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Cynthia White-Thornley
View Cynthia White-Thornley Profile
Cynthia White-Thornley
2013-06-10 16:11
Thank you.
The word “destroy” is in the act, as it was in the previous act, but it's an extremely rare occurrence. At times it becomes necessary to destroy an object because it might become unstable over time, or it is composed of dangerous material. It is a very rare occurrence but it's part of the management of the collection. If an object is assessed to be of no value, or if it becomes unstable, or if it is not of interest to another public museum, it provides an opportunity for research into conservation techniques.
View Scott Simms Profile
Lib. (NL)
But in this particular case, certainly there's a great deal of scepticism even in some of the language that's out here. It's a lot smaller than it used to be. In the new language there is “knowledge and understanding” as opposed to what was there before, which was “knowledge and critical understanding”. Some people may look at that as just a small item, but these are words that carry a lot of weight. A critical understanding in and of itself carries a certain degree of independence. I would like to see a three-year review about our museums, about the independence, and about whether this independence is maintained.
I'm sorry if I sound alarmist, but, number one, the committee in a report recommended—all of us recommended—that for the celebrations of 2017 we would set up an arm's-length organization to do this. Already we are now into this exercise, which is also branded as a celebration of 2017, to rename the museum and to produce the artifacts across the country or share them, which I'm fine with. But the branding that you're doing is..... Your department has done it before to an excessive degree. We did an order paper question just a short time ago, and you rebranded what was always the “Government of Canada” so that now most of the releases contain the words “Harper Government” as a rebranding exercise. From June 28, 2011 to March 2, 2013 government departments put out a total of 2,600 releases containing the term “Harper Government”. The number one department was yours by far, by 600 releases. That's a quarter of the total. So, that's your branding exercise. I hope this is not what we're seeing here, which would actually infringe upon the curatorial independence of this organization.
View James Moore Profile
CPC (BC)
You're talking about the Department of Canadian Heritage versus a museum. I don't run the museum, and I don't send out any press releases from the museum. The museum sends out all of its own press releases. You understand the difference, right? The museum is not a part of the Department of Canadian Heritage. The museum is its own independent entity created by the Museums Act and protected by the Museums Act from me or you or anybody telling them what they can or can't say. Tell me you understand the difference between the museum sending out a press release and me sending out a press release.
Hubert Lussier
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Hubert Lussier
2013-05-28 16:37
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
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.
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.
Jean-Pierre Gauthier
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Jean-Pierre Gauthier
2013-05-28 16:39
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 Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages 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.
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—
Jean-Pierre Gauthier
View Jean-Pierre Gauthier Profile
Jean-Pierre Gauthier
2013-05-28 16:43
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Yvan Déry
View Yvan Déry Profile
Yvan Déry
2013-05-28 16:59
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.
Denis Racine
View Denis Racine Profile
Denis Racine
2013-05-09 10:36
Good morning. My name is Denis Racine. I am the Executive Director of Major Events and Celebrations at the Department of Canadian Heritage.
Division 14 is transferring the responsibility of promoting the national capital from the National Capital Commission to the Department of Canadian Heritage.
View Raymond Côté Profile
NDP (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Racine, your branch will be in charge of transferring the activities the National Capital Commission used to be responsible for.
Denis Racine
View Denis Racine Profile
Denis Racine
2013-05-09 10:36
That will not necessarily be the case. The NCC group in charge of promoting the national capital will be transferred as a whole to the Department of Canadian Heritage. We will then assess the resulting synergies and efficiencies.
View Ted Hsu Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you.
In the transfer of the responsibility for the National Holocaust Monument from the National Capital Commission to the Minister of Heritage, it seems that the requirement to maintain the monument has been deleted.
I am wondering if you could clarify this omission.
Denis Racine
View Denis Racine Profile
Denis Racine
2013-05-09 10:42
Yes, certainly.
When a monument is designed, the whole design phase is the responsibility of the Department of Canadian Heritage. Once the monument has been unveiled, its maintenance becomes the responsibility of the NCC—as is currently the case. The NCC will continue to be responsible for monument maintenance.
View Raymond Côté Profile
NDP (QC)
I want to come back to my colleague's question.
In the budget approval phase for the National Holocaust Monument of Canada, the NCC has a very rigorous protocol. Why is that monument being treated differently from other monuments? The NCC will be responsible for the maintenance and, consequently, any future costs. Isn't that a bit strange?
Denis Racine
View Denis Racine Profile
Denis Racine
2013-05-09 10:43
The National Holocaust Monument Act entrusted this project to the minister in charge of the NCC. Since the responsibility for promoting the capital includes monument design and creation, that responsibility will be transferred to the Department of Canadian Heritage. However, the NCC will still be in charge of maintaining the properties, parks and sites under its responsibility—including any urban landscapes and monuments on those properties. That is the difference between the responsibilities of the department and those of the NCC.
View Peter Braid Profile
CPC (ON)
We will now resume our proceedings in public and continue with our next order of business, which is to approve estimates and supply.
Colleagues, with the consent of the committee, just to help expedite this process a little bit, I would suggest that we group like votes together under one category. For example, we would vote on all of the Canadian Heritage votes as one block. Do I have the consent of the committee to proceed in that way?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
The Vice-Chair (Mr. Peter Braid): Very good.
We will start with the votes pertaining to Canadian Heritage, and I will call the question. Shall votes 95, 100, 105, and 110 under Canadian Heritage, less the amount voted in interim supply, carry?
CANADIAN HERITAGE
Public Service Commission
Vote 95—Program expenditures..........$76,778,690
Public Service Labour Relations Board
Vote 100—Program expenditures..........$12,470,076
Public Service Staffing Tribunal
Vote 105—Program expenditures..........$4,832,445
Registry of the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Tribunal
Vote 110—Program expenditures..........$1,646,091
(Votes 95, 100, 105, and 110 agreed to on division)
Thank you.
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