Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Official Languages
Issue 14 - Evidence
OTTAWA, Monday, November 29, 2010
The Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages met this day at 4:31 p.m. to study the application of the Official Languages Act and of the regulations and directives made under it (Topic: the English-speaking communities in Quebec).
Senator Maria Chaput (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: I call this meeting to order. Welcome to the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages. I am Senator Maria Chaput, from Manitoba, and the chair of this committee.
Before I introduce the witnesses before us today, I would like to invite the members of the committee who are here to introduce themselves.
Senator Champagne: I am Andrée Champagne from the province of Quebec.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: I am Suzanne Fortin-Duplessis from the City of Quebec, Quebec.
Senator Wallace: I am John Wallace from New Brunswick.
Senator Losier-Cool: I am Rose-Marie Losier-Cool from New Brunswick.
Senator Robichaud: I am Fernand Robichaud from Saint-Louis-de-Kent, New Brunswick.
The Chair: The Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages pursues its study on English-speaking communities in Quebec and is pleased to welcome three organizations today: Dawson Community Centre, the Montreal Council of Women, and Hudson St. Lazare Gazette. Each organization is scheduled to appear for one hour. The witnesses were asked to provide a brief presentation on their organization of six to seven minutes maximum to allow sufficient time for questions from senators.
[Translation]
We are pleased to welcome representatives of Dawson Community Centre. Ms. Line St-Amour is executive director and Ms. Lisa Olmstead is coordinator of the teens and young adults programs. The committee looks forward to learning more on this organization and its role in the development of the English-speaking community in Quebec.
I would now invite a representative of Dawson Community Centre to take the floor and the senators will follow with questions. You have five or six minutes for your presentation.
Line St-Amour, Executive Director, Dawson Community Centre: Madam Chairman, we are honoured to appear before your committee. First we will provide a brief description of our work at Dawson Community Centre, in the Verdun community, and then Ms. Lisa Olmstead will provide you with a picture of the programs for teens and young adults.
Dawson Community Centre welcomes some 500 persons a year, both members and non-members. We are located in Verdun. In the 1950s and 1960s, nearly half of the population was anglophone. The participation of English speakers in the community was significant. Today, the English-speaking community represents 26 per cent of the Crawford- Desmarchais neighbourhood and 13 per cent of Verdun. So this population has declined.
Dawson Community Centre is the only agency that offers activities for people from zero to 99 years of age. Our programs are aimed at all ages. Our mission, with deep roots in the English community, is to build bridges between the multicultural English-speaking and French-speaking communities. Dawson's clientele is 80 per cent English-speaking and 15 per cent French-speaking or allophone.
Our programs and our work are based on acceptance and reliability. Everyone is welcome. Our centre has been in existence for 50 years, but our charter dates back to 1909. Owen Dawson originally established the Griffin Town Boys organization with the help of his colleague. We received donations and a bequest from Mr. Dawson for the community centre's construction in 1959. So we own the premises where we currently operate in the community.
Our reliability stems from the fact that we have been around for 50 years. Our adaptability lies in our ability to change over time. We were a boys club, we became a Boys and Girls Club, and we are now a community centre. Our centre has managed to evolve over the years to include and respond to the community's needs.
Another of our values is well-being. We provide the people who come to us with a feeling of belonging. We are a place where people feel comfortable and at home. From communication comes the opportunity to promote the values and identity of English speakers in our community.
We work a lot on empowerment, but collaboration is one of our strengths. Dawson Centre has survived and developed in a francophone environment as a result of our ability to work with our francophone partners. Our collaboration with our environment is very important.
Our board of directors consists of parents, members of the community and alumni.
People who were around in 1959 and 1960 — street kids — tip their hats to Dawson Community Centre for keeping them on the right track.
Our organization has eight full-time employees, 25 part-time workers and some 30 volunteers who help us offer our activities every week. In all, more than 100 volunteers are associated with Dawson Community Centre in serving a clientele of 200 persons who are in and out of the centre every day from 8:30 a.m. to 11:00 p.m.
We serve a clientele of young children from zero to five years of age, their parents and seniors in the mornings and afternoons; we have the after-school program from 2:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.; the teen program starting at 6:00 p.m.; a program for young adults some evenings between 9:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m., and we are also open on Saturdays.
The community is mostly francophone. We enjoy very close ties with the borough and other partners, and we are close to all the community sectors in Verdun, since we belong to various issue tables such as those for youth, families, seniors, the borough and the Anglo Family Council.
We offer four programs: Parents and Tots for the 5-12 group, the Drop-In Program, the Young Adults Program and the Seniors Program.
I will now hand over to Ms. Olmstead, who will elaborate a little more on one of our programs and the challenges it presents for us.
[English]
Lisa Olmstead, Coordinator, Teens and Young Adults Programs, Dawson Community Centre: I had a long speech, but I will put it aside.
The Chair: In three minutes?
Ms. Olmstead: Yes. I will get straight to the point. In the teen and young adult programs, we service over 100 young people ranging between the ages of 12 and 35. About half of the 100 young people we service come regularly. About 75 per cent of them are anglophone, meaning that their first language is English. They do face many challenges in the area. When they live in an area that is predominantly francophone, there are challenges for these young people, the anglophone teenagers.
First, they struggle to be bilingual. They have limited participation in their own community and in the Quebec society at large. More specifically — and I can give you concrete examples — there are limitations in health services, in employment and in education.
For example, if a youth in crisis calls a suicide hotline and is on the verge of doing something serious to him or herself and the person on the other end cannot speak the language the youth is comfortable speaking, that is an issue. If young people are in need of pregnancy prevention or information about sexually transmitted infections and they are not serviced in the language they are comfortable in, then 99.9 per cent of the time they will not go. There is an issue.
We encourage our teens and young adults to seek employment to better themselves for their future. If they go to an employment centre and there are no workers who can function in the English language, our English teenagers and young adults do not go. They are in need of work and of money. More than likely, they will work under the table or sell drugs. That is our community.
One of our mandates is to encourage school success. When youth attend school, they are required to learn the subjects, but they are also learning the subject in a second language. They have difficulties and challenges. We have been finding that they get frustrated, and we see them going less and less to school and, at Grade 9, they tend to drop out. There are many challenges facing an anglophone in a French community.
The police are another issue. When teenagers are leaving our centre at eleven o'clock on a Friday night after we end our program, the police see them — obviously they are not pulling them over, because they are teenagers — and when the police ask them questions in French and the teenagers cannot speak the language, the police get frustrated and more than likely will put them in the police car and show a bit more excessive force.
These are specific examples of challenges that the anglophone youth are faced with on a daily basis.
As a coordinator, it is hard. Funding is always an issue to keep our staff and to keep them trained. When I talk about the team program, I use the expression, ``It takes a village to raise a child.'' Over the years, this village has become just the Dawson Community Centre to raise the youth in Verdun. We have an extremely important job. When we cannot fulfil the needs of our youth, then it becomes disconcerting and important.
Thank you for allowing us to voice some of our challenges and some of our issues.
[Translation]
The Chair: Thank you very much for sticking to the time allotted to you.
Honourable colleagues, we have an hour in all for this first presentation. We have to finish at 5:30 p.m. Every senator will have five minutes for questions and answers by witnesses. As you will understand, we must make an effort to complete this business before we leave.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Thank you very much.
I read somewhere that Dawson Community Centre recently criticized the fact that five bilingual weeklies in the Montreal area would now be published in French only. Could you tell us about the importance of access to news in English in your part of Montreal?
Ms. St-Amour: The neighbourhood paper Le Messager served the population of Verdun and consisted of one page. A long time ago, Le Messager reduced its news to one page. They announced cuts and that had an enormous impact on the community, especially on seniors, for whom the paper was their preferred way of getting the social news and finding out what was going on with organizations and associations. With citizen support and demand, Dawson Community Centre raised its voice to denounce the situation.
I asked some seniors a few questions before leaving because this matter dates back slightly more than a year; and I found out that they were still frustrated. They feel like ignored citizens. That is sort of the way it is. Le Messager quietly picks up a paragraph or two every once in a while, but it is often to advertise legion activities that have already taken place. They feel hurt because no more importance is attached to their ability to be informed and to take part in the Verdun community as citizens.
The Suburban is a paper much more prevalent in the west but it provides a little news in English, without being Verdun's local paper. So there is not much news about Verdun in circulation. That has had a major impact on the community, especially on seniors. Young people have other ways of gathering social news and that takes a few minutes on a digital device. But for seniors, that was really their news source.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: So you are at a disadvantage with regard to news relative to others?
Ms. St-Amour: There is no English-language newspaper in Verdun.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Do you think that knowledge of both official languages is absolutely necessary to enable your community to develop and prosper?
Ms. St-Amour: Yes, I really believe that. As we have indicated, knowledge of both languages is very important for the English-speaking community and it is important for the French-speaking community as well. I believe that knowledge of both languages is essential.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Thank you very much for your answers.
Senator Champagne: Ms. St-Amour, you told us you currently had eight full-time employees.
[English]
On the other hand, Ms. Olmstead, you said how difficult it is for your young people not to have someone to speak to in their own language about problems of a sexual nature and such things.
I do not understand why, in your area, it would be so difficult to find someone bilingual enough to be able to help your young people between the ages of 18 and 35 in both languages. Is it that difficult to find bilingual people in the Verdun area?
[Translation]
Ms. St-Amour: As regards the Verdun CLSC, we do a lot of lobbying with our partners; every time we ask them whether they have translation and signage, whether training is translated in French, in English, the answer is always no. People do not have the budget for translation or signage. When they set up a job re-entry program based on an organization that, like us, is having trouble paying its employees, they obviously do not have a budget to translate their educational program.
Verdun CLSC has a quota and has to respond to a percentage of the neighbourhood's population. We represent 13 per cent of the population of Verdun as a whole; I mentioned 26 per cent, but that is more specifically in our neighbourhood. If the CLSC meets its 13 per cent quota, it does not have to do more.
The other challenge is with regard to their union; it is very hard for them to say that they are going to hire only one person who is perfectly bilingual. We would like people to be bilingual. There is considerable will in the community; I would like to emphasize that; our partners are making a big effort. However, if a person who applies has all the qualifications and experience required for the position but does not speak English, that will be to the detriment of a unilingual anglophone. At a CSSS, at a health centre in Verdun, preference will be given to a francophone.
I am just talking about the health field, but the same is true for employment: people are not bilingual.
[English]
Senator Champagne: Can you not easily get English-speaking volunteers who could be on standby to help young people who need to get answers in their own language?
Ms. Olmstead: The majority of the volunteers at our centre are seniors. A teenager in need at three o'clock in the morning will not call a senior. I am not saying that it is not possible, but the service is not always available.
[Translation]
Senator Champagne: Thank you. I will have more questions in the next round.
[English]
Senator Fraser: Thank you so much. What you are telling us is very important.
I have a basic question about money. I was looking at your financial statements and saw that this year you get $35,678 in federal grants, which is not even 5 per cent of your income. Then it says to see note 3, but we do not have note 3.
Ms. St-Amour: You may not have it.
Senator Fraser: Could you explain more about what money you get from Ottawa and why you do not get more?
Ms. St-Amour: Yes. Thank you for that important question.
You do not have the financial statement, only the annual report. Note 3 says that about $27,100 comes from Health Canada's Programme d'action communautaire pour les enfants, PACE.
[Translation]
Approximately $3,100 often comes from the Défi emploi programs for summer students. We receive funding for one or two students. I believe we had a student last year.
Senator Fraser: Have you ever tried to get more? Have you ever been denied assistance? Have you explored other options?
Ms. St-Amour: With regard to Défi emploi?
Senator Fraser: I mainly mean at the federal level since this is Parliament.
Ms. St-Amour: It was an excellent exercise for me to prepare for this meeting because I realized that we do receive federal funding of which I was unaware, from Canadian Heritage and other departments. My experience with funding applications is more at the provincial level. I have 25 years' experience, and all that experience was really with the francophone community. I consulted my books, even though I keep track of Dawson's previous funding; there has not been much from the federal government.
The P.A.C.E. program is established in Quebec and is in direct contact with the Government of Quebec; so it is highly accessible. Following our meeting this evening, I am going to take another look at other funding sources for us at the federal level.
Senator Losier-Cool: It is my turn to welcome you too. My question is further to that of Senator Fraser with regard to funding. Do you receive grants through the second language agreement programs signed with Canadian Heritage?
Ms. St-Amour: No.
Senator Losier-Cool: I see that government grants are only for human resources and health services.
Ms. St-Amour: Correct.
Senator Losier-Cool: I do not know what organization in your area signs the agreements with Canadian Heritage for official languages programs. That may be an option you would like to consider.
As you know, our committee has begun a study on the English-speaking community in Quebec, and we have just identified various issues. Would you have any suggestions? What do you think Dawson College would like us to put in the committee report, apart from funding perhaps? Do you have any suggestions or advice for us?
Ms. St-Amour: I am just going to correct one small point: Dawson Community Centre has no connection with Dawson College.
Senator Losier-Cool: Did I say ``college''?
Ms. St-Amour: Yes, but that happens a lot; we sometimes even receive their e-mails. In fact, the great challenge for us, apart from the budget, is access to services.
We were discussing that together. It would be good to be able to translate French-language programs. In a mostly francophone community, whether it be school drop-out programs, employability programs or work platforms for youth employment, all that is already available. So it would be a good thing to be able to translate those programs into English.
Now we were saying that, in Quebec, we cannot always increase spending in order to send people to work in the health field, regardless whether they are English speakers or bilingual, because of the very nature of Quebec and certain quotas that the institutions abide by. Apart from that, they sometimes do not even meet their quotas; they cannot reach them. There are neighbourhoods where they are unable to hire English-speaking employees. In Pointe Saint-Charles, a community near us, no one is working in English at the CLSC. That is where we make the connection between school drop-outs and academic success. If we can encourage English-speaking young people and support them in their training, they will eventually become bilingual; they will be able to work in jobs and serve the English-speaking population.
This is really a long-term process. Access to education is becoming increasingly difficult. We have not talked about this, but when anglophones leave Verdun, the schools have trouble surviving. There are two primary schools. Every two or three years, authorities have to determine which primary school will have to shut down. They manage to be creative and to go into a parish that has lost its church and they are thus still able to keep their schools open. The challenge for us is to keep the schools open and to retain the population. Anglophones who lose services and who can afford to leave do not stay in Verdun. They go west.
This is not an easy issue, but there are these minor issues regarding translation and access to services.
Senator Losier-Cool: With regard to funding, do people who want to take programs have to pay a registration fee or are they offered free of charge? For example, if there is a sports program, do young people have to pay in order to play their sport?
[English]
Ms. Olmstead: For the youth programs, there is an annual $15 membership, and that is it.
Senator Losier-Cool: With the years, is the membership going up or down?
Ms. Olmstead: It went up $5 in the last —
Senator Losier-Cool: I meant is the number of people who register as members going up or down.
Ms. Olmstead: We have changed. If the membership goes up, then we are a bit more lenient on giving them more time to pay. Before, it was $10 right then and there. We tell them they can give us $2, the next time $3, the next time $10. We are making our adjustments as well.
Senator Losier-Cool: Is the number of members about the same every year?
Ms. Olmstead: Yes.
[Translation]
The Chair: I have a supplementary question to that of Senator Losier-Cool. Dawson Community Centre's primary clientele are no doubt anglophones, English speakers. I read in your document that you were open to the idea of serving francophones as well. My question is this: since your clientele is English-speaking, all employees at your organization must no doubt be required to speak English, are they not?
Ms. St-Amour: I would say that most employees are anglophone, some unilingual anglophone. The same is true on the other side of the fence. They are not all bilingual. We mainly serve the French-speaking population through the day camps. People like to send their children to the day camps because our facilitators are bilingual and that enables francophones to learn English. We have employees who really feel comfortable in French, but it is always a challenge. The challenge for me is to ensure that Dawson Community Centre does not isolate itself and that we are able to take part in the issue tables, which are mostly francophone. I nevertheless have some difficulty at times. I do not always have a bilingual employee who can represent the French-speaking side.
The Chair: And if an English-speaking Quebecer appears at your door, is he received in English?
Ms. St-Amour: Yes, always.
The Chair: Thank you.
[English]
Senator Wallace: Thank you for the presentation. It was very interesting. Perhaps my question was asked by Senator Losier-Cool. The answer was directed to what I had in mind, but I will put my question to you and see if you have any other thoughts.
When I heard you speak about the challenges and the obstacles that you face in doing your great work and the purpose for which you exist, I wondered whether there are one or two key solutions that you think are realistic and could be of great help to your organization. You may have answered that in addressing Senator Losier-Cool's questions. We always hear about the issues, the problems and the obstacles, but what solutions are realistic? If you could choose one or two key ones for your organization, what might they be?
Ms. Olmstead: Definitely in the services that we would consider essential, for example health services, justice and education, we would like to have the English language be represented, so that if our members go to health care, a clinic or the CLSC, they are serviced in the language they are comfortable in.
Great statistical documents are being put out, but they are only in the French language. They have key and valuable information, but there is not enough money to translate them into the English language. A key solution would be to have funding for things like translation of documents; that would be essential to help us improve our services to the anglophones and francophones as well to become a more bilingual community centre.
Senator Wallace: With both of those solutions, do you have any optimism? When you look at the trends that have existed with your organization over the last couple of years, do you see any trends that give you optimism that there could be improvements along the lines of both of those issues?
Ms. Olmstead: It would be a start.
Senator Wallace: It would be a start?
Ms. Olmstead: Yes.
Senator Wallace: That is very diplomatic. Thank you.
Senator Seidman: Thank you for your presentations. I have just one quick follow-up question and then a more general question. Is there a library in Verdun that has English-language library books?
Ms. Olmstead: There is a library in Verdun. The majority of books are in French, but the librarian is looking to have more anglophones attend the library, so she is putting in the effort to collect more anglophone books.
Senator Seidman: What would you say is the proportion of books in the library that services Verdun?
Ms. Olmstead: I would say 90 per cent are in French, and 10 per cent are in English.
Senator Seidman: Thank you. I am trying to get a better understanding of the groups of people and the numbers of people you serve. I look at the categories of people you serve that are in this annual report, which is very well put together. It gives a great overview of the organization. I see here families with preschool children; children aged 5 to 12; youth, teens and young adults; and 50 plus. Are those the basic categories?
Ms. Olmstead: That is correct.
Senator Seidman: Further in the brochure I see a numerical breakdown for 2009-10. Could you give me some idea of the numbers you serve in each one of those categories?
Ms. St-Amour: Preschool is around 35 families. In the after-school program for ages 5 to 12 there are around 60. In our Saturday program there are around 20. In the summer camps we have 80. We have about 100 teens.
For seniors, we have members and non-members, and we provide foot care services, income tax services, and shopping services for those who have lost their mobility.
Does that answer your question?
Senator Seidman: The participation statistics in this annual report for 2009-10 show that approximately 800 people participate in your programs. The breakdown is given by age and by program, which is nice.
What proportion of your programs would you say are in each language?
Ms. St-Amour: Approximately 85 per cent to 90 per cent are in English, except for the summer camps, where we have perhaps 20 per cent more francophones.
Ms. Olmstead: As a side note, because I have francophone workers for the teen and young adult program, it tends to attract more francophone youth. That is very good for our program because it helps anglophones and francophones to coexist. For that one, the ratio would be more like 75 per cent anglophone and 25 per cent francophone. It really depends on the program. However, it is generally 85 per cent to 90 per cent anglophone.
Senator Seidman: When we were travelling through Quebec hearing witnesses on this study, I asked them to tell us one or two things we could do to help them, to have a positive impact on the good and challenging work they do.
Ms. St-Amour: We have talked about training. There is a lot of pre-training in Quebec because organizations that have developed an expertise in a sector share that expertise with others. However, again, it is in French. The difficulty is to get training going in English. We have some partners. We have worked with some universities. We have worked with some services and with the anglophone community organizations, but there is a lack of training.
Senator Seidman: What kind of training do you need?
Ms. St-Amour: We need training for our staff. When you work in a community organization, you have to learn on the job.
[Translation]
As they say, you have to learn on the job. Depending on the issue, we have to develop an approach, find information and explore the knowledge. The information is not always accessible and we often have to pay for it.
[English]
Senator Seidman: I understand that you are talking about professional development, which is critical for staff who work in community centres like this. Do the universities not provide some kind of professional development for community workers that is accessible and in English?
Ms. Olmstead: It is limited. There may be training on team work or communication, but that is only one aspect of the training we are talking about. The other aspect is specific to the programs.
Parents of preschool children are exhausted and need parenting skills. We need workers who can teach these parents specific parenting skills.
In the after-school program, intervention and prevention are very specific. We need crisis intervention training and training to work with families, which we do a lot. That is the other half of our training needs.
[Translation]
Ms. St-Amour: We have quite an important partnership with Concordia. It is not necessarily about training. Two employees come and work in the after-school program on a part-time basis to provide support and help in doing homework. This is one way for Concordia to offer their students jobs. These students work 12 to 15 hours a week with us, and their wages are paid through a financial contribution by Concordia University. This exchange is important for us.
Senator Robichaud: The story you are telling us reminds me a little of my past. Our community experienced similar situations that we went through, not without some pain and trouble. However, there is still work to do.
When you talked about information, you said they only had to meet a certain quota, and you mentioned the figure of 13 per cent.
Ms. St-Amour: The 13 per cent figure represents the number of English-speakers in the population of Verdun, an area that covers Nuns' Island and two other neighbourhoods. In Desmarchais-Crawford, where we are located, the figure is 26 per cent. I do not know the quota for the CLSC or the CSSS, which is our health care centre. When I approached the workers to get more services in English and more translated documents, that is how it was explained to me. The 13 per cent figure is not necessarily a quota. If I understood correctly, they talk about a quota for services to the English-speaking population, and that quota is apparently more than met. We felt that did not meet our needs. So we have to find ways to develop more services in English.
A few documents have been translated, and I believe we are developing a broad approach to serving the population. However, there remain some restrictions on bilingual individuals who apply to Quebec institutions.
Senator Robichaud: The 13 per cent figure applies to all the services you receive, that is documents and the officers with whom you do business?
Ms. St-Amour: The 13 per cent figure does not represent the population.
Senator Robichaud: The quota is based on that proportion?
Ms. St-Amour: I imagine that a quota must reflect the actual situation. I do not know how to calculate it. We do not feel we are receiving 13 per cent of the translated documentation. That would mean that one in nine persons who go to the CSSS would receive services in English. We do not have any sense of that 13 per cent figure.
Senator Robichaud: Do you nevertheless sense some openness to offering you those services?
Ms. St-Amour: Yes.
Senator Robichaud: So what is the major obstacle? Is it a lack of people who can speak both languages?
Ms. St-Amour: Yes.
Senator Robichaud: You said it happens that young people leave the centre around 11 p.m. and are often stopped by police officers because they are teenagers or young people who are on the street. When they are stopped for questioning, you said those young anglophones very often cannot make themselves understood?
Ms. St-Amour: Indeed.
Senator Robichaud: I thought that the vast majority of people understood both languages, especially in Montreal.
[English]
Ms. Olmstead: Verdun is not the same. In Montreal, there tends to be more bilingualism with the police. This is in my opinion. Verdun has a small police force, and the majority of the police officers are francophone, speak French and only if they have to will speak in English. The majority of the time, they will continue with French right up to the end. It is not just with the youth. It is also when they come into the centre and are speaking to me, let us say. I understand French, but when it comes to something technical or important, I would prefer to be in a language that I can understand, so I would ask them to speak in English and they will say no. I would have to bring in one of my francophone staff to make sure I am understanding everything correctly.
[Translation]
Senator Robichaud: Is the police department making efforts to hire people who can understand and speak both languages? The English-speaking community nevertheless deserves services, does it not?
Ms. St-Amour: I do not know the situation. Our president is a police officer and a socio-community officer. He is the only one who is bilingual. He is an anglophone and speaks very good French. I do not believe the situation has changed much. We could indeed ask them whether they have made efforts in that direction. I do not know.
Senator Robichaud: It is important that young people make themselves understood. If they feel rejected, they will simply continue behaving badly.
Ms. St-Amour: We are asking for changes to be made. We are speaking with our health and justice partners and explaining the situation by putting things in context. The young people who leave the centre around 10 p.m. are not in groups; they go home. However, our call is not being answered in a very positive way. So we have to continue because it is through dialogue that we will achieve something.
In recent years, we have seen no positive changes in the police department.
Senator Robichaud: I do not want to point the finger at the police department. I was merely picking up on the example you referred to.
[English]
The Chair: Time is passing by, so I might ask the two other senators to ask their questions, and we will have to ask you to answer in writing. We do not have the time; we are through in four or five minutes.
Senator Seidman: This is perhaps in partial response to Senator Robichaud's question. The proportion of anglophones in the Quebec civil service has been a constant, ongoing struggle. I know the numbers do not budge and do not move. Could you remind us what the proportion of anglophones in the Quebec civil service is?
Ms. Olmstead: I am sorry, but we do not know that.
Ms. St-Amour: We could look into that.
The Chair: Could you look into that and send us the answer?
Ms. St-Amour: Yes.
Senator Seidman: I am interested in the proportion currently and in some historical context as well, just to see if the numbers have moved at all. My sense is that it is minimal and has not moved at all, and this extends from the civil service into public sector employees as well.
Ms. St-Amour: Are you looking at different service sectors, like the police service and health as well?
Senator Seidman: Yes. The public sector.
[Translation]
Senator Champagne: Earlier you talked about documents that you had in hand and that you did not have in English. Who can send you official documents in only one language?
[English]
The Chair: Will you send the answer in writing, please?
Ms. Olmstead: Yes.
[Translation]
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Do you believe that Quebec's English-speaking communities receive services of the same quality as those offered to the French-speaking majority?
Ms. St-Amour: I am going to let my colleague answer that question.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Do you believe that Quebec's English-speaking communities receive services of equal quality to those offered to the French-speaking majority in Quebec?
[English]
The Chair: We will also have the questions in writing. We could send them to you tomorrow, so do not worry too much about getting it down now.
Senator Fraser: I apologize for having arrived late. If you have already answered this, ignore it. If not, could you give us some description of your population basin not in terms of language but in terms of socio-economic status. Verdun, for those who do not know Montreal, is not, to put it mildly, a wealthy part of town. I do not know whether you are dealing with families that have a long history of employment or unemployability. Could give us something to set the scene and describe who you are trying to help?
Senator Losier-Cool: As well, is it families, or is it mostly older people?
[Translation]
It is seniors or the profile of the aging population.
The Chair: The last point will go to Senator De Bané. We have three minutes left because our next witnesses have already arrived. Could you ask your question and then they can answer us in writing?
Senator De Bané: Yes, of course. I will make my speech and they will answer in writing because of the lack of time.
[English]
Some sentences in your brief have struck me. The first one was that the survival of the English language is not a major issue in Quebec. Rather, for the English-speaking communities, the threat is to their sense of belonging in the larger community. Another sentence that struck me said that in a sense, anglophone communities feel they do not exist, that they are ignored in coverage in national, English-speaking media.
I would also like to add that in the French media, particularly Radio-Canada which, by law, is mandated to reflect the whole community, they never talk about you. We experienced that recently when we toured Quebec and Radio-Canada never said a thing about our meetings with the leaders of the English-speaking community in Quebec. That has confirmed much of what you said.
[Translation]
The Chair: Thank you very much, honourable colleagues, for abiding by the constraints of the time that was allotted to us. Thanks as well to Ms. Olmstead and Ms. St-Amour for coming to appear before our committee.
[English]
The questions will be sent to you tomorrow by our clerk.
[Translation]
Honourable colleagues, we now resume and welcome representatives of the Montreal Council of Women. We have before us Ms. Bonnie Stamos Destounis, president; Ms. Mair Verthuy, secretary; and Ms. Colquhoun, vice-president of Communications. Welcome.
The committee looks forward to learning more on this organization and its role in the development of English- speaking community in Quebec.
I invite a representative of the Montreal Council of Women to take the floor and the senators will follow with questions.
I must remind you, however, that your presentation should not exceed six or seven minutes.
Ms. Mair Verthuy, Secretary, Montreal Council of Women: Madam Chairman, it is a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about English-speaking Quebeckers who need someone to attend to them.
[English]
I will start in English if that is all right with you, and then I will switch at some point.
I have pretty well covered the history of the Montreal Council of Women in the report that I wrote. It is important to recall that anglophones used not to be a minority. Up until the middle of the 19th century there were more anglophones than francophones in Montreal, and so it was a very different situation.
When the rural French Canadians started moving into the city, and some immigrants came from Eastern Europe already to work in the factories, when the factories started developing, the balance starting tilting toward what we have today, which is a majority of francophones and a minority of anglophones. I will use the word ``allophones'' because there are many immigrants who do not speak English or do not speak it well. They speak a variety of languages in their home and with their friends. It is important to recognize the role they play in Quebec, which has in some ways been good for anglophones. The tremendous hostility that many French Canadians felt towards the anglophones has been somewhat diverted towards immigrants because they now represent a greater danger for the French language, apparently, than these pernicious Protestants and Anglicans did.
We started becoming a minority in the second half of the 19th century, but it was a well-organized minority at that point. It was certainly a well-moneyed minority towards the end of the 19th century. One must point out then — and this is also very different — that the French-Canadian elite and the English-Canadian elite got on very well together, thank you very much. They intermarried, traveled together and were friends. The isolation of the two groups that you see today is a moderately new phenomenon. That is clear in the writings of many women, in particular, at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. Religion was an obstacle in some cases, but there was no other obstacle to people frequenting people of the other linguistic group in the elite.
Lady Aberdeen, an important woman in Ottawa, founded the Montreal Council of Women in 1893, which was then called the Local Council of Women, at the same time as she founded the National Council of Women of Canada in Ottawa. We have been around for 117 years.
Prestigious francophone women were members, including Caroline Béïque,whose son married another feminist, Jacqueline Sicotte-Béïque, who militated with Thérèse Casgrain for the right to vote for women, and who was a student of mine. She came to my class and said that she wanted to learn about La Relève. That was exciting.
They helped to found it and played important roles, but the Church intervened and said, ``Enough. You have to move yourself away from these non-Catholics and create your own association.'' That is how the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society got started.
The women continued to work together across the linguistic divide, but they were not encouraged to do so. However, the contacts between anglophones and francophones, again at this perhaps more elitist level, remained very cordial.
As I pointed out, when the late Sheila Finestone was president of the Fédération des femmes du Québec, everyone found that to be perfectly normal, despite the fact that although she spoke excellent French, she was definitely not a francophone. That was interesting.
That has changed, as has much else in the last 30 to 40 years. There is today an anglophone president of the Fédération des femmes du Québec, but she is a committed separatist. She came to Quebec as a child and was raised on the French side. She is, to all intents and purposes, then, a francophone, although she does speak English. That was not the case of Sheila Finestone.
There is much more isolation now between the two major linguistic groups than ever before in the history of Quebec. As you know, a diminishing group does not have much power and cannot do the kind of constructive work that the Montreal Council of Women did. I want to make it clear that we do constructive work. Although to a large extent the anglophone community built Montreal until the middle of the 19th century and indeed afterwards, traces of the anglophone presence are gradually being eliminated.
For example, a beautiful church on Saint-Denis Street that is currently being pulled down was an Anglican church before it was bought by francophones. A developer has permission to replace the church with something ghastly. This kind of thing hurts the anglophone community members because they see it as a trace of their past being eliminated. I think many anglophones feel as if they are the chalk on a black board and the chalk is being removed.
In recent years we have become more energetic again, and the Montreal Council of Women has decided to pick up the challenge. As I pointed out in my brief, we have done more cross-fertilization than has been done for a long time. Senator Lucie Pépin is our honorary president. We have honorary councillors and others who are francophones. We have also involved our members in the activities of city hall and city hall in our activities, to a certain extent. The isolation of anglophones was such that they did not realize what the city hall of Montreal could do for them. Their faces were turned away from Montreal.
[Translation]
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Honourable colleagues, as I told you earlier, time is limited to five minutes for each senator for both question and answer.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: First I want to congratulate you. I very much enjoyed the historical component of your presentation. It was a real gem. I would like to know how many English speakers use the services of the Women's Centre of Montreal?
[English]
Ms. Verthuy: We are not a women's centre. I do not know how that got in there. It is an association, but it is not a centre.
[Translation]
It is not a centre. We meet there every month, but we have no offices or place of our own; nothing at all.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: All right. Do a lot of people belong to it? Do you have a waiting list?
Ms. Verthuy: No, anyone can belong.
[English]
Bonnie Stamos Destounis, President, Montreal Council of Women: We are a coalition of women. Seventy-three federated societies belong to us, and we have about 80 individual members. As a group, we try to address issues that concern families, women and the city. This is where we do our work. We deal with our municipal government; we deal with the provincial government through the Provincial Council of Women of Quebec; and the National Council of Women of Canada also addresses various issues.
We have annual meetings on parliamentary proceedings.
[Translation]
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Of all these federations, are you able to give me approximately the proportion of francophones relative to anglophones? Or are these only anglophone federations?
[English]
Ms. Stamos Destounis: I think about 20 per cent of the groups are French.
Ms. Verthuy: Some of the federated societies are French-speaking, such as the association from the West Island.
[Translation]
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Congratulations on your work.
[English]
The Chair: You talked about coalitions and then individual members. Do all the members and coalitions speak English?
I ask because I am wondering whether you can hold your meetings and conferences in your first language, which is English.
Ms. Verthuy: Yes, we have to, although we try to introduce some French.
The Chair: That is what I wanted to hear. You have to because you exist first for English-speaking women in Quebec.
Ms. Verthuy: Yes.
[Translation]
Senator Losier-Cool: You said you are a women's association, not a centre. You do not have a permanent office and you meet approximately once a month. Are your meetings held in the form of conferences, workshops? Or is it more social in nature?
Ms. Verthuy: There is obviously always a social event here and there, but these are essentially meetings for us to inquire and inform ourselves. For example — and I believe I mention this somewhere — in October, for women's history month, we invited some women of colour to come and make a presentation on the contribution that black women have made to Canada. It was fascinating, and we were there to learn.
There are also people who come and tell us about Transport 2000, for example, about the transportation system. We had a meeting about 18 months ago — perhaps more; it was before the last municipal election — where we established a series of questions to ask all the parties running in the election. So we worked together all day, then we drafted a report and sent the list of questions — there were in fact two lists — to all candidate parties, except one that very kindly responded and, since September, we have been seeing what has been done in relation to the long list of promises made by the municipal parties. As you can see, it is quite varied. We will be receiving the new citizens in May. It is very varied, but it is very useful.
Senator Losier-Cool: All right. Do you receive funding in order to organize those activities?
Ms. Verthuy: Not at all. Nothing. Our pockets, our efforts, our work. I am exaggerating somewhat. At the meetings, we serve breakfast, which is generally provided by an association. For example, a Muslim association will bring breakfast, but people pay for it. That is our revenue.
Senator Losier-Cool: You conduct funding campaigns?
Ms. Verthuy: No. We are not allowed to provide tax receipts. You know, people are very nice, but they want a receipt.
Senator Losier-Cool: So it is volunteer work?
Ms. Verthuy: It is volunteer work.
Senator Losier-Cool: They are women!
Ms. Verthuy: Yes, that changes nothing from that standpoint.
[English]
The Chair: You are a not-for-profit organization; is that right?
Ms. Verthuy: Right.
The Chair: Are you functioning with volunteers only and no paid staff whatsoever?
Ms. Verthuy: None.
The Chair: Everything is volunteer-based, then?
Ms. Verthuy: Yes; hence my white hair.
[Translation]
We have brought one or two copies of the questionnaire that we sent to the political parties, as well as the answers.
The Chair: Thank you very much. The clerk will make sure to distribute them to committee members.
Senator Champagne: Colleagues, I must tell you that I am honoured today to see Ms. Verthuy with us. I met her two years ago, when she received an award from the Governor General as part of the commemoration of the ``person'' affair. As you will all remember, the ``person'' affair was the day when we women were recognized as ``persons'' and thus could be summoned to the Senate of Canada. Ms. Verthuy was honoured as part of that celebration, and I am absolutely delighted that she is here today.
Ms. Verthuy: That was a great honour for me and for the others as well.
Senator Champagne: In your report, you seem saddened by the fact that our governments, particularly in Quebec, insist that newcomers have their children educated in French, as a result of which the English-speaking community, you will say, is losing some of its vitality. However, you say that, curiously, even today, the English-speaking community is still better educated as a whole than the French-speaking community. How do you explain that? How can you help as a woman? And how can you help strike a balance?
Ms. Verthuy: I have a list of suggestions! It is very simple. You probably know better than I that there is no tradition of advanced education in Quebec. For a very long time, there was kind of a mistrust of education. The church did not encourage education. It was in 1951, I believe, that the first department of education was established in Quebec, whereas, on the English side, people have always been very attached to education, particularly for boys. Curiously, on the French-speaking side, girls were generally better educated than boys because boys worked in the fields with their fathers, whereas girls stayed back another year or two to learn home economics. So they also wrote a lot as well. Many documents in Quebec were written by women. That is quite remarkable. There was no tradition of postsecondary education, whereas there was a tradition on the English-speaking side. And it persists, even though a lot of young anglophones to go Ottawa or elsewhere to attend university.
Among francophones, there are other problems apart from this tradition. You have immigrants and allophones at francophone schools. When Bill 101 was passed, it very clearly stated that all children who were not of francophone stock would have one year of preparation at school before continuing their education in French. Yet another politician's promise, as it were. That has disappeared and the failure rate among francophones at primary and secondary schools is greater than 50 per cent. The failure rate of allophones is around 70 per cent because they are told: ``Go to school, go to school.'' However, they often form the majority in a classroom, especially in Montreal, and no one really attends to their instruction. They fail and the situation stays the same. Francophones also have a higher rate of dropping out than anglophones. That is reminiscent of the tradition of sending boys to work in the fields with their fathers. I do not believe they still do that, but the fact is that more boys drop out than girls. That is the explanation, I believe.
Senator Champagne: A lot of girls were sent to study to become school teachers. Boys could be priests. These days, if students fail an exam in June, they are allowed to take it again in August, but they are given the answers in advance, and if they show up to retake the exam, they will not be repeating their grade. Unfortunately, that is what we are experiencing now.
Ms. Verthuy: It is terrible.
Senator Champagne: Thank you. With Ms. Verthuy's help, I believe we have exceeded our five minutes.
The Chair: Thank you for acknowledging that, Senator Champagne.
[English]
Senator De Bané: The first line on the last page of the English version of your brief says, ``the current development of a Quebec national militia is unlikely to reassure them.'' I do not find that in the French version. Is it there?
[Translation]
Senator Robichaud: It is in the French version as well.
Senator De Bané: Where is it? It is there, is it not?
Ms. Verthuy: It is there.
Senator De Bané: On page?
The Chair: On page 7 of the French text.
Senator Robichaud: Last line of the second last paragraph.
Ms. Verthuy: He is right. La naissance d'une milice nationale québécoise.
Senator De Bané: La naissance d'une milice nationale.
Ms. Verthuy: I could not resist.
Senator De Bané: You did not resist.
Ms. Verthuy: But the fact remains.
Senator De Bané: The thing that struck me in your brief is that you say the gap between the two communities has never been as great.
Ms. Verthuy: That is what I say, unfortunately.
Senator De Bané: What should we do to correct this situation that you have described?
Ms. Verthuy: It is a big question, senator.
Senator De Bané: But that is the fundamental question that concerns us. With your permission, there are two ways of engaging in politics. One is to maximize the differences between people, the other is to bring them together.
Ms. Verthuy: I am entirely in favour of bringing people together. Moreover, I wrote a letter to Premier Charest on the subject not so long ago.
On the one hand, we should educate adult society in Quebec. I was explaining to my colleague earlier that my daughters and I took an Arctic cruise on which we spoke French. All the other people, old stock Quebec women, were very courteous, but they did not speak to us because they did not know what to say to us.
You know, when a group of Italians moves into a neighbourhood, they have things in common. The same is true of a group of Germans. It is not just a matter of language. My daughters were born in Europe, in a different culture, and that constitutes a barrier within a group of old stock francophones.
I also believe that there are certain myths on both sides. For example, some people think that all anglophones are rich and that all francophones are illiterate or something else. These are old prejudices. I believe the government is doing nothing to solve these problems. I find it absolutely horrifying that people are allowed to live with their prejudices and that no attempt is made to blend the two groups. It is a difficult task, so be it. However, people must be made to understand, more so francophones than anglophones, who are used to people with weird names, that they should not be afraid of names that are not common in Quebec.
My daughter encounters this problem constantly. People ask the question: ``What is Verthuy?'' ``Where does that name come from?'' And yet, born in France, she is a francophone and speaks perfectly good French. She did her education in large part in French. However, people always ask those questions.
Senator De Bané: You have thought a lot about these questions; you say the government should do something to try to change things.
Ms. Verthuy: Yes.
Senator De Bané: If you were in government, what initiatives or programs would you introduce to encourage a better understanding between these two communities that speak the two main languages of the Western world?
Ms. Verthuy: I have no easy answer to your excellent question. I would like to know the answer myself. On the one hand, the government should take the first steps by putting anglophones in the hot seat. For the moment, the only anglophone who has been put in the hot sat in centuries is Michael Sabia. People said that man knew nothing about Quebec. However, he has lived in Montreal for 20 years, is perfectly bilingual and a financial expert. The previous president put my pension at risk and those of all Quebeckers. Mr. Sabia would not do that. But they did not want him because he did not have a Quebec name. That is also the problem of young people who go to university. I believe we have to put forward. . .
Senator Losier-Cool: Political power.
Ms. Verthuy: Yes.
Senator Losier-Cool: Go ahead, madam.
Ms. Verthuy: I believe it is essential for us to show that these people are not monsters. Well, I could continue for hours.
Senator Losier-Cool: When I said ``Go ahead, madam,'' I meant go into politics.
Ms. Verthuy: No. People everywhere have tried to get me into politics, but I cannot follow a party's orders or a party line.
The Chair: You have set an example for us, madam. Thank you very much.
[English]
Senator Fraser: You are here representing the Montreal Council of Women. We have heard a great deal and will hear more about the needs of the English-speaking community in Quebec in general, but I would like to ask you whether you think there are particular needs of English-speaking women in Quebec and what you think the federal government might do to address those needs.
Ms. Verthuy: The second half of your question is difficult for me because I see the responsibilities of the Quebec government and the responsibilities of the federal government.
Senator Fraser: We are federal.
Ms. Verthuy: I know. That is very important. I am saying that I am not sure how the federal government could intervene other than by encouraging a certain number of things. I think it is important that you come, be present and talk to people in Quebec, and talk to ordinary people in Quebec as well. You might not ever convince a government. Certainly if the next election is lost by the current government, the chances would be difficult.
Women have specific problems, one of which is now and always has been that it is not always easy for them to leave the home and work because there are still gentlemen who do not like their wives going out to work. If they have to combat the language issue and the outside world and the French, then it becomes more difficult.
As far as older women are concerned, and you must have heard this 5,000 times, when your grown-up children go to Ontario or to the United States to get a job, then what are you? You are left, and your children have gone. You have brought them up to the best of your ability, and they are not there anymore. I hate to say this, because I lost my husband this way, but we also know that the life span of men is slightly shorter than that of women. A large number of women are widowed, and they have extreme financial difficulties and difficulties with isolation. They should all be getting, first, free bracelets that are recharged at regular intervals, and a lot more should be done for them. They have so many more problems.
The other thing is that most women of my age in Quebec, whatever language they speak, never worked outside the home. Where is their fat pension? I use the word ``fat'' loosely. Where is it? They have old age pension, maybe, and they can get help from the government, but it is not something that allows them to live well in a reasonably civilized manner and maybe to take an occasional holiday. Many women of my generation did not go out to work when they were younger, and there has been a major problem with that.
Ms. Stamos is younger than I am, but we have worked all our lives, as well as raising children and looking after our husbands, but most women did not, and no one seems to care. Women worked for their husbands on farms. It took decades of work by the Association féminine d'éducation et d'action sociale to get recognition for that. There are all sorts of things like that where women are not recognized. When they are left alone, with no children, it is not easy. I feel quite strongly on that topic.
Senator Fraser: Thank you. I have a little comment, if I may. You suggested that anglophones do not get anywhere in Quebec, and then you mentioned Ms. James. I must say for the record that we did have an anglophone woman as Minister of Justice in Quebec, which is not a minor position. That is just a little comment.
Ms. Verthuy: Yes, you are quite right.
Ms. Stamos Destounis: I would like to add something. Another issue with the older women in Quebec, even my generation, is that we are not bilingual. I can speak some French, but I cannot call myself bilingual. Elderly ladies who are not bilingual, who are trying to live in a province like this where all the newspapers, even the community newspapers now, are all French and there are very few English papers, do not know what is going on in the community; they feel more isolated, and they tend to stay within their own little group rather than participating more wholly in society.
The Chair: What about health services?
Ms. Stamos Destounis: I think you are absolutely right about health services, because access to health services is very limited. When they go for health services, they do not have the language.
At this point, I might as well bring up another issue. I am also very involved with the anglophone deaf population in Montreal, and that is exactly one of the biggest problems they have. I could put any cultural group together with the deaf. The deaf could be considered a cultural group that does not have access to services because of the lack of interpretation, of language and of people being available to speak to them.
The Chair: As an example, if you have a serious health problem and your children are not around you and you cannot speak French or only a very few words, what do you do? Is there a help line or somewhere you can call and speak your language and be understood so that you can get to wherever you need to go? Is there something?
Ms. Stamos Destounis: You can phone Info-Santé, and they might refer you somewhere, but when you actually go to the health care centre, there is no guarantee anyone there will actually understand what you are saying.
The Chair: Do you not have access to a translator or a volunteer of some kind who can speak your language as sometimes I do in Manitoba? They will find a volunteer who speaks French.
Ms. Stamos Destounis: That is exactly it; they will find a volunteer somewhere.
The Chair: That is a last resort.
Ms. Stamos Destounis: When people go to court, that is another issue.
The Chair: Thank you.
Beverley Colquhoun, Vice-President, Montreal Council of Women: I wanted to support Ms. Stamos Destounis in saying that in all of the Quebec health institutions I have to visit, I sometimes meet with people who will not speak English. I have no issue because I am bilingual, but, for example, my mother-in-law, who is 86 years old and cannot speak French, runs into the same situation. If I or my husband does not go with her, she really has difficulty. I find it is worse today. It was not like that 10 years ago; it really was not. I personally find it startling that I am treated that way as well, although I will easily switch to French. However, someone like my mother-in-law, who is 86, cannot. That is a big concern.
Senator Fraser: I am puzzled. You are talking about access to health care. What level of health care are you talking about?
Ms. Colquhoun: Hospitals.
Senator Fraser: We do have the Royal Victoria Hospital, the Montreal General Hospital, the Montreal Children's Hospital and the Jewish General Hospital. In my experience in all of those hospitals, it is not unheard of but extremely rare to find that the person who is supposed to be dealing with me cannot speak to me in my language.
Ms. Colquhoun: You would be surprised. As an anglophone, I know there are many staff members who are francophone or from other cultures who speak French only or more than English. I find that, too, there is a big shift. Unfortunately, it occurs. You have to demand for someone. I will not do it because I speak both languages, but my mother-in-law will have to demand to have someone speak English to her. As I said, 10 years ago you would not see that kind of attitude. It has worsened. It is hard to believe, but it is true.
Senator Fraser: Personal experiences vary, I guess.
[Translation]
Senator Losier-Cool: Can you tell me what the level of French-language learning is in the English-language schools?
Ms. Verthuy: Everything goes on in French in many English-language schools.
Senator Losier-Cool: Those are immersion classes?
Ms. Verthuy: Yes, immersion classes.
Senator Losier-Cool: There are also regular schools in Grade 1 or Grade 2?
Ms. Verthuy: That is absolutely true. There are the immersion schools, the schools where it is half English, half French, and there are schools where French is a subject taught like any other subject. And in general, it is taught at the end of primary school and definitely at the secondary level.
I would like to mention a problem in English-language education in Quebec that affects all anglophones, whether your child suffers from it or you know about it and it troubles you, and it is absolutely terrifying. The example I will give you is history books; I believe this is in Grade 5. Francophone students get their books the day they enter the school, but anglophones sometimes do not get them until March, but definitely not at the start of the year. It is terrifying.
How are students supposed to succeed? And yet they manage, because they have parents who work with them, I suppose. But, regardless of the party, anglophones are far from having priority or from even being on a equal footing in Quebec.
[English]
The Chair: In the presentation you made at the beginning, in the last line you say, ``Perhaps the time has finally come for new models, including ours.''
[Translation]
What model are you suggesting?
Ms. Verthuy: In one sense, it is volunteer work. I do not mean that there has never been any volunteer work on the francophone side, but the fact remains that, for centuries, it was the Church that did voluntary work and cared for others. And one day, the Church was replaced by the State. Now budgets are being cut everywhere, as much among francophones as among anglophones, where they were originally smaller. And instead of encouraging us to leave, they should be encouraging us to stay, to be more numerous. They should encourage francophones to work as we do.
The Chair: And how would that encouragement be given? I am pushing you a little because I would like you to give us some examples that we can reflect on.
Ms. Verthuy: I believe that Ms. Stamos Destounis is an excellent example as a result of the work she has done with the hard of hearing.
[English]
I know you get paid for working with them, yes, but not everyone does.
Ms. Stamos Destounis: No.
The Chair: For example, if you have a part-time person or a volunteer who gets some kind of remuneration, though not exactly a salary, what happens afterwards? Do you train volunteers?
Ms. Verthuy: I think volunteers need training, yes.
The Chair: Would you like to elaborate on that?
Ms. Stamos Destounis: If you get volunteers to help in a specific area, they need special training, and you need money. We are not an association where we can raise money, unfortunately. If more volunteers were trained and then had the opportunity to be paid something, a small stipend, I think more volunteers would get involved in doing something and contributing. We are not saying they have to be professionals to deal with the issues.
The Chair: At least to have their expenses paid and a bit more.
Ms. Stamos Destounis: Exactly. Some young mothers would be happy to do volunteer work, but if they have expenses for parking and babysitting, they cannot do it.
The Chair: Seniors can do more.
Ms. Stamos Destounis: Exactly. We are all seniors here.
The Chair: Many of us around this table are seniors.
Ms. Stamos Destounis: We do a lot of volunteer work. We are all volunteers.
Earlier you asked a question about how we meet and what our programs are. We might meet with our membership once a month, but some of us meet two or three times a week and speak almost every day. Being president is a full-time job. We certainly enjoy it. That is why we do it.
Ms. Verthuy: It would make life a titch easier for everyone if the law about cities having to have an anglophone population of 50 per cent plus 1 before being allowed to produce documents in English were changed. Producing a document in English will not make Montreal an anglophone city. It would also make things simpler for tourists.
Senator Wallace: Ms. Verthuy, you said in your opening comments that there is much more isolation between the anglophone and francophone communities in Quebec now than ever before. That is a very strong statement, and you feel passionately about that.
You later said that regardless of which government is in power in Quebec, anglophones do not feel that they are treated in an equal manner.
Were there no improvements, from an anglophone perspective, with the successive provincial governments in Quebec over the past 20 years?
Ms. Verthuy: I cannot think of any. I can think of many social improvements over the last 40 years, but for anglophones I think nothing in particular has been done, and I think it is a pity.
Senator Wallace: Was there ever a sense, with a change in government, that there was an improved relationship between anglophones and francophones?
Ms. Verthuy: The Parti Québécois knows that anglophones will never vote for it in large numbers. The Liberals used to be assured of the anglophone vote, but they are not anymore, I think, so they do not come courting. We will wait to see what happens in the next election.
Ms. Stamos Destounis: Those in the present government take for granted that the anglophones will vote for them. That is a problem. They do not seem to pay much attention to the anglophone population. They just do not bother with us any longer. They are looking for other votes.
Senator Wallace: If the ballot box will not change the relationship, I guess there is only one group to look to, and that is the people themselves. That is where the change will have to be initiated.
Ms. Stamos Destounis: That is right.
Senator Wallace: Not at the government level.
Ms. Verthuy: I think Canadians in general are far too passive. We accept a great deal from our governments that we should not, specifically in Quebec, and that probably includes the francophones as well.
Senator Wallace: From what we have seen today, I would not say that all are passive, but some may be.
[Translation]
Senator Robichaud: My question is for Ms. Colquhoun, who said earlier that her mother-in-law, who does not speak French, has to have interpretation and that people would really have been concerned by that in the past and would have made a considerable effort to enable her to understand and that that is unfortunately not done anymore; not as much effort is made. To what do you attribute that change of attitude?
[English]
Ms. Colquhoun: I am not sure that I understood the question clearly.
Senator Robichaud: You said it was a change of attitude, that people do not make the effort they used to.
Ms. Colquhoun: Yes. I have been in business in a bilingual community for 30 years, and we always made an effort with each other. It the past few years, during which I have been more involved with bringing my mother-in-law to various health care facilities, I have noticed this. She has complained about it herself and is afraid to rock the boat. As she is old, she does not want to upset anyone, but sometimes she has to insist. Most people will accommodate, but there seems to be more of that attitude now than I have ever seen before.
I went through the period of the change with the rise of the PQ and the different attitude that prevailed, but it was never as evident as it is now. Perhaps the cultures are not communicating enough and spending enough time together. Maybe we are not promoting this enough in Quebec. Maybe both communities have to promote doing things together so that we understand more and find things in common, like we do at the Montreal Council of Women. We encourage the French and English groups to come together and share.
Perhaps we need to promote this. We are all people and all have the same issues. We share a history and have many things that we can share. Language and culture are so much fun to share. That is what I love about Montreal. I have had the opportunity to share cultures and the opportunity to have two languages that allow me to travel anywhere in the world. I am proud of that.
However, I now have a feeling of not belonging, although I was born and raised in Quebec. I am not as concerned about myself as I am about people like my mother-in-law who are unilingual and are afraid, or wary, or need support.
We always manage, and people are always nice in the end. I do not want to make a big deal out of this, because most people are great together. We communicate; we solve.
The Chair: Thank you very much for your answers to our questions. We have had a very good debate, and I hope you had an opportunity to share with the committee your concerns as well as your ideas of how things could improve for the English-speaking population, especially, in your case, the English-speaking women of Quebec.
We now welcome representatives of the Hudson St. Lazare Gazette. We have with us this evening Jim Duff, the editor, and Louise Craig, the publisher.
The committee looks forward to learning more about your organization and its role in the development of the English-speaking community in Quebec. As you know, our time is limited. Please keep your presentations to five or six minutes. Following those, the senators will ask questions. Thank you.
[Translation]
Jim Duff, Editor, Hudson St. Lazare Gazette: Madam Chair, first I would like to thank you for this opportunity to address you this evening.
[English]
Thank you for allowing us this time. We have been publishing our little newspaper for 60 years. We have watched the town of Hudson, which used to be the centre of our universe, become very much an island of development in Vaudreuil-Soulanges, which is exploding; the population is expanding at 8 per cent a year.
Every year the government of Quebec comes out with a decree on January 1 that tends to approximate what the population is for the uses of schools, hospitals, health and social services. Everything is based on the decree at the first of the year. The decree has never been an accurate reflection, simply because the population is expanding so quickly that there is no real snapshot of what is going on.
For health and social services, that means we are always looking in our rear-view mirror when it comes to deciding what percentage of English-speaking Quebecers live in our region. The old measuring tools no longer work. People are coming from Montreal, and some are eligible for English-language education and some are not. Regardless, their language of service is English. There are a lot of Asians and Sikhs.
For example, a transportation industry is growing up in our region, and truck drivers were needed. The industry has huge warehousing and logistics. There is the concept of the internal or inland port. Canadian Tire has a regional distribution warehouse. Canadian Pacific Railway is setting up a new intermodal terminal of 300 hectares. They all need truck drivers. What was the fastest, easiest way to find truck drivers? They went to India and found Sikhs and brought them into Canada.
This community is not able to send its children to English-language schools because they are not eligible under Bill 101. Nonetheless, they can assume English-language services.
In our community, we are increasingly getting the sense that government is looking in a rear-view mirror at what we need in health and social services primarily but also in education and post-secondary education. Many of those things are within the provincial purview. However, for health and social services, there is a federal component, as there is with post-secondary education.
We are here tonight to try to make the case for a closer monitoring of what is happening in our region, Vaudreuil- Soulanges, to ensure a just proportioning of services for the English-speaking community of our region.
[Translation]
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: First of all, welcome. I am pleased that you are here. I have some questions about federal programs. There have been changes to federal programs. I know that, for periodicals, the Canada Fund now groups magazines together as well as publications assistance programs. The government said it made those changes following consultations conducted from January to April 2008. Mr. Duff, were you consulted at that time?
Mr. Duff: It is thanks more to the expertise of my boss that you will find an answer to that question.
Louise Craig, Publisher, Hudson St. Lazare Gazette: We were never questioned about that. To be eligible for funds from the government or from the Department of Canadian Heritage, you have to meet quite strict criteria like a number of newspapers that are to be sold, and not given away free of charge. We do not meet those criteria. However, if our publication were in magazine form, that might be the case. As we are an independent newspaper, we receive no money.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: You talked about the exploding population around Hudson. There must be a lot of anglophones among all those people who are settling there. Has your newspaper's circulation increased?
Mr. Duff: Yes, for the entire Vaudreuil-Soulanges region: Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Pincourt, Île Perrot, Notre-Dame- de-l'Île-Perrot, Terrasse-Vaudreuil, Vaudreuil-Dorion, Les Cèdres, Hudson, Rigaud and Saint-Lazare. According to the government, approximately 25 per cent of the population is English-speaking. That is more than one-third or a little more. In certain areas, such as Saint-Lazare, it is 50 per cent; in Pincourt, it is more than 50 per cent; in Hudson, it is 65 per cent anglophone and 35 per cent francophone. We are increasingly seeing a balance between the two.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: How do you distribute your paper to anglophones? Is it a weekly paper?
Mr. Duff: It is a weekly published every Wednesday. Our distribution system is through Canada Post. However, the problem with Canada Post is that there is no guarantee of delivery in less than five working days.
For a weekly, that means that the newspaper is received one week after it appears. And that does not apply to Hudson or Saint-Lazare, where there is a ban on door-to-door delivery or by Publi-Sac.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: That is a big problem.
Ms. Craig: It is a big problem. There are two distribution methods, including Canada Post. And because of their union, they cannot exercise their right to take up to one week to deliver it; or by a delivery system such as Transcontinental and Publi-Sac, which have private agreements with media that belong to them as well. So we would not be able to use them for distribution. We are really stuck. We use Canada Post, but we also have a distribution company that we have set up for that purpose.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: What is the total number of copies of your newspaper for distribution?
Ms. Craig: It is a total of 21,000 copies.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: That is good.
Ms. Craig: We have seen growth in the region. I am a member of an issue table for the CSSS. I am there as a representative of the RCM of our region. I am the only English-speaking participant from the region at that issue table. Some genuine problems are arising as a result of the increase in population. Something has to be done. That is why the federal government recently granted the CSSS some money. This is the first time that there has been an agreement with a public association. That has never been done before. And I have some questions about that, concerning the money that the federal government has granted to the province for that.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Earlier you mentioned that one-third was anglophone and that you published 21,000 copies. I think that is really good. I thought this was a smaller newspaper, but far from it. What I understand is that you are having a major distribution problem; when the newspaper and the news arrive one week later, that is a bit troublesome. It would be better if people had a chance to see it almost immediately.
Ms. Craig: Absolutely.
Mr. Duff: We are very lucky to be in a growing region with such a balanced circulation, that is to say half and half. From the standpoint of journalism, we are constantly fighting for anglophone rights. You have to do it at all levels: municipal, the CSSS, the Commission scolaire des Trois-Lacs.
There is another important phenomenon. Anglophones are increasingly sending their children to French-language schools just to ensure that they will be bilingual. At the same time, however, we have to ensure that information on school buses is also available for anglophones.
There are all kinds of little things like this that we never thing about.
Usually, in a large market like Montreal, we do not think about those things. But, in a rural area, you have to think about transportation since there is no public transit. Children are transported from one end of the county to the other. These are trips that can last an hour and a half or even two hours. It is like in the Eastern Townships.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: The major papers are increasingly turning to the Internet. What about small papers such as those in the same class as yours? Can people get information on your website?
Ms. Craig: We were the first weekly on the Internet in Canada, long before a number of dailies such as the Journal de Montréal, The Gazette or La Presse.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: That is good news.
Ms. Craig: It is helpful for those who have an opportunity to do it. However, we do not have the resources they do.
The Chair: Does that mean that your paper is accessible to all anglophones in Quebec?
Ms. Craig: We have readers around the world.
The Chair: Yes, very good. Does your anglophone community generally have Internet access?
Ms. Craig: Perhaps certain groups do not have Internet access, depending on their age or the resources at their disposal. That is what would make the difference.
[English]
Senator Fraser: I would like to ask a bit about the newspaper business. For our colleagues who are not aware of it, Mr. Duff, in particular, has been a journalist in Montreal and environs for quite a while. I do not think there is much about the business that he has not experienced first-hand.
I was leafing through your paper, and it is impressive. It is a real community paper. There are fewer and fewer real community papers left. In particular, as we heard again from our first witnesses this evening who work in Verdun, it is getting harder and harder for anglophones in Quebec to maintain even a shadow of a community newspaper. Papers that used to publish at least some English content are cancelling it. You have explained that from the point of view of the English-speaking community you are in a growing community, which is great for you and long may you reign. However, where that is not true, what would it take for publishers and chain owners to resume coverage in English of their English-speaking population?
I know that newspapers shy away from the kind of government funding that can possibly be interpreted as influencing editorial content, but are there things that could be done — after all, we are a federal Parliament committee and we are looking at stuff the federal government could do — steps that could be taken, for example, tax deductions for reporters, translators or whatever? I bet you have thought a bit about this. Could you give me some idea of what your reflections might be?
Mr. Duff: I have been at all the dead newspapers. I started out with the Montreal Gazette.
Senator Fraser: That is not dead yet.
Mr. Duff: No, the Montreal Gazette is surviving and it is doing very well, thank you very much. It is a good paper and it does very well. Even so, you can see that some weeks, some days, it is fighting. Internally, in the newspaper business, we can look at a paper and assess how well it is doing. We can see that some weeks, some days of the week, the Montreal Gazette is struggling, and so is La Presse, and so is everyone else. It is no different in French. That is just the nature of the printed word on dead trees.
I saw the Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph go from a daily to a weekly. I worked at the Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph for one summer, when I was a kid just starting out. I worked at the Sherbrooke Record when the Montreal Star went on strike. George McLaren came and got me when he bought the paper from Conrad Black and asked me to be his editor. I worked with George for four years; we did well but it was tough. It is always a grind. Let us put it this way: If a community wants a newspaper, the community must be receptive to a good newspaper and not just a cheerleading section. It must be a newspaper that has a real interest in real issues. The real issues are health, education, transportation, whether your streets are clean and your sidewalks are fixed, et cetera, which are the basic issues.
When I was at the Sherbrooke Record, I was part of the Quebec minorities' council decision to start up an organization called AQREM, the Association of Quebec Regional English Media. It is now the Quebec Community Newspapers Association. I was one of the founding presidents. The former publisher of the Hudson Gazette, Ron Jones, was one of our founding presidents. Under Paul Dumont-Frenette, we fought hard to start a paper in the Gaspé called The Gaspé Spec. I think it is still going. We also helped a little newsletter in the Magdalen Islands get going. We found ourselves organizing workshops all over Quebec to brainstorm. That is what the Association of Quebec Regional English Media used to be.
Since then it has morphed into the Quebec Community Newspapers Association. Without getting into details, that has become too much a servant of the chains. We are an independent newspaper in every sense of the word. The minute that you lose your independence, for whatever reason, whether you are taking money from someone else or feeling a need to toe a party line or get someone elected, you cease to be an independent newspaper.
I do not know whether that has answered any or part of your question.
Senator Fraser: Part, yes, but we live in the world we live in, where the papers that used to be the independent community papers now are, to a staggering extent, chain-owned. Can you think of any reasonable, acceptable lever that the federal government might have to encourage — not force but encourage — those papers to resume coverage of and for the English-speaking communities that they used to serve?
Ms. Craig: That would be help with distribution. Increasingly in Quebec Increasingly there will be a war to the death between Quebecor and Transcontinental for the right to distribute. Now they are starting newspapers in each other's territories to try to kill the other. They will take everything with them along the way. If you are an independent in their way, it does not matter. They will crush you just to get the market. That is the only thing that is important to them right now.
As that happens, we will lose the voice that we are fighting so hard to keep, which is the voice of the English community. For the last four years the majority of my work has been to fight for the rights of English people in our area to have access, and for us to even get press releases of events that are happening to have knowledge of what is happening. Everyone is refusing to give us this.
We cannot even get a press release on the fact that health and social services are being given $960,000 or on what the money is for. I am on the work table, and I do not even have that knowledge myself; they will not even give me that. I am fighting to try to get these things. I have been appointed there by the MRC for a reason. They know I will fight to get the answers to those things.
No, that money, which is being given from the federal government, is not doing what it was handed out to do.
Mr. Duff: I have always felt that there had to be some kind of balancing of the scales and that, if nothing else, the federal government was in a position to ensure that there was a level playing field. However, we have been in situations, which I will not go into unless you are really curious. We fight for our lives. We have to be meaner or at least let them know we have teeth and are prepared to play the language card when they come after us. It is not ``if' they come after us, it is ``when'' they come after us. We have been in negotiations with the very top of those organizations, and they make no secret of it. They do not care if we live or die. I am not sure that you can do anything. How long does it take to take a complaint to Industry Canada relating to restraint of trade or collusion? Is it seven years?
[Translation]
Everything will change in seven years.
Senator Losier-Cool: A few years ago, certain papers, certain weeklies, such as La Voix acadienne in Prince Edward Island, deplored the fact that the federal government did not advertise. From a quick look at your paper, I see that there was no advertising on the programs offered by the federal government. I understood from your response to Senator Fraser that you cannot develop that.
Ms. Craig: We have very little.
Senator Losier-Cool: We have spoken to other newspapers in this committee and I wanted to verify where things stood.
Mr. Duff, coming back to your question on the province's annual decree, where does the province get its statistics?
Mr. Duff: It is an extrapolation from Statistics Canada. In their two censuses of 2001 and 2006, they do an extrapolation and projection to say that, by January 1, 2010, such and such a municipality in our region would have so many citizens. It is adjusted with birth statistics.
[English]
Senator Losier-Cool: Do you think that there will be a change in those statistics now that we no longer have the long-form census?
Mr. Duff: I very much regret that we will not have the long form. It gave us information on exactly this kind of demographic change. This was a terrible political error.
Senator Losier-Cool: Now it is part of your responsibility as a member of the anglophone media to give the government of Quebec the right numbers.
[Translation]
Mr. Duff: That task is not solely up to us. For example, Michel Perrier, general manager of the town of Pincourt, began a campaign two or three years ago to convince the provincial government to change its methodology. In Pincourt, they were always late with schools, funding for roads, health and social services. Everything is based on the decree.
Senator Robichaud: Is there a mechanism for appealing the decree? Can you question it and ask that the figures be justified, or do you have no recourse?
Ms. Craig: I tried to find where those amounts came from on the Internet. I discovered that they came from an agency called CHSSN, the Community Health and Social Services Network, and that $42 million had been granted for 18 projects across the province of Quebec in order to provide anglophones with access to services. We are the only region in Montérégie where funding was paid to the CSSS in view of the fact that there was no organization for the English-speaking community.
The problem associated with our region's changing demographics is this: an autistic francophone child will have to wait six months to see a specialist; if that child is anglophone, he or she will have to wait a year and a half. The same is true of individuals suffering from Alzheimer's disease.
For the term of this contract, that is two and a half years, the CSSS has to group anglophones together in order to try and get those services.
As I was explaining, our paper is not even used to reaching the English-speaking population. The satisfaction survey was conducted by Léger et Léger Marketing. The CSSS questions were asked and the people who answered those questions were also selected.
Regulation 83 provides for the right to an independent ombudsman, and every CSSS has an ombudsman. People want to complain to that individual, who is independent from the CSSS. When I asked who that person was and what complaints had been received, they refused to answer me. There can be no doubt that I will get that information. However, why does an individual at an issue table not even have the right to obtain that information in an attempt to try to move forward? If an autistic child has to wait a year and a half, should we have to wait two and a half years for an association to be established to move things forward? I understand that there is a shortage of jobs, but I find the situation inexcusable.
Senator Robichaud: It is inexcusable that a child should have to wait.
Senator Losier-Cool: Or any Canadian.
Senator Fraser: I want to be sure I have understood what this is about. You are told that there is an ombudsman?
Ms. Craig: Yes.
Senator Fraser: But his identity —
Ms. Craig: Is concealed.
Senator Fraser: And his contact information remains secret?
Ms. Craig: That is correct.
[English]
Senator Fraser: How is an ordinary member of the public wanting to turn to the ombudsman supposed to know where to go?
Ms. Craig: I do not know. This person supposedly works only one day a week and only answers to the administration. I will find out who it is, even if I have to make an access to information request to find out how that person is being paid, and we will publish it.
Why is it that they do not even return our phone calls?
Senator Robichaud: Who is ``they''?
Ms. Craig: The public relations person for the CSSS will not even return our phone calls when we ask questions. This has not yet been made public: $960,000 will be given, most of which will go to pay for two salaries. Very little will go to actualizing anything.
We are trying to get an answer to find out what this means. We should not have to do that. When I tell people that we have the right to go to access to information to get the details, they seem surprised. We should not have to do that.
[Translation]
Senator Robichaud: That is ridiculous.
Ms. Craig: It is absolutely ridiculous.
Senator Robichaud: We have to get to the bottom of this.
As for federal government advertising, there have long been complaints that New Brunswick's weeklies are being completely ignored. Our situation is similar to yours. Our weeklies, like your newspaper, stay in homes until the next issue arrives. People eventually read them from front to back.
And yet these publications could be an excellent vehicle for the government to make programs or notices known. However, they have not managed to get that far.
Back home, visibility in L'Étoile is not that great. Sometimes senators or members are contacted for the purpose of offering good wishes for the Christmas holidays, and we try to respond. However, we do not see the desired federal involvement, which I believe would help the newspapers survive.
Ms. Craig: If you want to help the weeklies, however, you have to watch out. A number of associations represent the chains more. The independent papers have to stay far away from the chains. Some representations by certain chains say that people should always advertise through members of associations. However, that is not always the case.
You asked whether there are grants for newspapers. There are none. The money goes more to magazines than to newspapers in order to protect the content of those magazines. In the case of magazines such as TV Hebdo, what should be protected? In our case, we are talking about a field specific to our area. Financial support would help us enormously. We have not received a cent from the federal government in at least 20 years.
Senator Champagne: While listening to your remarks and those of my colleagues, I was flipping through the copy that was offered to me and suddenly I came upon a page in French. It talks about Larry Smith, who must be very happy, in view of what happened yesterday; he is bound for glory. You see various articles: ``Enthusiasm incarnate,'' ``Bicycle path in Soulanges,'' ``Vaudreuil-Hudson line.'' From what I see here, there is only one page in French in the entire paper. I have nothing against that. However, I am asking you the question: What is it doing there?
Ms. Craig: One of our competitors owns two French-language papers. This person is the cousin of Rémi Marcoux of Transcontinental. If we stopped publishing in French in our paper, that might trigger a war between the papers. I believe neither of us wants that at this time.
Senator Champagne: But I do not understand why you would put a page in French in the middle of the entire paper.
Ms. Craig: Because our paper is the only one that covers all the council meetings in the area. No other paper does it; we are the only one that does it. There may not be any council meetings in this paper, but we are the only one that covers them.
Senator Champagne: It talks about Larry Smith, ``Enthusiasm incarnate''; it talks about the metropolitan transit agency, the bicycle path. There is one page in French in the middle of the paper. I came across it as I was flipping through the pages. I found it surprising. But why?
Mr. Duff: Why a single page in French?
Senator Champagne: Why is there one in the middle of the paper?
Mr. Duff: As Ms. Craig said, it sends the message to the Hebdos du Suroît that we can commit if necessary. But to do that, we will need an editor who speaks and writes French better than I do. We do not have an advertising base that enables us to publish a completely bilingual paper.
I do not know whether you are familiar with Le Messager in Verdun —
Senator Champagne: They have stopped publishing in English now.
Mr. Duff: But they are trying to publish a bilingual paper, but it is neither —
Senator Champagne: Neither fish nor fowl?
Mr. Duff: That is correct; it is between the two. It is confusing for both cultures and it has not been accepted.
Senator Champagne: I understand. And I know that your paper is the region's English-language paper. Neither of you has explained how you have an anglophone population that is increasing year over year, and so on.
You are telling me that adding a page in French tells those who might be your competitors, or the competition, what you could be, that if they wanted, they could also publish in French and put out a bilingual paper.
That is what you answered me? I find it odd that there is suddenly a page in French in the paper. I wonder why, except if they want to warn us that they could do it, and so you have to be nice.
Ms. Craig: But I could tell you that that woman, who is the editor of those two French-language papers, also has a page in English in her papers.
Senator Champagne: That is how you publish papers in your part of the country. I just understood it all! Thank you.
The Chair: If I may add something to Senator Champagne's remarks — and being a Manitoban, I was thinking of the paper La Liberté — if the paper came to me one day with a page of English in it, I would ask them if they had lost their minds. Since they are the only French-language weekly in Manitoba, why start putting in a page in English?
Ms. Craig: A lot of francophones and anglophones will read the other language in order to learn it. A lot of anglophones read the French page in our paper to learn French. These are people who may not have a French- language paper in the region; it is not distributed everywhere. Our paper is delivered by Canada Post. That means that a lot of papers will not go that way because it is very expensive.
The reverse is true as well. Some people will take the French-language paper home; they will not be entitled to our paper, but they perhaps read that information, in English as well.
That may be a little exchange, but, in view of the fact that we are the only ones that cover council meetings in the neighbouring towns, it is important that those people get that information. They call to ask us why they cannot find this information in the French-language papers in our region. Why do they not attend the council meetings? So we give them a chance at least to have access to that information.
Senator Champagne: I have nothing against that, but I am telling you that surprises me. When I got to the French page, I wondered whether I had been given part of another paper that was mixed in. That was my reaction.
I asked you a question that you did not answer. Am I satisfied by your answer? It leads me to ask even more questions. I am reacting somewhat as Madam Chairman did to the idea of La Liberté in Saint-Boniface publishing a page in English. But that is life!
Senator Losier-Cool: In Bathurst, New Brunswick, they have an English-language weekly with a French page. And as Ms. Craig said so well, it is so that anglophones will have the opportunity, at least once, to read the sports in French. I have learned something.
Mr. Duff: I do not like segregation. I dream of a bilingual paper, but none of the experiments has worked.
Senator Champagne: I think I have settled the problem at home: We get a French paper and an English paper every morning.
The Chair: As fascinating as this discussion is, I will now go to Senator Wallace.
[English]
Senator Wallace: Yours is a community-based publication, but it is certainly not a non-profit operation; it is a private business. You are in this to make money and you have been successful for many years. Your revenue comes from your advertising dollars and your subscription fees.
When you look down the road — not necessarily with your own paper, because I am not asking you to disclose what the future holds for you, financially — publications such as yours that provide this community-based service are under enormous pressure from the large chains. Will these types of publications — excluding your own from this for the moment — require some form of government subsidy to exist, or will they disappear from the landscape?
Mr. Duff: I hope I would be dead before that.
Senator Wallace: I suspected that answer. You do not strike me as someone who is looking for the government to carry the load.
Mr. Duff: On a personal level, I would find it extremely difficult to accept the idea that we would be subsidized; it goes against everything I have ever believed in. However, I cannot speak for the publisher.
Ms. Craig: I most fear the actual war that will be happening and that has been happening within the past year between Quebecor and Transcontinental. I hear stories of newspapers being shut down as a result of that. They are withholding distribution of independents. I am sure it will not be long before they will withhold the printing of independents in order to corner the market.
Will we need assistance? Absolutely. There will need to be some kind of restriction on their rights. We try to be as independent as possible. Our printer is independent, but I know there is a large printer looking to buy him out. What will our protection be once that happens?
Senator Wallace: Plus there would then be the competition for the advertising dollars. That is usually very price- sensitive, so it can be a pretty tough world out there.
Ms. Craig: They slash the prices down just to get the market. We will not be able to compete with that. They will lose money for two years in order to get the market.
Senator Wallace: Filing Competition Act complaints —
Ms. Craig: That is nothing.
Mr. Duff: It has been made clear to us that this is not an instant relief. This will not happen in the time that we will need it. When you are a small furry rodent in the world of dinosaurs, you have to move quickly and find every little trick you can and find every pressure point on either one of those dinosaurs.
I go back to the language card again. It is always there. If we play it, it is not as powerful as if we just hold it over their heads: You are stifling the English-language community's only source of unbiased information.
Senator Wallace: Your market is the anglophone community. You have been successful and have been in business many years. You must find that the anglophone business community continues to be supportive as far as your advertising revenue is concerned.
Ms. Craig: Ninety per cent of advertising revenue comes from francophones.
Senator Wallace: Really?
Ms. Craig: The businesses surrounding us belong to francophones.
Senator Wallace: I guess that is positive. It is surprising.
Mr. Duff: The managers of the big box stores, the big chains, are francophones, and they go for the easy buy, the agency buy. The agency buy says you buy the Quebec weekly newspapers. You do not bother with a little English paper. We are lucky because we are sort of the exception to every rule, but I do not know how long that will last.
Senator Wallace: As long as you provide exposure to the market, you will always have a product to sell, as long as that market continues to support you.
Mr. Duff: We changed our web in slightly three weeks ago, and the first complaint I got was from Mali. Then there was a torrent of people. Hudson is a virtual community as well as a real community. It exists in people's minds as the perfect, archetypal small town, a sort of paradise on earth. We have the Hudson brand, and, as long as we own the Hudson brand, I suspect we will be okay. That is a suspicion only.
Ms. Craig: We are certainly rushing to ensure that our website is as powerful as possible.
Senator Wallace: I was going to say that that is the future, but it is not the future; it is the present, is it not?
Ms. Craig: It is the present.
Senator Wallace: Thank you.
Senator Fraser: You have three reporters on staff full time?
Ms. Craig: No.
Mr. Duff: No, we have one full-time reporter. I am a reporter, editor, photographer, delivery guy. I enjoy it.
Senator Fraser: That sounds more real for a paper your size. When I saw three names, I thought, ``Wow, how are they managing this miracle?'' Getting out a paper like this is a miracle, but that is a separate question.
I would like to come back to a point in your brief and ask you to clarify it. You said that as an English-language publication you have the right to publish French-language advertising, but you have been told by program managers that they cannot post a bilingual job for fear of being taken before a rights tribunal. Is a program manager a government program manager? If so, which level of government? Is this provincial?
Ms. Craig: Someone posted an employment ad for a bilingual employee and was brought before the tribunal by one of the employees. Therefore, she is advertising, ``asset to be bilingual,'' and they will pay extra for that right. She says she will never go through that again. She does not have the time to lose.
Senator Fraser: Understandably. This goes back to Bill 101, that employees have the right to work in French, but it is very difficult to get a job classified as bilingual essential.
On the federal level, you do not get ads anyway?
Ms. Craig: No.
Senator Fraser: Do you try?
Ms. Craig: We have a representative who looks for advertising. Since the scandal, there has been very little advertising from the federal government. The only government advertising we get is during elections. Very seldom will we get advertising.
Senator Fraser: That will come from Elections Canada, actually, not from the Government of Canada per se.
Ms. Craig: That is right.
Senator Fraser: Do you know whether French weeklies are getting federal government ads, or has it just dried up in general?
Ms. Craig: I think they are getting some advertising that we are not getting.
Senator Fraser: Have you tried appealing?
Ms. Craig: Yes.
Senator Fraser: Over and over again?
Ms. Craig: Actually, regarding the advertising for this, from the Senate, they called us about it in May and asked us for some prices. Then we never saw the advertising, but it appeared in the Montreal Gazette. We telephoned about that advertising.
Mr. Duff: This is the ad that appeared in the Montreal Gazette.
Senator Fraser: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Do you get the impression the English papers are making enough of a contribution to promoting the history of Quebec's English cultural heritage?
Ms. Craig: We are not really trying to play the anglophone/francophone card. Instead we are trying to be a neutral area. We try to strike a balance between the two communities. It is important that we see ourselves as equal communities and that we acknowledge that we live together. It is also important to create an atmosphere in which anglophones feel comfortable in our area.
To solve these problems, perhaps we should turn to government, whether it be municipal or provincial. Things are going well among citizens. I also believe that, with the change made to the census, anglophones will lose rights that they might perhaps have. If we do not have the exact number of members of the anglophone community, those people will not be entitled to get transcripts from their town in English.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: The question I am asking you concerns the history of the English cultural heritage in Quebec. Is that talked about enough in the English papers?
Mr. Duff: We have a little theatre in our community in Hudson, it is the only English-language theatre that operates 365 days a year. I do not know whether it receives government subsidies. However, it is our responsibility to publish anything about the Hudson Village Theatre or about the Greenwood Centre for Living History. We must advertise for those institutions. Yesterday, there was a discussion at Notre-Dame-de-l'Île-Perrot about the future of the church, which was built just before or after the Conquête. There is no culture because they do not know what to do with the church. There was a discussion at the church. We covered the meeting because we knew that, if it was an English church in the same situation, we would want the same media coverage.
[English]
We are all in it together.
[Translation]
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Personally, I think it is very important.
Ms. Craig: We celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of the newspaper in February, and we produced a completely bilingual edition, which contained the first photographs published in the region. We now want to archive the entire paper, but it costs a fortune to do that, to make it public and to have access to that information. That is one of the things we are looking at. Simply housing it somewhere will cost us approximately $6,000 a year; just housing the archives. We will never get that money. Not enough members of the population will consult the archives, but we want to do it. It will be my responsibility to look for grants, if they exist, and to try to sell the archives either to the National Library or to that of Quebec. However, it is indeed very important to have the history of the region.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Thank you very much.
The Chair: Honourable colleagues, we have come to the end of this meeting. Mr. Duff and Ms. Craig, I would like to thank you sincerely for your presentation and for the discussion that took place between you and the honourable senators. Thank you very much and we wish you every success.
(The committed adjourned.)