Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Official Languages
Issue 6 - Evidence - Afternoon meeting
OTTAWA, Monday, March 7, 2005
The Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages met this day, at 1:30 p.m., to study and to report from time to time on the application of the Official Languages Act and of the regulations and directives made under it, within those institutions subject to the act.
The Honourable Eymard G. Corbin (Chairman) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chairman: To begin with, we will consider adoption of the special budget which you examined at an in camera meeting. I am ready to receive a motion for adoption of the budget.
Senator Comeau: I move that we adopt the budget.
The Chairman: It is moved by Senator Comeau that the budget authorization application for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2006 be adopted. Is it your pleasure, honourable senators to adopt the motion?
Hon. senators: Agreed.
The Chairman: The motion is carried.
We'll now go on to evidence. It is our pleasure today to welcome Ms. Denise Moulun-Pasek, President of the Alliance des responsables, des enseignantes et des enseignants en français langue maternelle. With her is Lise Charland, Director General.
Ms. Moulun-Pasek, thank you for being here today. I would ask you please to introduce yourselves, to tell us where you're from and to outline the objectives and concerns of your organization.
Ms. Denise Moulun-Pasek, President, Alliance canadienne des responsables, des enseignantes et des enseignants en français langue maternelle (ACREF): I am a Franco-Albertan by birth, from the Rivière-la-Paix region, born of a first- generation Canadian father. Moulun is a French name from the Champagne region. My mother, a Quebecer by birth, came and settled in West during the Depression.
I am married, I have two children, and I work as an educational counsellor at the secondary level for the Conseil scolaire Centre-Nord, in Edmonton, the largest French-langue school board in Alberta.
I worked for 16 years training teachers at the Faculté Saint-Jean, to teach in French and in immersion. Prior to that, I taught at the JH Picard bilingual high school, before the first French-language school was established in Alberta. So I have never had the opportunity to teach francophones in a purely French-language school. As a parent, however, I joined a group of persons who fought for French-language schools in Alberta. I was the chair of the parents committee that opened the first Franco-Albertan school in St. Albert, in suburban Edmonton. That first school was opened last year following a long process. Prior to that, we occupied 44 percent of the premises at the St. Albert Public School Board. We taught from kindergarten to grade 6 on those premises, without a gymnasium.
I have been a member of ACREF's board of directors for eight and a half years, and I am in my second year as president. It is really an honour for me, before I leave ACREF, to come and talk to you on behalf of the teachers of the French-language schools in Alberta.
During my eight and a half years with this organization, I have often had the opportunity to speak with teachers across Canada, at conferences where I have held workshops for secondary-level teachers.
I would like to thank you for inviting us as part of your study on minority language education.
ACREF is a non-profit association whose mission is consistent with the objectives of section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Alliance works by helping to combat assimilation by adding value to the development of teaching, training and teaching support in the minority francophone community in Canada.
ACREF is a francophone organization whose national mandate is determined by a decision-making level that is mostly elected by its members. Voting members are teachers working in the education field. These are the people responsible for the school system. They include, for example, management personnel, teaching support services staff and teachers working in our 31 francophone school boards.
ACREF's activities are carried out in the three major regions of the country where francophone minorities live, the West and Territories region, the Ontario region and the Atlantic region. ACREF's members come from those three major regions. Its single niche, centred on learning and teaching, contributes to the development of educational environments and, by extension, of the francophone minority communities across Canada.
Our remarks today will focus on certain aspects of the second question being addressed in your study, primary and secondary education and the Official Languages in Education Program. However, I am interested in any question you ask me, and the response has to them an enormous role in the education success of francophone students in their communities. Note, for example, that there is an urgent need to attach day care and education services for the youngest students to French-language schools. High-quality services in French, available and accessible to our entire minority population, would promote equal academic performance consistent with the standards of the Canadian majority.
Early childhood programs specific to francophones, funded on the basis of long-term results are an investment in human capital for all Canadians. To support linguistic duality, these programs, tailor-made for the francophone minority constitute a factor in linguistic survival. These services are essential to enable students to prepare for successful and ongoing learning in French. A number of studies confirm that critical neurological developments occur before the age of six. The challenges that young francophones face with regard to linguistic assimilation in a minority environment require that progressive programs be established and that progress be seriously monitored in order to foster the full development of these young people as francophones.
In general, however, these programs do not exist, and a number of children are starting school without being prepared to learn in French. Under existing programs, it is harder for these francophone minority children to learn, as may be seen from the poor results achieved by these students on international tests.
Numerous lawsuits have been necessary in order to enable French-language education ultimately to develop. To combat assimilation and to guarantee academic performance in French equal to that of the majority, young children must be exposed to services in French in order to maintain the use of their language.
Without going into a lengthy debate on the need for a vision of post-secondary education development, we would ask the following question: is it not normal to aspire to academic success based on eventual and affordable access to a college or university institution in French? Will justice be done this time without resorting to the courts?
Let's return to the question before us today, the question of primary and secondary education and the Official Languages in Education Program.
Negotiations are under way with the Department of Canadian Heritage that will have long-term impact. Federal- provincial/territorial agreements on minority language education must meet the urgent need for initial and continuing training adapted to personnel working in a minority environment. Specific training for staff in our community is rare. On this point, ACREF holds a conference every two years. Teaching staff receives little or no training. The training they receive is disjointed and rarely consistent with the needs of teachers in minority environments.
It is high time we took a major critical look at minority education and learning programs and strategies. In cooperation with the school boards, an association of teachers working in the community is well positioned and can support developments in teaching and improved performance.
ACREF has no political ambitions. Consequently, it does not have to report to other bodies than its own minority teaching members. Its approach and ability to act derive from the programming and project subsidies it receives. The amounts received, mainly from Canadian Heritage, are very small relative to existing needs. However, investments will always go far thanks to the invaluable volunteer efforts of its members. We nevertheless need greater financial support, and we need it soon.
Improved outcomes for these minority studies is a cause that we must support together. We finally have school structures enabling us to get organized. It is urgently necessary that political and financial support be provided for the national training of staff in minority schools, failing which student recruitment and retention efforts will be in vain. Staff, who often come from the outside, will be unable to keep students at school. They will not be able to take them in and give them a sense of belonging so that these young people learn as francophones, in the best possible conditions. Consequently, they will not be able to justify the decision parents make to enrol their children in a French-language school.
Canadian Heritage must support a movement to improve minority education. Without employment, if training is not considered essential to the vitality of a francophone community, the great national plan and the great hopes for the success to which the government and the community aspire for Canada's linguistic duality will dissolve into disillusion. For everyone to maintain confidence in the system, we must make concrete efforts to improve student performance. We must be able to measure improvements not only in performance, but also in academic success.
Since we have had schools management, opportunities to work together between the provinces have multiplied. The time has now come to create a national movement for academic success based on a significant investment of federal funds in the training of our teachers.
A number of challenges are involved in securing access to qualified teaching staff, and they arise in regard to teacher training. The greatest challenge is to provide welcoming, competent staff so that the school boards can meet the expectations of their francophone communities. Another challenge we are facing is the level of success of student recruitment and retention efforts. Innovative strategies will have to be implemented to attract and keep staff.
The Canadian Teachers' Federation has no doubt drawn your attention to the anticipated teacher shortage, deteriorating working conditions and the heavy duties involved in a minority setting. The current challenge is to retain the staff we have attracted.
The major challenge for ACREF is the training of staff in the specific nature of tasks involved in a minority setting. Training establishments cannot train new teachers who are prepared to take on their duties to meet the requirements of the profession in a minority environment. Teaching is a discipline that cannot be acquired overnight. One must understand the basis of learning for the various age groups. These notions must be practised, and many types of knowledge are necessary.
Under the direction of Professor Benoît Cazabon, ACREF has conducted a study into the needs of future teachers. That study led to the proposal of a scholarship program to make it possible to offer additional training for future teachers to cope with the actual situation in our schools.
Thanks to a small grant from the Ontario Ministry of Education, we are developing a training guide to provide a preparatory program for future teachers in the French-language schools. We hope to develop a course for all our future teachers. So that is a possible response. However, the development and national implementation of this kind of project requires federal funding.
Unfortunately, teachers in a minority setting feel alone, exhausted, discouraged and socially isolated in their schools because some are surprised or do not understand the reality of the environment. To continue developing as we are, we must recruit from the outside. Planning training on a national scale is something that is possible. Its implementation must be closely monitored because the entire teaching body in the francophone minority community is not very large. This national level training would contribute to a sense of belonging to the profession in a minority setting and would add to Canadian minority training. This approach would represent an enormous gain for staff retention in the short and long terms.
It is possible to support a plan that highlights education experts and draws on the experience of teachers from various disciplines across Canada. A training program based on thinking and exchange between experienced professionals is achievable in the short term. Research in the United States is increasingly clarifying certain strategies for improving learning. Are those strategies applicable in a minority setting? How could they be adapted?
Teacher training is the focal point of ACREF's approach. The Alliance believes it can play a coordinating role to ensure the development of minority teaching strategies.
With the consolidation of school boards management, it is finally possible to plan research into and support for teaching effectively in a minority setting. The educational environment has the maturity to examine this new priority. Everyone agrees that the advancement of education improves the chances of minority academic success. How can we make it so that students learn in French, when they are surrounded by an English-language family and community environment? The question remains unanswered, and the search for an answer has yet to begin. But the community is motivated and motivating.
For many years now, ACREF has taken a tried and true approach which may be summarized by the saying: ``I do, therefore I learn.'' The purpose of this approach is the genuine application of knowledge, the learner's direct interaction with his or her environment.
It respects the rhythms and styles of each person. It is based on a philosophy of learning advanced by Vygotsky, who says there is no real learning except that which is lived fully. According to Vygotsky's theory, behaviour and cognitive and social skills cannot be developed outside a social interaction context, because they supply the motivation, content and form of learning. Intellectual development is embodied in the living environment. In other words, learning must be based on everyday reality.
Minority schools must therefore be a place where education professionals teach demanding and relevant programs that motivate students and enable them to create ties with their experience and aspirations. Students motivated by their learning need people with whom they can identify in their francophone schools. The quality of teachers is a motivation in itself.
For our schools, we are looking for adults who are convinced of the value of the students before them. We're looking for adults who are knowledgeable, convinced and able to confront learners with the challenges they meet in their family and community environment. We are looking for educators in thinking and dialogue on the practice of effective strategies specific to the minority environment, educators whose purpose is to develop the positive image of the student as a learner, belonging to his or her community and able to value Canada's linguistic duality.
Are we too demanding? Should we be content with less? Students must be committed to a sequence of individual school projects enabling them to develop their ability to act. To do this, the teacher must feel capable of making a major difference to the student and in his or her profession.
ACREF feels that we must absolutely train teaching staff in a minority environment. A national network must be maintained. Teachers must be involved, and their contribution must be valued in improving student performance and in the academic success of the francophone minority.
The Chairman: Thank you very much for that presentation, Madam. We'll now move on to the question period.
Senator Comeau: I would like to know a little more about your organization. Who are your representatives? I suppose you have a board?
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: We have a board of directors consisting essentially of representatives by region, not by province.
Senator Comeau: Let's consider a region like the Atlantic, for example. Its needs are very different from those of another province.
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: Yes.
Senator Comeau: A representative of Nova Scotia might not be aware of the situation of New Brunswick, for example. Have you taken that factor into consideration?
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: It happens that this year we have representatives from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. The province of Newfoundland is not represented for the first time in eight years.
Senator Comeau: So you have taken this factor into consideration. It is not that we are jealous of one another, but these are very different situations.
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: Absolutely.
Senator Comeau: Are your representatives teachers?
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: Our representatives are mainly teachers and educational consultants. We've previously had the head of one school as a representative.
Senator Comeau: Do you have any officers among your representatives? Who's funding your group?
Ms. Lise Charland, Director General, Alliance canadienne des responsables, des enseignantes et des enseignants en français langue maternelle: First, the Alliance is composed of individual members. Each educator, regardless of his or her position in our French-language schools, joins individually and must pay membership dues of $20 for two years. That's not a very large amount; more a mere contribution from each person.
We also have support from the Department of Canadian Heritage for programming. That does not involve large amounts either, if you compare with other associations, but that support has enabled us to survive. We also have a few projects that bring in profits for the administration.
In short, these amounts have enabled us to carve out a place, to grow and to look at the necessary elements in order to have better instruction and high-quality teaching. We now have a certain maturity in the area, which guides us in accomplishing more together. However, what we have is no longer enough.
Senator Comeau: Your head office is located in Ottawa?
Ms. Charland: Yes. It is located at the Centre Franco-ontarien, 435 Donald Street, in Ottawa.
Senator Comeau: Do you have the opportunity to meet your representatives from each region once a year?
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: In recent years, we have met them twice a year.
Senator Comeau: For how many years has your organization been in existence?
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: ACREF has been in existence for 13 years.
Senator Comeau: Have you identified any post-secondary educational institutions where your educators could receive education courses that would meet the needs of the minority communities?
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: I can give you a partial response to that question, having worked at the Faculté Saint-Jean for 16 years, and having left it only two years ago. When I taught there, the faculty offered four courses specifically for francophones, as part of its bachelor of education program: a course in educational psychology for francophones; a basic course entitled ``L'école francophone,'' a curriculum and methodology course, and I forget the fourth course. Today there are only two.
Senator Comeau: So you are in contact with all the institutions across Canada, in Sudbury as well as in Moncton?
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: Indeed. Moreover, at least one course is offered in Moncton.
Senator Comeau: I believe there is also a program at Université Sainte-Anne that would somewhat meet your requirements. However, I am not sure it touches on the question of education in the communities in particular.
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: In general, the existing courses aren't enough.
Senator Comeau: I would like to draw your attention to a question you raised in your presentation, early childhood education. It was announced last week that a $5-billion budget would be allocated over four years to respond to the need for high-quality early childhood education. You referred to accessibility, quality and a lot of other needs. Do you think this new $5-billion budget allocated over five years can meet those needs in some way? I am talking about a national child care system for anglophones and francophones.
Ms. Charland: I am not a financial expert, but I believe that to ask the question is somewhat to answer it.
Senator Comeau: I am one of those rare politicians who sometimes asks questions without having the answers. That's the case in this instance.
Ms. Charland: There are very few services specifically designed for francophones. Where there are, it is because the school boards and parents have established programs. Those programs are often so costly that parents cannot afford to use them.
We're concerned about these early childhood programs and services. As educators, we take in children who are four, five and six years old at school. From the moment they arrive, they have to learn to read, write and count. However, they are not able to do so.
Senator Comeau: I am entirely convinced of the benefits. However, the question I am asking you is whether these budget proposals, in terms of figures, will meet your needs.
Ms. Charland: I cannot answer that question. I sit on a research committee that is studying the situation. The problem we have observed concerns programs.
As we have not had any services in the past, finding a high-quality program that will meet needs will be a difficult task. We will have to innovate and invent that kind of program because we are very far behind the Anglophones.
Senator Comeau: Let's nevertheless look at this figure. The newspapers recently reported on this new five-year $5 billion program, saying that it meant a contribution of nearly $20 million a year for Nova Scotia. The figures probably depend on population. Will that $20 million, once allocated across the Province of Nova Scotia for an early childhood program, meet the needs you refer to?
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: We need to think about creating a program, and we need trained staff. We need qualified people to teach early literacy.
For example, at the Conseil scolaire Centre-Nord, for junior kindergarten, our director general, Mr. Henri Lemire, whom you may have met in another setting, has asked us to study the implementation of an early literacy program for three- and four-year olds in pre-school classes. Preschool-aged children attend our schools, and they do not cost us very much. We lend them premises, and the rest of the costs are paid by the parents. The costs increase considerably when you start training staff to teach literacy. We are talking about teachers, not educators at $14 or $17 an hour.
Senator Comeau: Making this program accessible to the general public may result in a number of costs. If we try to target low-income people living in rural areas, we have to consider putting a transportation system in place.
If this $20 million for Nova Scotia is not enough to meet needs, then what are we creating? Does this involve only a few spaces, or are we creating a real program?
Ms. Charland: I would say it is $20 million for Nova Scotia and several billion dollars for the rest of Canada. However, it is the start of an awaited solution to an urgent situation. This money cannot do any harm. It will definitely enable us to take a closer look at the situation.
For francophones living in a minority setting, we need a system similar to those in certain other countries. In France and Belgium, for example, young children enter the school system very early, in some cases at the ages of two or three, depending on needs. Young people have to have the opportunity to do the same here, in an affordable way, so that we can aspire to results comparable to those in the anglophone community.
Our situation is different from that of anglophones. We need certain services to prepare our students to learn French in other programs.
Senator Comeau: You could no doubt assist us in that effort. You have access to data that we don't have or that is not very accessible for us. We should try to arrive at actual dollar figures. You know more than we do about the number of students or young people who will be involved and the costs associated with teacher training.
Ms. Charland: It is possible to get those figures.
Senator Comeau: Those figures will help us get a picture of the situation. At first glance, I thought this five-year $5- billion budget was enormous. When I saw that there was $20 million for a specific province, the figure suddenly took on another dimension. One billion dollars is an amount that is hard to conceptualize. It is easier to conceive of $20 million because it is a smaller amount. It seems all the smaller if you look at the objectives we are considering.
Ms. Charland: We could provide you with those figures. The Commission nationale des parents has those kinds of figures. We need only get them for the francophone communities.
Senator Comeau: It is preferable to refer to specific figures.
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: That may be useful in allocating spending to the right place.
Senator Chaput: Are there any teachers from the Cegeps and francophone colleges of Canada among ACREF's members?
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: Yes. If I am not mistaken, we have members of the Collège Boréal.
Ms. Charland: Our members come from all francophone institutions. We also have university professors. However, we do not have Cegep teachers, because our members are minority communities. They are educators teaching in the primary and secondary schools, colleges and universities outside Quebec.
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: Perhaps that statement was not clear because we failed to mention that these are institutions outside Quebec.
Senator Chaput: That goes without saying because official languages in a minority setting are outside Quebec.
Ms. Charland: However, we are working very closely with Quebec teachers of French, but our situation is different and teaching and success strategies are as well.
Senator Chaput: We talked about the identity of francophone minority students this morning with the other witnesses. We discussed the relationship between culture and language. We mentioned the importance of knowing our history, Canadian history, but also the history of Canada's regional components.
Does teacher training for minority education take these two aspects into consideration?
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: Being familiar with the program at the Faculté Saint-Jean, I will base my answer on that experience. The basic course currently offered is entitled, ``L'école francophone.'' I took that course at the masters level because it did not exist at the very start. That course outlines all the bases as to how we have managed to acquire our schools. We must not take this awareness for granted. We worked hard to achieve results, and we have to know how to act accordingly.
Senator Chaput: Does it concern cultural and artistic aspects?
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: No, not directly. For individuals to develop fully, the training includes the culture and folklore aspects, and the teaching aspect.
Consider, for example, the École secondaire Maurice-Lavallée. In that school, they have set up courses that are offered as options in cooperation with the musical development centre. This initiative affords young people the opportunity to develop their talent with the help of professional musicians. The school also offers some courses in cooperation with the local theatre. These activities enable youths to experience and acquire their culture.
Ms. Charland: I spent three years working to improve student performance with teachers in the French-language schools in Ontario. I noticed that those teachers experienced great difficulty in acting as cultural facilitators. When you look at cultural activity in the Ottawa schools, you see there are a number of centres that are beehives of community activity.
However, as soon as you get out of the major centres where francophone cultural life is highly accessible, culture is based in large part on the schools. Community cultural activities derive in large part from the schools.
Teachers have to know how to conduct cultural activities. First you have to know what that is. If you are not from the minority, can you identify with it? I think every teacher, by his or her presence at school, plays a cultural facilitation role. However, that role is not taught, and it has to be cultivated.
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: That training is not expressly given.
Ms. Charland: No, that is what we are trying to develop. In a minority setting, unlike teaching in English-language schools, you have to provide this cultural training.
Senator Chaput: Is it being taught?
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: Yes. At the Faculté Saint-Jean, we organize orientation days for teachers who come from outside Alberta to increase their awareness of the francophone situation. Someone from New Brunswick does not necessarily know about the situation of the francophone community in Alberta.
Ms. Charland: A pilot project has started in Ontario in which teachers can experience a three-day cultural process. This initiative is something of a miracle, because it is the first time that these teachers have had the opportunity to consider their identity as francophones. After considering that, it is easier for them to go through the exercise with their students. However, you have to stop and take the time to do the exercise. To date, only a few groups of teachers have had that experience.
Senator Léger: You said that special training was necessary in order to teach in a minority setting?
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: Yes.
Senator Léger: You also said that the situation was different for a teacher from New Brunswick who goes to teach in Alberta. What is the difference between the situation in Nova Scotia and that in Alberta?
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: It is somewhat similar.
Senator Léger: That is what I thought. The weak point would be in New Brunswick, where the minority is a larger group within the majority. This fact entails major assets, but also certain dangers. Do minorities moved from one minority setting to another really require special training?
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: Teachers who come from Quebec are a separate group. However, those who come from elsewhere need to be sensitized to the community they are teaching. A teaching cultural facilitator in a French- language school must necessarily know the region where he or she is teaching.
Senator Léger: Is the culture so different in Nova Scotia from that in Alberta?
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: No. For minority francophones who go and teach in other minority regions, mere awareness is enough. However, for people from Quebec, you need more than awareness.
Ms. Charland: With regard to the pilot project that was mentioned, it could apply to all teachers, whether they are in Moncton, Nova Scotia, Alberta or British Colombia. The possibility of building an identity is a new concept. When you want to help a child construct his or her identity within a linguistic duality outside Quebec, those who work with those children have to ask themselves certain questions. Those questions have not been thought about because this is a new concept.
Senator Léger: With immigration and children coming from everywhere, this concept of constructing the identity will no doubt apply. I would like to know how the minority identity is different from the anglophone identity.
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: The concept of identity is the same, regardless of where you are. The notion of minority, however, is more fragile. Identity, in a place where you want to change the effects of assimilation and ensure that students learn actively in French, entails a specific feature. In regions where there are few resources, the educator's responsibility to afford students the opportunity to grow and develop in French is that much greater.
Ms. Charland: You have to identify with a group, with a community or with models. For a teacher living in a world that does not resemble the one he or she is teaching in, that is hard. That is why more investment is necessary. Our teachers have to be better trained and more convinced.
The community as a whole has to be supported. It is easier to identify with a community whose political and economic linguistic status is strong. Then the identity problem does not arise.
Senator Léger: I agree with the concept of degree of identity, but I do not believe that all anglophones in the country share that conviction. For example, there are fundamental differences between what is American and what is Canadian. From a cultural standpoint, the situation is very difficult for a minority, and I entirely agree that they need more resources.
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: However, in working with minority students, you notice that constructing a francophone minority identity is a very Canadian thing.
Senator Léger: I really like the expression ``constructing an identity.''
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: We are constructing that identity as a reflection of the cultural reality. It is easy to construct an identity as a reflection of French in Quebec, because French is all around you there. In a minority setting, however, teachers teach their identity.
When I taught at university, I asked my students what memories they had of what they had learned at school, of certain teachers and of their instruction. I noted my students' comments, and most often they told me it was mainly the teacher's way of being that they remembered. You teach what you are.
Senator Léger: I am somewhat from the old school. My identity derived from my father and my mother because they were my roots. Today I get the impression that the source of identity is not just parents.
Ms. Charland: Today you have parents of ethnic origins different from those there were at the time. Students come from families where one parent is Anglophone and the other is francophone or from another ethnic group. I come from francophone parents. So it is never been anything else for me. I am fluently bilingual, and I always grew up in a minority setting. The problem did not arise. But students today live their everyday lives in English and in French, and they study in French.
That in no way diminishes their significant emotional attachment to English, and the idea is not to diminish it. The stronger our students are in French and in English, the stronger they will be as Canadians. That's our objective. However, the francophone part is harder to develop. There are fewer of us, and our status is not high yet. That is why we have to invest. The stronger French is, more Canadians we will have representing linguistic duality.
Senator Léger: You said that your work was an investment. You also added that that investment was being made thanks to volunteers. If it is an investment by everyone, I hope it will be presented as an investment by the entire country.
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: It is an investment for the country.
The Chairman: Before giving Senator Murray the floor, I would like to cite a comment by a psychologist — psychiatrist or psychoanalyst — who was on the television program Thalassa, which was broadcast on TV5 last Friday. That person said that the ``ego'' does not develop outside a society, outside social contact.
There is a parallel between that comment and your presentation on the definition of identity. For people living in a minority setting, their society is their cultural environment. If they want to develop as francophones, they have to immerse themselves in a francophone environment from early childhood.
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: Yes, they must do it as soon as possible.
The Chairman: In and outside the home.
Senator Murray: In the same line of thinking, you will recall, a few weeks ago, the comments by witnesses who appeared before this committee, when they said that, despite all the efforts that have been made, and notwithstanding the progress that has been achieved, the percentage of rights holders who exercise their rights and attend French- language schools is still at a lamentable level.
Of course, the kindergarten and care program currently being discussed may make a difference.
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: Yes, definitely.
Senator Murray: In addition, the creation of community centres linked to the schools, as has been done in New Brunswick and elsewhere, will have a certain impact. However, a lot of work remains to be done to increase the awareness of parents and francophones themselves. I would like to hear your perspective on that point. You come from Alberta. And you, Ms. Charland, you are from what region?
Ms. Charland: I am from Ontario. I am quite familiar with the north, south, east, in short, all of Ontario.
Senator Murray: So you are both in a good position to give us a particular perspective on this question.
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: I remember the first waves of awareness that occurred in Alberta, between 1982 and 1987, when I taught at the École JH Picard. The first wave started around 1985, when an attempt was made to make the pubic aware of the importance and necessity of opening a French-language school so that the francophone population would stay healthy.
The second wave of awareness occurred because we in Alberta still have a high percentage of students who take French-language immersion programs. Sometimes parents are content to enrol them in these programs because the schools are near home. We find ourselves facing a major challenge with regard to these parents who sometimes send their children to French-language schools until grade 6, then decide to put them in immersion. So we have to convince those parents that it is a good idea to let their children finish their education at the French school. So how can we convince them this is a good idea if, for example, the programs aren't all available?
I took up my position last year, and I have discovered certain things, like the Green Certificate. A young student at our school aspired to become a farmer and to have a large herd of cattle. I had to intervene because, to my knowledge, that kind of training is not offered in our schools. I made a few efforts so that young man could earn credits while learning on the farm.
This programming is neglected back home. If a student wants to learn a trade like welding, our schools will have to be able to offer those kinds of programs in order to keep that student and others interested in learning that kind of trade. Our purpose to date has always been more academic, and we have to deprive a number of students in a number of areas.
Senator Murray: We heard the testimony of representatives from the cégeps, who talked about the need for a better network of post-secondary institutions across the country. Should we start with the kindergartens, day cares, primary and secondary schools and post-secondary institutions?
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: This entire range of occupational courses is not offered. I believe this is a necessary step in keeping the francophones we have at our schools.
Ms. Charland: Senator Murray, going back to your question, a number of parents do not know they have access to a French-language school. In some instances, they are unaware such a school exists because it is not too recent. Schools management only came into existence in the provinces quite recently, and we still do not have schools everywhere. That has to be announced to our students, who are at other schools.
Senator Murray: Parents undoubtedly are not so isolated. There is a community centre near you?
Ms. Charland: New parents do not necessarily come from the world of education. They are first-time parents and they do not know the resources available to them. So they start getting involved in the world of education and consider the school closest to home. They want good things for their children, but the closest school may not be a French- language school. So these rights-holding parents then have to look for a school when it has not been announced. There has been no campaign to announce the opening of these schools. So we are coming to maturity and we are still short a lot of students. Those students are elsewhere, and you have to go get them, recruit them. To do that, we have to conduct an advertising campaign that will attract those students.
Having held administrative positions in the superintendent's office and having established schools, I have learned that, when you build a French school in a new area, suddenly you discover the francophones of that area. We were unaware that those francophones existed, because there was no school.
We do not know our francophones. Francophones do not know that there are these kinds of schools, that they can request them and that others could be built. You need only build the school and set up a French-language day care service, and you will find children. These children are everywhere, but they are hidden in the English-speaking population.
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: Often advertisements are placed in the French-language newspaper, when they should be placed in English-language papers. We have just received a gift from Radio-Canada, which has offered to broadcast three TV ads and three radio ads free of charge. What a magnificent gesture! We placed them, but they were only broadcast on the French channel. It is not necessarily there that you can reach people other than those already enrolled in French- language schools.
Ms. Charland: There are also a lot of exogamous families, those consisting of one Anglophone parent and one francophone parent. Anglophone parents who want a French-language education for their children have to know that there are French-language schools. They also have to know that their children are entitled to attend those schools, since one of the parents is francophone. That parent should be able to support his or her child in that direction. Without advertising, these parents cannot be informed.
The Chairman: Would you be prepared to recommend, as has been done elsewhere, that an advertising program be developed to increase the awareness of people who are entitled to send their children to French schools?
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: That campaign could be done nationally. I would add that, in addition to a promotional program to reach students, there should be an advertising program to recruit staff.
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: It would be interesting to have a national site that can facilitate movements by teachers from province to province. When you hire staff from another province, you spend a lot on travel.
The Chairman: There are a host of possibilities. Someone need only take the initiative and bear the costs. For example, the Parents for French organization has advertising across Canada. That advertising shows young students proud to learn French from grade 1 to 12.
Senator Murray: There are also a number of rights holders who do not speak French. Special advertising could be aimed at those people to invite them to come forward without fear.
Ms. Charland: You're entirely right. That is exactly what we mean when we are talking about a welcoming school. It must be able to welcome its entire clientele, students and parents. We know the environment very well, and our students learn easily. Most parents who are given an opportunity are motivated and generous; whether it is one language or the other, provided those parents send us their children and support them at school.
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: At our school, parents who do not speak French have requested French courses. That is another reason why teachers at French-language schools must have training. Those teachers are then more able to understand, for example, that you should not be angry when a child enters your classroom and can hardly speak any French. That is part of the plan to welcome and francize the student.
The Chairman: I recently heard that the Government of Alberta is encouraging second-language learning and has suggested a list of languages proposed by Citizenship and Immigration Canada, including French. Won't this new initiative somewhat overturn your apple cart?
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: According to our director general, it appears that a number of schools will move toward French because it is positioned as the second language.
The Chairman: You talked about rights holders. It has already happened that a kindergarten or school has been introduced and francophones or rights holders suddenly leave the institution. That was recently the case at Jasper National Park, was it not?
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: Yes, a French-language school was opened and a number of children left.
The Chairman: Are you involved at any level, financial or administrative, in the negotiations involving the school, school board, principals, provincial government and federal government?
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: No.
The Chairman: Are you consulted?
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: Generally, no.
The Chairman: If you are not consulted, how do you convey your ideas, your suggestions and proposals? Do you have a role in making people aware of the academic needs of your clientele, who are the children themselves? Are you part of a consultation process that eventually leads to the granting of large sums of money by the federal government?
Ms. Charland: We are part of the National Table on Education, which is a national table of associations. It is an organization involving parents, universities, the federation of school boards and our alliance. At this table, we discuss the greater plan for education and funding in general.
However, if the question you are asking me is whether the government approaches us directly to see whether we can do something more to advance education so that our students perform better, the answer is no. We're not involved at that level, although we should be.
That briefly is why we are here today. We believe it is important to talk to educators in order to change strategies and make room for improvement. We know the specific strategies in a learning setting and we need funds to develop them. We do not have enough funds to bring together the educators from Nova and those from Moncton and those from British Colombia. However, we could do that. We have experienced people, like Ms. Moulun-Pasek, who can show us how to teach reading at the secondary level. We could undoubtedly help Moncton and Newfoundland. However, we don't have money to bring them together.
In the major improvement project at which federal funding is aimed, ACREF must be considered for an extensive minority education project.
The Chairman: We are going to take note of that important suggestion.
Ms. Charland: Thank you.
Senator Comeau: Have you approached the Department of Canadian Heritage?
Ms. Charland: We do it regularly. The message we have for you this evening is that the minority community has reached a level of maturity that will now enable it to go further. To go further, we need more money. We must be recognized more than we have in the past so that we can act. We are able to act in the area of education. And it is important that we act, if we want to improve the performance of our students and ensure that linguistic duality remains a source of pride for everyone.
Ms. Moulun-Pasek: Schools management was a major first step. Since then, we have tried a number of experiments, and we have thought a lot. We are very ready. What will make a difference now is the way we teach these young people.
The Chairman: This interesting discussion could continue on for a number of hours. Unfortunately, I have to bring it to a close. I want to thank Ms. Moulun-Pasek and Ms. Charland. You've made an inestimable contribution to our work.
It is now our pleasure to welcome Joseph-Yvon Thériault, Director of the Centre interdisciplinaire de recherche sur la citoyenneté et les minorities, and Anne Gilbert, Director of Research. Ms. Gilbert appeared before us with a group of teachers two weeks ago. Mr. Thériault and Ms. Gilbert are accompanied by Sophie LeTouzé, Researcher.
We welcome you to our committee. Mr. Thériault, I would ask you please to make your presentation.
Mr. Joseph-Yvon Thériault, Director, Centre interdisciplinaire de recherche sur la citoyenneté et les minorités: Thank you for inviting us. As I had a class until 2:30 p.m., I asked Ms. Gilbert to prepare the presentation. So I am going to let her present the brief document we prepared on all the issues.
We have also brought a series of brief texts that somewhat support this document. They concern research that we would like tabled before this committee. Without delay, I will hand over to Anne Gilbert, Director of Research on the Francophonie component at the Centre interdisciplinaire de recherche sur la citoyenneté et les minorités.
The Chairman: Ms. Gilbert will provide us with a brief description of your centre?
Mr. Thériault: She is going to present the content of the brief we have just submitted to you.
The Chairman: First, we would like you to briefly describe your centre or to provide us with some background.
Mr. Thériault: The Centre interdisciplinaire de recherche sur la citoyenneté et les minorités is a research centre concerned first of all with political issues relating to citizenship and major minority issues. The centre is located at the University of Ottawa and has approximately 20 professors, four or five of whom in particular form the core of the centre's activities.
We focus on three major components. The first concerns issues relating to diversity, democracy and pluralism considered in political thinking. The focus here is on thinking on citizenship and democracy. The second component concerns questions of government and justice. The third component focuses on issues concerning minorities, La Francophonie in particular, a focal point of the centre.
I am the director of these three components. Each of the components is supported by a professional who is a specialist in the field. Ms. Gilbert is the director of research for the Francophonie and minorities component. She is also a professor of geography. The question of francophone minorities is also one of my specialties.
The centre has been in existence since 2000. We've conducted a series of research projects with the francophone association community. Ms. Gilbert and I have extensive experience. I have been studying Francophonie issues for 20 years now. Ms. Gilbert has studied from the point of view of cultural geography and I from a socio-political standpoint. We'll be pleased to answer any other questions on our activities. However, it is as a research centre, not as a member of a francophone association, that we are here before you, and thus as researchers.
Ms. Anne Gilbert, Director of Research, Centre interdisciplinaire de recherche sur la citoyenneté et les minorités: First of all, I would like to point out that, strictly speaking, this document is not a brief that we are submitting to your committee. Rather, it consists of some notes on the challenges of education in the francophone minority community, 23 years after section 23.
As Mr. Thériault pointed out, these notes are based on recent research we have conducted at the centre in cooperation with certain association groups, in particular the Canadian Teachers Federation, with which I appeared two weeks ago, the Association des enseignantes et enseignants franco-ontariens and the Ontario Ministry of Education.
We have been conducting this research on education in the minority community for three years now with these three main partners.
One preliminary comment is necessary. Our analyses do not fall directly under the umbrella of official bilingualism. Rather, they fall within a dynamic based on the principle of autonomy of the French-Canadian community, which inspires these analyses. We believe that before bilingualism, the history of this community was marked by a desire to acquire autonomous institutions. Even though bilingualism and autonomy are not always mutually exclusive, they must nevertheless not be confused with each other. Indeed, while bilingualism is generally a factor in language equality across the country, the development of a French-speaking community with its own autonomous public space and cultural institutions reflects above all an asymmetrical dynamic that brings together those linguistic communities that demand policies reflecting this variegated reality.
Let's start with the three major levels of the educational system, then raise the issues that we think are the most pressing in francophone minority education: the pre-school level, or early childhood; the school level, or primary and secondary school; and the post-secondary level, covering colleges and universities, not only their teaching aspect, but also their research aspect. Based on these three levels, we can raise a number of issues specific to each, but at the same time linked to the dynamic of the creation of autonomous educational institutions in francophone minority communities.
First of all, let's talk about early childhood. This is the level where institutionalization is really occurring. The issue of early childhood has recently given rise to a great deal of interest in the country's francophone communities, you know as well as I. Early childhood care and education services prepare young French-speaking children to learn and enable them to integrate better at school. Those services are now seen as forming an integral part of the education process.
According to our research, however, these services are very poorly developed. French-speaking communities are not the only communities that complain of delays in this regard — and we are aware of that. The effects of these delays on those communities are all the greater since the fact that their minority status is growing worse reduces the ability of their children to master the French language and the highlights of their culture.
An examination of the existing services in situations other than ours, including some of the experiences of European minority communities, suggests that they should not accept this state of affairs. In many OECD countries, access to early childhood care and education services is a statutory right from age three. A universal approach is taken in the majority of European countries. For minorities, their political standing seems to be an unavoidable factor in the development of early childhood services. The situation of Catalonia and Corsica, for example, is, to a certain degree, similar to that or Quebec. The administrative autonomy they enjoy has enabled them to make the minority language the language of instruction, even at the pre-school level.
But these minorities are not the only ones that have early childhood services in the minority language. In Finland, for example, whose system resembles ours, the Swedish minority enjoys autonomy in the area of education. That autonomy provides access to a day care system that, like the education system, operates on language lines, even though another authority is responsible for it. In a system similar to ours, where there is a minority education system, they have asserted that that system could also apply at the pre-school level. Similarly, the Sami people in Sweden have a parallel education system that offers separate early childhood services. There are a number of experiments we can draw on.
At the present time, initiatives relating to early childhood have been taken under the aegis of or in close cooperation with the schools. It is these initiatives that have lasted longest in the francophone minority community. From these initiatives, a consensus has emerged within the communities concerning the need to integrate services at school in order to ensure that they are accessible to as many people as possible. That is the principle of the schools. It must also be ensured that they are controlled by francophnes — French schools being themselves managed by francophones. These services must be designed to reflect francophone realities, while maximizing the possibilities of continuity among the services offered for early childhood and those offered at other levels of education.
We think this idea of continuity is important. As part of our research, we've organized forums involving stakeholders from a number of types of organizations. Everyone in those forums agreed on the need to give priority to the search for permanent government funding for these services. Research has also shown the importance of developing core programming focused on the objectives to be attained in order to integrate young children into French-language schools. It has become apparent that the lack of qualified teaching staff must also be a focal point of policies on the development of early childhood services.
Specific early childhood needs in minority communities raise certain issues, in particular linguistic and cultural integration and equal opportunities. We are making a particular demand. Needs are more pressing and different in a minority context, and francophone minorities cannot accept services that are merely equivalent to those enjoyed by the minority. This is a very important factor in policies that should be introduced. Compared to other issues, we cannot seek or be content with equivalence.
Another essential difference is that the early childhood sector is not clearly defined as belonging to education under section 23. For these reasons, it is not certain that the courts offer the most appropriate means of providing francophone minority communities with a network of French-language structures to provide care and education services for their young children. We have identified some approaches for political action based on the research we've been conducting in this field for a number of years.
In the conclusion to our study, we've identified the need for a national policy on early childhood services in minority communities that will set out the goals to be achieved and ways to achieve them. We have also suggested extending the memorandum of agreement on minority language education to include pre-school services in the continuum of learning in minority communities. We still assert the need to enable francophones to obtain a fair share of existing programs, which is not necessarily the case at this time.
We also talk about consolidating the existing financial resources of projects in a fund for the development of early childhood services in minority communities. Projects are funded under a host of programs whose scope is often lost because they aren't integrated. So we are not taking advantage of the capacity of those programs.
We should also emphasize the need for provincial governments to recognize that francophone communities must integrate pre-school programming into the education system. If there is one action that can be taken, that is it.
At your committee's invitation, we have taken a look at the strictly school level, recognized in the elementary and secondary schools. Certain issues have emerged from our thinking on the subject. We've entitled this section, ``Imagining a School.''
Earlier we referred to the issue of early childhood of the ``need of institutions.'' Here we are talking about imagining a school. I think this theme is similar to those of the presentations of previous witnesses. Instruction in French, French schools and school management are now accomplished facts. Certain court actions will still be necessary to ensure compliance with what the law will permit in future and to determine what the limits are.
For the vast majority of francophones outside Quebec, however, the question is no longer ``Are we entitled to schools?'' but rather ``What kind of French school do we want?''
Schools are often portrayed as the keystone in the growth of French-language and Acadian communities in Canada. Our research has shown that the establishment of French-language school boards has made it possible to put certain structures in place. However, we may not yet have really developed the structure most suited to our specific needs — at least from the management standpoint.
We need to pay closer attention to the organization of the minority education system, its policies and approaches, which are copied directly from the English-language system. In the sense of urgency we felt, we copied those approaches without really considering whether they meet the specific needs of the francophone minority. There are no appropriate tools to complete such a review of our practices, especially in terms of what teaching practices would be appropriate in French-language schools. Moreover, the teachers we contacted as part of another research project emphasized the urgent need to consider this educational aspect.
A second research project we have conducted gives a clearer idea of the complex challenges posed by education in a minority community and highlights in particular the discomfort felt by teachers with respect to the transmission of a French identity. I say ``discomfort'' because, while the research findings clearly indicate their commitment and motivation toward developing the French fact, they noted that they have very few tools to perform this task. It is precisely to this type of deficiency that our predecessors have drawn attention. Teachers do not know exactly how to do it, or on what kind of material they can rely. They don't always believe they have the necessary experience to transmit to children the identity they need. Here again, at the elementary and secondary levels, although we have the impression that a lot of work has been done, the institutional forums nevertheless remain to be developed. The educational contents, programming and pedagogical approach have still to a large extent to be defined.
One question of particular interest to us at CIRCEM concerns the kind of educational project we want to put in place in the francophone minority communities.
Are the schools that francophone communities in a minority situation in Canada have obtained since the 1960s actually what those communities had really wanted? As Rodrigue Landry and Réal Allard have pointed out, the schools recognized in the Charter are not the schools of a minority but rather schools based on ``equality'' in education and that do not fit within the majority-minority model. This is why they assert that, compared with the recognition of minorities elsewhere in the western world, Canada's francophones enjoy an advantageous position in legal terms. If this is the essential backdrop to the school question for francophones in minority communities, it is not certain that the perceptions and attitudes will develop in this way, that is in the direction of advocating a school design, with top-down logic, to bring young francophones through an educational project to share a common ``national'' culture, a culture that is viewed as equal to that of anglophones. The school of linguistic equality will have become the school of the minority in a number of communities.
While francophones have in the past demanded a national school that forms part of our linguistic duality, the school that actually exists today seems to be widely fragmented, structured primarily on community, local and provincial identities. By stressing what makes them different, francophone communities may well have forgotten what used to unite them. If we wish to ensure the maintenance and reproduction of a Canada-wide French-language culture, is it not time to think about a Canada-wide curriculum? Is it not time to consider a common project that would make it possible to give each of those schools the scope we expect of them?
In order to carry out this exercise in reflection, francophone communities outside Quebec will need to effect a difficult rapprochement with French-speaking Quebec, from which they have maintained their distance over the last 40 years. That is our view.
Allow me to suggest some possibilities for political action in this matter. The Official Languages in Education Program and the agreements and related conditions are mechanisms of the highest importance for improving the French-language education system in minority communities. The Action Plan for Official Languages is a prime mechanism for this purpose. The Action Plan for Official Languages provides additional resources that may help us fulfil our mission to obtain a school in our own image, not only in terms of organization and administration, but also in terms of instruction. Lastly, the provincial governments will have to become involved in the collective effort to create a framework for education that meets the needs and reflects the aspirations of Canada's francophone communities.
As ACREF emphasized earlier, we have the maturity to do it, and we suggest that it is urgently necessary to use the mechanisms in place that I have just mentioned to develop a francophone educational project that can meet francophone development needs, including program content, the type of instruction that will prevail, classroom resources and teacher training.
We also believe that a major possibility for political action is to ensure that this francophone education project develops from the active involvement of all partners in the francophone community engaged in education. Managers have often not attached enough importance to this aspect of their mission. Teachers, parents and students can be included. Considering another way to classify stakeholders, we would add education faculties, school boards and parents associations so that this thinking can be done with the most synergy possible.
Another option for political action is, of course, to provide adequate funding for this initiative and the developments to which it will necessarily lead so that we can ultimately have the French school we aspire to.
The third component is the post-secondary level. Here we emphasize that this is a place of advanced knowledge and research in French that remains to be created. ``francophone post-secondary institutions: conspicuous by their absence'' is the theme of the first section of our text. In Ontario and New Brunswick, community colleges have usually been established following the consolidation that took place in the elementary and secondary schools. The fact remains that professional training in French outside Quebec is a challenge. This challenge is not exclusively of an educational nature, but is also closely linked to the work place, which is now more than ever massively Anglophone. Thinking about education must therefore be as broad as possible and include the work place.
Let's go back to francophone post-secondary institutions. The situation is even more alarming at the university level. Historically, the move from the old Catholic French-language institutions to government-run lay institutions has not always benefited francophones. Often it has meant that the former system of French-language colleges was integrated with anglophone institutions. With the marked exception of the University of Moncton and Université Sainte-Anne, there are no autonomous French-language institutions in French-speaking communities outside Quebec.
The University of Ottawa, the institution outside Quebec with the largest number of francophone students and the most programs in French, has witnessed the proportion of its French-speaking students decline by one percent per year over the last 30 years. In the past 30 years, the percentage of francophone students has declined from 65 percent to 34 or 35 percent today. This has impacted on the university's ability to maintain a French-language intellectual environment because the more the number of anglophone students increases, the more the university looks for anglophones teachers to interact with them. To maintain the francophone intellectual environment and to adapt its programs and structure to the needs of the Franco-Ontarian community, the French-Canadian community could be expanded in view of the weight the University of Ottawa carries in that community.
The weakness of French-language university institutions is largely responsible for the lack of francophone involvement outside Quebec in the recent efforts of government to promote research and development in Canada. University research outside Quebec occurs almost exclusively in English. The University of Moncton is still an undergraduate university. The training programs for scientific researchers in Ottawa are not bilingual. Despite the fact that they are often offered in French at the undergraduate level, there is very little French presence in training for researchers at the masters and doctoral levels. This is why the research community, which is largely funded by the federal government, has failed to develop genuinely francophone expertise outside the universities of Quebec.
In the humanities, the situation is not as dramatic, but it was not until 2004 that the Humanities Research Council proposed a modest program linked to the official languages, long after most of the sectoral groups in Canadian society had obtained it.
Neither the Canada Research Chairs Program nor the program of the Canada Foundation for Innovation nor even the Millennium Scholarships Foundation has defined the French-language minority communities as a target population.
Once again, a few suggestions for political action emerged from these findings. Like early childhood education services, post-secondary education is not mentioned under section 23. There is no doubt that this is an integral part of the education continuum that must make it possible for French-speaking Canada to develop and grow.
In this context, it will be necessary to find original approaches to provide the expected consolidation of French- language colleges and universities across the country, and the development of research in those institutions. In this regard, we cannot stress enough the need to instigate thinking in the community that brings together all the living strengths of French-speaking Canada about the current state of post-secondary education, scientific research in the different parts of the country and its ability to help in the development of the communities.
At the same time, efforts must be made by government to reflect on the need for a national policy on higher education and scientific research in French outside Quebec that sets out the objectives to be attained and ways to attain them. The government will also have to question the relevance of reviewing methods of funding college and university education in French in this country, including that provided at bilingual institutions, where much observation shows that funding granted to programs and services in French does not always go where it is expected. The government must also ensure that subsidized research organizations comply with the objectives of the Official Languages Act.
We offer these suggestions here, and we can develop them during the question period.
To ensure that the francophone minority can grow, special measures are required: early childhood services, primary and secondary schools that do not have to boast of their merits in order to retain staff and post-secondary institutions that fulfil their mandate. By demanding such services that meet their specific needs, the francophone and Acadian communities in Canada will endeavour to gain political acceptance as one of the essential components of Canadian society.
Francophone minority communities are today highly enthusiastic about the generous interpretation the courts have given to their language rights. All of that has been part of a widespread use of the courts in our societies. What is often not realized following these legal breakthroughs is the fact that the gains in question were made as a part of a process of persuasion where the majority was convinced of the reasonableness of the minority's viewpoint. On the other hand, by bringing the courts into play, we also see a hardening of positions where the other side will move only if the court forces it do to so. This was clearly the case with the Hôpital Montfort. Court decisions thus dictate the lower and upper limits of what governments are prepared to provide, regardless of the social needs or political strength of the group.
This blindness with respect to the asymmetry of situations is fortunate for the demands of the minority when the courts' interpretations are generous, but it is disastrous when they apply the lower limit, as happened, we should recall, in the field of education in the 1980s.
This is why the schools question, like the language question as a whole, must once again become an issue for political compromise in Canada. In conclusion, we want to emphasize that the existing problems will not be solved in the next few years merely by broadening section 23.
Mr. Thériault: I would like to clarify a few points, with your permission. Education in the minority communities is not merely a question of school access, but also one of institutionalization. The francophone communities are one of the two factors in Canada's national duality. A school is the pre-eminent place for that factor, where culture and society take shape through education in general.
The schools question cannot be addressed solely on the basis of school access. The school as an institution is central to society. That's the way we think about autonomy.
As for schools as such, although education rights have been acquired, the francophone minority school project remains an issue. In other words, now that we have a school, what school do we want? It is a community school, a francophone school or a school characterized by diversity?
Today the francophone communities must take a serious look at a number of issues that are not of a strictly legal nature. Remember there are limits to legal action on linguistic matters. Legal action has the effect of removing the language issue from public debate and putting it in the hands of judges. The language question then becomes, not a political recognition of the minority by the majority, but an imposition. There are some who claim that the issues should be resolved by returning the language question to Canadian public debate rather than resorting to the courts.
The two issues which will close our presentation may seem to be new. However, it will not be as easy to address them as the schools question by simply demanding the same institutions as Anglophones have. With regard to early childhood, different institutions must be created based on francization and the minority community. The same is true at the university level. This is an important condition so that French-speaking Canada can take part in the new knowledge economy and all social issues.
Discussion will continue on the creation of a public French-language university space outside Quebec. This can be elaborated on in the same way as for institutions belonging to the majority.
So those are the issues we have to address. We will now be pleased to answer your questions.
Senator Chaput: Your presentation was very interesting and provides serious food for thought. I have never thought of the French schools we have acquired through considerable effort as ``minority schools.'' Your remarks seem to emphasize this minority context once again.
When I was a little girl, at the time my grandfather Joseph Charrière was fighting the tough fight, we were French- Canadians. Then, I don't know at what point in my life, but, suddenly, we stopped being French-Canadians and became Franco-Manitobans.
Now we are saying we should go back to that concept. In that sense, we should define a Canadian curriculum and create schools for French-speaking Canadians and characterized by diversity. I think that is a very interesting concept. Was this thinking done with national education stakeholders?
Mr. Thériault: At the outset, for entirely understandable reasons, Acadian and French-language schools outside Quebec, after the 1960s, put considerable emphasis on developing a so-called ``community'' identity linked to their reality. Perhaps they went too far in particularizing themselves to the point where they made it so that every province had its own literature and its own theatre. However, we ask ourselves the question whether each of those communities had the necessary resources to conceive of a school in social, not minority terms. Was this question reduced to a narrower concept? The concept has an impact on young peoples' adherence to this school. It is exciting for young people to hear that their culture is limited to their province or village?
The idea is to rethink the school on the basis of a Francophonie that today is much more diverse, plural and pan- Canadian.
Senator Chaput: Have national stakeholders lent themselves to this thinking?
Mr. Thériault: I raised this question in a debate conducted before the Association canadienne d'éducation de langue française. In general, however, the debate is not very active.
Ms. Gilbert: I think the approach is being made indirectly. All French-language school circles emphasize the need for teacher training programs to increase minority awareness. We need classroom material. There's talk of setting up a Canadian gateway that would include a number of resources for educators across the country.
So I do not think the effort is being made out of an ideological choice, but rather out of necessity. We need resources, and those resources aren't available everywhere. In creating resources for all French-language school boards in Canada, we have to agree on common content in order to address common concerns and decide on what we want to offer our young people and our teachers. By necessity, we have to raise the question as to what the minority school will be. Despite some theoretical apprehension, I believe that, in practice, it is possible to achieve that end.
Senator Chaput: What will the next stages be? As a result of this thinking, do you intend to discuss the matter with other stakeholders?
Mr. Thériault: Three years ago, we began a research project on the school and the community in cooperation with the Canadian Teachers Federation. First of all, we looked at the problem of integrating the community into the school, raising, in particular, the early childhood component. The second component concerned the attitudes of francophone teachers toward the community and the minority. In the third component, we proposed to conduct an analysis of the cross-Canada school curriculum. We also proposed to conduct a comparative analysis in the fields of culture, history and thus social affairs, to examine how these areas are reflected in the curricula. This exercise will be carried out without any prejudice to the way teachers interpret the content of those curricula. However, there must be a connection between those curricula and the educational material provided to the schools.
So this study will be conducted in the context of the debate on the growing awareness that the Canadian francophone community is a reality and that that francophone community now has its own schools.
Does the current discussion lend itself to determining what the cultural content of those schools will be? We can examine how the various provinces have looked at the question. Are they talking about a Canadian community or a regional community? This is a very active debate in the schools of Nova Scotia. When they say, ``We have our school,'' who is the ``we'' who has that school?
Senator Chaput: A few years ago in Manitoba, even before I was appointed to the Senate, when we talked about the Franco-Manitoban community and began increasingly to take in French-language immigrants in St-Boniface, those immigrants told us they did not feel included in the term ``Franco-Manitoban community'' and would have preferred the term ``francophone community of Manitoba.''
This analogy came to mind when you talked about a school and cultural diversity.
Senator Comeau: Your presentation was excellent. It gave us a structured approach to all levels of education.
My first question concerns early childhood. On page 3 of your document, you referred to the need to obtain a fair share of existing programs. I assume you are referring to early childhood day care programs and the idea that a fair share of available funding, as provided for in the last budget, will be distributed to each province.
I put the following question to another group earlier today. Have you conducted an analysis or done a calculation to see whether the budget as provided would be able to meet Canada-wide needs? Will there be enough money left in that budget for the regions and for our minority communities?
Ms. Gilbert: We have not conducted a financial analysis of what it will cost to put in place a relatively comprehensive structure for early childhood services at the national level. However, I believe that some organizations have conducted that analysis. They may be able to provide you with the information. In view of the percentage that our community represents of total population, we will then be able to compare those data and answer your question.
Senator Comeau: I would like to go back to the discussion you had with Senator Chaput on the Quebec question. On page 5 of your document, the last sentence in the third paragraph reads as follows:
In order to carry out this exercise in reflection, francophone communities outside Quebec will need to effect a difficult rapprochement with French-speaking Quebec, from which they have maintained their distance over the last 40 years.
I have thought about that sentence and have come up with the following question. Did we detach ourselves or was it Quebecers who, at some point, detached themselves from or rejected the Canadian francophone community?
Mr. Thériault: We will not assign any blame today. Of course, we can consider the question, as Senator Chaput did in saying, ``At what point did I stop being French-Canadian and become Franco-Manitoban?''
It can be said that, at the time of the Estates General in 1967, a break occurred between Quebec and francophones outside Quebec. It was then that we understood that, by their desire for autonomy, Quebecers situated francophone autonomy in Quebec. Francophones outside Quebec felt a bit betrayed at the time.
That comment is only a partial answer to your question. If we look at how cultural identities have evolved since the 1960s, francophones outside Quebec have followed a similar path. They have become more provincial with the rise of the state. For example, when we wanted a hospital, we had to go through the provinces. We could not go through the clergy anymore. In doing that, the elites outside Quebec had to go through Toronto, Fredericton and Winnipeg, whereas they did not previously do that.
With regard to identity, however, there has clearly been an attempt among francophones outside Quebec, as there has among Quebecers, to say, ``Quebec culture is not my culture; it is another culture.'' Sometimes you see that in the debates broadcast by the CBC and the NFB. They somehow feel alienated from that culture, whereas things were completely different at the time of French Canada.
I often cite this brief story as an example. I am originally from New Brunswick. I was in Caraquet when Félix Leclerc died. My mother told me at the time: ``One of our own has died.'' She had never imagined that Félix Leclerc had been part of any culture other than her own. We identified with the theatre of Michel Tremblay, which ultimately is not our theatre. If we claim to belong to a Quebec-Canadian francophone community, the theatre of Michel Tremblay is also our theatre. Otherwise, the only theatre left to us is that of our own village.
Senator Comeau: Your sentence is a bit provocative. At the bottom of page 6 of your document, you mention scientific research and a few organizations including the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation and the Canada Research Chairs. But those are not our foundations. They contribute very little or nothing to the development of the francophone community. I had not realized that fact. You have informed us here about something that was right in front of our noses. This sentence enlightens us.
Ms. Gilbert: I can explain why we are particularly hurt by these kinds of programs. Most Canadian French- language universities are small universities, where the units that teach or conduct research in French are small units, whether you're referring to the Collège universitaire Saint-Boniface or the Faculté Saint-Jean. The workload of teachers at those small universities is often greater than at the major universities. Teachers at the Faculté Saint-Jean teach seven courses a year, compared to four or five at the University of Ottawa. However, researchers in the major universities in southern Ontario teach only two courses a year.
So teachers have a heavier course load at the small universities, and the administrative burden is considerable.
The Faculté Saint-Jean has been in existence for 25 years and the University of Moncton for 30 years. These are young institutions. At those institutions, professors are of course teachers above all, but very often administrators as well. The administrative role at these new institutions is more developed than at the older Canadian universities.
So what room is left for research? Ridiculously little room, unfortunately. Our heavy teaching load does not enable us to compete well with the large universities. The French-language universities share these same challenges with the small Canadian universities in general.
This issue should be watched closely. Otherwise, the Canadian minority francophone community will not be the target of chairs and foundations in the allocation of funding and will then find itself very much penalized.
Senator Comeau: Have you outlined that result to the chairs of those foundations to solicit their reaction?
Ms. Gilbert: We have tried from time to time, through our rectors.
Mr. Thériault: Indeed.
Senator Comeau: But have you actually done it?
Ms. Gilbert: No, we have not done it.
Senator Comeau: You should do it. As a parliamentarian, I would like to see the reaction of those foundations. After all, they were created by the government to provide some autonomy and a certain political independence. But a number of you today question the value of those foundations.
Mr. Thériault: That is why we are making these remarks. The federal government appears to have intervened significantly in research and development. It is not a question of expertise.
Consider the Canada chairs, for example. Approximately 3,000 Canada chairs were developed in research, including nearly 1,000 in the humanities and social sciences. Chairs were developed for research on Aboriginal people, women and the environment. In Quebec, all the universities have chairs for research on Quebec society. But there is no chair in Canada on the francophone community outside Quebec. It is not that there is a lack of expertise in the field. The foundations simply have not made this a central concern, and the chairs program consequently defines it that way.
The same has been said of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. For at least 15 years, that council has developed specialized programs in cooperation in a number of federal government departments. The department pays a portion of the costs of those programs, and the Research Council funds the rest, then directs those programs toward the universities.
The first program was established in December 2004. I think it was a small $200,000 program — I forget the amount — that arrived 20 years later. That means that there's no ``francophone'' side to certain social sciences and humanities research bodies in Canada.
Senator Comeau: I have noted your comments, and they could form the subject of an excellent recommendation by our committee.
In closing, you mentioned that small Canadian universities very often do not have access to the same industries as the large English-language universities. I wonder why partnerships have not been formed with local industries.
In my region of Nova Scotia, very few of our local industries distribute funding — I am talking about Acadian industries. Unlike the English-language universities, which have been in existence in Nova Scotia for 225 years, the small universities don not have access to the same large industries. Did you consider that fact in your study?
Mr. Thériault: We spoke to the universities on a number of occasions. However, our work did not focus on the university issue, but rather on research in the francophone communities outside Quebec. The issue therefore deserves to be addressed in the public arena.
Senator Comeau: That would be a good subject for a research chair.
Mr. Thériault: Your remarks demonstrate moreover that the small institutions often have to attach themselves to a small community. The idea of a network that would make it possible to gather the critical mass necessary to reach agreements with businesses in order to obtain specific training is all the more important.
We have moreover raised that prospect for the area of early childhood and the university. The idea of creating institutions based on those of the majority may not be the best alternative. We are dealing with specific problems. It is true that we cannot create a university in Saskatchewan with all the features of a large university, masters and doctoral degrees. But that does not mean there cannot be a university space, a research space, a francophone training space outside Quebec. It has to be possible to achieve this objective without increasing the number of institutions.
The Chairman: Our time is almost up. Consequently, I would ask you to be brief with your questions and answers.
Senator Léger: As I listen to you, more and more questions come to mind, each more important than the last.
First of all, let's talk about your research role. You said there were approximately 3,000 university chairs in Canada. That figure represents a lot of money. Do those chairs reflect actual research needs, or do they aspire to an ideal? You'll admit that 3,000 chairs is an astronomical number.
Mr. Thériault: Most of them are devoted to the natural and pure sciences. That figure reflects all research fields. Some chairs are very specialized.
Let's take, for example, the social sciences and humanities and their distinct role. At the outset, the chairs policy did not include the humanities and social sciences. Suddenly, the research councils asserted that the major issues of Canadian society did not lie solely in the fields of medicine, physics and biology, but also in the humanities and social sciences. So the humanities and social sciences were added to the policy. We perfectly understand the value of the humanities and social sciences for policy orientation when dealing with issues concerning the environment, ethics and the decline and aging of the population.
The only shortcoming I see in this figure of 3,000 chairs is that they could have found one or two for the francophone community. I find this shortcoming all the more surprising when a major policy is being rolled out to put forward new research chairs designed to address current issues.
Senator Léger: Are those research chairs designed to create other chairs?
Mr. Thériault: No, their purpose is to gain a better understanding of society and the environment. The chairs program was originally intended as a way to combat the brain drain and bring Canadian researchers who were working in foreign universities back to Canada. Even in its basic state, research in the humanities and social sciences has always had an impact on policy.
Senator Léger: I am not opposed to research as such. However, it can prove dangerous when it is detached from reality. And you see that more and more.
I would like to raise another point. If I correctly understood, from a linguistic standpoint, we should move on to another step than imposed court decisions. I do not entirely follow you, and please correct me. So we should go beyond imposed court judgments? Language is a part of culture. However, do you not go to court precisely when the issue goes beyond the cultural context? We have not yet managed to make this principle part of our habits.
Mr. Thériault: It's a vicious circle. Sometimes we have to go to court when we think our rights are not being respected. However, an additional school in Summerside or elsewhere may result from a court judgment, where public debate has stopped after leading the majority to accept the idea of French-language schools in that region as valid. The communities need only wait until a judgment is imposed on them by law. They will stop discussing whether a francophone university hospital is needed in Ontario, for example. We'll wait until the law tells us what to do.
In our view, too much court action on language issues means that we no longer have to convince the other party that national duality is a common value. We simply tell that party that it is a right that will be granted to us because the court requires it. What I deplore, in a way, is that this judicial culture has spread and, instead of trying to convince politicians to give us a French-language hospital, for example, we will say, ``We are going to court.''
Senator Léger: These measures are necessary when the need for a particular hospital or school is not acknowledged.
Mr. Thériault: And sometimes it is the politicians' fault. When section 23 was introduced, Senator Jean-Robert Gauthier declared that francophones would be entitled to their institutions. When he was asked what an institution was, he answered that the dictionary contained 23 definitions of the word ``institution'' and that the court would have to decide. That was a kind of political abdication. Politicians refuse to say, ``Here is what we are giving you.'' Instead they say, ``The court will decide.''
Senator Léger: I agree that the government does not always do what it should do.
You said that a new pan-Canadian school should be created that reflects the Canadian francophone community. You of course include Quebec, don't you?
Mr. Thériault: Yes.
Senator Léger: We're not just talking about the minorities now.
Mr. Thériault: We're saying that, in this kind of project, a new relationship must develop between the minorities and Quebec. We're not saying that the Franco-Manitoban or New Brunswick Acadian school will necessarily be the same as the Quebec school. However, we include that dynamic, without disregarding the differences.
Senator Léger: I have a few questions left, but I will give the floor to my colleague.
Mr. Thériault: We'll invite you to come to CIRCEM so that you can ask us your questions.
[English]
Senator Buchanan: I find this whole discussion on post-secondary education and research chairs most interesting. I was not aware of this, and I am the only one around this table who was a participant, as a premier, when section 23 was enacted in the 1980s. From your comments, I understand that there are no research chairs outside the province of Quebec; is that correct?
Mr. Thériault: There are research chairs outside the Province of Quebec, and some research chairs are owned by francophones, but there is no research chair on the research topic on francophone issues outside Quebec. There are many research chairs on Aboriginal issues, Quebec issues, and Portuguese issues, et cetera, in Canada but none about francophone matters outside Quebec.
Senator Buchanan: There are medical chairs, mining chairs, manufacturing chairs, et cetera.
Mr. Thériault: Some francophones outside Quebec have chairs.
Senator Buchanan: As I recall, your presentation stated that post-secondary education is not mentioned in section 23.
Mr. Thériault: That is right.
Senator Buchanan: On the previous page, it states that university research outside Quebec occurs almost exclusively in English in institutions such as the University of Moncton, which is still an undergraduate school as is the University of Saint-Anne.
You are saying that we should go further in those two universities and perhaps in others as well, so that they are not undergraduate universities only. Is that correct?
Mr. Thériault: Yes, we are saying that we have to create a public space for research information at the university level outside Quebec. We do not know exactly what form that would take.
Senator Buchanan: How do you do that if section 23 is silent? Perhaps it could be done through the courts, but I suppose you could not put the matter through a legal process.
Mr. Thériault: We need to convince the government to fund the creation of networks of universities outside Quebec.
Senator Buchanan: That would not be accomplished in the courts.
Mr. Thériault: No, the courts would not provide the best way to do that.
Senator Buchanan: I agree with your idea of obtaining funding from the federal government.
[Translation]
Ms. Gilbert: I would like to add something. The network of the Université du Québec affords us a promising model that we could draw on. The network comprises a set of constituent parts, which, before being grouped together, had very little scope. They consolidated the former classical colleges and institutions that offered only a few programs related to existing universities into a network.
I think we could derive invaluable information from the model of the Université du Québec. We are only at the initial stage in our thinking. However, we must not abandon the issue because — let's be realistic — some institutions, like the University of Ottawa, are already escaping us.
Senator Chaput: In light of what we have heard today, I believe there should be a chair to study this concept of the Canadian French-language school and cultural diversity. We should have a debate and see whether this is an ideal or something that can become a reality.
Earlier, when we were talking about the cross-Canada francophone community, you mentioned the theatre of Michel Tremblay. But the theatre of Michel Tremblay is universal. He comes from my home and he touches me; he goes to New Brunswick and touches them. The work of Gabrielle Roy is universal; the Sagouine is a universal character. Perhaps we should see why those characters and those writings touch us to such a degree, right across Canada. Perhaps we'd find some kind of answer.
Mr. Thériault: I agree with those two comments.
The Chairman: Thank you. I also had a few questions. Unfortunately, the time available to us is up, and we have come to the end of this discussion. Ms. LeTouzé said she had certain documents to give to us. If committee members agree, the documents will be remitted to the Clerk and kept in the committee's archives. You may then consult them at your leisure.
Senator Comeau: I put the motion.
The Chairman: Is it your pleasure, honourable senators, to adopt the motion put by Senator Comeau?
Hon. senators: Agreed.
The Chairman: The motion is carried.
It remains for me to thank our witnesses for appearing here this afternoon. You've been an enormous help to us in our thinking.
We are now pleased to welcome Mr. Jean-Guy Rioux, Vice-President of the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada. Mr. Rioux is a native of Shippagan, New Brunswick. He has worked in education in and outside Canada and has had several stays in Africa. He has been involved at the University of Moncton and an acting administrator of the Town of Shippagan. Mr. Rioux is a member of the Association canadienne d'éducation de langue française and of the Fondation franco-acadienne pour la jeunesse. He has been the President of the Société des Acadiens et Acadiennes du Nouveau-Brunswick (SAANB) since 1999 and has been Vice- President of the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada since June 2002.
With Mr. Rioux is Marielle Beaulieu, Director General of the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada. Ms. Beaulieu has devoted most of her professional life to helping Canadian francophone organizations serve the communities they represent as well as possible. She holds a masters degree in science, project management, from the Université du Québec à Hull and a bachelor of arts degree in communications and public administration. She was selected to be the Director General of the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada by the organization's board in September 2003.
Ms. Beaulieu has done a lot of things in her life. Among her commitments, she was a member of the board of directors and President of the Association canadienne-française de l'Ontario in the Ottawa-Carleton region in 1989 and 1990; member of the board of directors of the Caisse populaire Orléans from 1993 to 1995; member of the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board for the southwest region; and member of the Réseau socio-action des femmes francophones de l'est de l'Ontario. Ms. Beaulieu is a person who embodies day-to-day community life.
Without further ado, Mr. Rioux, I invite you to present your brief.
Mr. Jean-Guy Rioux, Vice-President, Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada: I want to pass on the regrets of Mr. Arès, President of the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada for his absence. He was retained in Montreal for a meeting of the Fondation Dialogue. However, Mr. Arès asked me to appear before you today, and I will have the honour of making these brief remarks on behalf of the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada.
Our presentation will concern four points. First, we will discuss section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the problems involved in implementing that section, even today, 23 years after it was introduced. Second, we will talk about accountability for the bilateral agreements between the federal government and the provinces in education. Third, we will consider rights holders and, lastly, Bill S-3.
The Chairman: The Senate is well informed about Bill S-3.
Mr. Rioux: As the principal mouthpiece of minority francophones, the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada has a mandate to promote the vitality of those communities, and education plays a very important role in that vitality.
In recent weeks, you have heard a number of presenters state their positions on the status and needs of the francophone minority education system. We feel the picture those presenters have painted is quite complete. It includes some worrisome findings about the state of the health system. It also suggests a number of promising solutions. In this respect, our communities have achieved a remarkable degree of maturity in their comments.
The purpose of the FCFA du Canada is to present an evaluation of actions taken by the federal government and the provincial and territorial governments in the field of education.
Two weeks ago, Mr. Pierre Foucher of the University of Moncton told you that one of the major barriers to the implementation of section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was the inertia of governments and the sluggishness of the decision-making process. He also pointed to a lack of procedure, mechanisms and accountability that would make it possible to monitor the funds that the federal government transfers to the provinces for implementation of section 23. We believe that the provinces should, to all intents and purposes, be as accountable for the funds they receive for education as the communities are for those they receive under the Canada-community agreements.
In the view of the FCFA du Canada, the implementation of section 23 is not the only problem. The obvious fact must be admitted that the federal government and the provincial and territorial governments are slow in implementing policies promoting the development of the official language communities. This has been attested to in the education field and in all sectors of activity essential to the development, growth and vitality of the francophone and Acadian communities.
We need only look at the number of cases that have been pleaded before the courts in order to gain recognition, through the legal system, of our rights under the Charter. Our efforts have gone mainly toward defending our rights, rather than developing them.
Another problem is the ability of our communities to influence government policies. Although the Action Plan for Official Languages contains a commitment by the federal government to systematically take into account the needs of the official language minority communities in developing policies, the actual situation is quite different. Minister Dion's action plan has not proven to be the panacea for all the ills that were identified.
In a number of cases, our mouthpiece associations must do a considerable job of representation to the federal government departments and agencies to ensure that the needs of our communities are taken into consideration. The process is often very long and results are not always guaranteed.
The issue we are particularly concerned with today is education. I will therefore refer to the current situation with regard to the Official Languages in Education Program. As you know, that program is governed by a memorandum of understanding signed every five years with the Council of Ministers of Education Canada. However, that MOU expired on March 31, 2004. The next one is still being negotiated. According to our information, it could be signed before April 1 of this year. However, the agreements with the provinces definitely will not be completed by April 1. We suppose the MOU will have to be signed first.
The school boards have just gone through a transition year, and it is not out of the question that 2005-2006 may be a second transition year. We must ask ourselves the perhaps cynical question whether two consecutive transition years are the best way to manage the Official Languages in Education Program.
One thing is certain: These transition situations cause problems for the school boards of our communities. The 31 French-language school boards are directly affected.
The Fédération nationale des conseils scolaires francophones has done a remarkable job of representation. That job can be observed at all levels. It has advanced talks for the signing of the MOU and has helped to ensure that school trustees are officially consulted by the provincial and territorial governments on the future action plans presented to the federal government. Our communities have achieved a degree of maturity that will make this consultation possible when programs are implemented. In spite of that work, however, there is no guarantee that the school boards will have a voice in the matter. The federal government has made a commitment on this point, but much remains to be done with regard to the provinces and territories.
In the view of the FCFA du Canada, it is absolutely essential that the communities be consulted in the current context. After all, it is in those communities that the federal government's financial support will have to produce results. So it is normal to develop mechanisms to ensure that their needs are taken into consideration.
This leads us to the question of accountability. The provinces and territories have traditionally not been accountable for their use of funds transferred to them under the Official Languages in Education Program (OLEP). However, it appears that this situation is being corrected. The Department of Canadian Heritage intends to introduce accountability mechanisms in the agreements with the provinces and territories. That will be a major boost for our communities. However, this kind of mechanism should systematically apply to all federal-provincial education agreements.
When we talk about taking the needs of the francophone and Acadian communities into consideration, it is important that federal policies be put in place to make the governments that receive funds accountable in the same way as the government that grants them.
Now let us talk about early childhood. The witnesses who have preceded us in recent weeks have argued that this issue is the key to completing the francophone minority education system. We must increase the number of rights holders enrolled in French-language schools at the primary and secondary levels and ultimately fight the assimilation that often occurs in early childhood.
The future of our communities will depend to a large degree on day care centres. This is why a number of stakeholders have worked very hard to promote the concept of French-language day care centres managed by our communities. This concept guarantees a continuum in the education system from day care to the post-secondary level. The Commission nationale des parents francophones has done a remarkable job in this area. They have even identified the number of rights holders currently in the English-language system who could enter the French-language system. This situation exists because we do not have the resources to encourage these people to enter the French-language system. In many cases, we have nothing to offer in order to attract them. Once again, there is no guarantee that the needs of our communities will be taken into consideration in the government's plans regarding early childhood.
We can rejoice that the investment of $5 billion over five years in the early learning and child care initiative that was announced in the federal budget of February 23 of this year. This is good news. However, nothing in that announcement tells us that the specific needs of minority francophones will be taken into account. It remains to be determined what portion of that $5 billion for day care will be allocated to minority francophones. To our knowledge, there is no clause or provision to commit the provincial and territorial governments to investing a portion of those funds in a day care system for francophones.
So you see the work involved. In the Action Plan for Official Languages, the federal government has identified early childhood as a priority development sector. So expectations of the investment announced in the budget are quite high.
In the view of the FCFA du Canada, it is essential that the agreements signed with the provinces and territories for transferring those funds include provisions for minority francophones.
The FCFA du Canada is concerned by the sluggishness of the decision-making process and the process for negotiating agreements in a number of official languages issues. Decisions are often made after the announcements have been made. In other words, we are merely reacting to the announcements in order to get what we deserve.
The delays caused by the transition year we have just gone through in education in renewing the MOU on official languages in education remind us somewhat of the francophone and Acadian communities' transition year for the renewal of the Canada-community agreements. You have no doubt heard about the problems we faced over the signing and improvement of those agreements. Nothing in the budget suggested those problems would arise.
Furthermore, we have observed that the work done by stakeholders like the Commission nationale des parents francophones does not appear to have affected the way in which the needs of minority francophones are addressed in the federal-provincial agreements that are to be signed on early childhood.
Despite the work of the Fédération nationale des conseils scolaires francophones, there appears to be no guarantee that the minority communities will be officially consulted in the development of action plans on official languages in education. Implementation of policies for the development of the official language minorities often depends on a political will that is not always there. The years have shown that the declaratory nature of Part VII is not enough to guarantee implementation.
For that reason, Bill S-3 is very important for us. The federal government has made a number of commitments to the development of francophone and Acadian communities. In a number of cases, however, those commitments have yet to be made and have not necessarily resulted in accountability mechanisms in the federal-provincial agreements. Making Part VII binding can expedite implementation of policies and programs for the development of our communities. If Part VII is binding, it will also mean that our needs are addressed much more systematically in the development of policies and programs in the various federal departments and agencies.
In short, Bill S-3 is important for our communities because we must immediately develop early childhood in French and complete our education system. The more time goes by, the more reasons will be found to say that numbers have declined and no longer warrant the amounts that must be invested in early childhood in the minority communities.
The stakeholders who have preceded us have demonstrated that there is an urgent need in education. To ensure the vitality of our communities, we must attract more rights holders to our schools. We have to raise our children in French starting at the day care and pre-school level. Our teachers need tools enabling them to provide the next generation with high-quality education in French.
Bill S-3 is important for us because we cannot afford the luxury of waiting for the political will to be there to enable us to respond to all these needs. Our communities are tired of always having to go to court to have the rights that are set out in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and in the Official Languages Act recognized.
Thank you for listening to us. Ms. Beaulieu and I will now be pleased to answer your questions.
The Chairman: First of all, I would like to thank you for summing up the situation so clearly. Frankness is always useful to a committee that is trying to make recommendations to improve the system.
You mentioned accountability. In your view, who should be accountable? If funds are given to the provinces or to the ministers of Education, is the provincial Ministry of Education or the provincial government accountable to the federal government?
Or should the taxpayers of the province or organization be accountable? How do you perceive this notion of accountability in the present context?
Mr. Rioux: There are two parts to the accountability issue. The agreements are signed on the basis of pre-established conditions. In the field that concerns us, education, the francophone communities will have signed agreements. Before negotiating an agreement, the communities must be consulted. They can then react in the area of accountability and confirm that the funds intended for a given sector are used for the purposes agreed upon.
If this process is carried out only at the government level, between the provinces and territories and the federal government, and the funds go into the general funds of the province, it is quite hard to trace them after the fact. The provinces will claim that they have done a number of things to establish a school here and there, but ultimately it will be impossible to confirm precisely whether the money was used for the purposes agreed upon in the agreement.
The Chairman: Your last sentence grabs my attention. Are we correct in saying we do not know where the money goes?
Mr. Rioux: In some provinces, we know less and less; in other provinces, yes.
The Chairman: Do you want to be more specific?
Mr. Rioux: In New Brunswick, the community is increasingly consulted. Before agreements are signed, they have the chance to express their point of view. Then we note that consultations conducted by the province lead to concrete results, because they know where the money went or will go.
In other provinces where there is no consultation, the province receives funds for education in general. In a province like Alberta, francophones may have trouble finding out where that money went.
The Chairman: New Brunswick has a critical mass of francophones who can put pressure on the government and on public opinion, which is not necessarily the case in other provinces. Consequently, in those provinces, the funds may be somewhat scattered and may not reach their destination.
Mr. Rioux: Indeed, we have evidence of that. In Nova Scotia, we have a record of agreements signed between the provinces and the federal government in order to determine where the money went. So we have realized that a portion of the funds paid into the province's general fund did not go to education.
The Chairman: I would like to clarify one final point. What exactly do you mean by transition?
Mr. Rioux: The agreements expired on March 31, 2004. It was said at that time that the amounts planned for 2004 and 2005 would be the same, or that they were voting on the same agreements already signed pending the signature of new agreements.
The Chairman: Until there was a new agreement?
Mr. Rioux: Yes. Let's take the example of greatest concern for us, the Canada-community agreements with Canadian Heritage. Those agreements were extended last year from 2004 to 2005, with the same funding provided for under the agreements since 1999. It is now 2005 and we are relying on the same principles. That means that we are getting less money now than we did before. Although there was an increase under the agreements over the past five years, the amount of money is still less in current dollars than it was in 1999. So we are talking about a transition period, and I believe we are headed toward another transition year.
The Chairman: Could you tell me the possible cause of this laxism?
Mr. Rioux: This laxism is attributable to a number of causes. The political situation in Canada definitely does not help. We had a change of leader, then the election. All that delayed the process. That is one of the major reasons why the agreements have not been signed.
The Chairman: There was also a cabinet shuffle.
Mr. Rioux: Yes, a number of changes were made at Canadian Heritage. There have been three successive ministers in the past year. The officials have also changed. These shuffles have slowed down the administrative machinery, which is already very sluggish.
The Sagouine would say that it might be a good year because we are going to have another election. However, if there is an election and the situation is not resolved, the development and vitality of our communities will once again be delayed.
Last Saturday, I finished evaluating the funding applications filed by the communities of New Brunswick. We had $1.6 million to distribute across the province as a whole for the various committees, activities and other sectors. The sum of $1.6 million may seem enormous, but, if you divide it by a population of 250,000 francophones, it does not represent that much money.
We received applications for $3 million, whereas we only had $1.6 million. Of course, not all applications are justified. The committees examine each application and grants appropriate amounts. However, we do not have enough money to meet the demand. Consequently, we are seeing a considerable slowdown in the development of our communities. This deficiency also jeopardizes certain organizations.
The Chairman: Your remarks leave me wondering. Is the system broken? If things are not moving faster than you say, you have to ask yourself the question: is there a problem with the mechanism? What should be done? Our committee would like your opinion on that.
Mr. Rioux: The system is very cumbersome. I will give you a concrete example. Things are improving in New Brunswick, but at a snail's pace. Between the time the funding application evaluation committee makes a recommendation to the minister as to the amount of funds that should be distributed to the various associations and the time the communities receive their cheques, at least 140 working days can elapse.
An application is made. Assuming that the minister approves the funds requested for early April, if you count 140 working days, that means a delay of five to six months before the organizations have the money in hand. Half the fiscal year has elapsed. People have to spend that money in the six remaining months. It is a race! You cannot do structured development in those conditions.
The Chairman: Do you know whether the situation of the other official language minority in the country, of our anglophone friends from Quebec, is similar to yours?
Mr. Rioux: I believe so.
Ms. Marielle Beaulieu, Director General, Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada: The situation is indeed similar in many respects. The FCFA du Canada has good relations with the Department of Canadian Heritage. However, I am told that relations with the Quebec anglophone community are very difficult. In other words, we enjoy closer communication in the context of our requests than the Quebec anglophone community. However, waiting times are virtually the same.
I would not say that the system is in jeopardy. But I would say that the mechanisms are cumbersome. In the past, we have noticed that, in some places, they have managed to reduce delays in order to enable organizations to have access to funds sooner. On the whole, however, an enormous amount of work remains to be done to expedite the process and to ensure that processing is more proactive for the communities.
Mr. Rioux: My daughter Marie-Claude is the Director of the Association des juristes acadiens de la Nouvelle- Écosse. She has to file applications for grants with the Department of Justice. She sent off their applications in January and early February. She didn't hear about the amounts that had been granted to her until April 1.
Senator Comeau: Section 23 of the Charter states that the school system will be affected, whereas early childhood and post-secondary education will not be concerned. So we will have to rely on other means in those areas. You say that Bill S-3 will make Part VII of the Charter binding and will address this deficiency. We have to see to an obligation that will specifically meet the needs of our communities.
Going back to the day care systems, you mentioned the investment of $5 billion over five years. I was recently told that a high-quality national day care system providing adequate remuneration would cost approximately $10 billion a year. Based on those figures, that means the national system would have a shortfall of $5 billion. With the current amount of $5 billion over five years, our communities have very little chance.
A recently published article stated that $20 million had been promised to Nova Scotia for the day care system for the coming year. I did not do the calculation to determine whether that $20 million for all of Nova Scotia would meet the needs of our Acadian communities. However, I very much doubt it. In the context of the system contemplated, the rural areas would demand that, among other things, a transportation system, day care centres and buildings be put in place. I do not see how it would be possible to carry out this kind of project. Have you examined this prospect?
Mr. Rioux: The Commission des parents francophones will do that job. You have raised a very important point. Often when a new program is established, it is done at the national level, without taking into account specific regional characteristics. The introduction of a national program in the regions cannot be compared to the introduction of that kind of program in the major cities.
Senator Comeau: A few years ago, the federal government chose to withdraw from the national health program. It wanted to reduce the national deficit. As a result, the provinces and provincial jurisdictions had to absorb the amounts that had previously been paid for the health system.
Today we see a certain reluctance on the part of provincial jurisdictions to get involved, and rightly so, because they do not want to be burned again by national programs. Have you had an opportunity to discuss this issue with the provincial jurisdictions to see whether there's a problem?
Ms. Beaulieu: Your perception of the situation is accurate. There is indeed a problem. It's very clear that any program involving federal-provincial/territorial transfers requires specific clauses or provisions for the francophone and Acadian communities. Without those provisions, accountability becomes a problem.
To answer your question more specifically, we are increasingly aware of the fact that we will have to continue working cohesively and cooperatively with all our organizations working in the various sectors. Whether it be parents, school boards or the FCFA du Canada, everyone will have to cooperate in order to make the provincial and territorial governments aware of the importance of specific issues and provisions.
At this point, of course, certain provinces are reluctant. However, it has to be recognized that, in certain cases, particular situations must be taken into consideration. With regard to this program, the last budget greatly disappointed us, as Mr. Arès testified.
Senator Comeau: The Chairman raised the issue of the transition year. You chose a very polite term. I would no doubt have used a more graphic term, such as ``in limbo.''
When you do not have the funds and you cannot find out how they will be granted, you find yourself in limbo and start to lose the people who were thinking about leaving for another school system. In the meantime, you cannot make a decision. When you are in limbo, you do not move forward; you go backward.
The Chairman: But you do not go to hell.
Senator Comeau: No, but when you try to move forward and you find yourself in limbo, nothing moves.
Senator Chaput: You were very polite when you explained the situation. I would probably have been less polite as well. There is no doubt the process is slow. The delays are incredible and we don't seem to be able to change the situation.
As regards the cooperation agreements and the Official Languages in Education Program (OLEP), everything is currently being negotiated. In your opinion, what are the chances those agreements or MOUs will be signed by the end of March?
Ms. Beaulieu: We are told the end of March is the objective. First of all, they have to consider the MOU. Then, they will consider the agreements. The question of targeted funding in the action plan has to be discussed on a bilateral basis. So a lot of work remains to be done.
Senator Chaput: But all that could take a few more months?
Ms. Beaulieu: The first stage is definitely the MOU. In that regard, we nevertheless see some fairly positive movement. However, it will no doubt take a fair bit of time before we reach the end.
Senator Chaput: With regard to the Canada-community agreements, one of the groups receiving financial assistance at the provincial level is the parents group. Let's set aside the improvement issue for the moment. Is it possible to have an agreement by the end of March, as Minister Frulla had promised? Unless there's improvement, will you refuse to sign?
Mr. Rioux: We will be able to answer you on Wednesday following our meeting tomorrow night. There appears to be every indication that the members of the communities still are not ready to sign.
Senator Chaput: Have you heard that the Action Plan for Official Languages would provide funding that would make it possible to improve these agreements?
Mr. Rioux: That possibility has not been ruled out at the bargaining table.
Senator Chaput: Ms. Beaulieu, as you will remember, I contacted you when the senators, members and ministers were asked to develop policies to be presented to the Liberal Party conference. I developed a policy on the memoranda of understanding between the federal government and the provincial governments — obviously suspecting it wouldn't pass immediately — proposing a language clause to protect us by true targeted funding.
I followed the procedure and presented the policy to my Western Canadian caucus. Three priorities were selected, and ours was fourth out of nine. At the national level, the Quebecers said it was shameful for there to be only one policy on official languages and for it not to make it to the conference. So they took that policy and forwarded it to the conference, which was held last week. It was set down on the agenda of a workshop on cultural diversity, for discussion purposes, and I went to debate it. There were six policies on the agenda of that workshop. Our policy was unanimously passed. Each workshop had to set a priority. There was multiculturalism, immigration, a policy on women, another on seniors and that poor policy on the agreements.
So that is a bit of progress in the area, because that policy is now contained in the document that will be submitted to the Prime Minister. I thought it was a good idea to tell you about it so that we can consider the kind of policy we would like to have for next year. We also have to consider a more systematic way of proceeding in order to encourage people to join with us and ensure our policy passes.
Mr. Rioux: Thank you. It is very important to know what work has been done and how we should view the future.
Senator Chaput: It is Quebec that supported us.
The Chairman: I would like to go back to education. Are you a member of the Association canadienne d'éducation de langue française?
Mr. Rioux: Yes.
The Chairman: We invited the members of that association to appear before this committee, and they turned us down. It is a national organization that has been in existence for years. Is it part of your organization?
Mr. Rioux: No, ACELF is not a member of the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne.
The Chairman: It is an independent organization?
Mr. Rioux: Yes, it is an organization that has its roots in and outside Quebec. Mr. Gérald Boudreau is its president.
The Chairman: That organization has previously had presidents from New Brunswick.
Mr. Rioux: I myself was President of ACELF for three years, from 1987 to 1990.
The Chairman: Can you explain why ACELF would not want to appear before our committee on an issue as important as education?
Mr. Rioux: I have no idea.
The Chairman: Could you inquire and give me an answer?
Mr. Rioux: We will check.
The Chairman: I did not understand why they refused.
Mr. Rioux: I do not understand either.
The Chairman: We also invited the members of the Council of Ministers of Education of Canada. They declined our invitation because discussions are currently under way. Our committee may have to take some shortcuts to get the information we think will be useful.
Two weeks from now, we will hear from the Honourable Liza Frulla, the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Minister Ken Dryden on the day care issue, and Minister Mauril Bélanger.
Let's go back to the Council of Ministers of Education of Canada. We live in a democracy. The negotiations between the federal and provincial governments on education has a major impact on the survival of the minority, on the training of young people and their community context. I have been watching this process for years, and I find it is taking place in isolation. I find this situation inappropriate in a democracy.
Has your organization or your components, whether it be the SAANB or other organizations, had the opportunity to talk with your respective Education ministers about the negotiation process between the provinces and the federal government? These programs are aimed at you, and yet you are not a participant in the debate. You are not consulted before or after. Funds are granted to the provinces, and you are not sure whether they reach the proper destination. There is no formal accountability, and the Auditor General of Canada cannot intervene because it is a provincial jurisdiction.
I have told you enough about my concerns to elicit a few comments from you. Is that not an obsolete approach that should be changed in our country? Should we not be showing more openness toward everyone?
Mr. Rioux: First, the point you're raising is a matter of transparency. Second, this is the way you make people accountable for funds they have received and also a part of the work that is being done for the development of the communities.
I agree with you. Mr. Arès was once invited to a meeting of the Council of Ministers of La Francophonie. He has never been invited to a meeting of the Council of Ministers of Education of Canada and perhaps he should be. Every province has a minister of Education, and the communities should be kept informed so that they can then express their point of view. This consultation is not currently being conducted.
Senator Chaput: It is so important that the community be consulted. The federal government is increasingly negotiating this kind of agreement in various sectors. A health agreement has just been reached with the provinces. We have services in French that we are entitled to, new day care centres, new agreements with the municipalities. Some provinces have bilingual municipalities. We will have to get into the good habit of consulting the communities.
Ms. Beaulieu: The consultations issue is very important. In many respects, we thought, perhaps wrongly, that the action plan would make these consultations mandatory. We realize that everything is going very well in certain cases. Earlier someone referred to the progress that has been made on the justice issue. In other cases, there's still some resistance.
Consultations are very important. However, let's not forget the work the Fédération nationale des conseils scolaires has done in education to get involved as much as possible in discussions concerning the partners, in particular the ministers of Education. Discussions have very often taken place with deputy ministers in charge of minority communities or francophone affairs. It seems we are making ourselves more heard. However, the situation is far from ideal. In other words, this work has to continue. We have to learn to work better with the communities in these kinds of situations.
Senator Comeau: I find it curious that the provincial jurisdictions aren't interested in coming to meet with us so that we can ask them questions, particularly in view of the fact that it is Parliament that votes the funds.
After listening to you today, and after listening to the other presenters denounce this lack of consultation and the somewhat secret way in which these issues are addressed, it seems to me these ministers should show more interest. As Senator Chaput mentioned, we are talking about the arrival of new programs, and parliamentarians will definitely need votes.
Furthermore, I find it surprising that ACELF did not agree to appear before us. Could I have a copy of your correspondence to see how they responded to our invitation?
The Chairman: We did not contact the President of ACELF, Mr. Boudreau. We contacted the administration, and we were told no.
Senator Comeau: You should not take anything for granted, but if the administration told us no, we can only assume they consulted Mr. Boudreau. I must admit their refusal surprises me.
The Chairman: On behalf of the members of this committee, I would like to thank Mr. Jean-Guy Rioux and Ms. Marielle Beaulieu for agreeing to appear before our committee, particularly in view of the weather today.
As always, your federation answered questions and outlined the situation in a frank manner. Your testimony will be of considerable use to us, and we are very grateful to you for it.
Honourable senators, I adjourn the meeting. The committee will reconvene on Monday, March 21, 2005, at 2:30 p.m.
The committee adjourned.