Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Official Languages
Issue 7 - Evidence - Meeting of June 5, 2008
TRACADIE-SHEILA, NEW BRUNSWICK, Thursday, June 5, 2008
The Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages met this day at 1:40 p.m. to study and report from time to time on the application for the Official Languages Act and of the regulations and directives made under it, within those institutions subject to the act.
Senator Maria Chaput (Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: Honourable senators, with your permission we will now call this meeting to order. First of all, I would like to introduce the senators here with me today to our distinguished witnesses.
To my left is Senator Andrée Champagne, from Quebec. Also to my left are Senator Losier-Cool and Senator Eymard Corbin, who are both from New Brunswick. My own name is Maria Chaput, and I am a senator from Manitoba.
Before introducing the witnesses, I would like to say a few words to explain why the Senate Standing Committee on Official Languages is here today.
The committee has begun a study on culture in order to better understand the issues in minority francophone communities and their commitment to the strengthening of cultural diversity.
Arts and culture are two of the pillars on which francophone and Acadian communities across Canada ground their development and flourish.
We have chosen to hold our public hearings in New Brunswick. We have already travelled to Bathurst and Tracadie, and are here with you today. We want to listen to what Acadians have to say about the state of the language and culture characteristic to Acadia.
Today, we welcome Father Zoël Saulnier, artist and protector of the arts and culture; Mr. René Cormier, from the États généraux des arts et de la culture en Acadie, who is responsible for the follow-up on arts and culture; and Mr. Calixte Duguay, artist and protector of the arts and culture. Gentlemen, welcome.
We will hear all of your presentations first, and you will each have five to seven minutes. After that, senators will have questions for you.
Father Zoël Saulnier, Artist and Protector of the Arts and Culture, as an individual: Madam Chair, today, I appear before the committee first with a quote from Senator Viola Léger, which tells us how important culture is in our Acadian community today. She is an actress from our part of the world who makes us laugh and feel emotion when she is on stage, but she has also said some things about culture that certainly could initiate a productive discussion. I quote Senator Léger:
Culture is like breathing. Culture breathes. It is in our blood. It lives between the lines. Art is the hope of humanity, and culture is the vehicle through which that art is expressed. The art that makes us believe. That makes us want. That makes us live.
At the outset, I must say I have been haunted by that comment of Senator Léger's, and I think it would be only right before this committee to remind everyone that our culture here in Acadia is a manifestation of our way of existing in this world, in Canada, and elsewhere. Our culture — as a "vehicle'' — enables what we are as rooted, recognized citizens to become visible. That is what makes us want to preserve and protect it, not for ourselves, but so that we can promote, disseminate and share it with a country that is the most beautiful in the world because its cultural diversity is accessible.
How do we keep this culture alive, this culture that is the very breath of our people? That is the main challenge we have in the U.S.-style "fast-food'' culture that surrounds us today.
How do we develop a cultural policy that provides the needed culture to nourish young Acadians, the new generation? I fear that the loss of French among young people in some parts of the province is a harbinger of declining interest in Acadian culture as well.
Would it be too much to say that the Congrès mondial acadien 2004 noted that failure — a failure little publicized or studied — and saw the decline of our culture in this part of the Maritimes, in Nova Scotia, which is where we come from.
During a huge performance, when I saw Acadian artists raising our flag on the Halifax citadel, I cried — because I knew that the next day would be the same and that we would never feel at home in a land that was once ours. In the depths of my confusion, I found myself wondering: "Is there within us still a land that is stronger than forgetfulness?''
I was born in Tracadie, a francophone stronghold, and carried within me the cultural reality of my people and my environment as my daily sustenance, like the air I breathe, because my family and those who taught me infused me with culture. That is how I learned and saw culture as a vital reality, a force that could ground the identity of the community. Unfortunately, I do not see that love of Acadian culture among the young generation. They simply see folk music, and folk tales. That is another challenge that we face in our Acadian families and institutions.
I would like to add a comment made by John Saul, who spoke at the Estates General on Arts and Culture in the Acadian Peninsula in May 2007. This is a comment I subscribe to completely:
Culture is a force that directs all other endeavours of a people or a nation, because our culture enables to create our image, our identity, and even our economy.
Both Saul and I deplore the fact that our municipal, provincial and federal politics are all too often not based on culture and tradition, but on the economy. Often, I wonder whether we gradually and unwittingly allow that way of thinking to turn our culture into a poor parent, a way of thinking that destroys our faith in the works through which our culture is expressed. Legislation may be good, but that same legislation, without a national cultural policy, is often expressed in wording that lacks the enforceability we need.
In 1992, the UNESCO Conference on Culture held in Mexico declared that culture encompasses the value systems, traditions, beliefs, and way of life of a people. The Quebec philosopher Thomas de Konninck says much the same in his work: La nouvelle ignorance et le problème de la culture. I will read you an excerpt:
Culture makes it possible not only to wake people up, but to keep them awake. When culture drains away, there is no longer a place for human beings. The community cannot do without the collective imagining of rites and symbols.
Like those I have quoted, I will say before you today that investing in culture is sowing the future, and refusing to invest in culture is tantamount to ordering the slow death of a people.
All these comments tell us that culture must be integrated as part of a whole, a whole that requires an effective national cultural policy so we can keep our people awake to their cultural reality, be it as an audience, as participants, or as artists.
In a country like Canada, our country, a vast and varied country, a country of seasons, a country of strength but also vulnerability in the regions, where assimilation is an inherent part of the context, we must do everything we can to establish a national cultural policy, not piecemeal but wholesale, comprehensive, so that minorities with cultures like ours can draw strength. We are tired of being lauded on August 15, and often forgotten at other times, somewhat like a by-product that is somewhat amusing, and that relies on volunteer effort for its survival.
We have chosen, I have chosen, to live in the region, in the Acadian Peninsula, in the heart of a country — Canada — which in the past was more aware of regional differences than it appears to be in current policies. We are not asking for preferential treatment, but for recognition tangibly manifested in support that confirms our political decision- makers' genuine faith in our culture and in the different places where it is expressed.
How do we activate cultural policy in our region, where cultural workers are often exhausted because they lack both financial and structural resources? I would add that the complexity of applying for contributions to a variety of levels of government only adds to their exhaustion.
I live in a municipality that has just woken up to the value of our built and material legacy. We are trying to conserve and revitalize the Académie Sainte-Famille building, which will soon be 100 years old, and where Senator Losier-Cool and myself were infused with our culture, if I can put it that way. In the same building, a museum is doing whatever it can, with what little it has, to remind the people of the region and the people of the country of a unique and compassionate effort to care for lepers, a facility that operated between 1949 and 1965, in a unique effort of its type in North America.
In cultural causes like those I have mentioned, volunteers often lose energy. They become exhausted, because they are the people who keep the valuable projects going, but they are always the same people. We live in a province where people are not very much aware of the value of their heritage, and fail to give enough attention to projects that seem overly idealistic and not sufficiently profitable economically. Nonetheless, I remain optimistic, and affirm that Acadian culture in the heart of world and Canadian francophonie looks like us. It has our face, our accent, and our way of life. That is a challenge — remaining faithful for life.
I would say that Acadian culture is our vision of the world and our perception of humanity, of how human beings relate to others, our perception of the meaning of life, and of social and economic organization. Our culture lives as we do, and makes us the players in our own stories. Our culture brings us together as well. That is how Acadian culture is a phenomenon that brings people together, the best way to bring people together around our history, our way of life, our artists and our symbols. In the Acadian Peninsula, the population of 50,000 live the founding culture of this country, a culture that takes us beyond our differences and our problems, because it is the only, the sole, thing that brings us all together.
In conclusion, I will quote something I remember reading in the works of Rose Després, a woman poet from Acadia, who received the Antonine Maillet et Acadie-Vie prizes. These are her words:
The proud dignity of our tenacious passion, the rightness of our words, will transform more than paper.
Well, that is the tenacious passion I share with my friends Calixte and René, and that is the wish I put before you. I would like our words to transform more than paper, and I would like the culture of Acadia, supported by all levels of government here in the Peninsula, for many years to make it possible for our people to believe in their own opportunities for invention and possibilities for creativity. I would like the poets and singers of Acadia, the artists of all disciplines, to forever continue naming things, events, and states of minds so that they can exist in greater depth, beyond time and space. I hope that culture can always bring with it, as it does today, the spirit and the words and that we look to the future with more than just lip service, the purpose that supports the one thing most vital to Acadia — our culture.
One author whom I have read a great deal, a former French minister of culture, whose name is André Malraux, wrote, and I quote:
Culture is a collection of forms that have proved stronger than death.
Nothing could be truer. That is a quote that perfectly expresses Acadian culture, which is stronger than our past, and which is with us today in the beautiful language we speak, it is a culture that transcends time, and, as the Estates General on Arts and Culture stated, claims its place in the reality of a people.
If our words today can give rise to tangible actions, actions that follow up on the conclusions of the États généraux sur les arts et la culture held in May 2007, I can say proudly before you today that our culture will be immortal!
René Cormier, responsible for follow-up on the États généraux sur les arts et la culture en Acadie (2007): Madam Chair, honourable senators, dear Acadian friends and colleagues, good afternoon. I am here before you as the director of the office responsible for the follow-up of the États généraux sur les arts et la culture en Acadie (2007), which is in fact a vast process of coordination-cooperation, in Acadia by Acadian society since 2005. This is a process whereby the Acadian community — people from all levels of society — reflects on the role of arts and culture in the development of our Acadian society.
Given that arts and culture have contributed to defining our past and who we are today, how can arts and culture be an instrument to construct what we are to become tomorrow?
Obviously, we approached that question through a process of reflection with people in education and the economy, municipal officials, provincial officials, federal officials and all levels of government. I am now going to provide a brief overview of the major issues that flowed from that process.
It would certainly be useful to see everything that happened during the Estates General. There is a substantial documentation that we could provide to your committee, and that in my view could be helpful to you in the course of your work.
I will therefore put forward a number of issues, and at the end of my presentation look at them from the federal institutions' standpoint when it comes to integrating arts and culture in our communities. I will of course look at funding as well. I will be somewhat less poetic than our friend Zoël, whose pen I much admire as well as his ability to deliver political content, but I will be somewhat more pragmatic, because that is my task. As Zoël — Father Saulnier — has already said, arts and culture contribute to the development of our society. That was the perspective of the États généraux sur les arts et la culture en Acadie.
Many issues put forward touch on various aspects of arts and culture, because we often do not really know what tools arts and culture must be given in minority communities and elsewhere to flourish and play their role to the full.
First of all, at the core of the artistic continuum, we have the artist. Professional artists are the raw material, if you will, of the development of arts and culture. They must have a recognized socio-economic status, and they must also be properly educated and trained, they must have access to artistic training. They must also have access to professional development so that they can work as artists, in partnership with other sectors of the community. Here, as artists and as cultural and artistic organizations, we have a somewhat broader mandate than in other sectors. We perceive and illustrate our society as artists, but at the same time we have the role of encouraging and guiding our sectors when it comes to culture. And that is the responsibility, a special characteristic and duty that falls upon artists and cultural organizations in minority communities.
So how do we give artists the tools they need, how do government programs and federal institutions help professional artists in Acadia get the tools they need in terms of training and development, and how do they make sure their status is recognized? All those are major issues, and there is also the labour mobility aspect, which we should not forget.
Today, artists and young artists are still infused with that culture. There, I am somewhat more optimistic than my colleague — I think that, in Acadia, there is now incredible vitality among young artists who want to practice their art, who want to contribute to minority community development here, and we need the tools to do it. They act differently than we do and work differently than we do — they circulate much more than we do. They travel throughout the country. They come back here. They create both here and elsewhere, and move around a lot. So how do we support their way of working? These are important issues too.
To support artists and their works, we have the artistic and cultural infrastructure, obviously — organizations, theatres, companies, associations, cultural industries like books and publishing, film and music. So how do those infrastructures themselves get support from the federal government in terms of official languages? For example, what kind of multi-year financing do they get, how is their special status in minority communities recognized, minority communities where they must not only create their works but invigorate their environment and act in concert with other sectors? How is that achieved? How do federal programs take account of realities, industries and market openness in applying official languages, and here I am thinking of ACOA and other federal programs. How are markets developed in minority communities?
These are issues that are at the core of arts and culture development in Acadia. Obviously, the human resources aspect affects artists, but it also affects cultural industry managers. If we gave you statistics on how much an artist in Acadia earns, you may not be surprised. If we gave you statistics on how much cultural industry managers in Acadia earn, you would see the huge gap between the minority community in other communities. This is a major issue, as federal institutions recognize.
Now, let us look at integrating arts and culture into education. For instance, to promote the integration of artists and works into our education environment, how can agreements between the federal government and the provinces be more helpful in integrating artists and works? These are major issues as well.
There are also major issues associated with the circulation of artists and works. I think that Acadia's future will depend on its ability to broadcast and disseminate its works in the Maritimes, the Atlantic provinces and New Brunswick, as well as in the francophone world, francophone communities in Canada and francophone communities internationally. So how will government programs — be it the Canadian Heritage Arts Presentation Canada Program or Canada Council — promote the development of markets for our artists so that they can have a presence and visibility in other francophone markets? That is how they make a living, and at the same time, that is how Acadian culture gains visibility.
One major concept established within the framework of the Estates General on Arts and Culture is the concept of cultural management within the territory, in other words, organizing our communities on the ground so that arts and culture can play their proper role. In a region like the Acadian Peninsula, how do we do that? What tools do we have so that arts and culture can play their proper role in community development? What is interesting is that minority communities are suddenly thinking about the future of arts and culture in a very decentralized, very regional, way.
How will regions organize themselves? How will they work together to think about the tools they need so that arts and culture can happen? That is a very interesting and certainly constructive vision that is not yet a part of government programs or federal institutions, who tend to have a very comprehensive and centralized view of how arts and culture are organized.
A few questions, then. For instance, we know that we have an Official Languages Act, and we know that federal institutions are covered by the act and must comply with it. I confess that there are two major issues relating to the act and the way in which it is applied within federal institutions. For example, the Canada Council — which recently established a new strategic plan in which there is an equity component — never recognized, in all the meetings and negotiations we have had with them, never formerly acknowledged in its strategic plan the importance of taking strategic action with respect to official language communities. We are incorporated into more comprehensive initiatives that have an impact on diversity in our communities, but never do we see the specific needs of artists in minority language communities set out in specific terms. That need is never specified, never explicitly set out. We therefore consider this a real issue, because it would translate into programs and specific measures, and we do not see those specific measures at the Canada Council.
The National Art Centre has a program that supports the development of regional theatre. The program is supposedly threatened because, there again, as a federal institution, how does the National Arts Centre comply with the Official Languages Act by providing programs and support for artists in minority communities?
One major issue facing artists and cultural organizations in our region is visibility in the national media. For us, media are essential to our visibility, making it possible for us to raise our profile and develop markets. So how does the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation comply as a national organization, and does it broadcast Acadian culture within its programming? It does so regionally, through Radio-Canada Atlantique. It does not do it very much nationally, but I can tell you that Acadian artists and works have little presence nationally. We see the impact of the series "Belle- Baie'', which is produced here in Acadia. We see the impact on recognition of francophone communities in this country, on their reality and their culture. If we are to strengthen this great country, there is no doubt that our communities will have to know one another somewhat better. So how can the CBC play its role more effectively in helping to achieve that? I think there are issues there. And lastly, we know that there is an Official Languages Action Plan to be announced by Canadian Heritage, our main interface with the federal government. We are eager to see the plan, and we find it is taking quite a long time. We are eager to see it because we hope it will contain a focus on arts and culture.
The last thing that I would say with respect to the Department of Canadian Heritage, and it would also apply to many other departments, is that there is one fundamental issue in the way the Canadian government delivers its programs to francophone and Acadian communities throughout the country. Wait times to receive grants and contributions jeopardize our activities, jeopardize the way we do things, and we have seen it with the Estates General on Arts and Culture. There are several festivals and events which contribute to the development of Acadian and francophone culture which at this point have yet to receive a response. It is catastrophic. I say this in no uncertain terms, this is a major problem. Why is it difficult to raise the issue? Because we are somewhat muzzled, you understand? We are waiting. We cannot bite the hand that feeds us. So, that is the situation we are in, but somebody has got to say it. Someone needs to tell the Canadian government that it makes no sense to have such complex programs and complex delivery. They are putting us in a position which is barely legal. So, we have sounded the alarm. I would end here and state that I would obviously be very much available and interested in responding to your questions.
Calixte Duguay, Artist and Protector of the Arts and Culture: Madam Chair, thank you for having saved me for dessert. That may be pretentious on my part, but said more humbly, we could say that René Cormier is being sandwiched between Zoël and myself, and everybody knows that the best part of a sandwich is its filling. I say this because I hesitated for quite a while before agreeing to appear before this committee and I realized that Zoël shared my reluctance. Why? Not because I consider myself an idiot, just because I doubted somewhat my ability to bring anything substantial and new to the table, given what you have heard before on so many occasions. I would imagine you have heard it all. On the one hand, there are those who produce the arts and culture and on the other, those who consume it, watch it, scrutinize it, study it and attempt to create mechanisms to improve access and circulation. I am part of the first group. I am a creator, even though that may sound a bit pompous, that is the accepted term. In other words, creators are used to handling images, symbols and metaphors more so than concepts as such, although I was once a professor of literature.
Personally, I would like to add another point to my preamble, and that is that like Félix Leclerc, who was frequently asked to give conferences on songwriting, and who responded "But if I spend all of my time discussing it, when will I have time to do it?'' That may be why I have personally given conferences on culture, stated my views on the matter, but I very often decline invitations and today I do not know what propelled me to appear before you, but I was probably expecting to find you to be a very friendly group, which is the case.
There are some people, many in fact, whose full-time job it is to deal specifically with culture. First of all one fundamental truth, I would like to say that arts and culture are not synonyms. You refer to culture. When I received the documentation, I saw that it referred to culture, but there was no definition of the word. Obviously, culture, as you know, is an extremely complex notion. It is a bit like Acadia, it slips between the fingers of our hand and just when we try to grasp it, it is fleeting, it is very difficult to define and those who have tried have come up with as many definitions as there are individuals.
I would however like to draw a small distinction. First of all, we did say "Estates General'' on Arts and Culture. Not just arts or culture. There is a small nuance to be made and sometimes we forget. Art is what I would call an organized, well-ordered reproduction of reality through various means of expression such as painting, architecture, literature, music, etc. Art is a concerted effort. We decide to do art. Even when we do, sometimes we try to set reason aside and draw solely on our unconscious mind and our instinct. The decision to do art is informed. We decide. We are artists, but we decide to practice a given art on a large scale. Culture is far broader. Customs and the way we behave on a daily basis are also part of culture. So, it is an important distinction to draw. When we talk about cultural dissemination, access to culture, I feel we are mainly referring to arts, in other words, this transformation of reality.
Now, let us move to more serious matters. I often imagine culture as a huge triangular territory, so, a triangle whose three points belong to specific human groups. On one point is the creator, and I have not forgotten, Senator Losier- Cool, my old habits as a professor. I taught Senator Losier-Cool, did I not? You see, this afternoon I am proud to see that she has turned out well, that she now sits in the Senate. So, there is a triangle here. On one of the points, there is the creator. In other words, the artists. This group is made up of an impressive number of sub-groups, including painters, sculptors, musicians, cartoonists, novelists, poets, singer-songwriters, let us not forget them, I am one of them, etc. The second point would be the consumers, the public, and there are as many subspecies there as there are for the creator. The third point would be made up of all others, which I would refer to as facilitators. So, there are many people within that world. It is the cohort of disseminators, funders, critics, media, cultural groups and, with respect, of this very Senate committee. It is made up of both spectators of and witnesses to the cultural happenings and as I said a moment ago, they scrutinize, study, analyze it with a view to finding ways to facilitate access and circulation.
Things have not always been this way. The "facilitator'' as I refer to it is a relatively recent occurrence. In primitive society, I would have seen the cultural process as a straight line. I think that at some point, culture could no longer be symbolized as a straight line connecting creator and consumer. At some point, certain people began to think, and as is the case in any evolving society, they began to look at culture and said: "Oh, it is this way, it is that way. We will try to facilitate the relationship between creator and consumer''. You may ask when did this new group appear, the facilitator? Well, I do not personally have any statistics on it, I have not carried out in-depth studies on the matter, but instinctively I would say that it dates back to the advent of democracy. You know, under absolute monarchy, artists would request support from noblemen, etc., mostly by begging for it.
When you read, for instance, the preface to certain Molière and Racine plays, you see everything people do to draw people in, right? That is what people do today when they ask for grants. So, it is a recent phenomenon. I would like to point out that these categories I am referring to are not mutually exclusive. They are open and the creator sometimes is the consumer, who can be a creator and a facilitator as well.
For instance, René falls within both categories. René, he is the expert. He fell into culture three years ago when he became director general of the États généraux sur les arts et la culture. That is why I agreed. I said "We are going to be very, very well-supported.'' Not only that, but I strongly suspect he was involved before the Estates General, because he was a part of various organizations and we have certainly discussed the matter a great deal.
So, it is an open triangle. There are three types of triangles. To remind you of a few notions of geometry, there is the isosceles and the equilateral triangle. Equilateral means a triangle whose sides and angles are equal. Isosceles means only two sides and two angles are equal. Finally, there is the scalene triangle of which no angles and no sides are equal. You may say "Why talk geometry?'' You will understand in a moment. It is the professor in me talking; when I used to teach 18th century literature, the century of philosophy, Montesquieu and the various forms of government, I felt as though my students did not understand, so I would draw diagrams like this one to try to help them understand.
So equilateral is the perfect triangle if you will, and that is the triangle I am dreaming of. It would lie flat horizontally and there would be a very good connection between the various groups. It is utopia. I do not think that is what we have. What we do have in reality is an imperfect triangle, which is often isosceles, let us say, and which I would describe in the following way: below you have the consumer, and there, the creator, and above, you have the facilitator watching from up above and trying, as much as possible, to facilitate things. What I have noticed is that if the connection is good, as was the case at the dawn of humanity, between consumers and creators, in other words, consumers need their audience, and the audience needs its artists. That is the starting point, and I think that what is strange — René did not raise it earlier on — is that artists continue to create despite everything. It is almost as though they are compelled to do it, they cannot help themselves. It may be terrible to say that, some may say "Well then, why give them grants, if they will do it anyways?'' What I mean to say is that there seems to be a fairly good connection between the two. Where there is a problem is in the connection between the facilitator and the creator, and between the consumer and the facilitator.
It was said earlier on two occasions, so I will not reiterate all of the problems it can cause. It is what I would call an imperfect triangle; artists have to climb, beg for things, and they are only given grants in dribs and drabs, most often, and very late. It is the least well-travelled path, if you will. But beware, we should not think everything is for the best. Some artists, those who are unwilling to compromise, I would say true artists, those who go beyond our daily existence sometimes get the impression they are offering caviar to hot dog eaters or champagne to Pepsi drinkers. In other words, what they have to offer, for any given reason, is unpalatable to the broader public. I will not dwell on this point because I continue to believe it is the artist's problem to try to find a solution, a magic bullet allowing him or her to remain faithful to artistic ideals while accessing a broader public. Some artists have done that over the course of history. There was Charlie Chaplin, whose movies have stood the test of time and are very, very palatable to a broad audience. In other words, it is not impossible. Because something is popular does not necessarily mean it is bad. Not necessarily. On a smaller scale in Quebec, Yvon Deschamps, for instance, produced a considerable body of work of great quality, but which reached everyone. The same applies to Vigneault. In the 1970s, there was that movement. Today, I do not know. Zoël, my friend Zoël mentioned fast food and I have a theory according to which today's fast- food culture — I would draw a distinction between junk food and fast food, in that we want to consume quickly. I think this trend has rubbed off on culture, contaminated culture so that today, people want to consume cultural products very quickly. There is no time to waste.
For instance, take Marie-Jo Thério's most recent album. If you listen to it once it is not off-putting, but it is so rich that you feel the need to listen to it a second and third time, and each time you discover something new. If you listen to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony 100 times, you will always find something else. These are great masterpieces.
I do not want to stray too much. So, there are faulty connections between the consumer and facilitator and creator and facilitator. I will not dwell on the matter because we have raised all of these issues. I just wanted to address one point that was not dealt with. We have mentioned the difficulty and complexity of forms, the complexity of the entire process for receiving support, and René practically described a horror show, which I think is the case in some circumstances.
I wonder why we persist in maintaining a system which provides grants sparingly, often too late or at a time when people have to run to complete projects, and in some cases, projects that were completed before reception of the grant do not count. Take Musique Action. You have to give them a demo and these days when you produce a demo you are told "No, no, that will not work, you are going to have to do something else''. There are many factors such as these, and I think that, ladies and gentlemen members of the committee, if there is one point I would like to insist upon and which I would like to see you put on your agenda, it is that of "multi-yearity.'' I do not believe this word exists in the dictionary, but you know what I mean. Why persist in giving yearly or even six-month grants? Why not develop a system which would consist of five-year plans or at least three-year plans so that genuine cultural groups that have proven their worth —
But it is one size fits all, is it not? Whether you are a serious artist, whether you have had major successes or not, you must go through this extremely complex process. That is the message I would like to convey, "multi-yearity'' for grants, so that cultural organizations or artists who receive them do not constantly have to walk on eggshells to try to bring their projects to fruition. They could at least anticipate things and prepare. I am referring to serious people. For instance, another thing I have noticed, is why would someone who has been doing this for 40 years, successfully in many cases, still have to go through a host of complex procedures to ask for support? All this without knowing whether or not it will be forthcoming. For instance, asking for a business plan. You know that business plans are complicated for a $4,000 or $5,000 grant. A business plan which is well put together can cost $1,500. And in some cases, which I will not specify, it is required. Well then, facilitate! If we are talking about facilitators, let them facilitate the system, simplify it. I am simply repeating what my colleagues have already said, so I will not take up any more of your time. I simply wanted to make sure I said what I had to say.
So there is this administrative burden, this complexity. It should all be simplified. And I will end with that. Some people may claim that the reason why cultural facilitation is ailing in this way is that it is more politically profitable for a minister or a member to announce a grant every six months or each year rather than every three years or five years.
But the Sagouine said: "Gapi, il badgeule''; we should not be forced to listen to him or her all the time.
Senator Champagne: I would like to sincerely thank all three of you for your presentations. They were indeed as varied as they were beautiful, full of sensitivity, poetry, pragmatism and a bit of both in the case of Mr. Duguay. I listened to you carefully. Clearly in the case of arts and culture, money is essential. No one had any doubts about that. Nevertheless, the available funds are not unlimited and what I would like would be for you to point us in the right direction.
Should we make life easier for producers, facilitators, who will enable artists to present a show? I would like you to draw a clearer path for us. Now, I totally agree with the fact that grant application forms are complex and cause problems. As far as I am concerned, that is one thing that should be part of our report. I find it difficult. However, Mr. Duguay, I was listening to you and you said that some people who have been working for 35 or 40 years have to resubmit — I recently experienced this with people that I have known since the end of the 1950s who did indeed want to receive support to do a show in Europe. For one reason or another, I was never able to impress upon them that they needed to sign the document. It causes problems, but within government you cannot go ahead and grand funding without having something really tangible to show for it.
I know that wait times for receiving cheques when people are producing albums, have to go on tour and never know whether they will receive the money, all this is horrible. I certainly hope we will mention this in our report.
Yesterday, someone mentioned a similar problem. He said: "We've been told we are going to receive a $25,000 grant, but split up in five cheques''. So they may be receiving $5,000 or $2,500 at a time, and they have to wait, and that is a problem.
I am fully aware of the needs of artists, specifically those in minority settings like here. I am very very conscious of this. Mr. Saulnier, you said earlier on that Acadia would not be forgotten, would be "stronger than forgetfulness.'' That really got to me.
Before I ask you to comment on the various points I've raised, I would like to briefly discuss the problem relating to the action plan which you are expecting, which we are all expecting. I think we have to be honest and look back at the recent history of the francophonie. When Ms. Bev Oda was the Minister for Canadian Heritage, she could not be minister for the francophonie, it was under another department. At the time of the shuffle, the francophonie went to the Department of Foreign Affairs. Given the recent commotion, with an anglophone minister at Foreign Affairs, the francophonie was transferred to the Department of Canadian Heritage, where Minister Josée Verner is pulling everything together, and believe me, she will be setting it out as quickly as possible, for herself, for us and for you as well.
That is a small overview of my reaction to your comments, and if you could perhaps direct us through some practical suggestions, I think that would be of assistance to you and you would be helping us help you.
Mr. Cormier: In fact, you know that when the question is put in that way, when we say: is it the artist who needs more support? Or the facilitator? I think it becomes an impossible dilemma. In fact, we cannot say. Take the analogy of the human body. You cannot say you need an arm more so than a leg or your head more so than your heart, you need it all. You need to have an in-depth understanding of this cultural continuum, from the artist to the public.
Today, I would say that the main issue, the main priority, given the limited financial resources, is how to give all components of the cultural continuum the tools they need to work among themselves and work with other sectors. In other words, how can the arts and culture extend beyond the Department of Canadian Heritage or the Canada Council for the Arts? How can it also be taken up by other departments? Through the Canadian government's relationship with the provinces, how can they work together to diversify funding sources for the arts and culture? I think the main issue revolves around that today. We are experiencing it. We have experienced it in the Estates General on arts and culture in the following way: we realized that when you start to work with the educational sector, when you work with the economy, and when you are given the tools to do so, you find solutions which go beyond additional funding support.
The future of the arts and culture goes beyond funding, it has to do with how we understand and support the arts and culture continuum. Obviously, it has an impact, obviously, it is related to funding, but it is also very much related to the creation of networks. At this point, within the federal government, the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Canada Council for the Arts do not work hand in hand enough. We think there is a problem there. It has to do with mandates. What falls under the Department of Canadian Heritage? What falls under the Canada Council for the Arts? In the area of dissemination of the arts and culture, when you look at funding given by the Canada Council for the Arts to artists and funding granted through Canadian Heritage for those who disseminate the artist's work, is this complementary? How is this facilitated?
There are a number of issues there. Several of them relate to funding. How do we support artists, the machinery and all artistic sectors to collaborate with other sectors within society? I think that type of approach could be a win-win situation for all of us. Now, how will the Canadian government go beyond silos to have departments work together when they draw up a vision and contributions?
That is part of the answer. Sincerely, Senator Champagne, I think you cannot ask the cultural sector to tell the Canadian government or ask Acadian society to tell the Acadian government: "We want you to take charge of artists over the next five years. We do not want you to be responsible for organizing artistic and cultural events'' or "We do not want you to get involved in the relationship that the arts and culture sector has with the economy or with municipalities.''
We took three years to think about how things could be integrated, how we could work in a complementary fashion and I think that the federal government will need to take part in that reflection on how this should be done.
Senator Champagne: I find this extremely interesting, and it is probably up to us to try to find how to make that link. I was delighted last week to learn that, for example, the Government of Canada was going to renew the agreement on French-language education with New Brunswick. So, I thought, that is already one step. It has been renewed. This may be normal, but I also learned that when artists go to the Canada Council with their forms properly filled out, they are almost automatically asked if they have gone to knock on the provincial government's door in order to try to get some of the funding they need. Is this one of the links you are recommending?
Mr. Cormier: Yes. I think that this is one of the links. I am going to use your example of the federal-provincial agreement on education. For example, when the federal government is negotiating with the province of New Brunswick or another province, how does it ensure that some of the money allocated will go to the integration of arts and culture within the Department of Education? Because in actual fact, the provinces have a great deal of latitude, clearly, with regard to the moneys they are allocated. They have various obligations, and perhaps not other obligations, and we are not always convinced that the federal funds allocated to the provinces under the agreements on education wind up ensuring the integration of arts and culture. And this applies to numerous agreements.
Senator Champagne: I will have to give my colleagues a chance to ask questions, but, yesterday, we learned from the regional cultural officers that funding is coming from the federal government and there are agreements to make culture come alive and teach our young people that they have a culture and that it is beautiful and meaningful.
Mr. Cormier: Yes.
Senator Champagne: I will speak again later. I will give the floor to one of my colleagues.
Mr. Duguay: Perhaps I unconsciously sounded idealistic earlier. I think that we are not so unaware that we would think that we do not need any guidelines, not at all. However, I think that the system, while establishing guidelines, can be significantly improved because it is suffering. Controls are needed. Not just in the arts either. What about tax returns?
Senator Champagne: The telephone.
Mr. Duguay: Yes, good, the telephone. As they say, we live in difficult times. In other words, we live in an era where the client, and this applies across the board, is no longer right. That is my view of society. The client is no longer right. I had a friend in Montreal who worked for Bell; 10 years before, they were sent on courses to learn how to keep their clients. Ten years later, it is no longer necessary to keep them. I think this is symptomatic.
When we prepare applications and terms and conditions, and I am going to be mean here, but it has to be said, it is more to make things easier for public servants than to make it easier for artists and consumers.
Senator Champagne: Why make things easy when it is so much nicer to make them harder.
Senator Losier-Cool: I want to thank the three of you. I must say that I am very pleased to be here. Over the past two days, my colleagues and I have had great experiences and great meetings. I will be quite brief because I can already see that the next witnesses are here. Rest assured that your testimony will make a very significant contribution to our report. We will be looking very seriously at recommendations from the États généraux sur les arts et la culture.
Father Saulnier, you talked about a national cultural policy, and you said what you wanted to see and what this policy should include, and that we should recommend that the government adopt a cultural policy. A number of witnesses have already said this to us, and pointed out that Canada was the only G-8 country not to have a cultural policy. So, I would like you to talk a little bit more about this.
Mr. Cormier, I want to ask you to comment on the media, because we heard from the CBC; but how could they contribute even more? Perhaps some of my colleagues will remember that someone gave a specific answer of 30 minutes per week or something like that.
Mr. Cormier: Yes.
Senator Losier-Cool: Mr. Duguay, yesterday, we heard from people working in education and on the school board, including Ms. Ginette Duguay, who is a cultural mentor in the schools. Since you grew up in the region, can you tell me if there is more or less support for culture? You know Bathurst. Bathurst is a municipality that puts a lot of emphasis on sports. They have a very large centre. There is no cultural community centre. The community, and when I talk about community, I am talking about neighbours, cousins, aldermen, does not naturally support the arts. The community more naturally supports sports, and not culture.
Senator Losier-Cool: Well, Father Saulnier can talk to us about cultural policy, if you wish, because you had mentioned this.
Mr. Saulnier: Yes, I mentioned it. I just want to point out that I see the word "artist'' and I am not an artist. I am extremely interested in culture, but, in the Calixte triangle, I am the consumer or the public. I am often sitting in the theatre rather than on stage.
Mr. Cormier: He is an extraordinary facilitator.
Mr. Saulnier: I am often called upon to speak at activities by cultural groups, Heritage Canada, in any event, at a number of activities and at foundations; say it and I will do it. But at some point, I think, "Could there not be one single source above all that in order to do that...'' As Calixte said, I find this terribly complicated. The other day, I was talking to somebody who had just finished a big project, a self-help foundation for the Acadian Peninsula, and his name was Mr. Germain Blanchard. I phoned him to congratulate him and he said, "You are lucky you got me on the phone. I am feeling very discouraged.'' He said, "I cannot make it through all these funding applications.'' And this man has a university education. So when I come back to my little town where I try to encourage people to apply for project funding, and so forth, well I think, "Is it as complicated as all that?'' The difference between the grant and the final product is incredible and I wonder does it have to be so complicated in order for the end product to be beautiful? I do not think so, on the contrary. And that is what I mean. Would there not be a way to develop a national cultural policy that would bring together all the stakeholders, the Canada Council, the National Arts Centre and all these people so that they are all working for the same cause, to ensure culture for the local markets? This sounds utopic, in any event.
Senator Losier-Cool: On the subject of a cultural policy, yesterday publishers told us that when New Brunswick adopted a policy on books, this helped sales.
Mr. Saulnier: Yes.
Senator Losier-Cool: This helped with promotions.
Mr. Saulnier: It helps to unify.
Senator Losier-Cool: Mr. Cormier, what more should the CBC be doing?
Mr. Cormier: In fact, as a segue before speaking of the CBC, I would say that the challenge of developing a Canadian cultural policy is really the challenge of defining what cultures are, how we live and live together and how we recognize our cultures of origin, new cultures and so forth. A cultural policy is not only an institutional issue, it is a matter of collective identity and that is why Canada has perhaps waited so long to adopt one, because it is complex to define how we recognize cultures in this country, how we recognize the founding cultures, even if I know that we cannot or should not say that. How do we do that in a country such as ours? I think that it is a major challenge that goes beyond our institutions.
With regard to the CBC, which is one of the major institutions, I think that there are number of very concrete ways to integrate more Acadians into our national showcases. On the one hand, we need to remember that the CBC, apart from the discussions we could have with upper management there, is in fact a very complex institution because there are hierarchies and decision-making powers at all levels. In other words, the board of the CBC can say that it is integrating Acadian artists in all shows, that directors will have a certain level of autonomy in the choices they make and that things are being done not only at the board level within the CBC but also from the ground up, meaning by researchers and the people developing the shows.
We have an instrument that is not an instrument solely for the Acadians, but rather a national one for the francophonie called ZOF Montreal Bureau de promotion, an office created by the Fédération culturelle canadienne française, to which most of the Acadian organizations belong, be it the AAPNB or the CPSC. ZOF Montreal is a way to showcase Acadian and francophone cultures throughout Quebec, and establish concrete and permanent connections with arts and culture organizations in Montreal. This office has a great deal of difficulty obtaining funding, and I cannot understand why.
I do not understand why the federal government does not recognize that there is an active organization in Montreal, that is helping to build bridges between Acadian arts and culture stakeholders and Quebec stakeholders... How can such an instrument not be essential? It has a lot of difficulty getting funding. The government fails to understand its relevance, whereas if we had it, we could directly intervene with the CBC on the ground.
What could this mean in terms of results? Right now, we have Joseph Yvon Thériault, an Acadian living in Ottawa who is on Radio-Canada radio every Saturday afternoon. I listen to national Radio-Canada radio with a lot of pride when I hear Joseph Yvon because I think, that is one of our own who is making a contribution. Not just because he is Acadian, but because he has commented on major issues affecting all Canadians. So why are there not any Acadian artists or Acadian public figures on Tout le monde en parle or other national talk shows?
It is because the researchers and directors creating the shows do not go and seek out francophones and Acadians because they do not know they exist, because there are no everyday, permanent instruments or tools bringing them to us. So, it is not only to see a greater presence by creating shows from here, but also to see how we can invest and ensure our presence on national shows being watched by all Canadians and to which we can contribute. I do not know whether I am making myself clear in this regard, but there you have it.
Senator Losier-Cool: Mr. Duguay, you talked a little bit about community support for artists. Do artists need to be twice as good to survive in Acadia or in minority communities?
Mr. Duguay: René made the point earlier that if we did a comparative study on artists' salaries and salaries earned by people in other sectors of our society, we would see a considerable difference. I will not go into details because René is really the expert in the area and because I go more on my instincts, without really having statistics to back me up. I made my presentation this morning somewhat like someone who decides to write a doctoral thesis. They put forward a hypothesis and after they try to prove that point.
However, I am always surprised that governments always want to strike arts and culture off the list whenever they have to cut something or get rid of something. It is at the bottom of the priority list. It is the first thing to go.
Second, and this is a personal story, about two months or two and a half months ago, I cannot remember when exactly, I went to Fredericton because I am a member of the board of the Association acadienne des artistes professionnels du Nouveau-Brunswick and, as a result, I was accompanying the executive director and chair. Our premier gave a speech on how the province was doing and it was a brilliant speech, but he did not say the word culture once. At the Estates General on arts and culture in Acadia, all the politicians in the room make the most beautiful statements about culture. It all sounds great, and a few months later, no one remembers a thing. This is like a slap in the face, and I wrote a letter in the Acadie Nouvelle about this somewhat ironic phenomenon.
The lieutenant-governor said it, and I saw it in the Acadie Nouvelle, when he said culture, among other things, was not selling, it was a bad seller. How can we convince governments that culture is profitable? It is because we are talking about an economic principle. In other words, if we put $1 into culture, we can make about $1.25, but that is not how it works. Culture produces benefits that are not necessarily economic in nature, and it is difficult to sell for that reason. It is a little bit like having an illness. Some people have an illness that you cannot see. When someone is mentally ill, we think, "He is not sick, he seems okay.'' But they cannot see inside. However, if someone is missing an arm, well there — Do you understand? Do we need to cut off our arm? I mean, are we going to kill an artist? I do not know.
Obviously, the fact that culture is always the last thing on the list is a strange phenomenon, and I think that, despite all the promises we have heard, not much changes. I do not mean to be overly pessimistic, but that is often what happens.
Senator Losier-Cool: That is why I was happy yesterday when I saw the program that Ms. Duguay and the school board had in the schools. It is authentic. From my experience working on school board budgets, the first thing that got cut were music or art classes in the schools.
Mr. Duguay, at the beginning, you said to us, "You have probably already heard this, but I will say it again...'' It needs to be said again. I think that it needs to be said again. I believe in the broken record method, that it needs to be said again, particularly when we are representing minorities. At each hearing, we have heard the words, "burnout,'' "adequate funding'' or "inadequate funding'' or "complicated funding,'' "complexity.'' We heard that, and we also heard how little importance is given to culture, how it does make such a great political speech, it works in politics, but in reality — as they say in English "Walk the talk and talk the walk'' or something like that — but it needs to be done.
Senator Corbin: I do not really have any questions. I agree with what you are saying. I have been hearing this for 40 years. I will be retiring from the Senate next year and as a pragmatic politician, if I may use that term, I have always regretted the frequency with which we change ministers in Ottawa, ministers responsible for handing out cultural benefits. They seem to be considered secondary departments and no one hesitates to shuffle the ministers. They are left there for a year, two years or three years at most, and then we have to start all over. Each minister has their own idea of what a cultural policy should be.
There is also the fact that there are ideological issues with regard to the governments in power, and all this serves to create greater confusion than assistance for culture. So, I simply want to share the frustration I have experienced over the years, but I quite clearly comprehend your message.
I do not really have a question. I want to thank you for your excellent presentations. These were great presentations. It is not the first time I have heard each of you give a presentation, and I think it is important that you be clearly heard.
It is not so much the questions we ask you, it is our understanding of your concerns and our ability to pass that message along in the form of a well-written, strong report to the political authorities in Ottawa. That is all I want to say for now. Perhaps I will speak a little later during our hearing this afternoon, once I have had the opportunity to take in all these comments.
You have my full support. I cannot speak about sympathy. It is no longer a question of being sympathetic, the time has come for action. I will seek to work with my colleagues to the best of our abilities to ensure that your concerns and your representations are heard. Thank you very much.
The Chair: I second what my Senate colleagues have just said. Gentlemen, your presentations were excellent. This comes as no surprise, however, your comments were thought-provoking and truly reflect reality. We agree with what you have said, and you are before a Senate committee that understands the situation, senators who, no matter which party we represent, will come forward with recommendations to try to change various things that are not only complicating matters for arts and culture and artists, but also making their lives so difficult that at some point people are getting burnt-out and losing hope.
I want to conclude my comments by asking a very brief question. To all three witnesses, if you had one wish or one change, and I emphasize the word one, that would you wish to see happen out of all the things that you want to have happen, what would be your first recommendation pursuant to the États généraux sur les arts et la culture? What is the first thing that should be done? Father Saulnier, what would be the first thing that we could recommend that would restore your hope? Mr. Duguay, what would be the first thing that you would like to see happen? Perhaps you have already mentioned it, but I would like you to tell me again.
Mr. Cormier: I will repeat what I said to Senator Champagne. I think that if the Canadian government were to do just one thing, it should be to adopt the conditions and the funding to ensure a better relationship between the cultural sector and other sectors of society, to ensure that all sectors of our society feel concerned about the future of arts and culture, and that, together, they can help to build strong artistic and cultural communities, but above all strong Acadian communities.
The Chair: And with regard to networking, you mean support?
Mr. Cormier: Meaning support for networking. I am also referring to teaching, education. We need help making our fellow citizens better understand the value and contribution of arts and culture. In order to do that, we need the tools and means to do so. Artists and cultural organizations that want to sit down with businesspeople or a municipality need to be equipped, and in order to do that, they need the tools. I think that this is part of the priorities if we want to mobilize our communities around the issue of arts and culture.
Mr. Saulnier: I will make reference to what John Saul said at the Estates General on Arts and Culture: it may be urgent to set aside to some extent our economic vision and consider an inclusive culture, rather than having culture as a byproduct, but rather a reality that brings a community to life.
Mr. Duguay: To use a single word, I would say, "multi-year''. I would add that if governments have four or five years in which to implement their platform, why don't our cultural institutions have the same?
Senator Champagne: I was noting the last sentence. This has been an absolutely wonderful trip. Yesterday, we met with wonderful people and listening to you today has been a pleasure. You know, it is not even over, there are other witnesses who are waiting their turn and we will listen to them with the same attention, warmth, and open-mindedness. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much, gentlemen, and do not forget to send us that report from the Estates General, the États généraux des arts et de la culture en Acadie.
Mr. Cormier: Yes.
The Chair: Honourable colleagues, senators, we have three other witnesses. First, from Productions Ode incorporées, we have Mr. Paul Marcel Albert, director general. Welcome, sir; from the Société culturelle des Tracadilles, we have Ms. Francine Brideau, cultural officer. Welcome, Madam; and from the Congrès mondial acadien 2009, we have Mr. Jacques Lanteigne, administrative director. Welcome, sir.
In keeping with what we have done to date, we would ask you to give us a five- to seven-minute presentation, and then the senators will be able to ask you some questions. We will begin with Mr. Paul Marcel Albert.
Paul Marcel Albert, Director General, Productions Ode inc.: Madam Chair, honourable senators, good day. I have been working in arts and culture since I was 15. I spent some 20 years as the head of the Festival acadien de Caraquet, which, over the years, has become one of the top cultural events in Atlantic Canada. In 2004, during 15 days of festivities, some 175,000 people took part in our scheduled activities. We attracted 50 times our population of 3,500 souls. To do the same, the Montreal Jazz Festival would have to draw 100 million spectators. At that time, the Festival acadien's budget was $2.2 million. For several years, I also worked with someone whom you know quite well, one of the best actresses in Canada, Ms. Viola Léger.
At the end of the 1980s, we co-founded the Viola Léger Company, and its very first production, Harold and Maude, showcased Ms. Léger and a young recent graduate of the National Theatre School who was starring in his first professional role named Roy Dupuis. Eleven thousand people saw the show.
Since 2005, I have been in charge of Productions Ode, a not-for-profit company that was created to develop a show called Ode à l'Acadie. Created in 2004 by the Festival acadien de Caraquet, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Acadia, this show was only supposed to be shown 25 times during the summer season. It was an instant hit and we celebrated our 100,000th viewer last month in Moncton after over 300 shows on three continents. This show had received initial and substantial support from the Department of Canadian Heritage and ACOA.
When projects receive a decent amount of funding, one of the winning conditions needed for their success is being fulfilled. I am not saying this is the only condition, but it is an important one. I give you these three examples to show you that, in the regions, we have success stories that often, all too often, are not acknowledged by decision-makers whose feet are firmly planted in Ottawa.
Today, I want to talk to you about pride, which I believe is an essential element in maintaining and developing any language or culture. I would like to be able to make my voice heard with regard to the difficulties of cultural production in the regions.
I think that we should be eligible for a remote-region benefit. Producing a show such as Ode à l'Acadie in Montreal would be significantly less expensive. There would be no transportation costs, per diems, accommodation costs, fees related to human resources and extensive specialized equipment, proximity to significant sponsors and so on.
I would also like to discuss our general ignorance of our brothers in arms, Franco-Ontarians, Franco-Colombians and Franco-Manitobans. We should be able to access and appreciate their cultural productions. There should be special programs for tours in order to enable Canadian minorities to better get to know each other. We need to increase the number of opportunities to meet.
At the same time, we should facilitate the export abroad of our renowned artists, and we should support the development of our cultural industries.
I would also like to talk to you about the importance of seeing, recognizing and hearing ourselves on the radio and, above all, our national television station. The Canadian francophonie should not be relegated to Saturday afternoons or the late, late show. Montreal teams also need to travel around the country in order to take the pulse and understand the Canadian reality, not just what is happening in Quebec. The regions must get more national air time.
Canada is a huge country, and few Canadians have the privilege of travelling around it. If only, at the very least, we could do it virtually. I am convinced that a number of communities would like to host Bernard Derome's team and his national Téléjournal. On the other hand, it is good to see our weatherman, William Bourque, presenting the national weather forecast on RDI. We need more such examples. We need more drama series. Belle-Baie is a good example of this.
I would also like to talk to you about how weary I am of various government programs that, through an excess of zeal and red tape, are discouraging cultural workers and discouraging volunteers from getting involved with organizations that are essential to the development and growth of minorities in this country. In my opinion, the budget envelopes for the Department of Canadian Heritage, among others, should be allocated to regional offices in Western Canada, Central Canada and Atlantic Canada. These are three completely different regions.
We need more regional structures such as ACOA. We need different applications and reports for subsidies of $1,000 and $50,000. We need to simplify the bureaucracy and stop making small companies pay for the sponsorship scandal as it was not caused by $2,000 subsidies.
I want to speak in favour of decentralizing administrative decisions made by various government departments and agencies. We feel very far from the centre of power and it is our impression that a number of programs have been developed in accordance with the needs of organizations in major centres such as Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver and the National Capital.
In closing, I want to quote Gabrielle Roy who wrote:
Minorities are condemned to excellence or extinction.
I would add that cultural minorities, and particularly the Acadian people, have achieved excellence through their artists. Acadia is a real hive of artistic activity. Without a doubt, it is the place in Canada with the most artists per square metre. Perhaps this is the result of the survival instinct. After being deported and hiding out in the woods for years, Acadians are recovering through their words, paintings, theatre and songs. There are approximately 400,000 Acadians living in Atlantic Canada, the equivalent of, say, the population of the city of Laval. Well, if Laval had given birth to Arthur Leblanc, Thérèsa Malenfant, Nérée DeGrâce, Gérald Leblanc, Antonine Maillet, the only Goncourt prize winner in Canada, Édith Butler, Viola Léger, Claude Roussel, Roch Voisine, Angèle Arsenault, Oscar winner Paul Leblanc, musical group 1755, Natasha St-Pierre, filmmaker Renée Blanchard, Ode à l'Acadie, Marie-Jo Thério, Calixte Duguay, Jacques Savoie, Nathalie Paulin, Rose-Marie Landry, Jean-François Breau, Annie Blanchard, Wilfred Lebouthillier, to name just a few... Acadia is the birthplace of excellence. Our governments have the duty to facilitate the emergence of that excellence and promote it. If in fact "Minorities are condemned to excellence or extinction'', the Acadian people are not ready to throw in the towel.
Francine Brideau, Cultural Officer, Société culturelle des Tracadilles: Madam Chair, thank you for the invitation to appear before this committee. The Société culturelle des Tracadilles is over 30 years old and is the main arts and culture presenter in the greater Tracadie region. In addition to its annual programming this cultural society heads the École Fontaine des arts and the Festival Moisson d'ART, which has the mandate to present art in all its forms by professional francophone artists from here and elsewhere. The arts are alive and well in the Tracadie-Sheila region thanks to the presence of publisher La Grande Marée, Productions Cojak, a theatre, schools of dance, choirs, community theatre groups and an amateur painters' cooperative.
The greater Tracadie-Sheila region is also extremely well represented throughout the francophonie thanks to artists such as actors Diane Losier and Robin Joël Cool, world-renowned singers Nathalie Paulin and Michèle Losier, singer- songwriter-composers Jean-François Breau and Wilfred Lebouthillier, painter Jean-Baptiste Comeau, storyteller Dominique Breau, multidisciplinary artist Raynald Basque, to name just a few. They are ambassadors of excellence for all of Acadia.
Despite an overwhelmingly francophone population, it is sometimes difficult to promote francophone artists, particularly among young people. Many of them are consumers of anglophone music, television and movies.
We often realize that even Acadian artists are not well known in the Acadian Peninsula and very few are able to make a living from their art here. As the saying goes, no man is a prophet in his own country.
Fortunately, Acadian pride is alive and very well, which has no doubt contributed to the French cause.
We face many challenges, but funding is the biggest. With less than $30,000 in funding from the Department of Canadian Heritage for annual programming, the cultural society must pay for the services of an officer eight months a year, cover its operating costs, present diversified programming and ensure cultural development. The officer puts in numerous hours of volunteer work for minimum pay. The Festival Moisson d'ART, which the officer also coordinates, is subsidized through the Arts Presentation Canada Program under Canadian Heritage, the New Brunswick Arts Festivals Program, the Quebec-New Brunswick Agreement and the town of Tracadie-Sheila. In order for the event to be a success sponsors and the cooperation of a number of partners are also essential.
Other than funding, the most significant challenges are a lack of infrastructure, the aging of the population, the youth drain, the regional economy, the proximity of broadcasters and the lack of recognition for arts and culture by the various levels of government and the media.
We also face the challenge of cultural education among the general public, but above all among young people. Along with the schools and other cultural organizations, we need to make the arts accessible, both artistically and economically.
We realize that young people particularly like abstract visual art and that they see things differently than adults do. Young children who have never before been in a theatre were impressed both by the room and the show after we had transformed their gymnasium into a theatre. Drama classes are very successful. The young and the not-so-young see them as a unique way to express themselves. We need to remember that we have to remain accessible to the public, be open to its needs, all the while presenting them with new experiences.
It is most urgent that we receive stable funding that would enable our cultural society to operate year-round and to hire staff to work on various challenges such as preparing funding applications, recruiting and training volunteers — currently burnt out and discouraged — and public and media relations, since we get very little media coverage.
If cultural societies had better federal and provincial funding, it would be easier for them to fulfil their mandate to present cultural and artistic products and ensure development, including ensuring the involvement of the municipality and community. Infrastructure acquisition is essential in order to present a wider variety of artists from all disciplines. Dance and theatre companies have refused to put on productions in Tracadie-Sheila because our theatre does not meet their needs. Since there are only 230 seats in our theatre, we can only put on a limited variety of shows or face significant deficits. An art gallery and a creation workshop are also needed in order to promote the arts and artists.
There are commendable elements in part VII of the Official Languages Act as long as concrete action is taken. All these documents, studies and polls conducted by the federal government are so far removed from us. With all our concerns, we no longer have the time or energy to follow the progress of these studies or contribute to them. We cannot shake the feeling that, as francophones — and you will pardon the expression — we are beggars and whiners. Our ancestors came to Canada over 400 years ago and, in 2008, we still have to fight for our rights. Too much energy is being wasted justifying our existence as a cultural society in a francophone community. That energy should instead be invested in developing, promoting, presenting and preserving our culture and our artists.
Jacques C.F. Lanteigne, as an individual: Madam Chair, thank you. I want to start by welcoming you to our region. It is a pleasure to have you here. I am the Administrative Director of the Congrès mondial acadien 2009, however, I am appearing here as an individual. My organization has not given me the mandate to make this presentation to you. Earlier, I provided each of the committee members with a copy of our preliminary programming, so, next summer, we would be pleased to have you back for the Congrès mondial. This preliminary programming was released last year. We continue to work on the programming, but this document gives you a fair bit of information about the event.
I think that francophone culture plays an extremely significant role in our region, but I also think that we face a number of challenges; some of those challenges are a declining interest in young people in the French language; the penetration of communications mediums, such as the Internet; and, here, in the Peninsula, the inaction of young people and not-so-young people with regard to the daily struggle to preserve our language. Francophone culture plays an extremely important role in New Brunswick, but, here too, we face a daily struggle in order to preserve our language. I am not here to pass judgment, but budget cuts to the immersion program concern me. I think that language acquisition is the first factor in ensuring our open-mindedness to others, and that is what separates us as Canadians from Americans, and ensures that we will never be like the Americans. We appreciate and recognize the value of others and we also respect them.
You sent us a number of questions to help us write our presentations and one of those questions concerned the major challenges for cultural stakeholders. Clearly, the financial challenges are extremely significant and all too often, we feel like we are begging. Perhaps I did not clarify this when I started my presentation, but, unlike Paul Marcel and Francine to some extent, I am not an artist myself. Rather, I am a manager. I have known Paul Marcel for over 20 years, he is the creator and I help him manage the money side of creation. This gives me a different perspective.
Earlier, my friend, Father Zoël, made the argument that there should be more recognition for culture in our society, and I think that, in fact, Canada's cultural wealth includes the French language. In my opinion, the government needs to do more to support that wealth because that is what makes us a better country.
Another challenge is human resources. I am aware that such challenges also exist in urban centres, but I must tell you that, in rural regions, this challenge is particularly acute.
Paul Marcel mentioned something earlier that I want to comment on, if I may, and it is the issue of subsidies for $5,000 projects compared to subsidies for $50,000 projects. I am going to exaggerate somewhat and draw comparison between a $5,000 project and a $500,000 project. Currently, major projects and small projects are covered with the same application form. This in itself is not logical. If you are to take any message back to Ottawa, it should be to literally tell senior officials and deputy ministers, "For goodness' sake, give the people in the regions a little bit of power''.
This works better at ACOA because it is located here. I deal with someone in Fredericton who regularly visits our offices: "What are you doing? How are you spending your money?'' If we can demonstrate with an audit to that person that everything is in order, here is where the money is, then we get our funding. However, Canadian Heritage does things differently. We deal with people in Moncton who work very well with us, and we are very happy with them, but they do not have any decision-making powers; they have the power to sign documents and make recommendations, it goes to Ottawa, and we recently learned that in one case, the letter sat on the minister's desk for 10 weeks. It is a little frustrating.
Senator Champagne, you were minister. I worked for ministers when you were in cabinet, and I know how it works. At some point, we want to make certain that the money is being well spent, but being too cautious is worse.
I think that when you report back to Ottawa, you need to say: "My goodness, give the people in the region a bit of flexibility.'' It is not complicated. We do not want a $500,000 margin. I think that the people in Moncton should have the authority to sign off on projects up to $100,000 and things would be greatly improved. Unfortunately, this is not currently the case.
I want to talk to you about a success story in relation to the Congrès mondial. Before we prepared our major funding application for the federal government, which, in passing, gave us slightly more than $3 million and we thank it very much for that, we talked simultaneously with the federal and provincial governments, in order to see what to put in our application and to whom we were going to apply for funding and so on. We, along with the people from ACOA and Canadian Heritage here in Atlantic Canada agreed that we would send in just one application. Subsequently, if the project was approved, and obviously we hoped that it would be, and it was, we would present only one quarterly report.
My conference has a budget that is six times greater than the budget for the Festival acadien, however, the people from Canadian Heritage and ACOA agreed to work together and say, « Instead of producing one report for ACOA, another report for Canadian Heritage and yet another report for the province, which is also providing us with slightly over a million dollars in funding, I would write a single report ». I would send that report to everybody and that would be the end of it. If they have any questions they could call me. This method should be encouraged across the board. Earlier, René talked about how onerous the Canadian Heritage process is. However, the people with whom we work are extremely kind-hearted, if I may say so, and accommodating, but unfortunately, they do not have any authority. The Congrès deals with ACOA and Canadian Heritage together, and I would say that this is a huge change. Speaking in concrete terms from a manager's perspective, I would say that this saves me maybe three weeks of work per year. When Francine sends in her applications every year on behalf of the cultural society she's doing the same amount of work she would be doing to send in a multi-year application, like Calixte talked about earlier, but she could be doing it once every five years. A follow-up would have to be done, "Okay, you said that you would do this at the Tracadilles, did you do it? Yes? Was it successful? Okay. Talk to you next year. Okay.'' But Francine has to spend one, two or three weeks a year filling out those stupid applications. I am sorry, but as a manager, I have some dealings with business people and this would not fly. Public servants have the time to do that. We do not. Madam Chair, you talked about burnout. I can tell you that this burnout is in large part the result of this problem. I think that if you take any message back to Ottawa this should be it.
Use the example of the cooperation between ACOA and Canadian Heritage on the Congrès mondial acadien. It is possible. Initially, it was doubtful, and ultimately, it is working well. I would say that we are managing our funding as well as any other organization and there will not be any sponsorship scandal.
One thing I would like to add concerns the impact of Part VII of the new Official Languages Act. I am unfamiliar with the direct and concrete consequences, since I am not directly involved; however, I could tell you that when I read in the commissioner's notes that:
... the commissioner defines a positive measure as an action taken by a federal institution that has a real and positive effect...
A little later in the same document, it states:
Institutions can refer to three guiding principles, a proactive, systematic approach and an ongoing process for assessing...
I think that the commissioner is right. I think that one of the messages you need to take back to Ottawa as the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages is this: "Has there really been any proactive action? We are not familiar with them, and I think that it would be in our interest to be. The various departments in Ottawa also would have an interest in publicizing what they do in this regard, if anything. When I was working in Ottawa, one of the things that we often heard — and I knew a politician who said that — was that Ottawa was 20 miles surrounded by reality. I would say that the regions sometimes think this too, to some extent because the decision-makers are in Ottawa. Ottawa is a very beautiful city, the people are nice and everything, but they cannot understand what is happening in Saint-John's, Newfoundland or Caraquet if they have never visited the regions.
There has to be a way in which the decision-making powers are shared. It is understandable for the federal government to maintain the authority to make the major decisions, but making it mandatory for the minister to sign a $10,000 or a $20,000 subsidy makes no sense whatsoever. Ask anyone and they will tell you the same thing, "Did you spend the money? Do you have proof that you spent it? Great, go on with your project''. I think that you could mention this in your report.
A few additional comments on the media. Personally, I do not think that Radio-Canada exists in Canada, I think it is Radio-Montréal. That is how I see it. When an important event takes place in Montreal — Let me give you a concrete example: Vincent Lacroix defrauded a number of people, this was an economic crime, yes, there are people who lost nearly $200 million, but my goodness, every time he left the courtroom, even if it was for less than five minutes, RDI would interrupt its programming to show him coming out of court. I am sorry, but this really frustrates me because we do not get the same treatment here.
The festival Acadie en fête, which Paul Marcel headed for a number of years, generally had very spectacular shows. And yet, despite the great collaboration from people at Radio-Canada in Moncton, who gave us a lot of help, this never was televised. Ottawa said that it was going to be broadcast live. No, it is not going to be broadcast live, it cannot be broadcast live on August 15. They can do it on June 24, and July 1st, which is Canada Day. But August 15 with the Acadians is less important. Earlier I was doing the math. I thought, "On a per capita basis, we would be broadcast once every 28 years because there are nearly 30 times more Quebeckers than Acadians''. I think that it is not right to think like that. I think that ensuring that August 15 is broadcast live more often means that, among other things, the more recognition there will be for how great it is to be a bilingual, multicultural country. Similarly, I would have absolutely no objections to live broadcasts of shows in Vancouver for the Chinese community, for example, because they too are part of our country and I think they should be recognized.
Earlier, I talked about provincial cooperation between Canadian Heritage, ACOA and New Brunswick, and previous speakers talked about education. I think that it is important for the federal government, even if I know that it is a very delicate and complex issue due to the Constitution, to support tours and arts presentations in the schools. It is extremely important to reach young people aged 10, 12 or 14, because sometimes it does more than reach them, it marks them. We are opening their minds for years to come and I think that the federal government can play an important role in the future.
In conclusion, I want to say that I am not surprised that artists or culture is the first thing to be cut, because perhaps their voice has not carried far enough or there are not enough votes to be had from those sectors. That is clearly how politicians operate. It is time to realize and recognize how rich our culture is. We need to acknowledge this and repeat it. Our country is rich because, too, we have a number of different cultures here, so it is important for the government, which you represent here today, to move in that direction.
I know that it is difficult, and there is always the funding issue, but I think we should do it and keep it anyway. Thank you.
The Chair: When we talk about proactive action, when we tell departments that they should be proactive about supporting culture — and as you well know, we have legislation that provides for positive measures — we often have to give senior officials in Ottawa and the department examples of what we consider positive, or proactive, measures. What we experience in our regions, in our minority communities, is not what those people experience in other places. If I asked you, Mr. Lanteigne, to give me an example of a department that is proactive, could you name one?
Mr. Lanteigne: I would ask you to have a department like Industry Canada come to the region, either here to the Centre-Marin Aquarium or to a similar place, so that they could become known and engage in dialogue with people here about what they do and what we do here, for instance.
The Chair: That is a very good example. Please go on.
Mr. Lanteigne: As we know, they are fairly rigid in their approach. They have to leave the major cities and go to the regions, both your region in Manitoba and our regions here in New Brunswick. And to that suggestion, people will say: "There are costs, transportation costs and all of that.'' Yes, there are, but so what?
The Chair: They have obligations under the Official Languages Act.
Mr. Lanteigne: Exactly. And what I am trying to say is that those are the types of concrete actions we need to see. Let me give you another example.
The Chair: Take another department.
Mr. Lanteigne: Some departments, even though they may not have a cultural mandate, might choose to sponsor school tours or artists' tours and say that that is a way of becoming involved in the community. I know that officials might not see that in a very positive light, but that is not something I care about. There comes a time when you have to take tangible action, action that actually reaches people.
The Chair: I very much like the example you gave earlier in citing Industry Canada, because we cannot always say that it is up to Canadian Heritage to help us. On the contrary, the others should do their part too.
Mr. Lanteigne: Exactly.
The Chair: All federal departments have some responsibility under the Official Languages Act, and they are responsible for supporting our development and helping us flourish.
Mr. Lanteigne: I am in a bit of conflict-of-interest situation, because my Congrès mondial budget is somewhat insufficient, so we are shopping around in Ottawa for the last million we need. We met a group of 15 officials. The options we had, like a plan B, if you will, is this: If Industry Canada or a different department does not feel comfortable contributing to the Congrès mondial because that is too far from its mandate or for another reason, we said that they could transfer the money to Canadian Heritage and Canadian Heritage could make the contribution. In my view, that is simply a way of finding some mechanical means to get it done, since the source of the money is really the same. Those are taxpayers' dollars. So, in my view, if some departments find it too difficult to take the tangible action, then perhaps Canadian Heritage could become the channel through which they help. But of course we have to make sure that people in the regions have decision-making authority, because if we have to go to Ottawa and wait for weeks and months before decisions are made, we will be no better off.
The Chair: And if people in the region had decision-making authority, let's say that the regional office of Canadian Heritage had decision-making authority, if things were changed to allow that, then we would have an example of a proactive department or positive measure, wouldn't we?
Mr. Lanteigne: As a manager, I would say no. It would simply be sound management.
The Chair: I like that answer. Thank you, Mr. Lanteigne.
Mr. Lanteigne: Well, all you have to do is look at any private-sector corporation, really any major corporation, and see whether it is the CEO who decides how many pencils and erasers are going to be purchased. That is not how it works.
As for the government, even though sound money management is extremely important, I think it has shown abundantly that money would in fact be better managed if more money went to the regions and everything did not go through Ottawa. That is my view.
The Chair: Ms. Brideau, do you have an example of what a proactive department or a positive measure by a department might be?
Ms. Brideau: I think that it all starts with recognition, be it from the different levels of government, from the community, or from business people. As far as I am concerned, that is the foundation. When the need for cultural organizations and non-profit organizations is recognized, then departments might invest more. Of course, funding is the most proactive measure the is, in our view.
The Chair: Multi-year funding?
Ms. Brideau: Yes. As far as possible, obviously, even for larger amounts.
Ms. Brideau: By filling positions, and hiring people to discharge our cultural development mandate, we can ensure that language and education are protected. If we had half the budget that sports get in municipalities, we would appreciate it very deeply and would be able to do more. As long as the community and governments do not recognize culture as a necessary cause, we will not be able to operate. We will not be able to do any more than what we do today. I believe that the governments are so used to seeing us do a lot with nothing, that they expect us to continue in that vein. But we are exhausted, and at the end of our rope. Volunteers are not interested any more, and do not want to be involved any more, because we are asking them to do work that should be done by paid employees. So what we need is funding and recognition by the entire community and by governments as well.
Mr. Albert: I was talking about the role of major institutions, in that it might be more difficult to ask certain departments to take proactive action when their mandate does not really cover culture or covers it in a more distant way. Take the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, for example. I think the French-language network, Société Radio- Canada, makes a real effort, particularly on radio. We can feel that their radio network is really a national radio. As for television, I believe that an effort is continuing and has been made in recent years, but there is no real will to do anything spectacular. I think it should be fairly simple for Bernard Derome to come and do the Le Téléjournal in Caraquet on August 15, because that is National Acadian Day. And if those people come to our communities, they will remember us. Not only are Acadians welcoming, they will find when they do the news in Acadia they will not just be talking about Quebeckers. When we listen to the Téléjournal on Radio-Canada, we often feel that it is focused solely on Quebeckers, at least in most of the news. And when our friend William Bourque does the weather, he does not introduce it by giving the temperatures in Moncton, New Brunswick. He starts by talking about Montreal, almost as if he were in a Montreal studio. But that takes a change in attitude. Not all national news programs can broadcast from elsewhere, and I remind myself that minorities do not know one another. Does the Productions du Théâtre Molière in Manitoba do any major tours? Do our plays and theatre groups go to Manitoba? Yet the communities in both places would be very interested. We have a great deal of affinity with Ontarians, with Manitobans, with everyone in Canada's French-speaking world, yet we do not know one another. We bring in artists from Quebec, we go to Quebec, but we do not really see our other cousins much.
Senator Champagne: I have been listening to you on the subject of Radio-Canada. Unfortunately, even our responsible minister cannot give the CBC orders, even if it appoints their president.
I think that all of us should say what we feel is necessary and what should be done whenever we get the opportunity, because some of our messages do get through, perhaps through the crack in the door or through chinks in the wall, wherever.
Mr. Albert and Mr. Lanteigne, you also talked about taking your show on tour. Aren't there programs at the Canada Council to help you do that? I think there are.
Mr. Albert: There are programs. I think we looked at them last year, and found that the criteria were really very difficult to meet.
Senator Champagne: Difficult? It would clearly be difficult.
Mr. Albert: And I think that there should be some flexibility. Quite often, you read the programs and you can see that they are geared towards major cities. In the past, the Canada Council had the Touring Office.
The Chair: Yes, that is right.
Mr. Albert: As far as I know, the Touring Office no longer exists. So if I take our show as an example, an established theatre company would clearly be much more organized when it came to tours. When it comes to music, or a musical show, we —
Senator Champagne: Musical theatre is not included in the criteria.
Mr. Albert: It is difficult. And that is where Canadian Heritage could support some projects in the regions, particularly projects that do not fit in the programs but that are very successful. Here in Acadia, the show Ode à l'Acadie has been running for a long time. I do not really think senior officials at Canadian Heritage are that aware of our show back in Ottawa. So if decisions were made here, by us and other cultural stakeholders, I think it would be much more useful, because people are close to things. They know us, they have seen our shows, and they would be more likely to support us.
Senator Champagne: For instance, I know that when an art gallery in the region prepares an exhibit, they get more financial assistance for organizing it in the region if they take it on tour afterwards.
Mr. Albert: But has that funding been restored recently? There had been talk of cutting budgets for moving works from gallery to gallery. I do not know if that funding has been restored. I do not understand why Canadian Heritage does not have programs to raise the profile of Franco-Manitobans and people from Newfoundland, for example, so that there is some exchange. Minority communities have to get to know one another, whether they are in Quebec or outside Quebec.
Senator Champagne: Let's say that that is one of the things we hope to put forward with this committee's report. Earlier, you were saying that there were many things politicians did not deal with because those things did not get them any votes. In my humble opinion, that is a very good reason for keeping our Senate as it is. We do not need anyone to vote for us.
Senator Losier-Cool: I have just one question for Ms. Brideau. What area does the Société culturelle des Tracadilles cover?
Ms. Brideau: We serve the former school district of Tracadie, which extends from Rivière-du-Portage to Saint- Isidore, and includes many small regions in between, such as Pont-Lafrance, Saumarez and Pont-Landry.
Senator Losier-Cool: Not just Néguac?
Ms. Brideau: No. Néguac — that is a cultural association from elsewhere.
Senator Losier-Cool: Yesterday, Ms. Diane Leblanc, from the Société culturelle Nepisiguit, was talking to us about her large region. She also said she lacked infrastructure, as you did, and considers it essential.
Ms. Brideau: Yes.
Senator Losier-Cool: I know that this is a pipe dream, and because I come from Tracadie, it is my dream as well, but could we not have major performance venues in all parts of the Peninsula, or would that start up a whole different debate? Could we not have a cultural forum?
Ms. Brideau: We do try to work with others every so often. For instance, we put on a show in Lamèque with the Société culturelle de Shippagan. We have put on a show with Néguac as well. We do work with others, but it is difficult for Tracadie-Sheila. People are willing to drive, but we would like to give them something in their own regions. The same goes for schools as well. With a large school that has 1,000 students and a theatre venue that has 200 seats, we often have to put on the play or show there, and it costs more. We do not have the technical equipment, so it costs us more to get the technicians than it does to pay the artist's fee. Obviously, having several theatres in the Peninsula is a challenge, but I think that with good theatres we would have a wider choice of good shows, good quality shows. We would be less limited.
Senator Losier-Cool: And the theatres would be closer to the consumers as well.
Ms. Brideau: Exactly.
Senator Losier-Cool: Is that wonderful cultural venue in Caraquet accessible to the rest of the Peninsula?
Mr. Albert: In my view, when governments provide funding to build cultural infrastructure, they should be obliged to make sure that those venues are accessible to the broader community, and that events like the Festival de musique, where young people come into contact with their culture, are open and almost free for those cultural organizations.
To see the Festival de musique de Caraquet give concerts in a variety of inappropriate venues when we have a theatre that costs $3 to $5 million is a bit, let us say... So when governments build infrastructure for cultural purposes, particularly in small regions, that infrastructure has to be multi-functional. Be it a school, a city hall or whatever else, designers have to think not only of its principal use but of other uses as well. They should think about whether a reception hall is needed. They should think about different things the community might need and cannot afford, because of its numbers. I do not think we need huge 1,000-seat theatres in too many places.
Senator Losier-Cool: Right, I agree.
Mr. Albert: We do not need as many theatres as we have gas stations. That is a different debate. But I do think that venues should be multi-functional and accessible to the community.
Senator Losier-Cool: Another simple question. Given the success of Ode à l'Acadie, are you starting to receive any funding?
Mr. Albert: Financially, I would say we are having success. From the very start, we managed to generate a million dollars, or over one million dollars, just in box office takings. Obviously, we could not operate without government and sponsorship support, but we are starting to get some useful contracts. This summer, we are going to France, to the Festival interceltique de l'orient. At present, we are negotiating with one of France's major tourist attractions for another stay. That is all very difficult to fund. When it comes to artists and all the rest of it, unless we have a certain amount of minimum funding, it is very difficult. The cost of taking 10 people and all the requisite equipment on tour is quite high, but let's say we are managing.
Senator Losier-Cool: I wish you many more years to come. I have seen it four times and I am amazed every time, so do not stop.
Mr. Lanteigne: I would like to come back to a point that Senator Losier mentioned. You are right that in the regions, we have to be careful not to have theatres on every corner because we cannot afford that. The opposite of that is that we are also entitled to our share, like the major centres, for example.
In my family, my father was in politics, he was involved in politics for a very long time, and he always said to me: "How is it that the English in the south have more?'' And not just in the big cities, in smaller places too, you know? So ultimately, we are all equal in this country, and I am not ashamed to ask for things because that is not all we are entitled to, we are also entitled to ask for the same things they ask for in the major centres. So in that sense, when we were talking before about action, concrete steps, positive measures, well maybe we could go there a bit too. I agree that it is very delicate, but I will just give you an example from the Google corporation. I was reading this yesterday. We use Google every day, but in that company, they force mistakes. An employee who never makes any mistakes is let go because that shows that the employee is never trying anything new. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? At Google, they have to make a certain percentage of mistakes in the projects they undertake because that shows the boss that they are doing something. Earlier, Paul Marcel referred to the fact that it would be easier if people in the regions had some decision-making power. We do not necessarily want to encourage the Government of Canada to make poor investments, but I think people in Moncton, for example, are just as able to make decisions as people in Ottawa. I think that could be the kind of positive measure that would not necessarily require any great upheaval, but would obviously require some attitude adjustments, because there would have to be an agreement to give up a little bit of control.
Senator Corbin: Ms. Brideau, I have here your text and with reference to the Moisson d'ART Festival, you say it is funded by various organizations; Arts Presentation, Canadian Heritage, the provincial Arts Festivals Program, the Quebec-New Brunswick agreement and the town of Tracadie-Sheila. So, my naïve question is this: is it easier to get financial or other support from the town of Tracadie-Sheila than from the province of New Brunswick or under the Quebec-New Brunswick agreement?
Ms. Brideau: I would say so, in that all you have to submit to the town is a written request and you get cooperation. We put on the festival in partnership with the town. Except that we just had an election, and I do not know how receptive the new town council is going to be. The province is pretty straightforward and the funding applications are pretty straightforward. The amounts are certainly smaller, but the funding applications and the reports are a lot easier to do. So it is a lot easier and the money is much more accessible.
As for the Department of Canadian Heritage, the applications are quite complex to fill out. It takes a long time. For example, my application for the Moisson d'ART 2008 Festival was sent on April 1, 2007, and I got my answer in March 2008. So it takes a year to get an answer for a festival that takes place in October. So I cannot confirm any artists before March, and I cannot finalize the programming.
Senator Corbin: Is it a lot of money?
Ms. Brideau: This year, it is $12,000. My application for the moisson d'ART 2009 Festival was sent on April 1st, and they keep asking me all kinds of questions, and I know I will get an answer maybe in March; it is long and complicated. We often get calls about budget details. It is a lot of work and a lot of volunteer time; for example, I technically stop working at the end of April every year for the summer, but over the summer I always have to be available because I know that Canadian Heritage or other departments are going to call me for information. I have to go back over my budgets and make reports, answer questions, so that everything I do from May until August every year is volunteer. I am not the only one; it is like that for all cultural workers. I have to be available because I cannot tell Canadian Heritage: "I am not working right now, you will get your answer in September.'' That is not the way it works. If they want something today, I have to give it to them or else my application is going to be rejected or delayed further.
Senator Corbin: I also wanted to ask you as part of the same question, given that you have to plan so far in advance, is there any flexibility within the program? If you feel part way along that you should change your line of attack or add things to your program for the coming year, is Canadian Heritage receptive to accommodating you, for example?
Ms. Brideau: Yes, because obviously when I submit my application, I do not just ask for $10,000, I present my dream program. I allow myself to dream, and then when I get the funding, I adjust accordingly. In my reports, I just have to say why my programming changed, it could be because of the artists, but I have to include all art forms in the festival. The artists may change because sometimes the person is not available by the time I am able to confirm and all that. So they are receptive to that, yes.
Senator Corbin: A second question, if you will, about Radio-Montréal. You struck a nerve there. I fully agree with what you said, but I have witnessed the evolution of Radio-Canada's regional radio, and not just radio, television too. The decentralization of production was to meet community needs, for news all across New Brunswick and the French- speaking Maritimes, including our distant cousins in Newfoundland. If I understand correctly, what you are trying to do is to achieve greater national visibility? Is that where you have a problem with big bad Radio-Canada?
Mr. Albert: Yes, because regionally, Radio-Canada does an excellent job. Radio-Canada Atlantic, whether it be radio or television, but where Acadians take issue with Radio-Canada is really when it comes to national programs. The name is Radio-Canada, but when push comes to shove, we are not the target audience. Quebeckers are. Especially when it comes to the news.
Senator Corbin: Should there not be some Acadians, some francophones from the Maritimes, in Montreal, since that is head office for francophones? In the control room of a news bureau, a culture bureau, etc., etc., because that is where the big decisions are made. I am not talking about the artists who are there now. But it is the policy that is lacking. Their talent is there, but there is someone or something that is getting in the way.
Mr. Lanteigne: I think it has to be recognized that there are many problems. I am relatively young, and even I am aware of it, and it has to be recognized. Not more than one year ago, I met someone on a trip outside of the region who said: "You have a funny accent, where are you from?'' And I answered: "Well, I am from Caraquet, New Brunswick.'' He said: "Really? You speak French in New Brunswick?'' That was his reaction. And obviously, there will always be ignorance, but when Paul Marcel suggests that Bernard Derome should come to Caraquet on August 15, it seems pretty obvious to me. What difference would that make? Among other things, it would help us in terms of openness.
Senator Losier-Cool: He is an Acadian who travels all around the world to bring us the news, be it from China or elsewhere.
Mr. Lanteigne: Michel Cormier, of course.
Senator Losier-Cool: There is one of them, anyway, and I loved that big show on Prince Edward Island that was broadcast a few weeks ago, and I watched it at home. They are the exceptions that prove the rule.
Mr. Lanteigne: Yes.
The Chair: On that note, I think we are going to end this round table. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for your presentations. I am sure you can see that they have not fallen on deaf ears. We were all ears and we will continue our work.
Colleagues, we are now going to hear from Mr. Armand Caron, from L'Acadie Nouvelle. This morning, we visited the site of L'Acadie Nouvelle, so we have a very good idea where you come from. We are really pleased to have you as a witness this afternoon. I will turn the floor over to you immediately, Mr. Caron.
Armand Caron, Editor, Director General, L'Acadie Nouvelle: I should say first off that les éditions d'Acadie Nouvelle de 1984 Ltd. are the owners of the daily newspaper L'Acadie Nouvelle and the Acadie Presse printers. I am going to echo what you said and begin by thanking you for having us this afternoon for this discussion. But I would also like to thank the committee for its visit, however brief it may have been, this morning. At the very least, I think it is always important, and I was telling my staff today that even if it is short, having an image... I am sure that when you hear L'Acadie Nouvelle, it will conjure up some kind of image. I could make the most beautiful speech for you this afternoon, but I think an image is worth a thousand words. So thanks again for coming this morning.
I would like to remind you of a few facts about our organization. And then I will present a few of the challenges we face as an organization. Because we have two divisions in the company, as I mentioned, one of which is the daily newspaper, L'Acadie Nouvelle.
So I would remind you that L'Acadie Nouvelle is the only French-language daily with a mission to inform, entertain and serve as a tool to bring together francophone and Acadian communities in New Brunswick. It is a regional daily founded in 1984 by a group of shareholders in the region following the closure of the daily L'Évangéline in 1982, and it became provincial in 1989. So in 2009, we will be celebrating the 25th anniversary of the founding of the daily L'Acadie Nouvelle. And for us, that is exciting because it also coincides with the Congrès mondial acadien, which is to be held in the region, so two organizations will be celebrating next year.
Our daily paper is published six days a week, from Monday to Saturday. About 80 people work in the company's newspaper division. Distribution is about 20,400 copies a day across the province, by subscription and through 650 points of sale. According to the last market analysis, we reach over 62,000 readers every day. The printing press was established in 1989, initially to print the daily newspaper L'Acadie Nouvelle. Acadie Presse is a printing operation that employs 45 people. It serves clients in Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and some parts of Quebec, including the Gaspé and Magdalen Islands. Acadie Presse prints newspapers, and commercial products such as brochures, leaflets, posters and other things. I see that Senator Champagne has a small brochure from the Congrès mondial acadien, which was printed by Acadie Presse. Our organization is in fact a partner of the Congrès mondial acadien. I will be talking to you briefly about that in a moment.
I will be talking primarily about the pride our company takes in producing, printing and delivering the newspaper each day, and providing other products for clients in the Acadian Peninsula, which is a rural area. We are clearly very proud of what we are, but obviously, like any organization that is growing and changing, we face some very specific challenges.
The first challenge I will talk about is the challenge of being an independent daily newspaper. During a meeting with the Senate Standing Committee on Transport and Communications in April 2005, we talked about the concentration of media in New Brunswick and the challenge of maintaining an independent daily newspaper for an official language minority, competing with an organization that has all the other major dailies as well as many weekly papers, both in French and English.
Our second challenge is our desire to cover Acadian culture as a whole but also regional culture within that. As the only French-language daily, we try to reflect the reality of a variety of regions, each of which is influenced by different historical, cultural, social and economic factors. Meeting the needs of the southwestern part of the province is a challenge, because it is more urban and has a tradition of reading English dailies, compared to the northeastern part of the province, which has a long tradition of having a weekly paper. There is also significant penetration by Quebec dailies which are produced close by, but do not necessarily meet the needs of the northeastern part of the province and particularly not those of the Peninsula, which has no weekly at all. All regions, including Saint John and Fredericton, have specific and different expectations.
Another challenge is that we are in a rural area, something that becomes particularly significant when distributing the paper. Subscribers and points of sale are scattered across the province, and delivery costs are very high. Unlike other dailies, ours is distributed using motor vehicles, rather than people on foot. Each day, distributors cover over 8,000 km. Obviously, the very rapid rise in gas prices we are seeing is creating additional problems.
Another challenge is information processing. Within its financial means, L'Acadie Nouvelle fields a team of journalists, contributors and columnists in the various regions to reflect regional and provincial current affairs as well as possible, something that remains our priority in the daily paper. Given the evolution of media and information processing, we have to make greater use of the Web and look at an electronic edition. In the fall, we should be launching a new website within a portal designed to reach as many francophones and Acadians as possible across the world, and particularly in the Atlantic region.
Another challenge is our aging readership. If we want our newspaper to survive, we have to develop reading habits among young people. As we know, they are a Web generation; they spend more time on the Internet than reading the newspapers. Against that backdrop, we have established a cooperation agreement with the Department of Education in New Brunswick, through which we provide some 1,000 copies of our newspaper in French and humanities classes in all the province's francophone schools. That turns our newspaper not only into something that can be read but also into a tool that strengthens identity and raises awareness of current events. A study on the reading habits of francophones has been carried out, and we realized that there were very few francophones in the province, particularly among younger generations, that read a daily paper.
One of our challenges is both to fulfil our social mission and to remain profitable. I concede that those two considerations are not always easy to reconcile. We are also facing major competition when it comes to technology, for instance. Here in the Maritimes, we have a printer called Transcontinental, which is quite a significant player. That means we have to continually invest in technology and leading-edge equipment so that we can remain competitive and meet our clients' needs. Otherwise, if they go to a larger printer and then find we cannot offer them the same services, they could be lost to us completely. That means we have to make substantial ongoing investment in technology. And one last thing, which is not really a challenge, is this: our partnership with the francophone and Acadian community obviously translates into the delivery of a daily newspaper, but it also translates into a partnership between ourselves and a number of organizations, particularly in two sectors.
We are a major partner of the Congrès mondial acadien in the arts and culture sector. They are at present our largest sponsor in terms of investment and promotion. Second, in the language and culture sector, we are partners with three book shows held in the province, one in the Acadian Peninsula, one in the Dieppe region, and one in the Edmunston region. We are also their partners because we feel that supporting them is part of our mission.
The second dimension in which we act as partners is the dimension affecting education and youth. From that standpoint, we can be seen as major partners in an activity very important to Canadian youth — the Jeux de l'Acadie. As I said earlier when I was talking about distributing the daily newspaper in schools, we work with the Department of Education. This year, we have also started up a youth magazine that we distribute free in schools every Tuesday — it is called Kaboum. We have received many positive comments on it.
In conclusion, I will repeat how much we appreciate the fact that the Senate Standing Committee on Official Languages is travelling here in the regions. We often hear complaints that we do not see people from departments and agencies in the regions enough, and we always have to do the travelling to meet officials and other government staff. So I can say your visit is deeply appreciated, because it makes it possible for us to help you become aware of how things are here, and to see our linguistic and cultural vitality with your own eyes. There is a lot happening here. If we look at culture alone, of course we would like more, but for a rural area with just 50,000 people, we can say there is a lot going on. We have many artists who make us known outside the region. And this is something Acadie Nouvelle has to convey. So every day we have pages covering culture, the arts, and the performing arts. We also have an insert called L'Accent, which comes out each week and covers arts and culture in Acadie. That is my contribution, because I have to say that we really do convey all areas of activity when we talk about culture.
Obviously, culture does not have just an artistic component, but also involves economy and politics. Culture is a way of life. In my view, our way of life translates into a variety of series of activity, and within that framework I would say culture is broader than just its artistic dimension, or component.
When you take culture and give it the meaning it is most often understood to have, you are talking about the performing arts. That is a sector in which people use all their money to organize activities, and thus have little left for promotion. We play a role there, by publishing pages in the paper without too much advertising and all that. That is all part of our social mission.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Caron. Your annual budget must obviously include revenue from selling advertising. What percentage of your budget does that amount to?
Mr. Caron: Over 80 per cent. In fact, that is really one of our particular challenges. Revenue comes from newspaper subscriptions and advertising sales. We have more subscribers in the northern part of New Brunswick, which is the rural part, particularly in the Chaleur region and Acadian Peninsula. That is where the core of our readership is. Obviously, we also have Madawaska and the Dieppe region. But most economic activity occurs in the southern part of the province, where the regions are more urban. So a significant part of advertising revenue comes from the urban region.
The Chair: Federal departments used to put ads in newspapers like yours or ours in Manitoba when they needed employees or were setting up new programs. Do they still do that?
Mr. Caron: Yes, they still do that, but I have to say they do it less. There are national agencies and organizations now. Radio-Canada Atlantique advertises its programming in the newspaper quite a lot.
The Chair: Does the Department of Fisheries and Oceans make announcements or take out adds from time to time, for example?
Mr. Caron: Yes, it does sometimes. When there are changes in the regulations, it puts an announcement in the newspaper. But for companies like Air Canada, for example, the Bathurst market may be too small. We are not reaching the kinds of markets that La Presse and Le Soleil can reach.
The Chair: If you were to compare your newspaper with English-language newspapers in the region, would you say that departments put more announcements into English-language dailies than they do into your French-language daily?
Mr. Caron: We have seen no major differences. Rather, it is English-language corporations that make announcements in English-language newspapers.
Senator Corbin: Mr. Caron, you do not print books, do you?
Mr. Caron: No.
Senator Corbin: You do not print books like poetry books, novels or that sort of thing? Yesterday, we heard the representatives of two publishing houses who told us that printing costs in New Brunswick are twice as high as they are in Quebec. What is the problem there?
Mr. Caron: Until now, the main issue for our company was to choose its market. We chose to focus on printing newspapers and commercial printing products.
Senator Corbin: Annual reports?
Mr. Caron: Annual reports, brochures and newspapers. We felt at the very least that we might have more opportunities for development in that area.
Senator Corbin: Would it be correct to say that there is not enough grist for the mill to make a book printing operation profitable in your area? Is that part of the problem?
Mr. Caron: I would come to that conclusion, at least in the short term. I will not say the company will never get there. But I would say that the operation has been around for 20 years, and has had to make some choices.
Senator Corbin: I see. You have a partnership with the Congrès acadien, and the Jeux de l'Acadie. What does your partnership consist in, exactly?
Mr. Caron: Generally, those partnerships — those cooperation agreements — operate on two levels. On one hand, there is the financial investment. We provide a certain amount of money, and/or a certain amount of services. For example, we can set up an agreement whereby we provide so many thousands of dollars in advertising for the organization. There can also be bilateral exchanges, where the organizations make a commitment to have their products printed by us. Increasingly, we are trying to get those cooperation agreements because as a private company, we have to look at things in terms of investment. When we can get a return, we are very pleased. Those are the kinds of agreements we have with the Jeux de l'Acadie and the Congrès mondial acadien.
Senator Corbin: I do not want to be indiscrete or ask you for information that is not public, but when L'Acadie Nouvelle was first established, a special fund was set up to help the paper become profitable, particularly during the first few years. Is that arrangement still in place?
Mr. Caron: Yes, it is. Allow me to give some background for committee members. The 1980s, an endowment fund was set up for a different daily called Le Matin, which no longer exists.
Senator Corbin: You are quite right.
Mr. Caron: When Le Matin vanished, L'Acadie Nouvelle made representations before the governments to determine whether it could have that endowment fund transferred to itself. That was done. So, ever since 1989, the endowment fund has been there. It is a federal-provincial fund, and only the interests on it can be used, provided that provincial distribution is guaranteed.
In other words, if Acadie Nouvelle no longer distributed its paper throughout the province, one of the main criteria for using the interest on the endowment fund would no longer be met, so the fund would no longer be available. We are of course happy to have access to the fund. But earlier, when I was talking about the challenges associated with distributing the newspaper, I also mentioned cost. At present, revenue from that fund covers about 20 per cent of the distribution cost. If today we were to look at the fund purely from the financial profitability standpoint, some would say that we would be better off not using the fund and restricting our distribution. I do not share that view myself, because I am very proud of being at the helm of a provincial daily paper that serves all francophones and Acadians in the province.
Senator Corbin: We all are.
Mr. Caron: I simply wanted to explain that the endowment fund does exist, but was created in 1988 and transferred in 1989. The yield on it has in fact dropped by about 300 per cent since it was first established.
Senator Corbin: If I might ask you one last question, one challenge you did not mentioned among all those you listed was the challenge of satisfying your readers every day. I am sure that at times you either not have enough news, or too much news. How do you deal with that problem and manage to maintain some balance in the information you provide and achieving reader satisfaction?
Mr. Caron: I should say that I did not likely provide enough explanation when I talked about the challenge of having an overall culture and regional sub-cultures. Perhaps that is what I meant there. Our mission is to serve francophones and Acadians across New Brunswick. When we look at that in practical terms, we find that New Brunswick is made up of a patchwork of sub-cultures, really. And one of our goals is to become a link between those sub-cultures, those communities.
Senator Corbin: You want to bring those communities together.
Mr. Caron: I studied in the Madawaska region. The people I know there see L'Acadie Nouvelle like a newspaper from the coast. They do not see in it the farm lands and forests of Acadia. When we talked to people from the Southeast, who tend to read English-language newspapers, their lives are reflected in the Times and Transcript, which is a regional publication that focuses more on issues in Moncton, Dieppe and Riverview. Then there is the Peninsula, whose residents were initially from here, and they say that they started the paper so they expect to see themselves in it more.
All those expectations from all those different regions are part of the challenge we face. I will confess that the problem is not really having enough news. We often have news that we do not put in the paper. There is no shortage of news. On the contrary, the problem is the choices we have to make between news that affect the province as a whole, that affect all the regions, and news that might be more regional or local.
Senator Corbin: Thank you very much.
Senator Losier-Cool: Mr. Caron, thank you for coming here today. I have to say that I feel my colleagues very much appreciated this morning's lightning visit, and it is quite true that we were able to see the vitality of your culture with our own eyes. That is what I wanted. That is the reality I wanted to show them. You were now talking about people reading the paper in hard copy.
Mr. Caron: Yes.
Senator Losier-Cool: Can New Brunswickers like us, who live outside the province, subscribe to the paper over the Internet, or is that limited? Are there subscriptions with Internet access?
Mr. Caron: Before I answer your question directly, I should say something that is quite specific to L'Acadie Nouvelle and paper subscriptions, something that runs counter to the North-American trend. In the last three years, our subscriber numbers have been maintained, and have even increased slightly. Let us say that we have a market, a solid core. Though we would of course like to increase those numbers, we are well aware that with the development of information processing in electronics, we will have to shift to putting more on the Web and coming up with an electronic addition. There is actually an electronic addition, so it is possible to subscribe to the paper over the Web. We are, however, preparing to revamp the site significantly in the fall, so that we can provide access to a full electronic edition of the paper. So when you see page 1, page 2, and page 3, they will actually be incorporated into an entire electronic edition. I do not want to give you a scoop here, but that is what we are preparing to do in September.
The Chair: Mr. Caron, thank you very much for having taken the time to come and meet with us, even if we met with you briefly this morning.
Mr. Caron: Thank you again, Madam Chair, and I hope to be able to share with you our passion for putting out a daily newspaper for Acadians and francophones throughout New Brunswick.
Senator Corbin: On behalf of the committee, I would like to congratulate you at L'Acadie Nouvelle and the presses, for your offices' organization. I have never seen such a well-structured organization. It obviously runs very smoothly. I was quite in awe at it all.
Senator Losier-Cool: Are your staff, not just the journalists, but also the printers and everyone else we saw, from the region?
M. Caron: Yes, most are from the region. I would say that perhaps many of the journalists come from Quebec, but I could have also talked to you about it as a challenge in saying that, producing a newspaper, managing a press in a rural region with specialized skills and trades, is not a piece of cake. However, I will tell you that here, we have 125 people who work, and many people in the region would not have a job if it were not for our organization because, without it, they would have to go work somewhere else outside the region, because there are no other printing shops where they can work as printers. So, I would like to highlight the economic importance of this company to the region.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Caron.
Mr. Caron: You are welcome. I hope you enjoy the rest of the day and the rest of your visit in Acadia.
The Chair: We will now hear from an additional witness who asked to speak to the committee, an Acadian who has a very unique story to tell. Ms. Marie-Claire Paulin, at your request, you now have the floor. We are pleased to have you here.
Marie-Claire Paulin, as an individual: Madam Chair, I want to thank the members of the committee for agreeing to hear my story. Naturally, I am going to talk about the application of the Official Languages Act in federal institutions. First, if you are seeking the unique nature of the Acadians, I think that, by coming here, with everything you have heard, you can see that we are special, particularly in New Brunswick, the only bilingual province in Canada. First, I am a product of the same school as Ms. Losier-Cool and Father Saulnier, which is the Académie Famille, a very important institution for the cultural development of the Tracadie region, where I am from.
One fine evening in April 2000, I was coming back from Montreal, and I was stopped on the TransCanada Highway near Woodstock, New Brunswick, and, unfortunately, I was not able to be served in the language of my choice. Knowing that I had rights, I met with a lawyer, Michel Doucet. We Acadians are extremely persistent. So, I met with Mr. Doucet, and I said, "What are we going to do about this?'' I was convinced that my rights had not been respected and, in that belief, we both said, "We are going to see this through to the end.'' And it was not until eight years later that we had our result. Talk about burnout, there is no doubt that volunteers are suffering from it and all that, but I was suffering from legal burnout, given all the delays. I went to Federal Court, and I won. After that, the RCMP appealed. Then, I lost the appeal. So, I had to go to the Supreme Court. The Canadian Constitution protects our fundamental rights, including language, which is part of our culture, they go hand in hand. As Senator Chaput said, language and culture really go hand in hand.
I was really surprised to see that, I had rights despite what had happened to me. For example, when I came back to New Brunswick, in Edmundston, I was 100 per cent entitled. I get to a mainly anglophone region and suddenly I lose my rights. I no longer had any rights. So, it is strange that, in the same province, that calls itself bilingual, we are entitled to rights at specific times, and after that we lose them sporadically and then we get them back.
When I left the Woodstock region, I came through the Fredericton region and then I was once again entitled to my rights. So, it is just to tell you about my experience and to say, "Well, this might be my small contribution, to try to do this puzzle, or at least to ensure equal rights throughout the province'', and I should also mention another Acadian who has done a lot to promote the official languages and that is Justice Michel Bastarache, whom I had the opportunity to meet. He had the opportunity to comment on the ruling, which is to some extent his contribution to the Acadian community, because this was the last language-rights case that he was involved in.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms. Paulin.
Senator Corbin: Could you tell me about the Court Challenges Program, please?
Ms. Paulin: It is causing a lot of problems at present. I cannot talk to you about it from a legal perspective, but my case is not over yet. The Supreme Court judges came out in favour of having expenditures reimbursed under the Court Challenges Program. I was the last beneficiary of the Court Challenges Program. When my case was closed, the account was closed. Currently, there is a technical problem. Everyone knows where the money is going, it is to pay for the lawyers, because a case like this costs a lot of money. We did not get all the funding needed to go right to the end. Fortunately, I had determined individuals such as Michel Doucet and his colleagues who decided to take it right to the end if we wanted our rights to be recognized. I think that I really had a good case, and I proved it over the years. But it was eight years of doubt, frustration and thinking that people do not really understand that we are a minority.
I lived in Africa where, for example, I was a member of the visible minority, living in an environment where you are the only white woman; it can never be described as an example in an environment where people speak another language, be it Chinese or Japanese. If you have never had that experience, it is extremely difficult to put yourself in our shoes and see how we feel. I think that this goes a little bit further than just the matter of the RCMP on the road. The RCMP did its job. I violated the highway safety code by speeding. The RCMP did its job. I was given a ticket, I paid it and I never denied what I did, however, I think that this decision goes a little bit further than just traffic regulations. I think about RCMP involvement in domestic violence cases, and where their help is needed for many reasons. This is a federal institution that must, in the course of its duty throughout New Brunswick, provide us with service in the language of our choice. And that is what I was forced to go to the Supreme Court to confirm, and I find this somewhat disturbing.
Senator Corbin: I admire your persistence.
Ms. Paulin: That is the reality.
The Chair: Yes. Thank you, Ms. Paulin, because every action counts.
Ms. Paulin: They are small actions, small contributions.
Senator Losier-Cool: A page in history for minority rights.
Ms. Paulin: That is right.
The Chair: In conclusion, I would say that when I came to the Senate five or six years ago, there was a senator named Senator Beaudoin. And I remember that, at one point, he said something to me, I had given a speech and without realizing it, I had used language demonstrating that I felt like a member of a minority, but I do not remember the exact words. Senator Beaudoin came to see me and he said, "You must never forget one thing, Canada has two official languages, English and French, and tell yourself over and over: "Equal status, equal rights''.
We must never forget that and that is what you did. So, Ms. Paulin, thank you very much once again.
Ms. Paulin: You are welcome and thank you very much.
The committee adjourned.