Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Official Languages
Issue 12 - Evidence - Meeting of May 4, 2015
OTTAWA, Monday, May 4, 2015
The Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages met this day at 5:00 p.m. to consider the government response, dated October 23, 2014, to the third report of the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages entitled: CBC/Radio-Canada's Language Obligations, Communities Want to See Themselves and Be Heard Coast to Coast!, tabled in the Senate on April 8, 2014. The committee is also meeting in order to continue its study on the application of the Official Languages Act and of the regulations and directives made under it, within those institutions subject to the act.
Senator Claudette Tardif (Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: Honourable senators, I now call this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages to order. My name is Claudette Tardif, I am a senator from Alberta, and I am the chair of this committee. I would ask the senators to introduce themselves, beginning to my left.
Senator Seidman: Good evening; Judith Seidman, Montreal, Quebec.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Good evening; Suzanne Fortin-Duplessis, Quebec City, deputy chair of the committee.
Senator McIntyre: Good evening, Paul McIntyre, New Brunswick.
Senator Maltais: Good evening; my name is Ghislain Maltais, and I am a senator from Quebec.
Senator Chaput: Good evening, Maria Chaput from Manitoba.
The Chair: The purpose of today's meeting is to follow up with senior executives from CBC/Radio-Canada on the report tabled by this committee last year, entitled: CBC/Radio-Canada's Language Obligations, Communities Want to See Themselves and Be Heard Coast to Coast!
This study took place over approximately two years and contains 12 recommendations. The Government of Canada tabled its response to the report in the Senate on October 23, 2014 and CBC/Radio-Canada's board sent us its response on December 30, 2014.
Our witnesses during the first half of this meeting are from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. I would like to welcome Louis Lalande, Executive Vice-President, French Services, and Patricia Pleszczynska, Executive Director, Regional Services and ICI Radio-Canada Première, and Shelagh Kinch, Managing Director of English Services in Quebec.
I would ask Mr. Lalande to make his opening remarks. Following that, senators will ask their questions.
Louis Lalande, Executive Vice-President, French Services, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: Thank you, senators, and good evening. I would like to begin by thanking you for your invitation.
We read the committee's report and its recommendations on CBC/Radio-Canada's services to official language minorities in this country very closely.
Official language minority communities want to see themselves, hear themselves, and read about themselves, over the public broadcaster's airwaves. That was one of the conclusions your study reached. It is also something we firmly believe in, and we work very hard on a daily basis in order to meet our viewers' expectations.
[English]
Of course, as an arm's-length Crown corporation, we must pursue those goals in accordance with our mandate under the Broadcasting Act and in consultation with the broadcast regulator, the CRTC.
[Translation]
This arm's length nature is at the heart of our DNA as a public broadcaster. In your report, you also paid close attention to the consultations we have held with communities. Before answering your questions, we thought it would be relevant and interesting to share our experience to date with you.
Since September 1, 2013, we have been holding consultations with the anglophone community in Quebec and francophone communities in Western and northern Canadian regions, Ontario and, last Wednesday, in the Maritimes. The public meetings alone involved approximately 440 individuals in the west and the north, 200 in Ontario and 500 in the Maritimes, the vast majority of whom participated online.
Among French-speaking communities, the concerns raised during these consultations are similar to those heard in other fora. People are aware of Radio-Canada's financial situation and the limitations that it imposes, and they continue to express serious concerns about this.
They also recognize the need for Radio-Canada to adapt to francophones' emerging media consumption habits. What is more, many people are encouraging us to further expand our digital offering, especially in the regions. Digital is seen as one of the vehicles for reaching young francophones — an audience, we were told, that needs to be among our priorities as a public broadcaster.
Finally, they reiterated their desire to see and hear themselves more often on our network programming.
Based on what we heard during these consultations, and also during the many formal and informal discussions held over the years with community representatives, we have adjusted our offering in a variety of ways.
Let's start with our Raconter le pays approach, which Michel Cormier, our executive director of news and current affairs, spoke to you about during our appearance in December 2013. You will recall that this is about giving greater national resonance to local stories and showing how national issues play out in communities across the country. Over two years, we produced many reports and special features that fulfil these objectives. Our in-depth multiplatform feature on retirement in Canada, comparing the situations in Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick, is one example. "La semaine verte'' also reported on the free market and farm land in Saskatchewan, by comparing their situation with other provinces.
These are just two examples, but they illustrate the tangible benefits of this approach. In addition, our "De bonjour à bonne nuit'' regional news strategy strives to be with Canadians from morning to night by providing local news rooted in the community, in the moment, and across all platforms.
With this in mind, we began overhauling our regional websites last fall. These sites now deliver a continuous feed of local and regional news, in a format that adjusts to all screen sizes, desktops, smart phones and tablets alike.
The Ottawa-Gatineau site was one of the first to switch to the new format, and really proved its worth during the shooting last October. The amount of positive feedback that we have received from residents speaks to this. This overhaul of our regional sites aligns with the regional strategy that we presented in December with our CBC colleagues. Part of the strategy involves redeploying our resources to maintain a news presence throughout the day, with emphasis on digital and mobile, as well as social networks. Patricia can fill you in during the question period.
[English]
Last February, we also held a public consultation with members of the English-speaking community in Quebec. It was a public live-streamed event where over 1,000 participants, on-site and online, tuned in on the discussions around how can CBC best use mobile, Web, TV and radio to tell stories, to exchange and to engage with the 1 million English speakers who live in Quebec. What we heard in that consultation was strong support for CBC and a desire to ensure that CBC continues to be there for the English-speaking audience.
On October 22, 2014, Shelagh Kinch, Managing Director, CBC Quebec, and Hubert Lacroix, President and CEO of CBC/Radio-Canada, met with 10 members of the English-speaking community in Quebec to discuss Strategy 2020.
Representatives from the Black Community Resource Centre, CEDEC, Concordia University, Notman House, Quebec Community Groups Network, English Language Arts Network and independent producers attended. As a result of this meeting, CBC Montreal then went on to host CBC/Radio-Canada's first ever "hackathon'' called #HackingCBCMTL.
A hackathon is an open and collaborative event where people with both technical and non-technical expertise get together and find creative solutions to various problems using technology. Over the course of a weekend, we hosted nearly 50 developers and designers, and engaged media consumers who came and worked on their ideas with our journalists at CBC Montreal.
Bringing that thinking into CBC is incredibly important, especially when engaging with a younger, more digital audience. In fall 2015, as part of CBC/Radio-Canada's 2020 Strategy, CBC Quebec will strengthen existing desktop and mobile services, seven days a week, 18 hours a day.
[Translation]
Whether it is through informal discussions or more formal meetings such as these consultations, we maintain an ongoing dialogue with the members of linguistic minority communities, as well as with the associations and institutions that represent them. These discussions allow us to stay attuned to communities' needs and adjust our offering where we can and when it makes sense to do so. In 2014 alone, we held over 100 meetings with representatives from English and French-speaking minority communities across the country.
More broadly, our commitment to linguistic communities as public broadcaster is clear. A Space For Us All, the strategic plan that CBC/Radio-Canada launched last June, makes regional services a priority for us once again. The plan is modernizing our services for the future, while allowing us to continue fulfilling our conditions of licence and our obligations as public broadcaster.
The recently announced regional strategy was to be developed jointly by CBC and Radio-Canada, and aligns with the objective of this plan. Once fully implemented, the strategy will allow us to maintain a strong regional offering at lower cost, one that is tailored to the media consumption patterns of our audiences, including anglophones and francophones living in minority language communities. I can assure you that we will continue to meet with communities throughout the rollout of our strategy.
We are now pleased to take your questions.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Lalande. The first question will be asked by the deputy chair of this committee, Senator Fortin-Duplessis.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Welcome. Mr. Lalande, I would like to ask you a question that dates back to 2013. At the time, when you appeared before our committee, I asked you a question regarding the number of complaints related to Part VII of the Official Languages Act.
At that time, Radio-Canada was the institution that had been the subject of the greatest number of complaints. You responded that the vast majority of the complaints were related to a specific incident regarding Windsor. The number of complaints was minimal compared to other federal institutions. Since your appearance at the time, have you noticed any changes that you think you should tell us about? Perhaps I will ask you my second question right away: do you think there has been any progress since then?
Mr. Lalande: Yes, we have made progress. I will ask Patricia to describe in greater detail the lessons we learned from the repeated complaints in the case of Windsor. From Radio-Canada's perspective, this episode turned out to be extremely helpful in terms of how to work with communities. In fact, our current consultation process was based to a considerable degree on the work that was done with the community of Windsor to improve the service. I am very proud of our work. It was an unfortunate episode, especially for the community of Windsor. However, we can now see what was achieved and how this helped the way in which we work with communities.
Patricia Pleszczynska, Executive Director, Regional Services and ICI Radio-Canada Première, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: The impact of budget cuts on programming in the community of Windsor was the most difficult experience. This community knew how important a minimum level of radio programming was in order to ensure its survival and to ensure the involvement of youth in the francophone community.
Since then, we have taken several steps in the Windsor region to rebuild our relationship with the community. In fact, the new director for Ontario, Rob Renaud, is working to establish close ties with the community and to listen to their concerns. Obviously our programming has been reinstated or replaced, but not to the same extent as before. Our budget is no longer what it was in 2009. We have taken into account certain priorities. The morning program between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. was reinstated. The transition has been gradual. We started with five hours a week, increased that to ten, and now we are at fifteen hours per week. Therefore, we now offer full a morning program as well as news bulletins up until 1:00 p.m. The Windsor community seems satisfied with these steps and we maintain close ties with the community in order to make sure it is well served. Furthermore, over the next few months, our equipment and buildings will be refurbished in order to ensure our lasting presence in the region.
We have also learned from this experience which, as Louis said, was quite painful for the community, and also for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and its regional services. Whenever we have had to consider changes to our regional programming, we have held consultations. During the past year, in certain regions, we announced changes to our televised programming related to the switch to digital: reducing the length of our news broadcasts, strengthening our digital presence and aligning our broadcast times during the day or during the week with our obligations under our conditions of licence. Before reaching these decisions, we held consultations last fall, including in the broader region of Ontario. We then made choices in order to offset our financial deficits in collaboration with members of the community in each of the provinces, including Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Alberta and British Columbia.
We organized teleconferences and meetings between our director, editors-in-chief and the communities. We discussed changes such as the length of the news broadcasts and other programs we were considering. We asked them to identify their priorities. If we wanted to keep the 60-minute news broadcast, we had to reduce our presence in the field.
Our priority is information, with respect to our role as a partner in cultural events or our one-time programs on cultural or identity-related events. Provinces have to make choices. While they do think that it is unfortunate that broadcasting time has been reduced, the provinces have asked that our news broadcasts mainly cover local and regional events, and that we maintain our capacity to cover news beyond Winnipeg, Regina, Edmonton or Vancouver, as well as maintaining our budgets, human resources, programming and production, so that we can keep the partnerships that they feel are essential.
Last year, CBC's regional services included more than 50 events and special programs and new partnerships, including in the four Western provinces.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Did you receive subsequent complaints and were major improvements made?
Mr. Lalande: There will always be complaints. Obviously, last year most of the complaints dealt with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation financial situation. We saw this again last week in Moncton. These are legitimate concerns, but there are also new concerns about service in minority communities, CBC's presence throughout the country, and its ability to implement its mission, which has remained the same. The context, however, has changed considerably.
People recognize this. They are worried about how much choice they will have in the programs being offered. They like Netflix well enough, but they have also said that if they think about it, they realize that they are no longer seeing regional Canadian programs that they all enjoy. So there are new concerns being expressed differently.
I do not believe that we have received any formal complaints, but we are very aware of the concerns and I believe that the current context is particularly sensitive. That is why we are continuing the consultations so that we can make sure that we have ongoing communication with the various communities.
I am very happy with the number of people who have come to these consultations. There are people who have travelled long distances because they really wanted to participate. It is important that these people be able to take full advantage of the forum we provide to them.
Senator Maltais: Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Lalonde, in your opening remarks you said that Canadians want to see, hear and read about themselves. I would like to talk to you about CBC's work in the province of Quebec.
If you have not received any complaints, just come to my office and I will give you a boxful. People are telling us quite frankly that CBC's programming in the province of Quebec is strictly for Montreal and not even all of Montreal because not all of Montreal has a right to it; it is the Plateau Mont-Royal district.
I am going to tell you what we are hearing and I am even going to give you proof. You pay for a show like "Tout le monde en parle,'' which lasts approximately three hours, to hear the same performers and the same politicians. Some politicians have appeared so frequently that they have worn down their seats.
People from the North Shore, the Lower St. Lawrence, Gaspésie, Saguenay-Lac-St-Saint-Jean, Quebec City, Drummondville, Saint-Hyacinthe, Bois-Franc and the Laurentians tell us they have had enough.
Radio-Canada's news broadcast is based on an American newscast. I will give you another example. I am Canadian. Did I hear that there were elections in Alberta or in Prince Edward Island? How many news reports told me that two provinces in my country were going to elections? Then, when a cat is run over on the Plateau, or if a garbage can is tipped over, we get live coverage for 30 minutes. These people, whom Montrealers call "provincial,'' are fed up.
I am going to tell you what these people answered to question number two on funding:
I hope you will not give them one penny more until they have modernized their organization.
At another Senate committee meeting, Radio-Canada union members, who are members of the Union des artistes, had the gall to ask for $200 million. I said to them, "What improvement can you make with your current budget? Show us that you are able to do something. And if it is well done, and the public accept it, then that will make it much easier to increase your budget.''
The same question applies to you, for Radio-Canada Montreal in the Plateau. If you want to become the province of Quebec's radio station, then you have work to do. Your 24-hour ratings are now equal to those of Radio-Québec. That is not saying much. However, you do have very qualified people amongst your employees, extraordinary people.
I know that you are affiliated with the Unis channel. Last week, I listened to a program that warmed my heart, that dealt with my province and that was broadcast throughout Canada to young francophones. It was about two young people from Quebec, 16 years old, a boy and a girl, who meet with Hurons from Wendake to speak about their language. The bank manager is also an absolutely exceptional man.
Do you know where the word Huron comes from? Ask 99.99 per cent of Canadians; they will answer that they do not know. The first French missionaries wrote dictionaries, and the language is now taught in schools. I learned that from two 16-year-old children. Do you think that is right?
So, the work that needs to be carried out at Radio-Canada is a redistribution of your resources and an in-depth re- examination of your mandate.
Mr. Lalande: Thank you for all of your comments. With regard to your conclusion, I would say that is exactly what we are doing at the moment. Nonetheless, I would invite you to watch "Le Téléjournal'' every now and then, as it offers an important perspective.
Yes, we did talk about the Prince Edward Island elections and the debate, and yes, we are currently discussing the Newfoundland and Labrador elections. Moreover, Radio-Canada's "Téléjournal'' was the first to do an in-depth interview with the premier of Alberta when "Le Téléjournal'' went to Alberta for three days last spring to gain a better understanding of the changes currently occurring in that province.
To the best of my knowledge, it was during that interview of Mr. Prentice by Céline Galipeau that he announced for the first time that he was planning to make important changes to the financial structure of the province.
I know there are a lot of things going around and that have accumulated, but I think that it is very important not to lose confidence in Radio-Canada. Radio-Canada is changing, and it takes its mandate very seriously. Our current efforts are completely appropriate given our goal of accurately reflecting the country and the world in which we live.
I would just like to remind you that "Le Téléjournal'' has a presence in Kathmandu. Last week, we broadcast exceptional reporting by Marie-Ève Bédard. For the first time, we saw on screen a refugee smuggler. The footage showed her on the shoreline in Turkey with a boat which was waiting for refugees. There was an interview with a refugee, there was everything you needed to understand what is occurring in the Mediterranean when boats arrive full of refugees.
Senator Maltais: Mr. Lalande, I would like to stop you there. I was here four years ago, and we went through this exact same thing.
Mr. Lalande: Let me repeat: do not give up on Radio-Canada. Radio-Canada is making significant efforts at all levels. I would just like to return to one or two things, and Patricia can add to what I say. We are currently broadcasting several stories and documentaries on the Huron question. And I would like to repeat that Radio- Canada's ratings, over all its platforms, have not dipped to a minimum.
As some of my predecessors have stated, there is no such thing as public service without a public. On the radio, on TV, through digital services, people appreciate, listen to, and watch Radio-Canada. Our job is to make sure we are improving and to discharge our mandate under existing conditions, but I tell you that we are making a huge effort and working very hard to improve all of our shows and the performance of our programs.
Ms. Pleszczynska: Thank you, Louis. Of course, we can always improve further. But we would be remiss if we failed to mention all the programs we offer which not only bring people together, but are full of information and discoveries about all regions of the country, whether it be live reporting or documentaries that we have already broadcast or that we are currently preparing to broadcast later.
These are documentaries that we are increasingly making in collaboration with our colleagues from three specialized networks: ICI RDI, ICI ARTV, and ICI EXPLORA. We do that in order to maximize each dollar spent, but also to make sure that our documentaries are available for all the audiences of all our networks.
I would just like to give you some examples of projects that we are preparing or that have already been broadcast. A series of documentaries on francophones in the four Western provinces; a documentary called "Fransaskois''; another documentary about francophones in Alberta, "Franco-Boom en Alberta,'' and a follow-up about the problems faced by francophone Acadians who move to Fort McMurray, leaving their province and communities without fathers, sons, and brothers.
There are about a hundred hours of documentaries made by teams throughout the country and independent producers from coast to coast. These documentaries allow us to increase our knowledge through shared experience.
You mentioned the Hurons. I do not know if you heard about a documentary that we produced in collaboration with the students at the Étienne-Brûlé school in Toronto, on the story of Étienne Brûlé, the links between aboriginal communities in the GTA and the Hurons of Quebec, the relationships that formed and the way history unfolded.
We have a lot of content. It is impossible for everyone to watch and listen to everything that we do at Radio- Canada. Most people are going to listen to or consult only a tiny portion of what Radio-Canada produces. If, with all the regional and network programming, and in collaboration with our regional teams and network broadcasting, we are not succeeding in showing all the changes that are taking place, that is a real shame. It is a shame, but we are working on it.
Last week, our national afternoon radio show with Patrick Masbourian travelled to Acadia during the Frye Festival to talk about what is happening in Acadia. Quite recently, we broadcast shows where we travelled to Quebec City and to the Saguenay region, and previously to Saskatchewan and Alberta. So even if our national shows are produced in Montreal, we travel to be there on the ground, both on the radio and on TV. In some cases, a show like "La petite séduction'' will feature tiny communities that no one has heard about, or people that had never appeared on television before and who are now shown on national television. That has happened many times. Of course, our work is not at an end. We have improved a lot of things over the last few years, but there still a lot to be done, I do admit that.
Senator Chaput: I would like to discuss three aspects of certain conditions set by the CRTC during your licence renewal. In fact, you mentioned one of these during your presentation: consultations. I am not going to ask you anything about that, because our time is limited. On the other hand, I would like to discuss regional programming and your collaboration with independent producers in minority communities.
When it comes to the future of your regional stations, is your strategy in that area based on retooling your regional websites, as you mentioned? How many of those regional websites are there in Canada? How much did it cost to renew your regional websites? How are you going to maintain them and make sure you are on the cutting edge with regard to new technologies? After all, it is a way to reach youth, which is very important.
Those are my questions on the regional side of your regional websites.
Mr. Lalande: I will ask Ms. Pleszczynska to give you more information about the investments and our digital strategy.
Senator Chaput: And the number.
Mr. Lalande: And the number. I will then go on to investments in the other program and external production sectors.
Ms. Pleszczynska: In each of our broad regions, British Columbia and Yukon represent one region, Alberta also represents one region, as do Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario. We therefore have several websites. Therefore, Ottawa has its own website or digital strategy. The same is true for Toronto and northern Ontario. We are currently in consultations to restructure the system. We are also determining whether the digital services for the north and south of Ontario, separated from the east, are sufficient, or if we should split the two and offer service for the north of Ontario while merging the south and southwest of the province.
Senator Chaput: How many websites are being developed or will be developed in Canada?
Ms. Pleszczynska: There are currently 13 digital services. As I just said, to complement what already exists, we are considering the best way to serve the north of Ontario in comparison to the south. The Greater Toronto Area is so vast, and the situation there so completely different from Sudbury and the north of Ontario, that we are finding ways to split or add content to better serve those who are in the north of Ontario.
The same is true for Acadia. As it stands, we offer a digital service for all four Atlantic provinces. This is intriguing as during our consultations with associations and individuals last week, there was a little interest for a greater presence perhaps in the form of greater distinction between each of the four Atlantic provinces. However, most people whom we consulted felt that Acadian content should continue as is in order to promote and protect the Acadian identity. We will have to determine how we can ensure this cohesion of Acadian content while giving more local news to each of the four provinces that span Acadia. This exercise will be carried out in a few months at the latest.
Senator Chaput: Who will prepare and produce local or regional information?
Ms. Pleszczynska: Journalists will do so. In fact everyone working at the station will participate. We have resources dedicated to digital content, but most of our journalists in our regional offices work on a number of platforms while ensuring coverage and doing their work as journalists. They readily prepare content for radio, for television, and for the digital service.
Last November, we implemented this process and it will end next autumn. This ensures that renovation and restructuring work for our digital sites will be adaptable for each platform. When you visit the Ottawa, Winnipeg, or Manitoba websites, where the work has already been finished, the same website will adapt its content to your screen whether you are on a desktop PC at work, on your cell phone, or on your iPad. This saves money as we do not have to manage individual websites for each and every platform. Our digital service will be able to adapt all of its content to emerging technologies and different screens.
Senator Chaput: How many reporters do you have in Canada who provide information? Are all of the sites or digital services offered in both official languages, in English and in French?
Ms. Pleszczynska: Each of those services, both the CBC and Radio-Canada, have their own digital service.
Senator Chaput: And so they are separate?
Ms. Pleszczynska: They are not bilingual sites. They are a reflection of their communities, and the way that they are served is, of necessity, different. We have worked very closely with Jennifer McGuire's team — Shelagh and I are part of it — and the people who worked for nearly a year on this digital strategy. We work very closely, we have the same criteria and the same values, but we also value symmetry, not just between certain regions, but also between the French and English service, depending on the appropriate strategy to serve these communities.
Senator Chaput: How many reporters are there, and how many bilingual and non-bilingual websites are there?
Ms. Pleszczynska: I told you; there are 13 right now.
Senator Chaput: I understand that, but in which language?
Ms. Pleszczynska: French.
Senator Chaput: There are not any in English?
Ms. Pleszczynska: My colleague can answer you about the English sites. When it comes to reporters, we already provided the list to the committee before. I cannot give you the number.
Senator Chaput: We have that somewhere.
Ms. Pleszczynska: You have it. We provided that list several months ago. I would say one thing; it is a question that seems to be simple, but it is not.
Senator Chaput: I am sure of it.
Ms. Pleszczynska: Indeed, if we wish to establish comparisons between the CBC and Radio-Canada, we must take into account the differences that some of our unions attribute to certain types of jobs. If we are talking about reporters or journalists who work in the field, we are talking about certain pools of journalists who work for French or English services. However, there are also directors, hosts, desks and assignment editors. There is a pool of reporters in each of our stations whose primary mandate is to offer local services to radio and television, as well as digital services, because our teams are integrated.
Senator Chaput: In order to demonstrate that the CBC/Radio-Canada does the work that it must given its mission and its conditions, it is necessary to get answers that the average person can understand. Otherwise, it will not be possible to demonstrate that there is not only a need, but a reality, that only you can respond to. That is why I am asking these questions. I understand that it is hard, but it is necessary to get these kinds of answers.
Ms. Pleszczynska: The number of reporters, we provided that to you. If the question is on the total number of employees in the region, it is possible to provide you with that, because those numbers are available.
Senator Chaput: Could you perhaps send those numbers to the clerk of the committee?
Ms. Pleszczynska: If the question is on the total number of employees in the regions, it is possible for us to provide that to you, of course.
Senator Chaput: It is difficult for us to determine if there are cuts, losses, where they are happening, if the mandate is being discharged appropriately, and how. It is very hard to defend what is being done. That is why I am asking these questions.
Ms. Kinch, what about anglophones in Quebec?
[English]
I want to know how many sites numériques you've had in English in Quebec?
Shelagh Kinch, Managing Director, English Services in Quebec, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: Right now, we have one, and it's in Montreal.
Senator Chaput: Do you plan on having more than one?
Ms. Kinch: At this point, no. The way we service our community is through our Quebec City bureau. It runs stories that are put to our website.
Interestingly enough, we fine that most of our users come to us through social media rather than coming to our website at all. So that's how we furnish a lot of our stories and content to our audience.
Senator Chaput: And that's in English only?
Ms. Kinch: That is in English only, yes.
[Translation]
Senator Chaput: Mr. Lalande, could you answer the last question on that subject?
Mr. Lalande: Yes, that works out well, because I know that you were looking for very specific answers. I am referring to the new licensing conditions where the CRTC, following the discussions that we had with them, created a condition about regional investment, supporting the infrastructure necessary for independent production.
Senator Chaput: Yes, that was going to be my next question.
Mr. Lalande: Six per cent of the total programming budget now has to be invested in independent productions.
Senator Chaput: Those in minority communities?
Mr. Lalande: Yes, francophone minority communities. This is a very specific condition. Six per cent might not seem huge, but it is a significant sum. Even the producers that we work with can feel the significance of this condition. And with that, there is a series of programming initiatives — local, regional, and network programming — which first of all ensure that minority communities are better reflected, and secondly — and this is really important — help promote the industry and francophone independent production outside of Montreal and outside of Quebec, which was not the case a few years ago.
There are some striking examples of this: for a decade, independent producers outside of Quebec worked a lot on the documentary form, and they were challenged to take on other genres as well. That is how the producers ended up becoming involved in dramas, which are important at Radio-Canada, because dramas are very much appreciated by francophone viewers. On Radio-Canada's national network, there are now two dramatic series produced by independent producers outside of the Montreal production area. For us, this is a positive development; for independent producers, this is something important. Thirdly, the CRTC has taken note and has provided a framework to help promote this development.
Senator Chaput: As for the overhaul of websites —
Mr. Lalande: That will be the last question.
Senator Chaput: I would ask you to give me a very brief response, if possible, Mr. Lalande. As for the overhaul of regional websites, do you have any figures? Are there costs associated with that, or is the money drawn from —
Mr. Lalande: It was essentially about reorganizing the tasks. There was a small investment made, but it was an occasional investment that was only made when necessary.
[English]
Senator Seidman: Mr. Lalande, you spoke of the importance of regional services. Of course, those services have to be relevant, especially for minority-language communities, which might count on your programming more than most. You rightly point to the 1 million English speakers who live in Quebec. They're centred primarily in Montreal and Quebec City, but there are pockets of English-language minority communities across the province that are quite diverse and isolated.
You indicated that last year you had fairly intensive consultations with the English-speaking communities in Quebec directly and with the representatives of community groups. It would be really helpful if we could hear what were the key issues that were identified in those consultations and what are the mechanism structures in place to build on this ongoing dialogue to ensure that it's regularly updated.
Ms. Kinch: I can answer that. I hope you don't mind.
Yes, we have held ongoing consultations with our community. We regularly bring together groups that represent the English-speaking community throughout the province. We hear the same thing all the time, namely, that we don't have enough programming, and they don't see themselves reflected in the way they should see themselves reflected on our network.
We do the best we can. We have a travelling journalist who travels across the province. She's going to the Gaspé today. I can tell you that in the last year she's gone to Trois-Rivières, Whapmagoostui, Lac-Mégantic, Rimouski, Beauce, Saint-Élie-de-Caxton, Portneuf, Schefferville, Parc de la Gaspésie. That's how we're serving the community at this point, and through our Quebec City bureaus, with our current affairs programming in the morning and the afternoon. But they want more, and I understand that.
When we did our last CRTC consultation, David Johnston from the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages came and suggested we could actually put freelancers in the regions across the province so that they could contribute to our programming. It's a possibility; it's something that could be looked at.
As well, we have also put a video journalist into our bureau in Sherbrooke. We now have a right of broadcast there, and we're adding a video journalist to tell more of the stories that happen with the English community in the Eastern Townships.
Senator Seidman: What were the biggest challenges identified in your consultations?
Ms. Kinch: The biggest challenge was why people are not seeing themselves as reflected as they would like to see on our network. That was what came up. That was the continual conversation.
Senator Seidman: You say that you're having meetings in the various areas, various regions of the province. Is this something that's regular and ongoing? Do you have some sort of mechanism or structure set up to have a feedback process so that you can have an ongoing dialogue?
Ms. Kinch: Yes, would do. We have a public consultation that we do every two years under our condition of licence. We held that in February.
We also try to do four consultations a year. Let me give you an example of what we did last year. We met with the young business community in Montreal. We brought together 10, 15 people to come and meet with us and talk about what they thought of our programming.
They had great things to say about what we were doing in the digital space and gave us great ideas, and from those we came up with things like our hackathon. They felt that CBC should be more open to them, so we asked them to tell us how we can make it more open. We brought them in, held a hackathon and they came up with some interesting solutions we're looking into.
We also met with the independent producers, various members of small community groups. Quebec Community Groups Network has chapters all around the province, and we would like to meet with them on an annual basis.
Senator Seidman: You have a built-in mechanism to assess.
Ms. Kinch: We do.
Senator Seidman: Because demographics change, as you referenced, you have more and more young people. The idea would be to help them see CBC as more relevant to them.
Ms. Kinch: Absolutely. It is hugely important to us that they see what the CBC is and what we're offering them, and that is our future. So we make specific outreach efforts to get a younger audience in on those.
[Translation]
Senator McIntyre: Mr. Lalande, Ms. Pleszczynska, last September, the Federal Court issued its ruling in the Windsor case. A month later, I learned that the broadcaster had decided to appeal the decision. During the hearings, on April 15, the broadcaster asked that the Federal Court's decision be reversed, and the request was taken into consideration.
I think this is unfortunate, because the judge's ruling confirmed that the public broadcaster had to respect the Official Languages Act. The judge also recognized that the Commissioner of Official Languages could inquire into complaints received concerning Radio-Canada.
Could you summarize the argument that you presented before the Federal Court of Appeal last month?
Mr. Lalande: I would not want to venture into this debate which is still ongoing, but I would like to add something about what you just said. The judge also recognized the CRTC's jurisdiction over Radio-Canada. So this is a legal debate, and I think that we should leave it to the courts to rule on these matters.
Personally, I think that it is probably necessary to give some direction on the matter. However, I think it is a bit sad that we are having a debate on something as fundamental as this, in other words, the jurisdiction of two laws that govern an organization. I think that it is wisest to let the courts rule on the matter. I would hope that things will be clarified so that we can all work together to ensure, first of all, that the Official Languages Act is respected and secondly, that Radio-Canada's mandate, which derives from the Broadcasting Act, is supported, and that everyone at the CRTC, which governs us, will have a clear idea of what they need to do.
In the meantime, I can assure you that nothing is preventing us from pursuing our work. You can see that we are making an effort to be able to offer the essential services in Radio-Canada's mandate, in the current circumstance and with the budget restrictions that we have.
Senator McIntyre: In this context, we will await the Federal Court of Appeal's decision with great interest.
[English]
Ms. Kinch, I understand that you are responsible for CBC's English services based in Montreal and Quebec City.
Ms. Kinch: Yes.
Senator McIntyre: CBC operates radio and television stations in Montreal. My understanding is that it also operates a radio station in Quebec City. There are two shows that come to mind, "Breakaway'' and "Quebec AM.'' I also understand that these shows are the only English-language radio programs covering English-speaking communities. Is there quite an interest on the part of English-speaking people for those shows?
Ms. Kinch: Yes, absolutely, but they are not the only shows we have that service the entire province. "Radio Noon'' is our show out of Montreal on a daily basis at noon that serves the entire province. "All in a Weekend'' is our weekend show that runs from six to nine on Saturdays and Sundays.
Senator McIntyre: I further understand that CBC Quebec has been meeting with community groups, like Quebec Community Groups Networks, on a regular basis as well as participating in community events such as Townshippers' Day. Could you tell us a little bit about that?
Ms. Kinch: Are you asking me what we do with these groups?
Senator McIntyre: Yes, and the public consultation attached to it and the public input.
Ms. Kinch: What we do with the Townshippers' Association is that fairly often we set up a booth there, so we're there on the day to meet the public coming and have one-on-one contact with them and talk about what we're doing. We also host the event. We send one of our hosts to participate in the event.
Out of this year's Townshippers' Association we're involved in an initiative called Make Way for YOUth. It's a program that is trying to counter the exodus of youth from the Eastern Townships, and so we're partnering with them in this program over the next three years.
If you know about the English Language Arts Network, we're also partnering with them. They're doing a summer festival called Arts Alive! where they're going out into English communities across the province. We'll be partnering with them on six of those communities. We'll be going with them and setting up some sort of contact with the community.
What we also do when we go to these places is we find stories in those places so we can put them on our programs and they can see themselves on our programming.
[Translation]
The Chair: Before moving on to a second round of questions with Senator Chaput, I would like to ask you a question.
Five of the recommendations made by the Standing Senate Committee as part of its study of CBC/Radio-Canada and its linguistic obligations concerned the board of directors.
Unfortunately, the responses that we received were fairly vague, and there were no specific commitments made about the recommendations. However, I would like to come back to one of the recommendations that we made in the report: that CBC/Radio-Canada demonstrate how its corporate culture has taken into consideration the realities and challenges unique to official language minority communities. Could you tell us what concrete measures have been taken in the last year to respond to that recommendation?
Mr. Lalande: I would like to go back a little further than last year. In terms of French-language services, for the past few years, we made an important commitment by creating the regional services group to ensure that all of the work and the resources in a given region — whether it be on television, on the radio, news, or digital services — are organized in the most optimal way, so that we can offer a service that evolves along with the population. From an organizational point of view, this group did not exist before; so it was an important step.
I took on the first part of the reform myself and then I transferred the responsibility of continuing the work to Patricia. I fundamentally believe that this reform has helped Radio-Canada better develop its services, particularly in the regions.
Ms. Pleszczynska: In communities in the west of the country, we can see that there has been a huge transformation in terms of immigration. These new francophones and francophiles are increasing the number of francophones in these regions. Listeners in these regions want not only local programming, but they also want to be able to hear themselves reflected all across the West. We have put in place new groups within the organization so that one person will be responsible for editorial work in the four Western provinces, one person is responsible for editorial issues and is on site in each of our stations to talk about them, but also to be responsible for the teams. This allows us to pay more attention to the issues affecting francophone communities in the West.
The same goes for non-news programming; one person is responsible for the four Western provinces to ensure there is fairness and balance, because one of the issues that frequently comes out of our consultations is that there is a need for initiatives to ensure that young francophones can continue to work in French and listen to French on Radio- Canada. We want to have initiatives in all the regions, in all the provinces, even in Ontario now, with programs such as the show "On y va'' for young people aged 6 to 12, which is now broadcast on Sunday mornings. This was a local Edmonton initiative that was developed and which became a show that was broadcast on the entire network.
Mr. Lalande: I would like to talk to you about another aspect of this organizational transformation. As Radio- Canada has made investments in every one of the regions, we have been able to modernize old radio stations and television stations into totally modern multimedia centres. The brand new multimedia centre in Moncton will be open next June. And I would invite you to come see it, if you are going to be in Moncton. This centre is totally equipped to deal with the new realities we are facing. We also have a second centre in Sudbury. This was one of our oldest most obsolete centres which was not only moved, but was refitted with modern equipment, so that the radio, television and digital aspects will be able to function together dynamically. Employees will have better resources, and better guidance in terms of their mission of reflecting what is happening in their community.
Ms. Pleszczynska: A final point?
The Chair: I am afraid we don't have much time.
Ms. Pleszczynska: Briefly, I would like to add that the content is essential. The stories that we tell are essential. A lot of work has been done in recent years to ensure that our production models are as effective as possible, precisely so that we can go out into the field and tell those stories.
Senator Chaput: My question concerns the third recommendation our committee made concerning collaboration between the French-language and English-language networks. I would like you to give us concrete examples of collaboration that are part of your strategy to have CBC/Radio-Canada truly reflect Canada and its linguistic duality. For example, you are overhauling your regional websites, and you have talked about digital services; do you have a strategy that would ensure, once and for all, that all across Canada, there would be digital sites in both official languages, and not only in one language in one corner of the country, and in a different language at the other end of the country?
The Chair: Could you provide us with that information in writing? That would be appreciated.
Mr. Lalande: Very well.
Senator Maltais: Mr. Lalande, a group called Friends of Radio-Canada has been created. We have seen their advertisements, they rented a theatre and some artists donated their fees. Did the Friends give you the money from that event?
Mr. Lalande: No.
Senator Maltais: What did they do with that money?
Mr. Lalande: I do not know. You would have to ask them.
Senator Maltais: Did they pay for the radio and television advertisements on Radio-Canada? They ran advertisements for a week.
Mr. Lalande: I will look into it.
Senator Maltais: Could you give us an answer? They did this on behalf of Radio-Canada. I imagine that if you are using the name of an enterprise like Radio-Canada, and if you made a profit, the money should be given back.
Mr. Lalande: I would invite you to put the question to the organizers.
Senator Maltais: We have not been able to find them.
Mr. Lalande: I am not the right person to ask, I think.
Senator Maltais: Thank you.
The Chair: I would like to thank our guests this evening, Mr. Louis Lalande, Ms. Pleszczynska and Ms. Kinch, for having appeared before us. I would like to reaffirm the importance of our public broadcaster to official language minority communities, francophones in minority communities outside of Quebec, and anglophone communities in Quebec. You play an important role. I know that you are undergoing budget cuts; we did not discuss that, but 1,500 jobs will be cut between now and 2020, according to what you announced. Despite all that, I would remind you of your obligations under the Official Languages Act and the Broadcasting Act. Thank you all.
Now we will move on to the second panel of witnesses. Not long ago, I received a letter from the president of the Société Santé en français, Dr. Aurel Schofield, who requested to appear before the committee in order to update us on the progress made in the context of the roadmap for health care and health services for francophones living in minority communities. The Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure accepted his request.
Thus, I would like to welcome Dr. Aurel Schofield as well as Mr. Michel Tremblay, both from the Société Santé en français. We are very happy to have you.
I would like to invite Dr. Schofield to give his presentation, and afterwards senators will be able to ask their questions.
Dr. Aurel Schofield, President, Société Santé en français: Thank you Madam Chair, and members of the committee. As the president of the Société Santé en français, I would like to thank you for giving us this valuable time. We know that you are very busy.
As you said, I am here today with Mr. Michel Tremblay, executive director of our organization. We are here to talk to you about the Société Santé en français as it relates to your study on the application of the Official Languages Act.
Our goal today is to explain our role as a national organization aiming to improve access to health care for francophones in minority communities. We also want to get your support for the future. We will be presenting examples of large-scale projects that we have undertaken with that goal in mind. We have done so with funding from the Government of Canada through the Official Languages Health Contribution Program.
The Société Santé en français is a national organization composed of a national secretariat and 16 regional, provincial and territorial networks that work in Acadian and francophone communities across the country, except in Quebec.
A leader in networking, our organization has managed to create and maintain strong ties with political decision makers, help professionals and their associations, help managers, help service providers, and help training institutions in the provinces and territories. Thus, the needs of francophones and official language minority communities are at the heart of our work. I would even say that now their needs are being noticed by the government, which was not the case a few years ago.
Our organization's raison d'être has always been and always will be to improve the health of Acadian and francophone communities living in minority communities, and to reduce gaps and inequalities in the health system, which is supposed to be respectful of cultural, social and linguistic values.
Why is this so important? Quite simply because better health strengthens the vitality of official language minority communities. How do we encourage this improvement? We do it through the mobilization of partners on the ground who work in collaboration, share common objectives and create structural projects that meet real needs.
In Winnipeg, Dr. Sarah Bowen, a Canadian researcher, conducted evidence-based research on language barriers to access. She clearly showed that poor communication can result in negative effects tied to the quality of services, patients' safety and community wellness. Other American studies have also shown that language barriers to access increase health system costs.
After 15 years in existence, our organization has proven its worth and is well-placed to target needs, mobilize partners on the ground and find effective means of ensuring improved access to high quality French health services and programs.
We have four priority areas of action that I will briefly describe, with supporting examples. First of all, there is the organization and adaptation of services offered in French. These services must be tailored to the realities of our minority communities in the nine provinces and three territories.
Among the many measures, let's take the example of two projects undertaken between 2011 and 2013, which were designed to improve the health of francophone seniors. In Prince Edward Island, a project led directly to the opening of two bilingual "households'' with 13 beds each, in a long-term care facility in Summerside, which is currently being renovated. Seniors were grouped and receive services in the language of their choice. These "households'' are the result of close collaboration between the French services network in Prince Edward Island, Health PEI, and the provincial government.
In Manitoba, Santé en français Manitoba, in cooperation with health system partners in this province, developed an action plan to find solutions to gaps that existed between available services and the needs of elderly francophone clients in the neighbourhoods of Saint-Boniface and Saint-Vital, in Winnipeg. Another result of this project was the establishment of a guide written for the managers of long-term care facilities. This guide set out the practices to be implemented, whether they were new approaches to recruitment and assignment of professionals or new ways of organizing schedules and pooling services. By sharing this guide with all of our networks, this project alone will help thousands and thousands of francophones across the country who will be housed in long-term care facilities.
Here is another success story, a very recent one. In November 2012, our organization published a document entitled Orientations en santé mentale en Français, in which we proposed means of ensuring the quality of mental health services in a minority context. Last March, we announced the availability of mental health first aid training being offered by the Mental Health Commission of Canada. These training sessions were fully tailored to the realities of minority communities, in partnership with our organization.
The first training session has already been held and was tailored to instructors who interact with young people, for example, teachers, sports coaches and camp counselors. Another session will be offered this week, this time for instructors who interact with adults. These instructors will then return to their respective communities to train mental health first responders in French.
In total, the Société Santé en français estimates that 10 provinces and territories will be able to offer the necessary means to fight stigmatization, as well as address mental health problems in sometimes remote communities. In short, close to 600 francophones in a minority setting will be equipped this way.
We are also very proud of our collaboration with Accreditation Canada in developing standards for culturally and linguistically adapted care and services. The purpose of this project is to create new standards or to enrich existing standards for hospitals, long-term care centres and other health care organizations to put in place to prepare for visits from Accreditation Canada. It is for all official language minority communities, including anglophones in Quebec, as much as francophones outside Quebec.
The Société Santé en français has as its second focus consulting, promoting and equipping human resources in the field of health. It is important to us to ensure that there are enough professionals able to offer health services in French to meet the demand from our communities.
Here again, for example, my organization is working very closely on a project by the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada to identify francophone or francophile students who are studying in English. This initiative has already borne fruit, because we have identified 30 students, at each of the faculties of medicine of Memorial University in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, and the University of Toronto, within three months of beginning the project.
When students are identified, language and cultural training will be offered to them, as well as the opportunity to discover minority communities in their area where they will be able to do internships. The goal is to increase recruitment and retention of these doctors in minority communities. We are looking forward to other great discoveries elsewhere in Canada.
Many other activities have been put in place by networks to promote careers in French, to encourage the recruitment of professionals, and to create glossaries and tools online for professionals. The networks have also organized refresher training for professionals, such as Health Care in French at a Glance in Nova Scotia, and host communities in Nunavut. In fact, many other mobilization and promotion activities are done every year.
My organization works with the Consortium national de formation en santé on training in French. The consortium is made up of 11 universities and colleges that offer postsecondary training programs as well as continuing education workshops in French for health care professionals.
We work together on different common issues, including active offer, an approach designed to ensure that services in French are offered upstream, on a regular and ongoing basis, without the client, who is often vulnerable, having to make a request.
A third focus is the work done on determinants of health. Increasingly, communities feel engaged and supported in taking charge of their health and well-being when it comes to determinants of health. My organization and its networks are very active in this area having deployed their National Strategy for Promoting Health in French, which is carried out through numerous projects. For example, templates like "healthy communities'' or "healthy schools'' have been created or are being developed.
Lastly, the fourth area we work in is about bringing together knowledge based on research and evaluation in order to provide the best possible service. We have to optimize the capacity of the Société, of the networks and their partners by integrating skills related to research, evaluation and knowledge mobilization, and also by focusing on best practices for health care services provided in French.
Further, the Société is developing an evaluation framework which will allow us to measure our performance and show whether we had an impact. In this area, we also work on integrating the language variable in the collection of health systems data collection, in order to provide reliable indicators to decision makers, administrators and planners. That way, they will be able to get a better picture of francophone communities. We have two ongoing projects: one in Ontario and the other in Prince Edward Island.
In light of these examples, you can see that networking lies at the heart of all of our activities and that it is the key to our success. At this point, I would like to give you a really good example of networking in my province of New Brunswick.
The Société Santé et Mieux-être en français of New Brunswick has recently signed an agreement with Réseau Vitalité, which is one of the two provincial regional health wards, and with the Mouvement acadien des communautés en Santé Inc. Under this agreement, the société will be in a better position to influence the plan to optimize the shift towards community and ambulatory care, and also the shift towards primary care, which is just around the corner.
I have no doubt that this collaboration will continue to improve access to primary health care services in French for all Acadians living in New Brunswick. These are just a handful of success stories from the hundreds which are out there. Our apologies for boasting about this, but these stories really inspire us.
In conclusion, I will leave you with an important message. The work is far from done. The federal government plays a key role in improving the health of our minority francophone and Acadian communities. If we are to reach our goal of making everyone healthier and of receiving support from provincial and territorial governments, we will need support and financial resources from the Canadian government.
The funding we received under the roadmap for official languages allowed us to launch our activities. However, delays and a lack of stable funding have many times over threatened and slowed down our projects and our success stories.
We are therefore asking for two things. First, the time has come to create a bigger and permanent official languages program in the health care sector to improve access to and increase the number of services provided in French, and which would see the Société Santé en français and its networks play key roles.
Next, it is essential that the language variable be integrated in the collection of socio-health data to help us better define needs and measure the impact of our work. This is an important challenge which will be difficult to meet.
We had made this request when we appeared before the Senate Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Sciences and Technology in October of 2011. We had recommended that the Canadian Institute for Health Information add the language variable to the data it collects on human resources in the health care sector and on the groups receiving services in Canada's health care system.
We are convinced that we need to continue this work with our key partners and collaborators in order to make a real difference and to improve access to quality health care services in French for our minority language communities. I can assure you that the Société Santé en français is up to the task. Thank you very much for your attention.
The Chair: Doctor Schofield, thank you very much for your most interesting presentation. I think you have every right to boast, since the Société santé en français is such a success.
I would ask senator Fortin-Duplessis to ask the first question.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Welcome, gentlemen. I'm very pleased to see you again, and I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate you. You have every right to be extremely proud of the progress you have made.
When you appeared before the committee in November of 2014, you talked about the training of interns and bilingual students to ensure that the students who are trained in minority official language communities wind up staying there.
Can you give us statistics that show how many students have stayed in the communities where they received training?
Dr. Schofield: I believe that the consortium would be better placed to provide you with these statistics. The consortium specifically works on training. Perhaps Mr. Tremblay can respond to your question.
Michel Tremblay, Executive Director, Société Santé en français: Studies have shown that when students go back to their community for their training and their internship, they often want to go back home.
The project we are currently working on is very exciting, and we would like to work with faculties in other areas, in collaboration with the Association of Faculties of Medicine. But what often happens is that even though the Consortium national de formation en santé, or CNFS, provides training in Ottawa or in Moncton, New Brunswick, students do not necessarily want to leave home. They would rather study in English, and we know that there are francophone students at the University of Alberta and at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Calgary.
So we want to be able to identify the students and work with them so that they stay in a francophone community in Alberta. These people can provide bilingual care and services, so they can work for everyone in the community.
When they are at university, we would like to make them aware of the community they are in. For example, there are students at Dalhousie University in Halifax who, with the participation of our network on Prince Edward Island, in Nova Scotia and in New Brunswick, will invite francophone medical students in Halifax to meet with members of the Acadian community during the Jeux de l'Acadie this summer. So they will have the opportunity to provide care or be on the ground to treat people who need it.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: What kind of measures are taken to ensure that bilingual health professionnals, be they doctors or nurses, remain in official language minority communities?
Dr. Schofield: First, in the work we do with the CNFS, we try as much as possible to ensure that all of the teaching institutions provide students with experience and contact with the people living in that community. This activity takes place in the 11 institutions of the CNFS and who work with us on a daily basis.
Let me give you two very striking examples. In Nova Scotia, when I was the dean of the Moncton Medical Training Centre, they contacted me to say that they were looking for doctors. I said that we had doctors, but that we could not transfer them to their institutions. It was up to them to make the request.
We talked with the mayor of the community. In fact, there was a community group which, in partnership with a pharmacist, built a clinic. I gave them some ideas about what they should offer in that clinic; among other things, classrooms for the students.
Four years later, three francophone doctors joined our network and moved to Clare, Nova Scotia, and it has been just like the Grand Seduction. The entire community came together to welcome these students, and helped them get their practice off the ground. Every year, they receive a basket of food: fresh lobster during the lobster season, and fresh vegetables during the gardening season. So it is really a grand seduction, and it is working. Today, they have created a place that will offer work experience to my future students.
The goal is to push ahead with this idea of training our students close to communities and close to services. When they are trained onsite, not only do they get quality training, but they also learn to better understand the needs of the local area. So, the students are very smart, they finish their training and, if the opportunity presents itself, they start to practice in one of the regions. In some ways, this shows the success that we have had with the Medical Training Centre over the last twenty years.
We have been recognized as a model by the World Health Organization, and that is what we are trying to reproduce. We have decided to do something similar with the English-speaking faculties of medicine, so we are focusing on francophone and francophile students within the anglophone faculties so that we can put them in touch with our nearby communities.
So essentially we are trying to replicate the same strategy. The results are clear: it is a winning strategy. All of the bursaries and financial incentives out there are just temporary strategies. We need to train our students in our communities.
Mr. Tremblay: I would add that we are working within the framework of one of our action areas, that of recognizing, retaining and recruiting professionals. This includes activities such as those linked to our host communities. For example, if you look at the challenges of recruitment in Nunavut, we take care of the people we recruit; we look after them and ensure that they are recognized for their work.
In Prince Edward Island, we do something very simple. People are publicly recognized for the work that they do in their community. Recently, a dietician and an administrator in an establishment increased the number of services offered in French. These are the kinds of little things that allow us to recognize people in small communities.
Professionals need two things. They need to be welcomed and taken care of, but they also need to be able to network with other professionals. When people go off to work in small distant communities, there is a risk if they are unable to network with colleagues.
So that is one of the roles that the networks play when they exchange information. This does not only apply to doctors; it also applies to therapists. It can be hard to find physiotherapists and occupational therapists, particularly in places like the Northwest Territories, the Yukon and Nunavut, which are even more remote regions. It is hard to recruit health care professionals from all fields, including registered nurses and licenced practical nurses. So it is important to find a way to network with these professionals and to welcome them with activities that recognize their importance.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: In Quebec, certain regions fare very poorly in this area. Doctors will go but will not stay, and entire communities are left without a doctor.
I have one final question to ask you. I believe that it is very important to offer services to seniors in their own language. What is your strategy to meet this need? Do you look at seniors the same way that you look at the rest of the population? Have you implemented any particular measures in terms of offering health care to seniors?
Dr. Schofield: Our strategic planning framework specifically targets the senior population. We presented a major pan-Canadian project to Health Canada that would promote and facilitate access to health care in French. We have learned a lot from our projects, similar to those that have been so successful in Prince Edward Island and in Manitoba. We wanted to roll those out nationally, and we were requested funding. Unfortunately, that funding was refused. We want to ensure that seniors can stay in their own homes for as long as possible, while at the same time offering them services. We know that social interaction is very important for seniors. Our work certainly takes that into account. Services need to be grouped together, like in Prince Edward Island, where the cost was minimal. We grouped together existing resources to offer services in French to seniors who needed them. This initiative generated very little extra cost. It was simply a question of mobilizing resources and taking into account the issues and the needs. The guide that we published deals with the question of how to mobilize and maximize existing resources to get the best results.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: I would like to thank both of you very much for your presentation.
Senator McIntyre: Thank you, Dr. Schofield and Mr. Tremblay for your presentations. I would note that Health Canada and community organizations worked closely together. Dr. Schofield, as you have just mentioned, for several years now your group has supported many projects that facilitate access to services in French in a number of regions. In the Atlantic region, beyond the projects that you listed in your presentation, I am aware of other projects that saw the light of day thanks to your support. Among these projects there is the Noreen-Richard Health Centre in Fredericton, New Brunswick, my home province. There is also the Réseau des services de santé en français on Prince Edward Island; the arrival of a larger number of francophone physicians in the municipality of Argyle, Nova Scotia, and the Santé communautaire globale project in Newfoundland and Labrador, in particular in Avalon, on the Port-au- Port Peninsula, in Labrador City, and in Goose Bay — the area with the highest concentration of francophones. I congratulate you and doff my cap to your organization!
I will continue in the same vein as Senator Fortin-Duplessis. I understand that your priorities are mainly focused on seniors and mental health. That having being said, are you looking at any other priorities?
Dr. Schofield: As a common backdrop, all of our promotion and prevention initiatives, such as our healthy schools and healthy communities programs, are also very important. A whole range of promotional projects has been implemented over the last few years. If we want to influence costs to the system over the long term, we need to take measures now. All of our networks are working very hard on the promotional aspect.
A number of other service models have come into being across Canada, and in Manitoba in particular. A clinic offering services in French will be opening in the Calgary area. We are trying to increase the number of health care services offered in French. Because we are a young organization, we still have some work to do in this area. We still lack for resources. Thanks to the Consortium national de formation en santé, we are starting to see a larger number of francophone professionals, and we are able to go looking in the anglophone programs.
Other services have been put in place. That is why we are looking at the bigger picture. The training component works closely with the consortium. We are working on adapting services. Our mission is to mobilize resources to offer better access to services, and our plan is to develop models based on primary care, which is the basis of services offered in remote minority communities. Through our involvement in primary care, we can adopt measures to promote prevention and the clinical management of diseases. That, truly, is the direction we hope to move in.
The issue of human resources is another area of involvement. It is not just about training; we must also know how to mobilize and enhance the value of these resources. That is crucial. We have heard many times that francophone professionals do not want to be identified out of fear that too much will be asked of them because they speak French. So we must attach the appropriate value to these human resources.
The other aspect is assessment, and that is why we talk about linguistic variables. We are developing an assessment framework. We cannot explain everything we do, whether or not our initiatives are successful, because some aspects are lacking. We do not have data on linguistic variables. We must rely on more limited studies that do not paint a comprehensive picture nationally. Our four strategies are integrated, and one has tremendous influence on the next. If we succeed in working in an integrated way, the impact on the health system and access to services will be greatly enhanced.
Mr. Tremblay: The basic idea would be to ensure that each French Canadian has an access point for services in French throughout the country, like the Centre de santé Noreen-Richard. The Centre Samuel-de-Champlain, in Saint- Jean, is a model to emulate; it provides a school community centre. Other excellent models exist in Manitoba, namely at Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes, in St. Claude and Saint-Boniface. These cities have succeeded in finding resources with the assistance of local regional health organizations. However, an enormous amount of work remains to be done across the country. Prince Edward Island has a model based on seniors, it is the Evangeline Centre, which is located in the western part of the island. We must examine all of these models with the support of the provinces and the territories. Establishing a broad permanent program means adopting a long-term strategy that will enable us to provide bilingual health care services or to create centres equipped with both nurse practitioners and physicians.
In most remote provinces, the families are exogamous. Therefore, it is more important to have services in both languages than in just one. We want to look at all of the means. Cooperatives can be set up — Nova Scotia has some excellent models, you mentioned Argyle; we need models of that type and clinics where people know they can receive services in French.
Senator Chaput: I, too, want to congratulate you for your work, which has very positive repercussions across Canada. Even though a great deal more work remains to be done in some regions compared to others, we can see that your approach is working.
You receive funding from Health Canada under the roadmap program. For how many years have you been receiving funding under the roadmap?
Dr. Schofield: This is the third renewal under the roadmap. With each renewal, we lose resources because of the lack of continuity in funding and we have a very difficult year. It has been very difficult, because we must often redo what we have already done. That is where the idea of ongoing funding came from, to enable us to eliminate the discontinuity. I think we have reached the level of maturity required to receive additional funding.
Senator Chaput: It seems to me that for several years, you have been in discussions with Health Canada to get the department to recognize you as a more significant partner, if I can put it that way. Is that true? What is the situation there?
Dr. Schofield: We are talking, yes. It has been difficult. We received the same amount in the last round of funding, but it was renewed in the tenth month of the year. So we lost significant amounts in the first 10 months. Health Canada decided to retain a portion of the funds and to launch an open call for projects. That deprived us of some funding that we could have used with partners on the ground to complete projects in support of our strategic plan. We were stripped of some funding under the last roadmap. The total amount announced is the same, but the actual amount is not. In the case of small networks operating with one or two people, who mobilize partners on the ground and whose funding is partially taken away, it is very negative and hinders the network's success. Now that we have proven ourselves—three times under the roadmap—we have a good model. The WHO has sung our praises at its international conferences and refers to our work with francophone minorities in Canada as an example. We have achieved a certain amount of credibility. Now, how can we take that farther? With additional funding and additional resources, as well as with the support of our partners, I think we can go much farther.
Senator Chaput: Have you had an opportunity to discuss this very subject with Health Canada?
Dr. Schofield: We work primarily with the Official Language Community Development Bureau. We have had several meetings with deputy ministers, and there too, there is often a great deal of change. So there is always some discontinuity, but to date, we have not been successful in bringing together all of the necessary aspects for that phase.
Mr. Tremblay: Recently, we met with the new deputy minister at Health Canada, and we believe that he is open to listening to what we want to ensure: that we have an opportunity to be consulted and involved as a major partner. We went with the CNFS to meet Deputy Minister Simon Kennedy, who speaks French very well. We are two organizations that are working to advance health care in French. We presented him with our requests, among others to meet with the deputy ministers of Health in the 13 provinces and territories. We asked Health Canada if the department could facilitate this approach, because we cannot work in a vacuum. Health is a provincial and territorial responsibility; we must therefore ensure that our provincial and territorial partners are also involved. We asked to meet them and to be consulted as part of the next steps for the roadmap and for future programming.
Dr. Schofield: I think that there again, we must find a permanent consultation mechanism. For a while, there was the Consultative Committee for French-Speaking Minority Communities that enabled us to express our views and share our strategic plans with senior management at Health Canada. The momentum was lost over time and we kind of lost contact. The last discussion we had with the deputy minister dealt with the mechanism to put in place; not necessarily another consultative committee, but a mechanism for dialogue and exchange that would help us to keep our files up to date and avoid difficult periods.
Senator Chaput: That is perhaps where you came up with the idea of meeting the deputy ministers, an existing forum, and one you wanted to participate in.
Dr. Schofield: Yes.
Senator Poirier: Thank you both for being here. I have some questions that have already been addressed to some extent. Health care is a provincial jurisdiction, as you mentioned. I do not know if all of the provinces work the same way, but in New Brunswick, figures are established for the number of doctors they want. You work in francophone minority regions; what are the challenges you face in the various provinces in terms of the numbers of professionals they need compared with the needs you have identified for some regions? Is there good cooperation with the provinces? Is it a challenge? Are there provinces where it works better than others?
Dr. Schofield: It is a huge challenge for a host of reasons. First of all, people in the community, from our networks, those who have been there the longest, have developed expertise and the ability to talk to the government. But new stakeholders who work more with the community have more trouble communicating easily with the government. As I was saying, 15 years ago, we went unnoticed by the provincial and territorial governments. Francophones' needs were not a priority. I would say, today — and I do not have the research to prove this — that in the provinces and territories, our networks have been consulted at some point or have participated in projects that the provincial governments have wanted to put in place, because we had a bit of money, a financial lever to go with our ideas, and our networks represent the community's needs. They have aligned with each provincial government's objectives, because these vary a great deal. Our networks have succeeded in identifying strategies that the government wanted to put in place, and they adapted them to the needs of the francophone community. We have positioned ourselves as being able to help the governments achieve their objectives, while putting francophone minority needs on the radar screen at the same time.
The challenges, however, are enormous. You can well imagine that across Canada, it varies a great deal from one province to the other, sometimes over a period of six months, because the government and the people in our networks can change. That is why it is important to have more permanent funding to enable us to tell our networks that we have funding guarantees and that we can build something. I can tell you that the governments we work with do appreciate us greatly. We always manage to do good work, but there are huge challenges on the ground.
Senator Poirier: Does the amount you are referring to come from the roadmap?
Dr. Schofield: Yes.
Mr. Tremblay: I would like to add two points. Our approach is not based on activism or advocacy. Both our networks and our society are very much aware of this approach. We have a collaborative approach and that is how we want to work.
It is much easier for us to convince health care managers and health care professionals that access to health services is a matter of patient safety and service quality. So we focus on this type of language to help open the door when we speak to groups like that. Since the beginning, we have refused to use the excuse that it is our right or the law, et cetera.
Our reality is made up of three types of networks or situations. Some of our networks focus on awareness in the provinces. These are places where there is no legislation governing services in French, like British Columbia, Newfoundland and Labrador, Alberta and Saskatchewan. There is no Official Languages Act; there are no policies. So it is much more difficult for these networks to set up and develop structured approaches. What we see there are often small projects, like projects to promote health care or community engagement.
At the other extreme, there are provinces like New Brunswick, which is officially bilingual, and Ontario, where there is legislation governing health care services in French along with a designation system. More and more, we are seeing that our work in these provinces is linked to consolidation. We are going even farther, and that is why we are putting in place major projects in these provinces.
Then, between the two, there are networks in areas undergoing transformation. We have seen a great deal of advancement over the past two years in Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia is transforming its health network, and they have invited the network to participate. The network was consulted by the minister, and was invited to meet the Minister of Health. The director of our network in Prince Edward Island is also employed by PEI Health, which means that PEI Health pays half of her salary and we pay the other half. They truly work together. We are seeing great progress in the Territories as well. As for Manitoba, there is a policy on services in French. These are places where we can truly make progress, because the government provides its support.
A great deal of work remains to be done to influence and raise the awareness in certain provinces. Moreover, there are provinces on one end of the spectrum and the other, because as you know, that is the way Canada is, no two provinces are the same.
Senator Poirier: More than 20 years ago, I was a member of the Saint-Louis-de-Kent municipal council, in New Brunswick. We worked very hard to have our first doctors. It was quite difficult to attract them, because it was a small municipality that did not have the same means as the large francophone regions to offer doctors the same benefits. So when a doctor received his diploma, he would look for the most advantageous place where he would be provided with housing and a good salary, for example. It would have been nice to have been able to contact you at that time, to be able to use the community-based approach you are promoting today and to help small francophone communities in Canada to compete with large regions.
And for our part, I congratulate you and encourage you to continue your wonderful work.
Senator Maltais: I would like to tell you that you are doing missionary work. Your name should be written in the history books.
Is the federal government your sole source of funding, or do the provinces and territories contribute by sending you a cheque once in a while?
Dr. Schofield: The federal government is not our only source of funding, but it is certainly our greatest.
When we present our small projects, the amounts granted by the federal government are used for leverage and do not take into account all of the project costs, so other governments have to add to them.
Senator Maltais: You are talking about provincial governments?
Dr. Schofield: That is what is interesting. We were never able to tell, because we did not have the means to do the accounting. But in each province and territory, there is some government contribution, because, as I was telling you, we align ourselves with the strategy a given provincial government wants to implement, and then we give the project a francophone flavour. As such, we give the ministry, the authority, the possibility to build on the strategy, but for francophones this time. So there is a leveraging effect there we have not really been able to account for.
Senator Maltais: Moving on to something else, in northern Quebec — I mean the area where I am from, the North Shore, near Labrador, Blanc-Sablon — communities from Old Fort down to Blanc-Sablon are very largely anglophone, I would say 95 per cent.
There is a hospital in Blanc-Sablon, but it is a small one. It is often easier for patients to go to Newfoundland and Labrador than to travel to Rimouski, Quebec City or Montreal for major surgeries. I am talking here of patients with severe problems.
Do you know in what language people from Saint-Pierre and Miquelon are greeted when they go to Newfoundland to get care?
Mr. Tremblay: That is interesting, because in January of this year, the head of the Newfoundland and Labrador network travelled to Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, and he had to get a special authorization to do so because he was leaving Canada.
France currently pays something like $8 million to the Eastern Regional Health Authority of Newfoundland and Labrador, in St. John's, for them to welcome the Saint-Pierrais. The money is used in large part to teach health care professionals to speak French. There are French classes during working hours, and those who attend the classes are replaced. Doctors, nurses, even the vice-president of the regional authority take those classes. Newfoundland and Labrador has the capacity to receive French-speaking patients, and to offer interpretation services. For our part, we have the funds to develop those interpretation services. We are currently trying to associate ourselves with the Saint- Pierre project. I would say we are benefiting from it, because we are riding the wave. This is a unique opportunity.
By way, I do not know if you are aware, but there is an organization like ours on the Quebec side, for English- speaking Quebecers, called the Community Health and Social Services Network. They have about 20 networks like ours spread out across Quebec that have set up initiatives. For example, for people living in the Lower North Shore — we studied it as a model for other places across the country — they have the Sept-Îles model. With the official languages envelope, they hired someone who receives the English-speaking Quebecers on the Lower North Shore, as well as the Innu and the anglophones who go to Sept-Îles to get care. They understood, after a few years, that it would be much cheaper to hire someone who can greet and accompany people through their hospital stay before they return home. So the Sept-Îles Health Centre hired someone, and the program is ongoing. We saw that initiative as a model for other communities across the country.
Senator Maltais: Thank you very much, that information is new to me. Thank you as well for all the other information you gave. The anecdote concerning Saint-Pierre et Miquelon was very interesting. I am happy with your answer, and I thank you very much.
The Chair: A few days ago, I had the pleasure of attending the official opening of the first francophone clinic in Calgary, which set up shop thanks to the support of Health Canada and the Société Santé en français. There were other partners, of course, but you were major players. A big thank you to you.
On behalf of the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages, I wish to thank you and congratulate you for all the work you do. We are truly grateful. Thank you for your participation and your suggestions. We will follow your endeavours very closely.
(The committee adjourned.)