers in our community do not have the same tools as anglophone employers and service providers. This imbalance discourages francophone immigrants from settling in our great province and thus contributes to the erosion of francophones in Nova Scotia.
Thank you for your attention.
:
Mr. Chair, members of the committee, good afternoon.
First, I wish to thank you very much for inviting us to share our perceptions of Citizenship and Immigration Canada's commitment to promoting Canada's linguistic duality and the development of official language minority communities.
I am Ida Kamariza, coordinator of the Réseau en immigration francophone de l'Alberta, which is governed by the Association canadienne-française de l'Alberta, or the ACFA.
The ACFA has been representing Alberta's francophone community since 1926. Today, we are here on behalf of the 238,000 Albertans who make up Alberta's francophone community. Since 2001, this highly diverse francophone community has welcomed over 10,000 immigrants who came directly to Alberta, as well as thousands of francophone immigrants who arrived from other provinces and territories, including Quebec.
Francophone minority communities have been rather active in recruiting immigrants since the 1990s, when studies and discussions led by the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages marked the start of an openness toward the wider French-speaking world, along with an acknowledgement of the importance of diversity and immigration for these communities.
These studies and discussions laid the groundwork for francophone immigration to these communities, and they demonstrated the importance of immigration for the vitality of francophone communities as a way to foster their growth and their economic and cultural development.
In 2003, the federal government rolled out the strategic framework to foster immigration to francophone minority communities so as to enable them to reap the economic and social benefits of immigration over the coming years. It included five long-term objectives to increase the number of francophone immigrants coming to these communities and to encourage them to stay.
Later, in 2006, a strategic plan was released, one that outlined the key priorities to help identify initiatives that would support the achievement of these objectives. At the time, then-minister of Citizenship and Immigration Monte Solberg reiterated the Government of Canada's commitment as follows: “The history of our country and our roots tell us that we have a duty to preserve what we have already built—linguistic duality.”
While there is an obvious role for francophone immigration in the growth and economic and cultural development of francophone minority communities, the question is how to attract immigrants, deliver government services and help newcomers adjust to local labour market needs.
One of the reasons for motivating francophone communities to become actively involved in immigration was that it allowed them to address the demographic issue they were facing. However, it is clear that francophone communities in Alberta, and elsewhere in Canada, have seen little benefit from immigration.
Demographics continue to be a very real issue, and it is highly unlikely that the new Express Entry system will be the panacea we so frequently hear about. In light of the significant reforms we are currently going through, organizing and delivering services in French to immigrants is a major issue for francophone minority communities.
Despite current economic conditions, Alberta continues to attract a large number of immigrants. However, statistics show that there has never been a large number of francophone immigrants coming directly to Alberta from abroad. That said, the province has seen an influx of secondary immigration, mostly from Quebec. Immigration practitioners fear that the new reforms will result in a further significant curtailing of the already small number of francophone immigrants coming from abroad. Some have said that, despite the many entry paths available to immigrants, the way the immigration system is currently arranged disadvantages third-world francophone countries, which make up a large source of francophone immigration.
Current efforts by CIC to promote francophone minority communities, as well as Destination Canada, provide abundant evidence that the large francophone pool is not always targeted, despite the handful of timid attempts made for about a year now.
All of this is to say that there are mixed results with respect to francophone immigration to francophone minority communities, especially given the cancellation of the Francophone Significant Benefit Program in September.
We appreciate the government's commitment over the past decade and a half, reiterated recently in the Roadmap for Canada's Linguistic Duality 2013-2018, to maintain the vitality of francophone communities outside Quebec through immigration. However, we remain puzzled about the current approaches that do not appear to take the unique francophone situation into account.
In Canada, there are two paths of entry for immigrants—permanent immigration and temporary immigration. Therefore, attention must be paid to each one.
Let's start with the permanent stream. Modernization, which is driving major reforms in the Canadian system, is placing a decidedly economic focus on immigration, which is shifting from immigration based on the supply of immigrants coming to Canada to one where Canada encourages immigrants to come to the country. This orientation is based on the growing involvement of employers, as clearly announced by Minister Chris Alexander in his press release on April 8, 2014, and I quote:
With “Express Entry,” employers will have a key role in selecting economic immigrants and providing advice to the Government of Canada.
In our view, the proposed key role for employers in selecting immigrants, together with the major influence offered to the provinces and territories, none of them subject to linguistic obligations, risks diluting the federal government's commitments to official language minority communities. We do recognize the economic benefits of the kind of immigration our government is focusing on. However, we are concerned that community vitality will suffer without additional support measures.
Furthermore, the 2014 Economic Action Plan states the following:
The expression of interest (Express Entry) system would allow the Government of Canada, provinces and territories, and employers to actively target highly skilled immigrants under key economic immigration programs, including the Federal Skilled Worker Program, the Federal Skilled Trades Program and the Canadian Experience Class.
As you can see, there is no mention of the communities. The same economic action plan goes on to say the following:
In the future, the Government will explore with provinces, territories and employers approaches to developing a pool of skilled workers who are ready to begin employment in Canada.
It should be noted that all consultations on launching this program, which began in January 2015, have been ongoing for several months with the provinces, territories and employers, but without any involvement or input from official language minority communities. We are concerned, since we do not believe that these key stakeholders will see francophone community vitality as a priority.
Fortunately, Canada-wide community consultations have just begun with our francophone communities to look at options for adapting the program already in place. However, the realities of the situation mean that there are more challenges than there are solutions. Francophone communities would have liked to be consulted right from the design phase of the program, so that the government would have brought forward a well-informed approach that takes their unique characteristics into account. Although knowledge of one of Canada's official languages is one of the selection criteria, we doubt that unilingual francophone immigrants will be selected. As well, we have concerns that training standards, which are different in francophone systems than in anglophone ones, will be seen as stumbling blocks to recognizing the credentials from some francophone countries.
I would now like to share a few thoughts about temporary immigration. According to recent reforms, temporary immigration, made up essentially of temporary foreign workers and international students, will be the preferred route toward permanent immigration.
The major impact on francophone communities will therefore depend on the source countries for the temporary foreign worker class. Except for France, there are few francophone countries in the temporary immigrant pools.
Francophone communities are making an effort to educate employers about recruiting immigrants from francophone countries. However, we see somewhat of a contradiction. While the Government of Canada is eliminating all funding for promotional activities overseas, it is at the same time promising in the roadmap to increase spending on activities overseas in order to expand the mandate of Destination Canada and to include more job fairs and more promotional and recruitment activities aimed at employers.
Lastly, looking at how much the government plans to invest in this area in the coming years, we see that the foreign student category will be a focus of the new immigration system. However, we have some concerns about this, as well.
Given that the government's focus under this category is on targeted countries, we are concerned that the target does not include any countries in the Organisation internationale de la francophonie, the OIF. Furthermore, tuition disparities among educational institutions for foreign students will have a major impact on attracting students to certain regions.
For example, the University of Ottawa recently decided that foreign students taking three courses in French would pay the same tuition as Canadian citizens or permanent residents. Could this example be copied across the country to make tuition an incentive to promote francophone immigration?
Regarding government services for newcomers, it is important to discuss pre-arrival services. Currently, and as has been the case for some years now, these services are provided around the world by Colleges and Institutes Canada, or CICan. A pilot project for francophones was launched very recently and will end on March 31. Even though this organization mentions the existence of francophone communities, there is lingering doubt about the selling points used for encouraging students to choose francophone minority communities as their new home in Canada.
Regarding services for francophone newcomers in Canada, while we appreciate the fact that there are about 240 service points across the country, they are not all funded by CIC and their ability to deliver resources and programs is still not up to the level of their majority community counterparts. Those who control the purse strings keep hiding behind numbers, as if the unique francophone aspects that warranted the creation of these service points in the 2000s were no longer relevant.
CIC encourages service delivery in both official languages, which is not in itself bad, but this creates a sort of competition between service providers, while performance reporting for institutional services is more quantitative than qualitative. Francophone newcomers served by bilingual agents in organizations operating in English will not be referred to French-language schools or other French-language agencies and institutions, and their contribution to francophone vitality would be only on paper. When, on the off chance, they actually hear about French-language services available in a francophone community, we are then dealing with people who have received services not suited to their needs, meaning they have to start all over again while their settlement funds have already been spent elsewhere.
Lastly, with respect to helping newcomers adjust to local labour market needs, this is done through francophone organizations, which are still having to make do, delivering programs with the limited resources available, which can be frustrating for clients who do not always understand that conditions imposed by funding bodies allow only for a limited set of services.
:
In Alberta, once we sensed that immigrants were focusing on the economic dimension—with a significant employer presence—it paved the way for a success story that started in Grande Prairie and is now spreading throughout the entire province.
Alberta's francophone community decided to take control of its future, starting in the Grande Prairie region. We began working with a private recruiter, Prudhomme International Inc., which finds skilled and bilingual workers for the province's employers.
What do we do within our community? We assist them with the small stuff, and we do it on a volunteer basis, given that no funding is attached to this work. These immigrants who come to Canada on a temporary basis, in other words, as temporary foreign workers, are greeted at the airport. We help them find homes to rent because they don't have the time to go through the settlement and integration process. As soon as they get here, they start working the next day.
The day after they arrive, we start working with them, helping to guide them and walking them through how to live in our city or keep their jobs. We show them the behaviours and attitudes they should adopt as employees.
We help with little things that people probably take for granted but are extremely important. When we greet these individuals, when they get to their rented apartment, there's nothing there. Sometimes, not even any furniture. We make sure the apartment is stocked with fruit, for example. So if the person is hungry, they can eat a piece of fruit or drink some juice. We help with the human element, giving them that personal support.
In supporting these employees, we go as far as to ask them how we can help, what we can do to make them stay. And when they finally obtain a permanent job, they are very close to our community and help it to grow.
:
Thank you for the question.
I have with me a couple of documents that the department responsible for immigration has produced. I would invite you to consult the documents and invite the experts who may have authored these to come and answer those specific questions.
The government has implemented an action plan on francophone immigration further to recommendations by me, my predecessor, and I am pleased to see that the provincial government has set an objective of attracting 33% francophone immigrants by the year 2020. That is reflected in this strategy. If you recall from my presentation, recent immigration patterns have attracted about 12% francophones. Our population is 33%. The position of the commissioner is that we want to maintain the demographic weight. Because the population is not increasing, we need to rely on immigration to maintain the linguistic balance of our two linguistic communities.
I am pleased to see that the provincial government has adopted an objective of achieving 33% between now and the year 2020. I will remind this committee that about 75% of the control of immigrants is within the provincial nominee program and the other quarter is under the control of the federal government's programs. Again, I am not the one to get into detail about that, but it is a shared jurisdiction, as you know. Whether the funding is enough, I will leave that to others to comment on.
What I have asked for and worked on with my colleagues, both Commissioner Fraser and Commissioner Boileau.... We issued a joint news release back in October. I have personally met with , and with our provincial Minister Landry, who is responsible for immigration in New Brunswick, to impress upon both ministers and both levels of government the priorities that we have identified in terms of making sure that our demographic balance is maintained.
When talks about 4% and 5% across Canada for francophone immigration, that does not resonate in New Brunswick because we are aiming for 33%. That is one message that I want to make sure is clear here today. There needs to be a recognition of the specificity of the New Brunswick situation in terms of our constitutional framework, legislative framework, which recognizes that we have two linguistic communities that are equal and have equal status.
Immigration practices that perpetuate un déséquilbre, a lack of balance, in attracting immigrants is something that I have been alerted to. I have taken several steps to impress upon both levels of government that efforts have to be undertaken not only to rectify past imbalances, but also on a go-forward basis to step up these efforts.