Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Official Languages
Issue 12 - Evidence - Afternoon session
EDMONTON, Thursday, October 23, 2003
The Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages met this day at 1:07 p.m. to study the issue of education within official language minority communities.
The Hon. Rose-Marie Losier-Cool (Chairman) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chairman: This afternoon, we will hear from members of the Edmonton Public School Board.
[English]
I wish to welcome Ms. Chambers. She is accompanied by Wally Lazaruk, Betty Tams and Sylvianne Perry.
It is a pleasure for us to hear from you about the public system in Edmonton.
Ms. Gloria Chambers, Edmonton Public Schools: Good afternoon, senators.
[Translation]
To begin, I would like to warmly welcome the members of the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages on behalf of Mr. Angus McBeth, the Director of our school board.
Mr. McBeth deeply regrets that he cannot be here this morning, because he has to attend the presentation of students' marks before the school board.
Our school board has always supported the French language program, and has translated that support into action. It is something we are proud of. We are also very grateful for the federal government's contribution to our efforts.
It is with great pleasure that I invite you to hear from Mr. Lazaruk, who will speak to the major initiatives we have taken so far and to the future challenges we face.
I would like to introduce Mr. Wally Lazaruk, one of the people responsible for the renewal of French language programs.
[English]
Dr. Wally Lazaruk, Edmonton Public Schools: Honourable committee members, on behalf of Edmonton Public Schools, I would also like to thank you for inviting the district to appear before you today.
In this presentation, I would like to highlight a few things about the Edmonton Public Schools' French-language programming, and one is the French language renewal project. Another is the pilot project with the Public Service Commission of Canada. A third is the work with the Commissioner of Official Languages. The fourth is the need for national standards in French — our students need to have more interaction with the francophone communities — and I will also briefly touch on the district's effort to market and promote French-language programming.
Two years ago, Edmonton Public Schools decided to address a decade of enrolment decline in French immersion and French as a second language programs. One of the first steps that the district took was to conduct a comprehensive program review of its French immersion and French as a second language programs.
This review identified a number of strengths in the existing program, but also a number of areas in which the program needed to make improvements.
Recommendations were made that addressed the need to approve a French-language renewal project; the idea of forming a broad-based advisory committee; adopting supportive French-language policies; and the idea of aligning program goals with not only provincial standards, but national and international standards as well.
We also had recommendations about articulating the French as a second language program; making French an integral part of the school program; increasing instructional time; updating learning resources; marketing and promoting the program; enhancing professional development; increasing interaction with francophone communities; recognizing students, teachers, administrators and support staff who are involved in the programs; and finally, of course, increasing funding, which comes up in most projects.
In April 2002, the district launched its three-year French-language renewal project, the goals of which are to increase student enrolments, achieve distinguished student results, increase student contact with francophone communities, and form partnerships with agencies that are interested in improving the learning of French.
The project is guided by a broad-based advisory committee. It has representation from La Chambre économique de l'Alberta, l'Association canadienne-française de l'Alberta, Alliance française, la Faculté Saint-Jean, and Canadian Parents for French, as well as school district representatives, the University of Alberta, and so on. It is a very broad- based committee.
The strategies of the French-language renewal project are outlined in your information document on page 11 and 12, where it goes into more detail on the actual goals and strategies, and I will move on to another area now.
The second area I want to touch on is the pilot with the Public Service Commission of Canada. Last February, the district entered into an agreement with the Public Service Commission of Canada to pilot their French-language tests in reading, writing and oral interaction.
I mentioned that the district wanted to align its program goals with national and international standards. When you look around the country for national standards and national assessment instruments, from our information and understanding, there is only one set that we know of, and that is the guidelines that have been produced by the Public Service Commission of Canada and the tests that have been administered, with adaptations and changes, since 1984.
We wanted to determine whether these tests could be appropriate for a secondary school population, that is, students in Grade 12 who are graduating from French immersion and core French programs, as you know them in most parts of Canada.
We had 95 students take the reading and writing tests and 22 students do the oral interaction interview with a certified assessor from Ottawa.
The results were positive. Most of the students received at least a B, or intermediate, level. As you probably know, there are A, B and C levels in the tests, and the most common requirement for entry into the federal government service is the B or intermediate level, and some senior management positions require the C-B-C. That is, a C for reading, a B for writing and a C for the oral interaction.
Most of the 95 students who participated in this project and who were graduating from French immersion — and there were some FSL students — received a B level.
This project demonstrated at least preliminary evidence that these tests can be used and are appropriate for a secondary school audience. We would have to confirm this with a broader study, and we are hoping we will receive funding for the 2003-04 school year to conduct a study in Alberta with at least 500 randomly selected students in Grade 12 from across the province to determine whether these tests are really appropriate for a larger population. They were appropriate for this population, but this is a restricted population. There were a fair number of good students in this population. We want to work with a larger population of students and also control for urban and rural context, for variety in intensity of programs, for philosophies of teachers, factors such as languages that the students use at home and the community composition.
That was a very successful project with the Public Service Commission. We feel that over time, the work with the Public Service Commission will provide a common benchmark for assessing French-language proficiency in Canada. We think that if students are recognized on a national measure, more students will be encouraged to enrol and remain in our French-language programs until graduation.
We think this is very positive. The parents are very interested in seeing how their students do on tests that they perceive as reflecting real life in Canada, something outside of the school context, and this particular set of measures from the Public Service Commission is a very promising assessment system that we could perhaps make available to Canadians across the country.
Before I leave that subject, I do want to recognize the work of the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages. The Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages cooperated closely in the work that we did with the Public Service Commission. They designed a completion certificate, and each of the students was awarded a certificate of recognition at a ceremony in September. The students and, of course, parents appreciated the work done by the Commissioner of Official Languages.
In our work, not only with the Public Service Commission but also in our French-language renewal project, we believe that there is a need for national standards in French. French is an official language in Canada, but we have not developed national standards. We think that these standards should be developed and describe what Canadians should be able to do and know in French in a variety of real-life situations.
The guidelines developed by the Public Service Commission could be a first step and a good reference for this type of initiative.
National standards in French would serve to develop a common understanding in Canada of what it is to learn and know and use French. A common understanding is important. It would assist employers in determining what French- language skills are needed in business and industry. It would also help students select appropriate language programs and with assessment of student proficiency in French.
A task force should be established at the national level that would include representation from basic learning, K to 12, post-secondary and business and industry, as well as government agencies, the community and, of course, the political level.
The intended audience for such standards would be the provincial departments of education, federal and provincial agencies, employers in business and industry, students, parents and the general public.
This is not establishing a curriculum. To me, that is another level, and under provincial jurisdiction. However, when French is an official language, it is important to have some sense of what it is to know and use French in this country.
I want to touch briefly on interaction with the francophone communities. Our students need to have more contact and interaction with francophone communities while they are learning French in our elementary and secondary schools.
In the program review that was conducted two years ago with the Edmonton Public Schools, students often said, ``We do not know the francophone community in our own city. We would like to have more interaction with them.'' Therefore, we have to establish bridges and methods by which the students could have interaction with this particular community.
Last year, we identified a series of activities and resource people in the city and area. There are a number of rich activities and resource opportunities, and this year, we hope to implement this particular set.
We have also proposed a national project that would increase awareness among teachers and students about francophone communities in Canada and in other countries of the world. We would like to identify, select and prepare resources that will allow teachers and students to more systematically explore the presence and importance of francophone communities, the diversity of linguistic, musical and literary traditions within those communities, and also the cultural identity as indicated by territory, language, heritage, economic and leisure activities.
We think that contact with French-speaking people, experience of authentic French cultural activities and use of authentic French will motivate students to continue in French-language programs until the end of secondary school.
To touch on marketing for a moment, public awareness of what is French-language learning is a big issue across Canada. There are myths about French-language learning. There are prejudices. There are stereotypes that have developed, and I am sure you encounter these in your travels.
We felt it was important to develop a marketing and communication plan that would address these issues and provide information to parents to close the information gap; provide information about French-language learning; address the various negative perceptions that exist with facts, with research, with positive stories, so that people understand that it is important to learn French in this country; and also promote our programs.
There are a variety of audiences. I will not go into many of the details, and some of them are explained in the notes that we have left with you, but some of the sample messages that we try to send are: That French is an official language of Canada and an integral part of Canadian identity; French is widely spoken in the global community and is a language of diplomacy and international organizations.
We think it is also important to develop simple, cost-effective marketing materials for Canadians at the national level that would help people understand the importance of learning French and demystify some of the stereotypes that exist. It would invigorate and create more value for learning French, because that is one of the key issues in language learning in Canada. It is not valued sufficiently and has to be nurtured, perhaps in a similar way to work that is being done in Europe, where there is a greater effort in the Council of Europe in terms of nurturing the variety of languages that are offered in European countries.
Funding: Edmonton Public Schools has committed $1.2 million over three years, $400,000 per year, to renew the French-language programs as well as to increase enrolments.
Last year, the district was very grateful to Alberta Learning and Canadian Heritage for providing $173,000 in year one. In year two, the district requested $400,000 to support the provincial and national components of this project. The amounts for this year have still to be announced.
The district would like to see a system whereby some of the national projects could be funded directly by the federal government. There is no system in place currently to make that happen. There are programs within Canadian Heritage, but they do not deal with school districts. They deal with institutions.
However, we have a number of national projects. We have the work with the Commissioner of Official Languages and the Public Service Commission of Canada. It has national implications. The work in marketing has national implications. The work with the francophone communities has national implications — these are three projects that have national implications.
The Government of Canada's Action Plan for Official Languages expresses concern about the lack of enrolment increase in second-language programs, the high dropout rate among students in secondary school programs and the need for increased bilingualism among young people. That is directly from the action plan.
The Edmonton Public School District's renewal efforts provide a model that can be used across Canada to improve French-language learning and contribute to the Government of Canada's objective, that is, to double the proportion of secondary school graduates with a functional knowledge of their second official language.
In closing, I would like to reiterate that the district is grateful for this opportunity to appear today. The district recognizes French as an official language of Canada and an important language in international, economic, political, diplomatic and cultural exchange. The district's policies provide for all Edmonton Public Schools District students to have access to French-language programming.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr. Lazaruk. You have certainly stirred up a few interesting questions, especially on your learner assessment.
I find the Edmonton Public Schools District to be very courageous in coming up with a national evaluation — I do not want to use national ``testing'' because that is almost a taboo word — with the Public Service Commission, because every time we come to talk about education, the province will say, ``Well, education is a provincial issue.''
You say it is not testing to establish curriculum. Yet curricula should reflect the skills that are learned.
Mr. Lazaruk: Yes.
The Chairman: They will be evaluated on those skills, on those abilities. How do you defend all that, especially with the teachers' associations?
Mr. Lazaruk: I make — and it is very often made — a distinction between proficiency, which is use of language in real life, and curriculum, which is teaching and learning the language in a school situation.
A country could have a set of standards for the language they need to use in employment situations, for example, such as the Public Service Commission of Canada has in various occupations, and these standards, these levels of proficiency or the knowledge and use of languages in those situations, should influence curriculum. However, it does not establish curriculum. It does not say that you must teach this, and that is the distinction I make.
The province does establish the program of studies, the outcomes, the content that should be taught, but I think the broader society has an important role to play in deciding what is learning French. What is it to know French in Canada? Especially in a country where French is an official language, one should be able to say, this is what it means to learn French in various situations in this country. However, it does not establish the curriculum.
The Chairman: I agree very much with the concept, but I know that every time we have talked about national testing, teachers' associations ask whether we will use the results of those tests to evaluate the teacher or the school. Also, is it fair to other places in Canada that are not maybe as open as Edmonton Public Schools; is it fair to the students or to those who will evaluate those tests?
That is the challenge that you have to meet when you get to national testing.
Mr. Lazaruk: I have a couple of other points I wanted to make.
The Canadian Association of Second Language Teachers is very interested in developing some form of national test. In fact, they have a project that is being subsidized by Canadian Heritage to do some feasibility work in that area. There is a teachers' association that is in fact interested in the area.
The United States, which does not have two official languages, has developed a set of national standards. They have been developed by an agency at the national level, and when you look at the state curricula across the country, these standards are reflected. It is voluntary. People decide to use those standards at the local level.
The Chairman: And yours will be voluntary.
Mr. Lazaruk: Well, it would have to be voluntary. You could not impose at the federal level a set of standards that have to be taught in the schools.
However, if you ask the parents about the standards, they are very interested in the federal tests, these particular tests that we have just piloted, because for them, it is recognition outside of the school situation, recognition in real life.
The Chairman: It is a very interesting debate. I have been a schoolteacher for over 30 years in New Brunswick schools and we have had the debate very often on the question of fairness and whether students have the same chances if they live in rural Manitoba or rural New Brunswick as they do in the city of Edmonton.
Mr. Lazaruk: Yes.
Senator Comeau: I am also very intrigued by the whole concept of having a national standard for our students. I really had not thought about it, so this is coming at me from left field. I have a very positive initial reaction to it.
If you were to establish some kind of a national standard, would you be looking at things that are different from one region to the next? I will give the example of accents, and words and expressions in Atlantic Canada that would be quite different from those in the West.
Mr. Lazaruk: Yes.
Senator Comeau: I am quite sure that when you listen to me speak in French, you can easily detect that the accent is quite different.
Mr. Lazaruk: Yes. I think any set of standards and good language curricula should reflect the regional accents, so that students at a particular level of language learning can understand that, based on territory, environment, geography, there are accents that develop across regions and different parts of the world.
Senator Comeau: As I understand it, we now have under the Public Service Commission three designations — A, B and C. Would you be looking at the possibility of extending that — maybe B, C, D, E, F, so that, for example, if you wanted to apply for a federal public service job in Alberta, in an area that does not need as extensive a French-language knowledge, you might apply under the F or G designation or something like that?
Mr. Lazaruk: Well, that to me is a policy question. There are actually five levels. There is the A level, which is a form of beginners' level. The B level — and I think that is the key level, intermediate level — more and more people need at least an intermediate level to work in a government position. Of course, there is the advanced level, which is required for senior management, especially if they supervise bilingual workers, bilingual employees; they will need an advanced level. Then there is a level of exemption, that is, students and candidates who perform beyond the requirements.
In fact, we had a few students who did that because they came from backgrounds where they had a solid foundation in French, and of course, there is the X, which is the failure level.
I think it is a worthwhile aim in Canadian schools, for example, to develop at least an intermediate level of French in our core French programs, because if you look at use of the language in real life, you need that level. A beginning level will not take you very far. However, once we develop some foundation at the intermediate level, the solid French immersion programs should develop an advanced level of proficiency in the language.
French immersion students could attain the level C of the Public Service Commission over time. The students who participated in this particular pilot were studying for their provincial exams, which were being held the week after, so there was no real the opportunity to study, so they took it, as we say, cold. However, they performed relatively well by the Public Service Commission's standards.
Senator Comeau: Should we not look, though, at discouraging studying for these tests? At the end of the day, I do not think you want students to study for this type of test. I am not sure if I am explaining clearly, but it should be taken cold.
Mr. Lazaruk: Yes, from that point of view, it is true. I think, in terms of this whole debate, the tests initially have to be voluntary and that it has to be the system that is studied. We have one experience; we have done it with the 95 students. We like to do this with 500, a broader random sample, to determine what some of the issues are.
What would be wonderful as well is if the Public Service Commission tests were available as a service to those people who want to pay for it.
We did have to pay for these particular tests. The interviews are $160 each, the reading test is $20, the writing test is $20, and so the total is $200.
Senator Comeau: Yes.
Mr. Lazaruk: These tests are not free; they operate on a cost-recovery basis.
Senator Comeau: One last question on a different subject, the issue of your students meeting with the French community, and I assume that the French community of Edmonton is a little scattered, like, for example, in Halifax. You do not have one nucleus of francophones.
I know this will be outside your territory, but have you considered getting these students to visit the remaining completely French communities in Alberta, to go into a completely French environment? It would be good for both groups.
Mr. Lazaruk: All that has to be explored and I think the potential is there for exchanges.
I know the superintendent of the Conseil scolaire Centre-Nord would like to enter into some form of agreement to explore exchanges between students and schools, where students from the immersion programs could spend some time in the francophone schools and perhaps with francophone families, and vice versa, so that they have a better understanding of the francophone and anglophone cultures.
The issue is habit. People have not developed the habit of interaction.
Senator Comeau: Yes.
Mr. Lazaruk: We have to overcome that and develop other habits.
Ms. Sylvianne Perry, Edmonton Public Schools: All of our grade 7 students who are enrolled in French immersion schools will be going to either le Festival des voyageurs in Saint-Boniface or to Quebec for the last weekend of the Carnaval. The people who are going to Quebec will spend five of the seven days in home stays, so they will be living with French people. That is one initiative that was undertaken because of the renewal project.
Senator Comeau: Super.
The Chairman: I will ask one more question related to the national testing. A public service employee has the right to a bonus to learn a second language while at work, and I know that reports of the Commissioner of Official Languages, and many other groups, say that bonus should be abolished.
Did that come into the debate when you were talking about national testing or to what extent national testing could be used? In other words, when you apply for a job that is designated bilingual, you should be bilingual at that time, not after two years on the job.
Mr. Lazaruk: No, it was not discussed. I am aware that there is an $800 bonus per year, as I understand it. If there were an increase in the number of students who have accreditation from the Public Service Commission at the secondary school level, this would increase the number of bilingual Canadians and reduce the training costs at the federal level.
The Chairman: Absolutely.
Mr. Lazaruk: They would have the credentials before they apply for jobs at the federal level.
The Chairman: This is what I mean. When you apply, when you get the job, you are bilingual at the time.
Senator Chaput: I am impressed. I have been trying to going through all the material you have here.
To your knowledge, has this been tried anywhere else? Is it the first time that it is been done here in Alberta?
Mr. Lazaruk: I am not aware of a French-language renewal project of this dimension or comprehensiveness elsewhere. I know this has been cited elsewhere, for example, in New Brunswick, in some letters that were written to Premier Lord about the project.
Senator Chaput: Okay.
Mr. Lazaruk: It does provide a model, and of course, the district is open to sharing information and experiences with jurisdictions across the country that want to try it. The district has been very open to sharing the marketing materials and any other information that has been produced.
Senator Chaput: When I was looking through this book here, I think I saw somewhere that the degree of satisfaction from both students and parents was quite high — 80 per cent of students were satisfied with this program?
Mr. Lazaruk: Yes, there is a high degree of satisfaction, but when we say that, we do not become complacent.
Senator Chaput: No.
Mr. Lazaruk: We try to continue to enhance the program.
Senator Chaput: It is been said, though.
Mr. Lazaruk: Yes.
Senator Keon: If your renewal project is a success and you decide to implement this in your curriculum, how much ramping up would you have to do of the current curriculum?
Mr. Lazaruk: The ramping up, as you call it, would have to be embodied in the instruction. The curriculum does aim at a fairly high level, but the issue is to implement and maintain consistent instruction from level to level, with a strong commitment on the part of the teachers to develop their own language skills and be sure that they have the competency in the French language, as well as instructional approaches and strategies. The instructional process is the key area that would have to be, if you like, enhanced.
I think the curriculum generally has fairly high expectations.
Ms. Chambers: I wanted to add a comment to that. We are also working at trying to get that consistency. We have at Edmonton Public Schools the highest level of achievement in tests in reading and writing in English, and that was a test that we developed for the district to have a yearly measure and a growth measure from grade to grade.
Now we have developed and implemented, for the first time, the highest level of achievement tests in French. It is a work in progress but it is something that we are trying to address.
Mr. Lazaruk: That is at each grade level. For example, in the French immersion program, there are French-language tests for reading and writing.
Senator Keon: You see this as a real possibility. In other words, what I am coming to is that every student coming out of grade 12 would have the equivalent of civil service B level, for example.
Mr. Lazaruk: Well, that would be the goal. I think it would be very helpful if in Canada we were able to value French-language learning more than we do. That would even augment the standards and the quality of performance that students would attain at the end of the secondary level.
Valuing the importance and richness of languages in this society and in global society has to be nurtured and developed, and I think if we do that successfully, we will also have students who attain very high levels of performance.
The Chairman: Any suggestions to us how we could do that, because you are talking to the converted here?
Mr. Lazaruk: think a national strategy has to be developed to create a better awareness of the importance of language learning, French-language learning, in such a way that it does not appear to be some form of ``buy this product,'' but points out the benefits of language learning, not only for the individuals but also for society as a whole, and supported by all regions of the country. There is some work that could be done by national agencies in this area.
Of course, supporting projects such as the Public Service Commission project that recognizes students have a lot of potential as well. I think there are many interested parents, but they would like to see that language learning valued at a higher level — for example, at the political level.
A national strategy would include, of course, a marketing component. What is most important is an education strategy, because I think our public needs to be better educated about the value of language learning.
The Chairman: Do you see a place for the business sector? You have said that parents are interested. The politicians are willing. What would help? We were talking about an exchange of students.
Mr. Lazaruk: Yes. I think the business community should be involved in developing some standards, identifying the skills they need in the various jobs that require bilingualism. They should identify those, make them known, publicize them. Sometimes, when you look at job ads in a newspaper, you do not see these language skills being promoted. They are often hidden or they are not there.
The Chairman: We thank you very much for having taken the time to be with us today. Your testimony was very interesting. We read about projects, but it is interesting to hear about them firsthand.
[Translation]
We will now hear from Mr. Frank McMahon, from the Faculté Saint-Jean, who is accompanied by Mr. Bissonnette, whom we met this morning. Mr. McMahon will speak about an undertaking with regard to business, training and employment.
Mr. Frank McMahon, Professor, Faculté Saint-Jean: Thank you very much, for having given us the opportunity to meet with you.
Les Entreprises EFE (Enseignement, Formation, Emploi) was created a few years ago. Let me briefly explain. It is not really relevant, but I just want to help you understand what the organization is all about. Les Entreprises EFE is involved with several areas, including employment insurance, which was transferred to the province, to help train people who have lost their jobs and to help them with continuing education.
However, that contract was not renewed and the organization then agreed to work at the college level. The Rassemblement des collèges communautaires du Canada français received a major grant from the Department of Canadian Heritage to develop a French program at the college level in western Canada. About $300,000 has been granted over a year and a half to implement such a program in Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.
It is important to realize that there is only one college-level program in Alberta. This includes every technical course given at the Alberta Institute of Technology, for instance. None of these courses is available in French, except for a bilingual business administration training program. This program has been in existence for about seven or eight years and it has been fairly successful. However, there is always the chance the program may be eliminated, since it was created by NAIT, which could, for its own reasons, decide to get rid of it at any point.
We feel that it is essential that there be a francophone presence at the college level in Alberta, as opposed to the post- secondary level. So we received a grant, and the college-level French program would of course try to attract graduates from francophone high schools, as well as those from immersion schools.
This year, we are trying to build the case for a francophone college in Alberta, and we intend to meet with government authorities. Of course, it would be up to the provincial government to decide it wants to create a new post- secondary education, be it francophone or anglophone.
We have conducted several surveys. We are surveying all the students and graduates of francophone schools, that is, students in the 10th, 11th and 12th grades in the province's immersion schools, to find out whether they would be interested in going to college and what they would like to study. The focus is not on whether they would like to go to college, but what their fields of interest are.
We are also going to contact all of the French language school boards to find out what their staffing needs might be, as well as provincial francophone organizations that hire staff and that might need college training, or other non- francophone private organizations that are seeking a francophone clientele. We will have to establish a data base for that.
On page 2 of the document that we distributed to you, you will find a table of school enrollment. One of the things that motivates us to try to defend the possibility and importance of having a francophone college in Alberta is to look at what is happening in Nova Scotia and Manitoba, where the population is relatively similar. There are already college programs that are working well. It would be unfortunate, in our view, not to have these programs in Alberta.
In Alberta, counting francophones, immersion and French as a second language students, the school population is 146,000 students. In Manitoba, they only have 94,000 students, whereas in Nova Scotia, the number is 86,000.
In Alberta, we have almost 66,000 students who are francophones, that is whose first language is French, or who speak French and English. That is about twice the number of people who speak French in Nova Scotia.
There are 204,000 of us who speak French only or French and English. Clearly, there is a significant population of people who could be clients of a francophone college and use its services.
Alberta has only one college program for post-secondary students. In Manitoba, there are eight college programs, and in Nova Scotia, they have a dozen of them. In our opinion, it is entirely legitimate to ask the provincial government to give us a francophone college.
The hitch is that the province is attempting to centralize college institutions rather than to diversify them. A new, completely separate college might be problematic within the province.
We are considering the possibility of presenting a proposal for a francophone college that would be part of an already existing institution. Under the Saint-Boniface model, the college program is in the same institution as the university program. In Nova Scotia, they have just lumped college and university programs together.
You may wish to discuss this later with the dean. We have already met with him on this. He is not opposed to this option being exercised together with the Faculté Saint-Jean. A college wing could somehow be integrated into the University of Alberta through the Faculté Saint-Jean. We think that this option is more likely to be acceptable to the provincial government.
We would have liked to have an independent college, but under the circumstances, we needed to have a fall-back position with the province.
The important thing is for this institution to be controlled by the francophone population. If public money is involved, the government will have its own representatives, but to us it would be completely unacceptable to have an anglophone board of governors, like NAIT has, deciding whether or not programs will be offered this year.
We want to have an entity that is truly responsive to the community in charge of the francophone program. Otherwise, it will not look to us like we have moved forward from where we are now. As for official languages education programs, that is clearly up to the province.
The upside is that the province has decided to make a second language compulsory in all schools in the province. Currently, in Alberta, you can finish high school completely unilingual. You can have a high school diploma and go to university without having a second language.
As of 2004, the province is going to make a second language compulsory, inevitably French. We are going to introduce it in Grade 4 and then make it compulsory up to Grade 12. We realize that it is a handicap in the broader society. We recognize that our graduates are unilingual. We really want to encourage bilingualism.
There will be other languages, but the vast majority of students will learn French as a second language. French is much more useful and much more used in Canada than any other second language.
It has to be understood that the policy has to be at the kindergarten to Grade 2 primary school level, not at the post- secondary level. Compulsory second language learning is not done at the college or university level.
We will need more staff to teach French or other languages and more support staff for the library and teachers' aids. So we will have teaching-related college diplomas.
We expect much greater demand for bilingual college graduates. For several years, the college will play a role in retraining. Currently, we hire untrained staff to assist students and help out in the library because they are francophones. The school boards could require these assistants to be professionally trained, given that they already have the language skills.
It has to be understood that in Alberta, with all due respect to the government, there is not a long tradition in favour of francophone institutions. Mr. Klein was the first premier in Alberta's history to set up a francophone institution. There is no reason to think the politicians will be overly enthusiastic about the idea of having a francophone college. There will be some resistance, even if the climate is relatively favourable.
The important thing is for the Government of Canada, which is responsible for helping francophone communities under the Official Languages Act, to be generous in its support for this kind of program. That is perfectly legitimate, in our opinion. It is scandalous that we still do not have college programs that truly belong to the francophone community.
The NAIT program does not belong to us. It was an offering from the current administration. For example, in order to purchase the building and make it part of the University of Alberta, we had to get an investment of $3.5 million from the provincial government. One of the main levers of this project was the million that the federal government invested to provide for the purchase of the Faculté and its integration into the University of Alberta. It would be important for us to get the same kind of support from the federal government.
Thank you very much for your attention, I would be very happy to answer your questions.
The Chairman: Can you tell us what NAIT stands for?
[English]
Mr. McMahon: The Northern Alberta Institute of Technology.
[Translation]
The Chairman: Couldn't the program that you are calling for be closer to NAIT than to a faculty? Is NAIT just anglophone? Does NAIT give courses in French?
Mr. McMahon: The only program it offers in French is business administration.
We could potentially come under NAIT's responsibility. If we had to come under an anglophone institution, we would lean more toward Grant MacEwan Community College. This college is in Edmonton. It is expanding and has a more diversified program. This program is a better fit with our francophone clientele than the NAIT program.
The Chairman: This morning, the early childhood group mentioned the lack of educators. Could this clientele, early childhood educators, take part in these programs, these courses?
Mr. McMahon: Absolutely. Grant MacEwan has a two-year early childhood training certificate program in English.
The Chairman: This morning, the early childhood group mentioned the lack of training in French.
Senator Comeau: It is quite comparable to Nova Scotia. You have more francophones in Alberta, which justifies more French programs in these fields.
In Nova Scotia, they took a different approach because the communities are spread out all over the place. They chose to do it by video conference, by telephone. Are you considering the possibility of doing it by video conference?
Mr. McMahon: There is a large population in Edmonton. In metropolitan Edmonton, there are easily 20 to 30,000 francophones whose mother tongue is French. That is about half the francophone population of the province.
In some areas, the francophone population we serve is very large. The Faculté already has two video conference centres for the master of education program. We have students in Saskatoon, Vancouver, Calgary, Grand Prairie and Yellowknife.
We could easily do that because we have rooms set up for giving courses by video conference in nearly all areas of the province.
Senator Comeau: So you could consider that model?
Mr. Gérard Bissonnette, Fédération des conseils scolaires de l'Alberta: Once the decision is made to establish a francophone college, we will then determine how to deliver its programs. We will identify precisely what programs to offer. We are trying to identify the needs both in Edmonton and regionally. When the college is established, we will be able to provide it with this data.
Senator Comeau: One of my concerns is that we very rarely meet the needs of tradespeople like mechanics, plumbers and carpenters. I realize that it is different because there is work for tradespeople. But almost everywhere in Canada, these programs in French are very scarce. Are these programs feasible or is this group too hard to serve?
Mr. McMahon: I do not know this field well enough to give you an answer. Alberta has a tradition of multidimensional high schools. We have very significant developments in the trades; we train people for certification in mechanics and woodwork. It is mostly apprenticeship. The courses are few in number in the trades. It is only for a few months every year. Job placements would have to be found for them.
This is an issue we could focus on because we have a lot of people from other provinces. They already have a trade and they could serve as supervisors to apprentices in plumbing, electricity or other fields.
Senator Comeau: The Standing Committee on Official Languages is trying to ensure a multidimensional French life in our communities. If we think that some parts of our francophone communities are less important, and we neglect them, that is dangerous. We should not have to go to English schools to learn a trade.
We want to encourage our French communities, and we have to do this in all fields, whether it is health, public safety, commerce or education. People have to be served in French, the entire population.
In Nova Scotia, in order to learn a trade, we have to go to an English school. Why not make an effort to include our young people in French programs?
You say that in 2004, Alberta will have compulsory second-language learning at the high school level, and that it will be French. Are you sure, or is that an assumption?
Mr. McMahon: No, there is no guarantee, and we now see that Spanish is becoming very popular. Nevertheless, French is still the number one choice. There has been some interest in Mandarin and Arabic, but nothing that compares with French enrollment.
Mr. Bissonnette: I would like to point out a typographical error in our text. It is as of 2006 that a second language will be compulsory from Grade 4 on, adding one year in each subsequent year. It will be compulsory until Grade 9 for all students in our schools to learn a second language.
Mr. McMahon: I thought that the former director of French education had more recent news and that they had moved the date up. That is disappointing.
Senator Chaput: You talked about programs or training that could be given in the regions. In Manitoba, we are encountering problems with video-conferencing. Do you have enough signal strength for video-conferencing?
Mr. McMahon: Video-conferencing works well. We use a telephone line and there is a server at the heart of the system. When something goes down, we do have technical problems. It is usually very reliable. Each year, we have nearly 80 students taking courses by video conference, and the results are quite satisfactory. So far, it is working well and we are happy with it.
Senator Chaput: Is it a project of much interest to Saskatchewan and British Columbia or is it just for Alberta?
Mr. McMahon: There are groups in Saskatchewan and British Columbia doing the equivalent of what we are doing. The grant was received through the Rassemblement des collèges communautaires, with offices in Ottawa. We have a contract with them to do the work in Alberta.
Mr. Bissonnette: With respect to distance education, I would like to add that by the end of 2004, Supernet will be installed all over Alberta. That will make video conference correspondence possible, and we hope that tele- conferencing, audio and video-conferencing will be very efficient and fast.
[English]
Senator Keon: I am not clear how you provide advanced technical education to your students. I take it that the post- secondary system here in Northern Alberta has been amalgamated into a single institution where people can get this concentration of technical education, if they so desire.
Do you plug your students in there if they wish to go that route, or do they stay with you, finish here and then move on?
Mr. McMahon: Well, our students tend to be in university, and it is very unusual — although it happens — for them to do a technical degree after they have done a university degree. Typically, if they are into the technologies, such as information technology and computing science, they will do the math courses, the physics courses, with us, and then they will do the more technical and specialized information technology and computing science courses in English.
That happens not only in the new technologies, but also in physics and chemistry. Typically, when our students do a B.Sc., they will do a number of their senior courses in English. It seems to work reasonably well. That is how we will be offering the nursing program. It is a bilingual program. The students will be doing half of their program in English and half in French.
Senator Keon: Well, these highly specialized technical schools offering post-secondary education seem to be evolving in other places. I suppose the ultimate example is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which is in a class by itself. We do not have anything like in it in Canada, but in Ottawa, for example, Algonquin College has ramped up the academic component, but they also offer a very advanced technical education, and I am wondering how you handle the student who wants to go that route.
Mr. McMahon: Well, at the moment, we do not offer anything that is not university-based so we do not have to deal with the issue. Nothing is happening in French. Within the university itself, in English, I do not think that there could be anything more technical than what is happening in engineering and science. At the moment, that has not developed here.
[Translation]
The Chairman: Thank you and good luck. That is a very, very fine project that proves we are not done yet. We still have a lot of work to do and we will try to support your program as much as possible. I would like to introduce Ms. Levasseur-Ouimet. I am very anxious to hear from you because I have heard good things about you. You are going to talk to us about how to furnish a school, because a school is not just a building. I read that you created the Théâtre du Rideau rouge. It is too bad Senator Léger is not here, because she would have liked to meet you.
Ms. France Levasseur-Ouimet, Professor, Faculté Saint-Jean: The questions you sent me are excellent. I am glad to see people concerned about things like recruitment, retention of students, funding, qualified staff, et cetera.
What I am mainly interested in and concerned about is really the inside of the homogeneous francophone school. I feel very strongly about this. I have been working on this for a number of years, first as a parent, later as a politician. More recently, I have been interested in teacher training, because I am not alone at the Faculté Saint-Jean.
First of all, I am going to tell you who I am, and then I will remind you of some of the major historical landmarks in the history of French education in Alberta by way of background to the problem that I want to present to you.
I am a Franco-Albertan by birth. My mother came from Montreal, and my father came from New Brunswick. In 1910, they created a town in Alberta, and I am very proud of that. That is always the first thing I say. I have been a professor at the Faculté Saint-Jean since 1976. I was also among the first group of girls who studied at what was then a male bastion. I am now a professor of education, but I have done a little bit of everything. I was a language professor. I have organized work terms. I also currently give courses on poetry and the history of Franco-Albertans.
I am a former president of the Association canadienne-française de l'Alberta. I had the honour during my term of office of negotiating school governance for the francophone school following the 1991 Supreme Court decision in Mahé-Bugnet.
Since my term at the ACFA, I have somewhat unintentionally become the historian of the Franco-Albertan community. I say unintentionally because that is not my field. As very few people are working on that, I have taken an interest in and developed a passion for history.
By way of example, last Monday I gave what is known as the CPR lecture to the Faculty of Art's History and Classics Department. They invite one guest a year. I spoke on the history of the Franco-Albertans to an audience of 200, 150 of them anglophones. They said they were fascinated by the story of the Franco-Albertans.
The history of the Franco-Albertans is not told in Alberta. It has never been included in any study program. Even the francophones in the room learned a lot from by brief 45-minute presentation.
Inviting someone to speak about the history of the Franco-Albertans was quite a momentous step. It is quite shocking for some to learn that French was the first European language spoken in Alberta, and they have trouble accepting it. Generally speaking, people prefer to say that Alberta is multicultural.
For those who were unaware of these facts, it was surprising to learn the extent of the historic contribution made by Franco-Albertans. One of my colleagues drew up a map of Alberta and picked out more than 600 French names — rivers, mountains, hills, lakes, et cetera.
We have not had the time to write our history, and that is typical of us. I listened to my colleague Mr. Frank McMahon saying that we wanted to have teaching at the college level, and that is typical of us. We are always moving from one battle to the next, one thing to the next. Nothing is easy. And once we have achieved something, we cannot count on its lasting forever.
My second topic is the history of French education.
The new interest in the history of the Franco-Albertans is explained by the fact that Alberta is preparing to celebrate two important anniversaries, the centenary of the city of Edmonton and the centenary of the province. All of a sudden they realize that there are francophones here, that we have projects in Alberta, and that they have no information about us. And so they turn to the Faculté Saint-Jean and the historian of the Franco-Albertans. As a result, I receive many calls. Fortunately our history can be found in the archives or else in the memory of the older generation, whom we are losing too quickly, alas.
I would like to remind you of various stages in the history of French education in Alberta. Obviously I do not have the time or intention of going back over everything, particularly since the people from Manitoba and Acadie know that the history of French education has been pretty much the same from province to province.
We have to remember that French schools as we know them now have not always existed, and the same is true for the progress we have made. There have been two major setbacks in our history. This is why I wanted to speak to you today about French education and the schools of the interior.
In 1892, the Government of Alberta declared English to be the official language of teaching, and we thus lost our French schools. Francophones, who had represented 60 per cent of the population some 15 years previously, were deprived of their right to use their own language in schools.
Before the Haultain Resolution and the School Act of 1892, we used French a great deal, because most francophones were Catholic and we had denominational schools, et cetera.
After 1892, we had what was known as ``The Primary Course'', where first grade and second grade were offered in French. From third grade to ninth grade, we were entitled to an hour of French a day and explanations. All at once francophones started giving copious explanations. It took time to understand, so we used French a lot.
In 1915, the Government of Alberta decided against the use of bilingualism in all its forms. Explanations had to be limited. That was the first time we lost French schools.
In spite of all this, the francophone community, working through associations such as the Association des éducateurs bilingues de l'Alberta and ACFA, took charge and organized major song festivals here and there, in the west, in Manitoba, for example. As early as 1943, the Faculté offered teacher training courses. We developed curricula and held French exams.
In 1956, over 5,500 young francophones took part in this competition. The marks were published in the newspaper: the examination results were shown beside the name. These are not good memories for some of us.
At that time, the community was very involved in education in French. In 1968, a new wind blew through western Canada. All of a sudden, we were allowed to use French as the language of instruction 60 per cent of the time. That figure increased to 80 per cent around 1976. Bilingual schools were born. The schools where 5,500 young francophones — if we leave out the pupils in grades 1 and 2, there were probably 6,000 of us — had studied, all of a sudden opened their doors to another group, anglophones. Of course the numbers increased. As a result of this change, the culture in the school became much more anglophone. The phenomenon of watered-down bilingualism was born.
This was the second time we lost our French schools in our history.
In 1982, with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, we were given the right to manage French-only schools. This change did not occur without incidents. It took a great deal of work, court cases, and so on.
I would just like to remind you that the objective of French-language school is to transmit francophone culture. The purpose of schools generally is to transmit the culture of a society. The purpose of French schools was to transmit the language, but also the culture.
Culture includes values, ways of living and doing things and beliefs. It is not just about the arts. Culture goes beyond folklore, which is a sort of ritualization of this culture.
That is the situation that exists in Alberta. What I am very worried about is that our fights to get schools and health care have been so difficult that francophones in Alberta have not had time to write their history. Our history is literally in boxes. I can count five, six or ten books on the history of the Franco-Albertans.
People leave us without putting their memories on paper. We are not preserving our heritage. Our old newspapers are in shreds and we have even lost some of them. There are about 10 French newspapers in Alberta. Some have been lost completely. Young people clean house and throw the old documents out. We have not developed our concern for history.
It took us 100 years before we got the school building. We did not have time to think about furnishing it.
How should we go about developing a sense of belonging, a sense of identity? Where is the teaching material that will allow us to recover our heritage and our lifestyle? What research has been done in this field?
The staff in our schools comes from other provinces. This is not their history. They may be francophones, but they do not have this attachment to the history of Alberta. If we do not write down our history, where will people find it? Sometimes, we are unable to demonstrate the importance of knowing our history.
A significant number of immigrants are arriving and want to become part of our community, provided we tell them what our community is and how it works.
The curriculum in Alberta has never covered the history of the Franco-Albertans. We are now preparing a social studies program that will talk about Franco-Albertans throughout the province. I am getting desperate calls, with people asking me: ``Where can we find this history?''
We have no teaching material on this. Teachers do not have time to go and hunt in the archives and old photographs. They need documents that have already been written.
Our administrators have other concerns, either the physical building, funding, or something else. People are really taken up by outside considerations and they neglect our community's culture.
I am afraid we will lose our schools for the third time, this time from the inside. We are not offering material that is typically or uniquely connected to our history, our heritage and our way of life, because our history is one of the ways of finding our way of life. However, we do not want to limit ourselves to history, we want to go beyond it. In order to do that, we must know our roots in order to know where we are going.
What I envy about Acadians is the importance they attach to their history, to their roots. From the outside, we see that they have their own way of life and identity that is evident in the arts and other fields.
In western Canada, we are just at the beginning of this, particularly in the area of music and theatre. I am very involved in theatre and music. We are trying to develop our own typical songs and theatre. We need to encourage this phenomenon more.
That is not one of the immediate concerns, but we need to seek out and support projects that support our heritage. I am thinking about the digitization of old newspapers to make them more acceptable.
My colleague, Mr. McMahon and I have tried to digitize one of our old newspapers called La survivance (survival), which dates back to 1928. Digitizing this newspaper took a great deal of time and work, and that is just one of many. There is the whole preceding period. Francophones have been here since 1743, so we have work to do.
We should be encouraging historical development projects and pedagogical development projects. When I was the president of the ACFA, I talked to Mr. Claude Ryan, who was the Minister of Education at the time, about having the history of people in the west included in the books in the east as well. First, it should be in our own books, and also more widespread, to let people know that there are francophones elsewhere in the country and that they have their own way of life.
We must encourage projects to seek out the memories of our seniors, which are part of our heritage. Why not invite seniors to come and develop the history of our heritage. We must encourage seminars on history, on our Franco- Albertan heritage. We must ensure that in training our teachers, we take the time to focus on developing a methodology unique to French-language schools.
I would conclude by saying that if we do not want to lose our schools from the inside, it is important to look at the furnishings we provide in them.
The Chairman: You touched me when you spoke about the diversity of cultures. It reminded me of the debate I had with parliamentarians about the francophonie. I would like to know your opinion on this, by applying it to the history of Alberta, because some French people say that we can transmit culture without the language. Do you think we can pass on the francophone culture of Alberta without talking about it? The French say that they can transmit French culture through perfume, good wine, good food, and so on.
Ms. Levasseur-Ouimet: The relationship between language and culture is terribly important. Language is one of the means of expressing culture. The important thing is that there are a number of francophone cultures.
It all depends on how we define the word ``culture''. Formerly, a cultivated person was one who had travelled to Europe and knew about wines, and so on.
Using the new sociological definitions, culture is seen much more as the values and the ways in which a community functions, agrees and lives together. Culture is expressed through language, through the arts and also through the unique ways we have of quarrelling as a community.
This is a much more profound definition. It is important to go back to our history to see how people lived and what is important for us.
Let me give you an example. Volunteer workers were lifesavers for our francophone communities in the west, particularly Alberta, because people worked for nothing. They wrote papers, corrected examinations and prepared curriculums. People gave their time, because minorities do not always have access to all the resources they need. They have to create them on the spot. Volunteer work is very precious. It is not necessarily valuable in other French communities. It is not valuable in Paris, France, where people live in French differently.
We need to find these values in our history and explain why people needed them. Why did they experience them? Is this the value that we want to pass on to future generations?
In this context, can we teach and pass on values without language? It seems to me that I communicate these basic values through language. In immersion schools, they teach language without culture, but we do not make these people into francophones. They speak French. If we want to create francophones, we need both the language and the culture.
Senator Chaput: You gave us such a good explanation when you said that you were going to lose your schools for the third time, but this time from the inside. That really touched me.
In the light of what you have just said about values that were fundamental to my generation and that I would like to pass on to my children, the fact is that my children and grand-children must also want to receive them. Things are evolving so fast around us that what was a value for me may not be one for my grand-children.
To ensure that we do not lose our French schools for a third time, is the role of our artists not even more important, as well as that played by our history and our heritage?
For a child or student in a French school, what is most important to them is what is passed on through a play or through a song.
What are the real needs within our French schools? What needs to be done so that we do not lose them from the inside?
Ms. Levasseur-Ouimet: The arts, theatre and song are all areas very dear to my heart. I have a daughter who is a singer. When you encourage children to sing, to create their own songs, to want to sing in French, you are building francophones. You build them by allowing them to develop their talents. You build them from the inside.
You are right. How can we make this connection with the arts? How can we make the connections with our heritage? How can we make this a natural, living part of our schools?
The solution is not to impose it, it must come naturally, like the air we breathe. The important thing is to develop our artists. Not everyone is interested in the arts. There are other ways of developing francophones and making them what they are. We have to build on the abilities of our students. We must allow them to develop their abilities in their own language. Once that is done, develop a pride, an identity and an ability to operate with the proper vocabulary in the language of interest to them. I think that is the key to all this. We must go beyond folklore and sugar shacks and the arrowhead sash.
You are quite right about changing values. Our communities must think about what they were and about their position as minorities. This minority culture does exist, and I do not say that in a negative way. People who are part of a minority culture must have a much more integrated community than those who are part of a majority.
When I look at my cousins who are part of the majority, they do not have to write plays, because they have got hundreds of people doing that. If you are a member of a minority and have any writing talent, you are the artist and you must get involved. You must create artistic works. Members of minority communities develop more, because they are more active within their community.
Senator Chaput: You spoke about one of our great values, namely volunteer work. My three daughters are married and have children. All my daughters and their husbands are working. The children are in daycare. When I was a mother at home, I did volunteer work. My daughters no longer have time to do that.
Increasingly, volunteer work is falling on our shoulders, because our children no longer have the time to do it. Do you think that volunteer work is no longer one of our fundamental values?
Ms. Levasseur-Ouimet: No, more and more people say that if they do something, they want payment for it. That is the direction in which we are headed.
We must not forget that in order to build a link with a community, whatever it may be, we must be active within that community in the same way that we must be active within the family unit. If you never see your brothers and sisters and never have any dealings with them, family ties start to break down.
The same is true for a community. People must be involved. They may not have 200 hours to give to volunteer work. People's participation, even in something like a parents' committee, is beneficial to the child. In our generation, we had to do a great deal of volunteer work. Perhaps we had more leisure time in which to do it. I do not know that. I had to work and help my children at the same time, somewhat like you.
Volunteerism is wearing down, but as a community, we are going to have to look at the services formerly provided by volunteers. Where are we at as regards volunteer work? Are there other ways of getting things done to fill this void? Otherwise, how will we go about filling it?
One of the reasons history and songs are not being written is there is no money for this. We have to think seriously about what has replaced volunteerism, and what we are going to do in the years ahead.
Senator Comeau: You are losing your history and you need help. In the past, you have had an excellent partner in Canada, namely Quebec. Quebecers did a great deal to assist our communities in western and eastern Canada. Often, they sent us members of the clergy to save us in eastern Canada. Often, Quebecers came here to found the Canadian west.
For too long, Quebecers have been isolated. When they left their isolation behind, they started looking toward Europe, rather than toward us, their cousins, their family. They have more or less abandoned us, while in the past they were so strong for us.
It is very discouraging to see what we have lost in the last few generations. We have lost one of our big brothers or sisters who was always there for us.
How could we go about bringing Quebec back into our big North American family? How can we go about getting Quebec to send their academics out west, to work with you to write history and other books and to do research? How can we get them out of Europe for a few years and have them come and spend some time with us?
Ms. Levasseur-Ouimet: That is a big problem. One thing we can do is to make ourselves better known. I am thinking of music, for example, many of our young singers want to break into the Quebec market.
Senator Comeau: They would have to move.
Ms. Levasseur-Ouimet: Yes, and become Quebec singers. I apologize for using this metaphor, but we lose an artist from our community, and artists are the soul of our community. They leave and go off to live in Quebec. We have to understand that we will never be Quebecers.
We will be invited there and we will remind them of our presence in Canada by being ourselves. Our singers will have to develop their own identity, their music and their style. Our playwrights will have to write their theatre and work on their history. The stronger we are, the more interest they will take in us. They will appreciate the quality of a particular singer or a writer and so forth. It is up to us to take control of our destiny and that is when they will extend an invitation to us as an equal partner.
The mistake we made in the past was to imagine that we could somehow re-experience a part of our life over there. I do not come from Quebec. I was born here, I identify with Alberta and that is where I belong. If I am able to make my community known elsewhere, then it may be that our cousins from Quebec will realize that they have forgotten us. I hope that is the case. I may be naive.
Senator Comeau: I cannot say I quite agree with your idea about making ourselves known in Quebec and displaying our talents and the existence of French communities outside Quebec. We are going to have to make a breakthrough pretty soon because very often they do not even know that we exist. I am talking about the population at large.
I do not know what the reason is for this. I have not seen their curriculum and the kind of things that are taught about Canada in Quebec primary and secondary schools.
Do they find out from their curriculum that they have relatives living outside Quebec?
Ms. Levasseur-Ouimet: I do not know.
Senator Comeau: It is a good thing if our artists go to Quebec and are appreciated by Quebecers. Someone who really wants to make a breakthrough in Quebec would have to move to Quebec and take on a part of the Quebec identity.
That is not what we want. We want Quebecers to know who we are and for them to come and see us. We want them to give us a hand for our history since they have universities, research institutes and the resources to do so. That is the way we will be able to find our way back to the francophone North American family.
Ms. Levasseur-Ouimet: Yes, it is possible to make our presence known among them. We do have a significant population of Quebecers. The Quebecer has to integrate among us. If he does not realize that we have our own history, then he is of no help to us. We have to be able to make him understand that we have a history and our own way of doing things —
Senator Comeau: But if this is not a written history — what comes first? Is it the chicken or the egg?
What I am suggesting is a very direct way of contacting our cousins in Quebec. We should invite them to join us because we want to know about their history and make our history known. Then we can ask them to help out with the writing of history because the history of the west is, to a large extent, also the history of Acadians.
They do not realize that the west is also part of their history, the history of francophones in North America.
Ms. Levasseur-Ouimet: Yes, I agree with you. They should also study our history.
Senator Comeau: They should be with us in the writing of our history. We do not have resources in the west.
Ms. Levasseur-Ouimet: That is the point I conveyed to Mr. Claude Ryan at the time. You do have the money, the publishing houses and the technical support. You could talk about us in your history books and we could do the same.
The Chairman: Whether we are Acadians or Franco-Albertans, we have the responsibility to support our artists. Whenever there are cutbacks, our school boards, the ones that make the decisions, target programs. They very often cut back on the music programs. If we do not support our artists, they will go to the big cities and to Montreal.
I came to Edmonton five years ago with a minister of the Parti Québécois who had never come to the west and who was surprised. He did not think that francophones had French schools. We visited the centre, then another francophone centre. All the services were there.
If ministers and parliamentarians are not aware of the French communities in western Canada, then we have our work cut out for us if we want to reach the entire population. We do have this responsibility as parliamentarians and as members of the community.
I thought your definition of a minority culture was a very good one and I am sorry that Senator Léger was not here.
Senator Chaput: There is work to be done in our schools so that they are not just an empty shell without a soul. We have to work on making ourselves known for who we are, whether it be in Quebec or elsewhere. If you had a magic wand and you were able to start doing this work immediately, in the school and outside, what would your first step be? Concretely, what would you do in the schools to provide them with a soul?
Ms. Levasseur-Ouimet: The first step would probably be to find a way of telling our history to the children. I am not talking about history with dates. For as long as I have been working in this area, there have been incredible stories to tell.
The struggle to obtain CHFA in Alberta is like a novel. It is extraordinary. In 1949, people struggled for 20 years and raised $140,000 to build a radio station, it is incredible.
Whether it be through comic strips or narrators, we should take the time to tell them about their parents, their grandparents and their community. We always tell our pupils to be proud but what are they supposed to be proud of? We can tell them the stories and bring them to life and close to home. They like their grandfather and their grandmother and they like to hear the stories about them. There is no one who can really resist a good storyteller. We have not been able to come up with ways of doing this.
My second action would be to ensure that in our French-language schools, we do not only have nice computers but also have arts programs, and music programs with musical instruments.
I am very envious of Manitoba because they have a recording studio. The community seeks out artists and has them sing. In Alberta, certain steps have been taken but often without support. People will make an effort in spite of the situation.
I have nothing against computers and fine buildings, we need them but we also need something else. You put your finger on it when you said that we needed a soul inside this school.
We as adults have the responsibility of seeking out this heritage that is slowly disappearing. I told you about an old newspaper, it encapsulates a whole period of time. If we are unable to preserve our old newspaper, how will we be able to write our history?
There is so much to be done in this field. I would feel guilty if I gave you the impression that our community has not done any work. It has worked. For our schools we had to struggle on three separate occasions. We keep having to come back to defend what we have obtained. People are running out of breath. After a certain amount of time, we look after only what is absolutely necessary and often essential. We tell ourselves that it is in God's hands.
[English]
Senator Keon: I was not going to comment, but I just have to. I have been listening to this with fascination because I have been trying to understand why there is not the connection with Quebec for educational purposes that there should be. Having listened to you, I think I am beginning to understand.
There is a phenomenon in Quebec now — I am of Irish heritage but I was born in Quebec — a whole new generation the age of my children who were not francophone, but who do not speak any English. They speak only French, and for them, French is simply a language of communication, the language of commerce, and they do not have the kind of passion that you have.
If one even looks, even, at the Government of Quebec, there are people of non-French origin playing major roles. They speak French, but they are not of French origin.
Ms. Levasseur-Ouimet: Yes.
Senator Keon: I wonder if that has not had something to do with it. I appreciate what you said about their enormous pride, for example, in Quebec music now, Quebec artists and so forth, and that is wonderful to see. However, I think in the push to preserve their language, a phenomenon has occurred that maybe they did not anticipate, which is the large number of people of different ethnic origins who just speak the language to communicate, to get paid, this kind of thing.
There is no soul, no passion.
Ms. Levasseur-Ouimet: I think the passion comes from the sense of identity, of belonging, and that is something that the schools have to teach as well. How do you do that? You do that by getting the student involved, getting him to create and to say, ``I belong to that group of people. I am like them.'' They need mirrors to see that, and one mirror is history, one is music, one is the arts and so on.
[Translation]
Senator Comeau: We do not have to be of francophone origin to do so, do we? We can be from the outside and be absorbed in the group.
Ms. Levasseur-Ouimet: It is a problem here because the people say that they are not native-born francophones. But where does your heart lie?
I know some Franco-Albertans who no longer have this soul, it is something they have lost. They still speak French or they no longer speak it. I know people who come from elsewhere who have rediscovered this passion and who identify with the group.
Senator Comeau: In Nova Scotia, in our Acadian community, we have all sorts of family names that are certainly not Acadian, like Smith, McCaulay, MacIntosh and Cromwell, who have become members of the community.
So it is possible for us to keep the soul of a community without necessarily having a historical attachment to this community. We somehow absorb the desire of the community.
It is like in Louisiana, they have lost their language to a large extent but not their culture. They are very proud of their history. Lots of these people are not Comeaus, Leblancs or Boudreaus. We can be a community with a soul, that is possible.
Ms. Levasseur-Ouimet: Yes, by espousing the objectives of this community.
The Chairman: If the influence of your magic wand extended to politics — because all of us here have this passion for minorities and that is our main reason for being here in Edmonton and undertaking this tour — how, how as parliamentarians could we help francophones in a minority situation?
Do you have some advice to give us, something that we can pass on to those in power on the Hill?
Ms. Levasseur-Ouimet: Governments will have to support a variety of projects. I can understand that there are priorities because financially it is impossible to do everything at the same time. Governments will have to realize that needs change over time as the situation changes. Now we have our schools. What is the next step? We have the building, what do we put inside it?
There must also be some assurance that when we talk about health care — we put in an application for a museum — that is essential for tracing our connections.
A French-speaking community is made up of various elements, it cannot be reduced to schools. We must be capable of taking on responsibilities in a variety of areas.
When the Official Languages Act says that the government will be working for the full development of the community, then I expect something to be done. That means that they are going to be providing assistance for music, for health care. They will be helping us out. One must be able to see how all of this is interrelated. For some months and some years now, there has been a lot of talk about structural solutions involving corporations, institutions and structures in the francophone community. I think there is more than that.
We do not just want to pay the wages of office employees. We want to put some life into the soul of the community. Money should sometimes be used for researchers rather than administration. I do not know if you understand what I am getting at.
We have to be able to make the leap and to say that the needs have reached a different level. That is what I mean when I say that we should have a wider outlook.
The Chairman: I do not know whether we will be able to do it but we will try. It is good advice.
Ms. Levasseur-Ouimet: I would like to offer you as a souvenir a small summary of the history of the Faculté Saint- Jean. This is a booklet from our history room.
The Chairman: We were wondering what Mr. Guy Lacombe did to explain the Château Lacombe.
Ms. Levasseur-Ouimet: There were two Mr. Lacombes. There was Father Lacombe to whom we owe everything and the province as well. He was an Oblate.
Then Mr. Guy Lacombe, no relation to the previous one, who was a historian. He is now deceased.
The Chairman: So the hotel known as the Château Lacombe was named in honour of the Oblate Father.
Ms. Levasseur-Ouimet: Yes, Father Albert Lacombe. He was the founder of Saint-Albert and the first school. Yes, it is in his honour because he provided a great deal of assistance in the treaties with the first nations. He was an extraordinary man.
The Chairman: We are privileged to receive the Dean of the Faculté Saint-Jean, Mr. Marc Arnal who enjoyed reminding us that with Senator Chaput is a native of Manitoba. Today we are in Edmonton in the Faculté Saint-Jean and we will be pleased to hear what you have to say.
Mr. Marc Arnal, Dean, Faculté Saint-Jean: Generally when I am introduced here in Alberta people say that I come from Manitoba, but it is not my fault.
The Chairman: We still like him.
Mr. Arnal: Yes. We are very happy to receive you at the Faculté Saint-Jean and I hope that you feel at home.
I will be talking to you about the evolution of linguistic duality and the francophone communities in Alberta because we are now going through a sort of quiet revolution, to use the Quebec term, in our communities. I will then talk to you about the role of the Faculté Saint-Jean. You indicated that you would be interested in hearing something about distance training and I will conclude with a few comments about the integration of our graduates into the world of work.
Demographically, the Faculté is the post-secondary francophone institution with the largest proportion of immersion graduates in Canada with the exception perhaps of the francophone institute of Regina where approximately 70 per cent of the students come from an immersion background. In the Faculté, the level is approximately 52 to 53 per cent. We also have some international students. They amount to 6 per cent out of a total student population of 500 in undergraduate courses. At the post-graduate level, we offer a masters in education with about 65 part-time students. In Alberta, in British Columbia and Saskatchewan we have just begun a masters in Canadian studies where we have a small but very good cohort of six students.
You probably heard about the Dialogue project, an initiative started by the Federation of Francophone and Acadian Communities in 1999. I was a member of the commission and we crossed the country from one end to the other. Our aim was to discuss the role of our communities in society with the largest number of groups possible. We met ethnocultural groups, francophone groups, anglophones, municipalities, governments et cetera. We spoke with all of those who showed an interest in meeting us.
A report was produced in 2001 setting out a number of important challenges for the communities and setting them at the very centre of the development of linguistic duality in Canada. What we were proposing was a psychological turnabout. Looking at the public opinion surveys and the progress made by French in Canada, notably through immersion programs and more recently through immigration mainly from Africa, it was clear to us that if we add together the francophone communities, people who speak the language and people who support official bilingualism, we have the new majority.
The francophone communities are at the centre of what we refer to as the new majority. Psychologically, this amounts to a rather significant change for us. Until 1957, in Manitoba for example, it was forbidden to teach French in our schools. For people like me, who were brought up in a kind of siege mentality, it is a radical change to realize that we are not some kind of social aberration but at the very centre of what distinguishes us as a country and what has caused us to embrace as a country all forms of diversity.
Mr. John Ralston Saul, in a speech in Edmonton, called upon us to take a special place in the edification of the Canada of tomorrow. He told us that it was our advantage to have had to reflect on the matter. As he said: ``Think about it, and play your role to the full.''
We therefore undertook, in our communities and with them, to call into question and re-identify the guideposts of our identity in relation to significant francophone immigration, from Africa, from the Maghreb and elsewhere, and the increasing number of Canadians who master the French language but who are not of French mother tongue.
As research and our experience of life have shown, young people's sense of identity is no longer developed in the same way and this identity is far more fragmented and multiple than in the past. The entire notion of a linguistic cultural identity today is a concept that is quite different from the previous one. It is far less of a monolithic concept and much more multiple and fragmented. Research has shown this to be the case.
The result of all this is that we have a crying need for redefinition, and based on that, a repositioning of our communities at the very centre of what I called earlier the new majority of citizens in our country who accept the idea of official languages and diversity, who understand the principle of fairness, who see the importance of continuing to find means of rewarding co-existence in diversity.
Manitoba, in my opinion, is the province where this process is the furthest along. The Franco-Manitoban Society has played a very aggressive role on this front. Then comes Acadia, in New Brunswick, especially under the leadership of Jean-Guy Rioux, whom I consider to be one of the current major visionaries of the francophone world. We are beginning that process here in Alberta, strongly supported by the Faculté Saint-Jean.
The Fac, as it is known, is at the heart of this new majority, with just over half of its student population coming from immersion programs in western and northern Canada, in particular, as well as a growing African-Canadian contingent and a few students from Quebec.
The recruitment of Quebec students and international francophone students is made very difficult by bilateral international agreements between Quebec and other countries and by Quebec's tuition fee policies.
In Alberta, we pay double or more the tuition that Quebec students pay in their home province. With the bilateral agreements, students from North Africa, for example, pay the same tuition fees in Quebec as Quebecers. They pay less than we would if we went to Quebec to study. Because of those policies, it is very difficult for us to recruit students in francophone countries around the world or in Quebec. That is very unfortunate, in a way, because we are deprived of that source of enrichment.
All this diversity coming together makes our environment more dynamic and our world view broader and richer. There are also challenges. There has been a need and continues to be a need to adapt on both sides or find accommodations — I like that word because it better reflects the idea of added value that is at the very heart of our Canadian citizenship, and I find it better than compromise, which has somewhat more negative connotations.
Our staff do not reflect the diversity of our students. For example, we cannot say that half of our staff come from immersion programs, or that 6 per cent of our staff are of African origin. Since we are a public institution and we need to aspire to reflect the clients that we serve, we have work to do. We are working actively to correct these shortcomings.
A much greater problem is the need to help many of our students move from a more academic bilingualism to linguistic duality that they live and experience. Over 80 per cent of our incoming students have language challenges, either because they have gone through immersion programs where French is mainly a classroom reality, or because they are from francophone minority communities where their experience with their language has often been difficult and there has been little encouragement to use French outside the classroom; it is partly a psychological difficulty and partly an environmental constraint.
The problem is waning somewhat owing to the creation of French schools and the growing openness of those schools to the immersion community, not by bringing in immersion students but by building links with them, in order to promote a broader vision of linguistic duality.
At the Faculty, we spend a great deal of time and resources on remedial language training and helping students master French as the language they live in.
The federal government helps us a lot, but not enough. We are developing a whole set of measures and we hope that we will get a bit of funding to support them.
The minority discourse has to be replaced by a discourse that puts redefined, broadened and open official languages communities at the heart of the new majority. That is more of a psychological shift. It is very important for our communities to feel that they are central to the country's development rather than marginalized as they have been in the past. So we need to put that on the shelf. We need to put behind us the epic struggles for our schools, not in order to forget them but in order to give them their full meaning.
We need to avoid getting bogged down in negativity. We need to stand tall and proud and take our place. That is what we are trying to create at the Faculty; that feeling of being a nerve centre in the development of the new Canada. We are very ambitious with our approximately 500 students. Why not?
We will be more ambitious when the importance of our role is better understood by everyone and when governments have understood that making services available in French across the country is desired by the majority, and not only the minority, because it brings French alive for all citizens.
At one point, I wanted to have buttons made up and given to all public servants who speak French and all immersion graduates. They would have said ``Français, use it or lose it.'' That is the idea!
Many people in the community who come out of immersion programs no longer feel confident speaking their language. We could suggest to them that when they encounter public servants and when they have transactions with the government, that they should do this in French.
The other day, when I was on an airplane, I saw something absolutely extraordinary. An anglophone who was sitting beside me found it difficult to speak French, he was talking to the flight attendant who was also having difficulty speaking French; but both of them continued in French. I said that it was wonderful! It was extraordinary and I congratulated them.
If we can get that into the collective unconscious, it affects the very nature of our society. The other night I was at a political dinner. There were eight of us at the table, four francophones and four non-francophones. The four non- francophones had gone through immersion programs, but they did not practice their French. They did not feel capable of speaking French, but they understood it. They asked us to speak to them in French and they would answer us in English. We spent the whole evening speaking English and French. It was really something.
Because of the federal government's plan on official languages, which is commonly known as the Dion plan, with support from Industry Canada and Western Economic Development, we are going to be launching a large-scale development program for our on-line programs.
We currently have a few courses that are offered on-line. Some courses are supported by multimedia, but we do not have a strategy. At the Collège universitaire de Saint-Boniface, the whole master's program in Canadian studies is offered on-line. We would like to develop that capacity for some of our own programs.
The president of Collège Boréal, one of the most advanced institutions in Canada with respect to on-line training, has said that face-to-face communication is also important.
We need to make our courses as available as possible while maintaining the optimal pedagogical aspect. With new technologies, we have more and more possibilities. The nano-technology that is being developed at the University of Alberta seems like science fiction because it created three-dimensional images at remote sites. We can take people at two different sites and create a third virtual site where people can work in three dimensions. I saw that technology the other day and it is quite impressive. In another 10 years, the Lord only knows what we will be able to do.
In conclusion, new technologies will enable our Faculty to play a more important role in basic training and in support for the development and preservation of French among all those who speak French in western and northern Canada.
Where we really have a major role to play and where we have done very little is in fact this support for those who speak French in our regions and who do not often have the opportunity to use it. It is already really something if a small town has more than two or three immersion teachers. Immersion graduates working for oil companies in Forth McMurray or elsewhere have very little opportunity to use French. Those teaching French as a second language, or FSL, are often people who do not speak French fluently.
We have roles to play in helping these people. We are trying to develop that aspect through on-line language laboratories. We will soon be buying a lab to begin serving those groups. We get a lot of calls from people who tell us that they are losing their French and they wonder what they can do. We will also be approaching the public service.
Our role in continuing education is crucial. Although most of our graduates use French in their work to some extent, with teachers being a good example, English is the language of work and often at home as well. The Faculty therefore has an important role to play as a language lifeline, by providing linguistic and cultural nutrition so that people can maintain their French.
This role in helping former students in the general public is not very well understood and suffers from a lack of resources. We take for granted that all our graduates get jobs, which is often true in the education field but not always in other areas. Unfortunately, our graduates of African origin find it more difficult than others do to obtain reasonable employment, especially in education.
Radio-Canada Alberta gives two placements every year to students from the Faculty. That project was suspended for a time and we are currently re-establishing it. Students get a credit for this placement and they are paid for working there in the summer. It is a bonus for the students to be able to work during the summer and receive the equivalent of a communications course during the school year.
That kind of arrangement should be possible with all Canadian government departments and agencies. We want to offer our young people's talents and their attitudes about linguistic duality and Canadian citizen involvement. Time will tell if our offer is accepted. In all honesty, I have not yet had the opportunity of presenting the request to the regional directors' group, but I certainly intend to do so. Ms. Robillard's new initiatives give us hope.
There is still a lot of wrong-headedness, as I have said, in that there are people who do not understand that the issue is more than just providing French services to the minority.
I am sorry if I did not limit my remarks to the Faculty, but these societal concerns are also very important.
The Chairman: Have you followed up to see where your graduates go? Do they manage to get jobs? I thought that the agreements concerning African students from francophone countries called for them to go back to their countries. What happens to all the other students?
Mr. Arnal: I am the national co-chair of a committee dealing with these immigration issues. We always have the moral dilemma that we do not want to create a brain drain in francophone countries around the world by keeping these students who come to Canada for post-secondary education. We are trying to create conditions that would make it easier for those who decide to stay to integrate into Canadian society.
If I am not mistaken, the work permit has been extended from one year to two years after graduation. International students have been in Canada for some time and come here with a view to becoming Canadian citizens. That is different from students coming on CIDA bursaries, for example, in which case there is a clear expectation that they will return home.
As for the success of our graduates, I can tell you that 100 per cent of our education students get jobs. I want to increase the standards for French to guarantee a certain level of what I would call standard French upon graduation.
In the other programs, our students do very well. This year, two of the award winners in the master's program in chemistry were former students from our Faculty. We also have bilingual programs. We have a bilingual business administration degree, in which half of the reading and studies are done in French and the other half in English at the other campus. We have buses, small vans and large vans that go between the two campuses, which are six kilometres apart. Sometimes they are a world apart, but geographically the distance is six kilometres.
The other day, we had a friendship group alumni meeting, and around the table there were two judges, one president of a multinational company, et cetera. Unfortunately, we do not keep track of those people enough. When we do start to keep track of them, if we blush it will not be from embarrassment.
The Chairman: You mentioned Jean-Guy Rioux. He must have spoken to you about what is happening in the Acadian Peninsula, with students going to study in Moncton and staying there. I imagine that students from outside Edmonton, from small places around the province, stay in Edmonton because their jobs are there, which means that the regions lose their young people. Are you seeing that happen?
Mr. Arnal: I would say that it is probably less the case than in the Acadian Peninsula, where the problem is taking on epidemic proportions.
It is certainly a factor. There are many francophones, whether we like it or not, who are farmers, and we know what is happening with the agricultural economy. Industry in Grand Prairie attracts a certain number of people. In September 2004, we will be launching a bilingual undergraduate program in environmental and conservation science, since the economy there is strongly rooted in natural resources.
I do not have any figures on this. I would say that it is a concern, but not to the extent that it is in Acadia.
The Chairman: I believe that the demographic issue in our regions is very important. We need to look at it very carefully to avoid losing our population in the smaller communities.
Senator Comeau: You and your Faculty are affiliated with the University of Alberta. What independence do you have, given the very special nature of your Faculty? Do you have enough independence?
Mr. Arnal: Yes and no. We are clearly different. At the University of Alberta, under Alberta law, the dean is the chief executive of the Faculty. We basically have a certain amount of autonomy. It is not the same as the Collège universitaire de Saint-Boniface, which is one of the founding colleges of the University of Manitoba. We are not a founding college. We were added on later.
But we do have some amount of autonomy. The federal government provides 37 per cent of our funding. The rest comes from the province and fundraising.
Senator Comeau: If you want to launch a new program, the university structures require that the Senate look at the program and everything. Generally speaking, the process would be different than for other faculties.
Mr. Arnal: By definition, every time we start a program, we are creating duplication, even in French. At the other campus, the Modern Languages Department in the Arts Faculty teaches all sorts of courses in French. So we have to go through that process. The dean needs to be a good negotiator and a diplomat.
I have to say that we have always had quite good support from the administration because they understand the situation. We always have the political card that we can play, and that is the community.
Besides, this card was played recently for our nursing science program. The elders decided to circulate a petition, and although this was not what got things started, it certainly did help.
Senator Comeau: I presume that you have a certain number of master's degree programs. Are they all in French?
Mr. Arnal: Yes.
Senator Comeau: Excellent! I congratulate you for this initiative. You mentioned politics. For the past few years, in Ottawa, the image, or the impression that some have of Alberta is that there are very few francophones there. As far as I can see, members pay no attention at all to francophones in Alberta.
Do you sometimes go to MPs to tell them that they must do a bit more for you? Canadians must realize that there are francophones in Alberta and that the days of anti-French attitudes, anti-bilingualism and Corn Flakes boxes are over. That must stop.
Mr. Arnal: I think that the people in Alberta are not half as ``rednecked'' as people would like to believe, including the Albertans who project this image. But being a francophone in Alberta is not all that bad, especially in the north of the province and in Calgary. Calgary has twice as many immersion students as Edmonton. Who would have imagined it? Who could have predicted it? There are perceptions that are nurtured and developed, but these perceptions are false.
Let me say that with the previous government there were many MPs and ministers from the province. Mr. Jim Edwards, who now speaks fluent French, told me the other day that he was improving his performance. I replied that he had made great progress.
But let me tell you that with the party currently in power, Ms. Ann McLellan is very much present in our communities. She comes to the Cité at least once a week. She gave us great support in building the Cité francophone.
Mr. Rahim Jaffer, the Alliance member for Strathcona, is bilingual and seems to be relatively open-minded. The francophone community was quite hesitant with this party, given its roots, and given some of the policies of the former Reform Party.
We have had regional parties in Alberta where bilingualism — as Senator Jean-Robert Gauthier would say, he would correct me if I said ``bilingualism'' — where the two official languages did not play much of a role.
Francophones are quite reticent. We have no problems with working with the government in power or with the Conservative Party, but with the Alliance, relations must be built.
Senator Comeau: We will try to change things.
Mr. Arnal: I do not want to make any political statements. This is reality as I see it.
Senator Chaput: Soon, following the research, you will have a new program, a new wing of your Faculty which will take care of vocational education in college, will you not?
Mr. Arnal: We hope we will.
Senator Chaput: Do you need permission to include this in what you are about to do?
Mr. Arnal: Absolutely.
Senator Chaput: Even if this is not a university matter, you still need permission?
Mr. Arnal: We certainly do.
Senator Chaput: Did you get it?
Mr. Arnal: At this time, we have agreement in principle from our new academic vice-president, on the condition that I clearly understand that this is a faculty of the University of Alberta and that the term ``college'' must not appear in the name.
He asked me to give him a detailed briefing. He comes from the University of Toronto, and he seems to be quite open to the language issue. If we have problems, you will certainly hear about them.
Senator Chaput: You mentioned the important role played by the Faculty, which consists in fostering language and culture. Could you explain what you mean by this and how it is done?
Mr. Arnal: I would rather tell you how it is not done. Professionals and officials call us, telling us that they are afraid to lose the French they have learned. They want to know what we can do for them.
Unfortunately, they do not automatically want to participate in francophone community activities. As I said, there are valid reasons on both sides.
We can build a bridge between the francophone community with its cultural activities, and these persons whose mother tongue is not French but who are interested in maintaining or improving their level of proficiency.
In the summer, we give immersion courses for those who do not speak a word of French. These people are professionals who come to spend three weeks in residence. Our residences are not too bad. They come to live in residence and we organize activities on the other side of the street, to create some bonding between both sides.
In our community, we must think of these people not only as spectators but as participants. If we really believe in multiculturalism and diversity, we must invite other cultural activities that will enrich our own.
Senator Chaput: Cultural enrichment is currently going on.
Mr. Arnal: I am thinking of the level and scope of the language group. My wife was born in India. She has quite a strong racial and cultural identity. She belongs to the multicultural anglophone majority and she feels that she is a part of a broad community. We, the francophones, are also developing this kind of national community. We are renewing our bonds with Quebec, praise God! Things are changing. Even Quebec has become very multicultural through its francophone population.
We are creating a kind of national French-speaking culture which should include a vast array of cultural elements in the same way that my spouse feels strongly about her Indian roots as well as her Canadian identity within this multicultural majority. These things are evolving.
This is how our culture is enriched. Some say that this relativizes people of French lineage. I hate this term but I am using it for a purpose. This relativizes us with regard to all the others who speak French. This is the way the Constitution is built and the country is evolving.
[English]
Senator Keon: What is the composition of your faculty now? You have not had time to think about it, but as you roll them over in your mind, where do they come from? What is their background?
Mr. Arnal: Largely, they have come from francophone and immersion schools in Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia, with about a six per cent complement, I would say, coming from Africa via Montreal or Quebec.
We are starting to get some direct immigration now. We have a couple of hundred Congolese families in Edmonton and about the same number in Calgary.
We have people from all over the place, from Campbell River, Victoria, Northern B.C. and Northern Saskatchewan. We provide a certain number of bursaries to encourage graduates of our French-language schools to come to Faculté Saint-Jean. They get additional offers of financial assistance directly through those schools.
However, we are still battling some old stereotypes and some leftovers from the old wars. When we set up the francophone system, for example, those schools were often established with a great deal of pain and suffering and polarization between or within communities, and a little of that still remains.
I was with the superintendent yesterday, and when I explained our vision to her, her jaw dropped, because, she said, ``I thought you were only interested in recruiting francophones.'' I said, ``Well, think again.''
There is a lot of old baggage that we need to get rid of and I see part of my job as going out and preaching this new vision of La francophonie that is much more open, much more inclusive and much more willing to become culturally diverse and all encompassing.
Senator Keon: I liked what you said at the beginning about the people of French origin being the nucleus of a much larger Canadian scene now in the francophonie.
M. Arnal: Can you imagine, senator, if the people who develop our official languages policies in Treasury Board, for example, started from that kind of perspective and said, ``How can we reinforce this new majority?'' What an impact that would have on the way we manage our public service, for example, and the kinds of messages that we give to the people of Canada.
I was telling the superintendent yesterday, ``You do not have to speak French to be part of our club. All you have to do is recognize that linguistic duality is a positive feature of Canada and support the learning of French by others, if you do not wish to learn yourself.'' Then you are part of our club. It is not very complicated.
Based on the recent polls, an overwhelming majority of Canadians think it is an interesting concept, and I think the more noise they make south of the border about things that are un-Canadian in our minds, the more those numbers will grow. I think people increasingly understand that at the root of what we are, and at the root of our difference, is that initial accommodation that has grown to encompass many other accommodations.
[Translation]
The Chairman: The committee has undertaken to study Part VII of the Official Languages Act with special attention to education. This morning, we dealt with early childhood. The reason why we chose to hold our hearings at the Faculté Saint-Jean, was because we were interested in finding out everything about post-secondary education.
I understand that today, it may be difficult for you to give us percentages on professional placement of post- secondary graduates to complete our report, but could someone send us, for the past ten or five years, a report on where the graduates of the Faculté Saint-Jean now are? Do they return to their regions? Are they in British Columbia? Could we get that information?
The clerk of the committee will give you our address so you can send them to us. It would be appreciated because it would help us finish our report.
Mr. Arnal: We will give you an anecdotal report because we do not have hard data. Information about education is certainly available. It is not a problem for the education program.
We will do whatever we can to get this information for you about science and arts programs and other programs that are usually undergraduate degrees.
The Chairman: Thank you for having allowed us to hold our hearings at the Faculté Saint-Jean.
Mr. Arnal: Please feel welcome at any time, individually or as a committee. I also invite you to take these gifts as a souvenir from the Faculté. We also have pens to give to your personnel. Thank you for having chosen to hold your hearings here. We are always glad to meet new friends and to see old friends.
The committee adjourned.