Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Official Languages
Issue 13 - Evidence - Meeting of June 15, 2015
OTTAWA, Monday, June 15, 2015
The Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages met this day at 5 p.m. to continue its study of Bill S-205, An Act to amend the Official Languages Act (communications with and services to the public).
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 from Alberta and I am the chair of this committee. I would now ask the senators to introduce themselves, starting on my left.
Senator Poirier: Senator Rose-May Poirier from New Brunswick.
Senator McIntyre: Senator Paul McIntyre from New Brunswick.
Senator Seidman: Senator Judith Seidman from Montreal, Quebec.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Senator Suzanne Fortin-Duplessis from Quebec City. Welcome.
Senator Maltais: Senator Ghislain Maltais from Quebec.
Senator Chaput: Senator Maria Chaput from Manitoba.
Senator Maltais: Madam Chair, before we hear from the witnesses, I have a motion I'd like to propose and I think we could do it right at the top of the meeting. My motion is that, if the Senate sits next week, on Monday, I move that the committee not meet when the Senate is sitting.
The Chair: Senator Maltais, according to our work plan, we had decided that we would do the clause-by-clause study of Bill S-205 on June 22. That was approved by the steering committee and then presented to the entire committee, which received notice. So, if we do not meet — and we can always do as we did today and obtain the Senate's permission so that the committee can meet even if the Senate is sitting — it will mean that we won't do the clause-by-clause study of Bill S-205.
Senator Maltais: Madam Chair, when the work plan was agreed upon, there were events that we weren't aware of and that's why I am moving that we discuss it today.
Senator Chaput: Madam Chair, according to the work plan I agreed to, the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages was slated to meet next Monday. I have always maintained, and still do, that the Official Languages Committee, the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages, doesn't meet often enough. Once a week, we have a window, and whenever there is a long weekend, we do not meet on that Monday. So I have always found it hard to cancel one of our regularly scheduled meetings, whether we discuss Bill S-205 or something else next Monday. That is the first thing I wanted to say. Secondly, and more importantly, the senator is moving that we cancel a committee meeting that had been planned even if the Senate was going to sit. That is my position, Madam Chair.
Senator Maltais: But ours would be the only committee meeting, as none of the other committees are sitting at all.
Senator Chaput: Yes, but they might meet twice a week.
Senator Maltais: I am proposing the motion, Madam Chair. It is up to the committee members to decide.
Senator Chaput: Can we put the motion to a vote, Madam Chair? I would like to vote against it.
The Chair: Very well. When the clerk calls your name, please indicate whether you support or oppose Senator Maltais's motion to cancel our June 22 meeting.
Daniel Charbonneau, Clerk of the Committee: The Honourable Senator Tardif?
The Chair: Nay.
Mr. Charbonneau: The Honourable Senator Chaput?
Senator Chaput: Nay.
Mr. Charbonneau: The Honourable Senator Fortin-Duplessis?
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Yea.
Mr. Charbonneau: The Honourable Senator Maltais?
Senator Maltais: Yea.
Mr. Charbonneau: The Honourable Senator McIntyre?
Senator McIntyre: Yea.
Mr. Charbonneau: The Honourable Senator Poirier?
Senator Poirier: Yea.
[English]
Mr. Charbonneau: The Honourable Senator Seidman?
Senator Seidman: Yes.
[Translation]
Mr. Charbonneau: Yeas, 5; nays, 2.
The Chair: Therefore, the committee will not meet. Motion carried. The committee will not meet on June 22, and so Bill S-205 will not receive clause-by-clause consideration.
Senator Chaput: The majority has spoken.
The Chair: That being said, we have witnesses who are here today to discuss Bill S-205, An Act to amend the Official Languages Act (communications with and services to the public), sponsored by Senator Chaput. We are hearing from two panels today, as part of our study of the bill. Our first witnesses are from the Canada Post Corporation. Canada Post is a Crown corporation providing mail service throughout the country and is considered to be vitally important to the development of official language minority communities. The Crown corporation has an obligation to respect the Official Languages Act in its entirety.
I am very pleased to introduce our witnesses from the Canada Post Corporation: Bonnie Boretsky, Vice-President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary; and Amanda Maltby, General Manager, Compliance. Welcome to the committee. I would now ask Ms. Boretsky and Ms. Maltby to give their presentation, after which senators will have the opportunity to ask questions.
[English]
Bonnie Boretsky, Vice-President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, Canada Post Corporation: Thank you. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and members of the committee.
[Translation]
My name is Bonnie Boretsky, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary and Official Languages Champion at Canada Post. Joining me today is my colleague Amanda Maltby, General Manager, Compliance. Amanda's responsibilities include managing the official languages program.
[English]
We are pleased to be asked to present on Bill S-205 today.
Canada Post has a robust and comprehensive official languages program, which we will speak to, but I will start with some crucial context.
This is the digital age. Just as the Internet is changing everything for news, entertainment media and for retailers, it also spells profound change for Canada Post. Our workforce and network were built on letter mail, which still generates roughly half of our annual revenue, but letter mail volumes have declined for nearly a decade. In 2014, Canadians mailed 1.4 billion fewer pieces of mail than they did in 2006. The volume decline is not only huge, it is also accelerating. In the first quarter of 2015, domestic letter mail volume fell 8.4 per cent compared to the first quarter of 2014.
[Translation]
This volume decline is having a tremendous financial impact and is one of the main reasons why Canada Post has had to make some very tough decisions. In 2013, the Conference Board of Canada projected that, without fundamental changes to the postal system, Canada Post would face an annual operating loss of nearly $1 billion by 2020. In fact, before achieving profitability in 2014, the Crown corporation experienced three years of losses. We also anticipate a financial loss in 2015.
[English]
Ongoing financial losses are not an option for Canada Post. We do not receive money from taxpayers to fund our operations. We have a mandate from the Government of Canada to be financially self-sustaining.
Accordingly, in 2013, Canada Post unveiled its strategy to transform the postal service. The Five-point Action Plan is a multi-year plan that includes converting 5 million addresses to community mailbox delivery over five years.
What's at stake is securing the future of postal services in Canada. We must complete all five initiatives to avoid becoming a burden on taxpayers. We are starting to see results, but we have a long way to go before we are financially self-sufficient.
[Translation]
Canada Post takes its official languages obligations seriously. We are committed to communicating effectively in both official languages and to providing services of equal quality to both language communities. With respect to our support for official languages and the services we deliver to Canadians in both official languages, I will first talk about our retail network. We view the act of serving our customers in the official language of their choice as a natural extension of a corporation whose focus is customer service.
[English]
Canada Post operates the largest retail network in Canada. With nearly 6,300 post offices, we have more outlets than McDonald's and Tim Horton's have in Canada. Nearly 80 per cent of Canadians live within 2.5 kilometres of a post office. Many post offices are in rural, remote, northern or small communities, and the post office may be in a private home.
Roughly 40 per cent of Canada's post offices are dealer franchises in a pharmacy or other store. This is a long-standing business model for us. Franchises offer the same products and services as a corporately managed post office but cost less to operate. They have convenient locations for customers to do other shopping and generally have better parking and longer hours.
Canada Post opened 73 new franchises in 2014 as part of the Five-point Action Plan. We have also streamlined our network of traditional corporate post offices by adjusting their hours to realign them with customer traffic patterns.
[Translation]
We have 748 bilingual post offices, and that includes the 36 new offices we set up in response to the 2011 census results. More than 1,250 of our retail network positions are designated bilingual. Under our retailer agreements, services in both official languages must be made available and actively offered to customers in bilingual post offices while the post office is open.
[English]
We make every effort to maintain good bilingual capacities in post offices. For example, we audit their performance quarterly and share the results. We are also providing training and retesting as required.
[Translation]
Amanda Maltby, General Manager, Compliance Canada Post Corporation: Our objective of communicating effectively in both official languages applies to telephone, face-to-face and email communications, as well as to publications and the canadapost.ca Web site. In bilingual post offices, we are committed to serving customers in the official language of their choice. The bilingual symbol is displayed, and we make every possible effort to actively greet customers in both official languages.
[English]
In order to designate a post office "bilingual," as Canada's population changes, we make a concerted effort to apply census findings thoughtfully. Within Canada Post, this effort involves representation from several functions, including labour relations human resources, retail and compliance.
As a result of our comprehensive process, Canada Post has recently listed 36 new bilingual offices and plans to remove bilingual services from 49 of a possible 68 eligible offices. This reflects our commitment to serving customers in the official language of their choice. We are currently consulting with the national minority language groups on our plan and have spoken with them already.
Our commitment to official languages extends to our workplace and to roughly 69,000 employees. Across the corporation, nearly 2,800 positions are bilingual, and nearly 2,400 are regular full-time positions. Regardless of whether employees occupy a bilingual position, they have the right to work in the official language of their choice in several parts of the country. Our efforts and results across the corporation are being recognized.
[Translation]
In our 2013-14 report card, the Commissioner of Official Languages gave Canada Post an overall rating of B, or good. We have taken steps to address the areas in need of improvement, as flagged by the commissioner, through a new three-year action plan, and we are already seeing a steady decline in the number of complaints received. In fact, the number of complaints dropped by a third in 2013-14, and that decline continues in 2015.
[English]
Canada Post also promotes bilingualism and French by making strategic arrangements with organizations. For example, we have recently supported the Canadian Foundation for Cross-Cultural Dialogue to promote the 2015 Rendez-vous de la Francophonie, and also Société francophone de Maillardville de la Colombie-Britannique, and the Quebec Community Group Network's Goldbloom Awards.
We understand the importance of the vitality of minority language communities, the concerns about the risk of assimilation and the intent of the bill. Were the bill to become law, we would comply. However, the bill would have a significant impact on Canada Post at this pivotal time of securing the future of postal services in this country. It would impose operational challenges by adding a significant number of bilingual post offices to our network when we already face challenges attracting qualified bilingual candidates to staff some existing ones. There are already several small minority language communities where we have been unable to attract bilingual candidates, often for months at a time.
[Translation]
Ms. Boretsky: In conclusion, on behalf of Canada Post, I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to share our position. Although Canada Post is going through a rough time, I can assure you that the serious commercial challenges facing the corporation will not affect our commitment to respecting our official languages obligations.
[English]
Our official languages program is well established, but it is constantly evolving. When the committee issues its report, we will examine it with interest. We would be happy to take your questions at this time.
[Translation]
The Chair: Thank you kindly, Ms. Boretsky and Ms. Maltby. Senator Fortin-Duplessis will start off our round of questions, followed by Senator Chaput.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Welcome, again, to both of you. We learned from media reports about the closure of a number of post offices. Were they all replaced by postal outlets? Personally, I use a drugstore postal outlet when I have to send things by special mail, for example.
Ms. Boretsky: We are always attuned to our customers' needs in post offices and across our entire retail network. Usually, the reason we close offices or remove services is that the location isn't as busy as others nearby. That is not always the case when we open other offices. It has more to do with the fact that the region or surrounding area is being adequately served by the network.
We've also opened a number of franchise post offices, and that can have an impact on other retail outlets in the surrounding area.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: I have a patchwork of unrelated questions.
You said that you expected to incur losses in 2015. How much do you expect to lose? Do you anticipate losing a lot more than you did in 2014, for instance?
Ms. Boretsky: No, we don't. Canada Post's annual sales stand at between $7 billion and $8 billion, so when we post a profit or loss of a few tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, it represents a fairly small percentage of overall revenue. We aren't expecting significant losses.
We are in the process of converting addresses that currently receive home mail delivery to community mailbox delivery and are making every effort to keep losses to a minimum. Nevertheless, we do expect to incur a loss. It won't be huge, but it will be a loss.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: What did you learn from your consultations with the communities?
Ms. Boretsky: Are you talking about the consultations related to the Five-point Action Plan?
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Yes.
Ms. Boretsky: Various consultations were undertaken. Prior to the announcement, we had held some 30 or 40 meetings where people across the country were invited to share their views; we met with major clients, small and medium-sized businesses, as well as individuals. All kinds of stakeholder groups were represented and they talked to us at length about how they used mail services. We learned a lot from the Canadian retailers and members of the public who took part in our consultations and told us about how they used mail services. We didn't really present them with any options; we talked about possibilities. Those are all the details I have.
It was often said that, rather than taking home mail delivery away from the third of the population who still enjoyed the service and converting their addresses to community mailbox delivery, the best thing would have been to reduce the frequency of mail delivery to two or three days a week, in many people's minds. That's just one of a number of possibilities.
Senator Chaput: I'd like to say to both of you, right off the bat, that I fully appreciate the fact that you have to make some very tough decisions: you have to choose between closing a post office, relocating services, setting up retail outlets or installing green boxes. I am beginning to see just how important it is for you to operate without the burden of a deficit.
Nevertheless, actions such as closing or re-designating a post office, setting up retail outlets, transferring services and converting addresses all have a very negative impact on official language minority communities. To illustrate that a little more clearly, I'm going to give you two examples from Manitoba.
In the mid-2000s, in Sainte-Anne-des-Chênes, Manitoba, where I live, we had a post office. Then, one day, Canada Post decided to close the post office and set up a retail outlet. The corporation made an agreement with a local retailer to set up a postal outlet there. Now we have to use green boxes. I have to go and pick up my mail, which isn't a problem in and of itself. We realize that home mail delivery isn't sustainable, given that it's no longer affordable. But, when you decided to create just one retail outlet in Sainte-Anne-des-Chênes, Manitoba, you relocated the other services to the post office in Steinbach, a community where the majority is not French-speaking, a community that isn't accustomed to dealing with francophones or providing French-language services. So when our addresses were converted — because my address had to change so that my mail could be delivered to my PO box, No. 10 — it was all done in English. All of the francophones in the Sainte-Anne-des-Chênes area ended up with English-language addresses they hadn't asked for. It's an insult, because when people see that our addresses are in English, they assume we are anglophones, not francophones. Perhaps it is just a minor detail, but it matters to us. So an effort was made to convert the addresses back to French. A lot of people refused to take part in the exercise, but my spouse and I did. That's an impact you didn't foresee.
When you impose those kinds of decisions on francophone communities like mine, communities with francophone schools, parishes, cultural centres and financial institutions, they have an impact. When you take away key French-language services and move them to places like Steinbach, which are not at all French-speaking, you are contributing to assimilation by taking away our ability to live a part of our life in French. It's not fair. That's what happened in Manitoba.
I recently heard that St. Norbert, another Manitoba community with a large French-speaking population, a French-language school, a school with an immersion program and so forth, is going to lose its post office or rather the bilingual designation its post office currently has. I heard that you planned on removing the bilingual designation of that community's post office.
My first question has to do with your consultations. I know for a fact that you didn't consult the people of Sainte-Anne-des-Chênes. Someone talked to Sainte-Anne-des-Chênes city council, but it was already a done deal at that point. We weren't given an opportunity to respond to the decision. In St. Norbert's case, I don't know whether you intend to consult with the community. I wonder about the sincerity behind the consultations, since the decision has already been made. I don't know whether you're in a position to hear the community out, but I'd like to know what criteria you use to make these kinds of financial decisions. Do you apply some sort of filter to measure the negative impact on official language minority communities? That's what I am concerned about.
Ms. Boretsky: I'd like to ask my colleague a question, if I may.
[English]
Ms. Maltby: One goes back to 2005.
Ms. Boretsky: We want to talk about St. Lambert.
[Translation]
Ms. Boretsky: We wanted to check whether it was 1 of the 49 communities where bilingual services are being removed.
Senator Chaput: If it is, I'd like to know what criteria you based that decision on. The community's post office shouldn't lose its bilingual designation. You are taking away services that we are entitled to.
Ms. Maltby: Is it in Manitoba?
Senator Chaput: Yes, I'm talking about Manitoba.
Ms. Maltby: I can't seem to find —
Senator Chaput: An article came out in La Presse and it said that Canada Post was going to remove the bilingual designation of the post office in St. Norbert, Manitoba.
Ms. Boretsky: Did you say St. Norbert?
Senator Chaput: Yes, St. Norbert.
Ms. Boretsky: St. Norbert. My apologies. I misunderstood.
Senator Chaput: Madam Chair, may I ask another question?
Ms. Boretsky: If you don't mind, I will answer in English. Sometimes I have trouble finding the right words in French, and I want to be sure what I'm saying is clear.
Senator Chaput: That's no problem. I do the same thing in French. Please go ahead.
[English]
Ms. Boretsky: Amanda mentioned in her opening comments that based on the 2011 census and based on the application of Treasury Board guidelines, we came up with a list of post offices that we submitted to Treasury Board and that they reviewed that said that we could delist, based on all those criteria, 68 post offices. Also, as Amanda mentioned in her opening comments, we will only be delisting 49 of those.
The first criterion in answer to your question is the census and the application of the Treasury Board criteria. To get from 68 to 49, we have our own layer of criteria that we apply that is based primarily on Canada Post's business. One of the criteria is obviously, as we said, making money, and part of the way to make money is to have satisfied customers. Obviously, as I said in my comments, customer satisfaction is a very important thing for us. Speaking to our customers in the official language of their choice is one of those things that will help us ensure customer satisfaction. That's another layer that we put on.
We also deal with, as Amanda also mentioned, many multifunctional groups in the company that look at many criteria — traffic patterns, who is coming into the store, and a long list that I'm not familiar with, but those kinds of questions — and we take into consideration and we insist on local input. It's not just head office that is looking at this. We have local retail experts who get involved, who understand the nature of the customer base in each store, the network in which the store is based and where else customers could go if we do delist.
That's how we get from 69 to 48. We do take into consideration the needs of our customers, including minority language. That will be one of the big criteria that we look at for sure.
Obviously, this filter did not exclude St. Norbert from the list, as you can see.
Ms. Maltby: Maybe I will add a few points.
The retail network does look at the francophone population, so there is consideration. There is consideration, too, about where the closest post office is. I understand that St. Norbert is in Winnipeg, so a number of post offices would be close to that. That's part of it. So there is a consideration of where the francophone population is.
It is also determined by customer traffic. As our customers come into the postal outlets, there is a determination not just based on sales and economics but also as it relates to customer traffic and the language of our staff and what they are speaking. We certainly look at what Treasury Board requires of us, and we look at the census numbers. We also apply some of these other metrics on top of that.
Ms. Boretsky: One of the questions you asked was about the sincerity and earnestness of the consultations we undergo. As you know, we sent — and this is probably why it has been picked up by the media — letters to the minority-language community associations, and we have already begun very sincere consultations. We have to have the economics to match it, but we will take it into very serious consideration. It is a plan, as we said in our opening comments, to withdraw the bilingual designation of 49 of a possible 68. The final outcome remains to be determined, so they are sincere consultations.
[Translation]
Senator Chaput: I'm glad to hear that you sent out letters to consult with francophone communities and I realize that the criteria you use come from the census as well as Treasury Board.
But what would you say if I were to tell you that the way Canada Post is making its decisions right now fails to honour its obligations to official language minority communities and doesn't take into account the special needs of those communities. Everything you have said so far tells me that no consideration has been given to providing equal quality services to official language minority communities. I think you sincerely believe you are doing that, isn't that correct?
Ms. Boretsky: Absolutely. I would answer by saying that I disagree.
Senator Maltais: Welcome ladies. I'm from Quebec City. I've lived there for 29 years now. I bought the first house in a new residential development. When I moved there, I was given a mailbox. There are 400 homes in my neighbourhood and many mailboxes. The service is excellent; I didn't have a choice. I'll come back to that.
Thirty years ago, mail carriers delivered the mail to the homes across the street. When you set up the mailboxes for the houses on my side of the street, shouldn't you have installed them for the houses across the street as well? Aren't you a bit late?
Ms. Boretsky: Some people think so.
Senator Maltais: I take a little walk to pick up my mail. That doesn't bother me at all. But a mail carrier delivers the mail to the homes across the street.
Ms. Boretsky: Yes, absolutely.
Senator Maltais: Why didn't you just install them on both sides of the street, since you were already doing one side?
My next question has to do with the infamous junk mail. Are you so desperate for money that you have to fill our mailboxes with junk mail? I leave them in my mailbox. Three times I've asked the mail carrier to stop putting them in my box. He told me that I need a sticker from Canada Post. No one tells you that. Send me one. I don't want any flyers. We spend four days of the week here, and every time we come home, we have three bags' worth of junk mail waiting for us. Can't we be left alone? Our tiny mailboxes are stuffed with ads from every Tom, Dick and Harry. Just to give you an idea, there were 31 in my mailbox when I came home on Thursday. That's a lot.
[English]
Ms. Boretsky: One man's junk mail is another man's marketing and advertising mail. That is very important to our customers who pay for us to get those ads to you. It is a $1.2 billion business for Canada Post. In response to your question, it is very important to Canada Post. We said that we are a $7 billion to $8 billion company, and that is a big percentage of our revenue.
I agree with whoever told you. We have a customers' choice program. Put the sticker on your mailbox and you won't get it. You will still get some because certain mail is excluded from it — election mail and other things — but you will greatly reduce it if that is what you prefer.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: Where do I get that sticker? You're closing Senator Chaput's post office, so I can't get it in Manitoba.
Ms. Boretsky: I'll have to get back to you on that.
Senator Maltais: You will make just as much money selling those little stickers as you make from delivering junk mail.
Ms. Boretsky: They aren't for sale; they're free.
Senator Maltais: I don't know where to get them. If I put my own on, the mail carrier will tell me that it's no good.
Ms. Boretsky: I'll get back to you on that.
Senator Maltais: The Lower North Shore is home to small villages that are entirely English-speaking. Are English-language services available in those communities? I'll name them for you: Blanc-Sablon, Old Fort, Kegaska, Harrington Harbour and Saint-Augustin. Do the anglophones in those villages, which are 90 per cent English-speaking, receive services in English?
Ms. Boretsky: I don't know anything about the languages in which services are available in those communities.
Senator Maltais: We are representatives of our regions.
Ms. Boretsky: Of course. That's an excellent question.
I can tell you that I'm not aware of any complaints from customers in that region, which leads me to presume that they are satisfied with the service they are receiving.
Senator Maltais: How many complaints about bilingualism do you receive a year?
Ms. Boretsky: In the last few years, about 30. Last year, it was less, and this year, we won't even hit 20.
The Chair: Ms. Boretsky, if you have any information on those small anglophone communities, kindly send it to the committee clerk.
[English]
Ms. Boretsky: Okay.
Ms. Maltby: If I could add to the answer to the question, I am not sure exactly where those post offices are located, but the bilingual designated areas in Quebec would include Gaspé and western Quebec, in addition to greater Montreal and parts of the Eastern Townships that I just mentioned. They would be served in English if they were designated bilingual post offices.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: Just for your information, Gaspé and Blanc-Sablon are 800 kilometres apart. They are in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and I don't think there wouldn't be any post offices in the Gulf region. Gaspé's anglophone communities include New Carlisle and Jamestown. The Lower North Shore has 10 or so small municipalities, but we've never received any complaints.
[English]
Senator McIntyre: Thank you for your presentations. I have two questions. The first has to do with the recruitment of bilingual staff across the country. The second has to do with the Commissioner of Official Languages.
In the last few weeks, we heard from the airline industry and from VIA Rail. In our discussions, we raised the issue regarding challenges associated with recruiting bilingual staff in some parts of the country. According to representatives of the airline industry, recruiting bilingual staff in some regions of the country is a challenge. However, VIA Rail Canada's president informed us that it is possible to hire bilingual employees across Canada.
May I have your thoughts on this before moving to the second question?
Ms. Maltby: I will start with the positive. I would say that we have considerable success in the larger centres of Canada, similar to what VIA Rail had to say — I had a chance to read their testimony — in finding qualified bilingual candidates. I think the difficulty for Canada Post, unlike some of the other witnesses you heard from, is that we operate in remote areas, so we do have significant challenges finding bilingual, qualified candidates. We have seen at times — and I think I mentioned this in the remarks, too — that it has taken us months to find people that are suitable and meet the obligations as it relates to the official language needs that we have. We do have challenges, and they would exist in the smaller centres.
The other thing we find is that we are not the only business in town. There are other people looking for qualified, bilingual candidates as well. That is something that we face.
The only other comment I would make is that in some of the centres, and where we have had some challenges in New Brunswick, is that in finding qualified, bilingual candidates, it is not just the bilingualism that we need, which is very important, but it is also having someone who is used to working in the environment that we work in. It is complex. In some of the management positions, we have been challenged in hiring for the complexity of some of the roles. We need someone who has worked in an operational environment, for instance.
Senator McIntyre: I find it strange that you would have problems finding bilingual staff in New Brunswick. New Brunswick in a bilingual province.
Ms. Maltby: That was subject of one of the complaints that we've had.
Senator McIntyre: What part of New Brunswick are you referring to?
Ms. Maltby: We have had some problems around Miramichi recently.
Senator McIntyre: There are a lot of French people in the Miramichi area.
Ms. Maltby: We have people that we train and they don't meet the bilingual requirements at the end. We also have people who don't have a willingness to take the training and learn the language.
There are a number of layers to this. As I said, it is one of the cases in particular we have been working on with the commission for the last few years.
Senator McIntyre: I note that in 2012-13 Canada Post was the institution about which the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages received the second highest number of complaints regarding services to the public. I am referring to Part IV of the Official Languages Act. In addition, most of the complaints about Canada Post received by the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages in 2013-14 concerned services to the public.
What type of relationship do you have with the Commissioner of Official Languages?
Ms. Boretsky: At a high level, yes, we have the highest number. In 2013-14, we had probably between 35 and 40 complaints.
Ms. Maltby: Yes.
Ms. Boretsky: We serve 32 million to 33 million Canadians. We touch them every day. Many come to our stores. This is the second to highest number, but we are operating on a huge base. We are not proud that it was that high in those years. It is lower since then. They have a different fiscal year than we do. In our 2014 fiscal year, it dropped. It is dropping again, we see, this year. While one is too many, we feel that this is not that high a number of complaints given how often we touch every Canadian.
That is the first point and, for the second point, do you want to talk about the relationship we have with the commissioner? At a high level, it is good. I will let Amanda talk to that, who is an expert.
Ms. Maltby: I will answer a little bit about the complaints, too, but we have a very productive relationship with the commissioner's office.
As you know, the complaint process is that we will deal with it on an informal basis first and try to resolve the complaints. We have a great deal of success in doing that with the commissioner's staff. We also work with them on solutions. That leads to an area that we have worked on a lot over the course of the last two years, which has been the active offer. That would be the "hello/bonjour." We have had difficulty at times in terms of delivering that in our outlets. We have made a concerted effort to do a couple of things. The first is to learn from others, from people who have had success with this. What are they doing? What measures have they put in place that have been effective with their staff? We have learned from others. The transportation industry is one we looked at.
There is everything from training to cue cards. We instituted a whole new level of training last year that we have seen a lot of success with, and we have had compliments both from the commissioner's office and from Treasury Board.
It's funny. In preparing for the committee, I went back and looked at how many complaints we used to have. We are much better than where we were. We were in the hundreds at that point. We have nine complaints thus far this year.
Senator McIntyre: So there has been some improvement.
Ms. Maltby: Absolutely.
Senator McIntyre: And you are still working on that?
Ms. Maltby: Absolutely.
Senator Seidman: Ms. Boretsky and Ms. Maltby, you both referred to consultations in the communities across the country. What kinds of consultations did you have in Quebec with English-speaking minority communities?
Ms. Maltby: This is related to the most recent consideration around post offices and bilingual designation.
In terms of the consultations, we haven't done any with any English groups yet in the province of Quebec. I will say that, formally, on the post offices, and what we intend to do, those letters just went out, and we really have just started to have conversations.
Two have contacted us so far, francophone associations. We have had a conversation with them and have undertaken to not just talk to them at the national level, but we have also indicated that we will be meeting with them more locally to find out about impacts in some of the provinces where our plan includes possible delisting.
In terms of the English-language groups, the biggest impact is — we haven't actually done that in the province of Quebec yet. We are delisting.
Senator Seidman: You are delisting some services to the English-speaking communities in Quebec? Is that what you are saying?
Ms. Maltby: Let me get you the number here. We are delisting 12 in Quebec.
Senator Seidman: Where would those 12 be?
Ms. Maltby: There is a mixture. We can share the list with you.
Senator Seidman: That would be fine.
What exactly does it mean if you delist them? They are no longer bilingual?
Ms. Boretsky: They are no longer designated bilingual. They were already designated bilingual and it is likely there are bilingual employees in that office to continue to provide the service. It is not like they will stop offering the service, but it will no longer be an officially bilingual office, which could, in future staffing actions, impact who we put into the job in the next generation.
Ms. Maltby: I will add, senator, that we are adding 36 bilingual post offices, and 25 are in the province of Quebec.
Senator Seidman: Okay.
Ms. Maltby: That is to give you a bit of a balance. We are listing 36.
Senator Seidman: So you are listing and delisting both?
Ms. Boretsky: Yes, based on the census and location.
Ms. Maltby: Yes.
Senator Seidman: Are the challenges different in Quebec dealing with English-speaking communities than they are dealing with the French-speaking communities in the rest of the country?
Ms. Boretsky: Amanda will correct me if I am wrong, but my impression of the complaints that we get out of the province of Quebec, and mostly in Montreal, are from our employees on the work floor and being spoken to by their supervisors during training or meetings, more than the rest of Canada where it is the level of service available to the public. I don't think we have anglophone customers complaining, but the complaints in Montreal are more employee-based.
Senator Seidman: Your employees who have trouble functioning within the organization?
Ms. Boretsky: Yes. It is not like we have a lot of them. The majority of complaints to the Commissioner of Official Languages are service oriented, not employee, and I would say that the ones we get from employees are more in the province of Quebec.
Ms. Maltby: In terms of the complaints that we have had most recently, we are seeing a shift, and a bit of it relates to the shift to digital. We are getting complaints as it relates to the quality of the French. We are moving to fix that. We are seeing more complaints as it relates to our digital properties than to anywhere else in our network. That has been a recent shift that we have seen over the course of the last nine months, so not even a year, I would say, as we are doing some analysis of where the complaints are coming from and what they are about.
Senator Seidman: Thank you very much.
Senator Poirier: Thank you for being here. I have a couple of questions.
If I understood correctly, in your opening remarks you mentioned that Bill S-205 could possibly create financial and human resource difficulties for you. There were 746 bilingual offices in Canada, am I right on that?
Ms. Boretsky: It's 748; pretty close.
Senator Poirier: When you make a decision to change the stats on an office from bilingual to not being bilingual, does the availability of human resources to staff that office play a role in your decision to change the stats?
Ms. Boretsky: I will say the short answer is yes.
Senator Poirier: When you are having difficulty finding bilingual personnel to serve an office, do you advertise or look further than the immediate region? Is there a campaign that goes on across Canada, across a province?
Ms. Boretsky: HR has different tools in their tool kit to attract employees to Canada Post. Yes, there would be appeals beyond the town or city that we are talking about, and there would be consultations with local community associations to help us.
I would add that a lot of the positions we are staffing are covered by collective agreement, and the collective agreement also stipulates steps or a process that we need to follow in order to staff certain jobs.
The two big groups are the Canadian Postmasters and Assistants, CPAA, in rural Canada, as well as the Canadian Union of Postal Workers in urban Canada, and there are specific rules for us to follow with regard to staffing. That leads us to seniority and the person who has almost a right to the job. They would put in a bid if they wanted to move into that office or go from a part-time to a full-time job in that office. We would have to take all of those things into consideration before we would go outside of the company.
Senator Poirier: Are there any training programs within your own organization to help people become bilingual?
Ms. Boretsky: Absolutely.
Senator Poirier: Your employees can take part in that?
Ms. Boretsky: Absolutely.
[Translation]
My second question is this. When a customer walks into an office where bilingual services are not available and that customer doesn't speak the language in which services are provided, is there a system in place to put that individual in immediate contact with a clerk who can serve them in their language, explain the services, look into what they need and answer their questions?
Ms. Boretsky: Absolutely. I was going to explain it to you, but you just did. That's precisely the system we have in place. There is also a computer available so that customers can access our website, where they can find answers to certain questions. Our website is fully bilingual.
As for having someone serve them over the phone, we do have people who can answer questions for customers who do not speak the language in which some offices provide service. We endeavour to meet all of our clients' needs in the language of their choice.
Senator Poirier: Are those people in another post office or at a call centre?
Ms. Boretsky: It depends on the nature of the customer's inquiry and what they need. It could be someone from our customer service centre or a neighbouring post office.
Senator Poirier: Is the service available right on the spot? Can the customer get their question answered right away?
Ms. Boretsky: Absolutely.
The Chair: According to Treasury Board data, six post offices in Moncton are going to be designated as unilingual. Will they provide English-only services or French-only services? Which language will they offer services in?
Ms. Boretsky: English.
The Chair: English. In Moncton?
Ms. Boretsky: Yes.
The Chair: That's surprising. Would you mind explaining that decision to us?
[English]
Ms. Maltby: It is from the census of Canada.
[Translation]
The Chair: According to the latest census data, the number of francophones in Moncton has dropped, and based on that information, you're going to change the designation of six of the city's bilingual post offices to unilingual. When you consulted with people in Moncton and the surrounding area, did you meet with people from Moncton's French-language university?
Did you take into account Moncton's numerous French-language educational institutions and the vitality of its francophone community?
Ms. Boretsky: As I already mentioned, I don't know who consulted with university representatives or other stakeholders from organizations that contribute to the institutional vitality of Moncton's francophone or minority language community. But, when we did make the decision, what we did take into account were factors such as customer traffic patterns, the types of services requested at each post office or retail outlet and the frequency of those service requests. So, as I said, we are currently undertaking consultations with minority language organizations and associations in all those areas. And, hopefully, we'll have an opportunity to hear their views and learn about any factors that we didn't take into account, factors that may lead us to change our position.
The Chair: You would be open to changing your decision.
Ms. Boretsky: We have a plan and we've already begun consultations. As a result, different elements may emerge, issues we didn't examine in our study. We could absolutely change our position if, indeed, it is possible.
[English]
Ms. Maltby: I'm looking through the list, senator. I know that when we had considered the whole number we received from Treasury Board — and it was to your point — we had 12 and we could reduce to 6. I don't believe we have done that in Moncton. As we mentioned in our remarks earlier, we could delist 68 and we only delisted 49. I don't believe they are on the list. I am looking through the list right now.
The Chair: Could you send us that information, please?
Ms. Maltby: It would have been on Treasury Board's list.
The Chair: Yes, I understand that, but there is no minimum. You could always go beyond Treasury Board's list. Is that right?
Ms. Boretsky: Do you mean to reduce more than they allow us to? We can provide more service than they indicate, yes.
The Chair: Yes.
Ms. Boretsky: Yes, that is our point. We could have delisted 68, but we are only delisting 49. That's already decided. On the 49 we're delisting, we are seeking input from the communities that are affected.
We will confirm whether or not there is delisting in Moncton.
[Translation]
Senator Poirier: I may have gotten the answer I was looking for but I'd like a few things clarified. In the case of Moncton, are we talking about the greater Moncton area, including Dieppe, or strictly Moncton? How many bilingual offices are there in the Moncton-Dieppe region?
[English]
Ms. Maltby: This is determined by the census, in terms of the district.
Senator Poirier: I understand that. I want to know how many are bilingual today.
Ms. Boretsky: Let us come back to you. I don't have that specific fact.
[Translation]
The Chair: Before we move on to the second round, I'd like to ask you a question. Did the bilingualism bonus affect your decision to close any of the offices with bilingual designations?
Ms. Boretsky: No. The short answer is absolutely not.
The Chair: You're saying, then, that the bonus paid to employees who work in bilingual post offices didn't play a role in your cost-cutting measures.
Ms. Boretsky: Finding employees to fill those positions is a much bigger challenge than having to pay the bilingualism bonus.
Senator Chaput: We were talking about the bilingual designation of your post offices. The offices of federal institutions and other departments with bilingual status are listed on the Burolis website. It lists which sites are designated as bilingual and which ones are not. Why don't your post offices' linguistic designations appear on the Burolis website? The information isn't easily available; you have to dig deeper to find it, often having to submit an access to information request. Would you be able to look into that?
Ms. Boretsky: Absolutely. I thought our post offices did appear on Burolis.
Senator Chaput: They appear on the site, but not their bilingual designations. Could you check on that?
Ms. Maltby: Yes, absolutely.
Senator Chaput: My second question will be a quick one. It's more of a comment, actually. Occasionally, in order to find employees, you have to think outside the box. You probably read what one witness told us last week; he doesn't have trouble finding bilingual staff. I have trouble believing that you can't find people who are bilingual to work in New Brunswick, the only officially bilingual province in the country. I'd like you to take a closer look at your recruiting practices.
You said that 36 bilingual post offices were added in 2011. Is that correct?
Ms. Boretsky: Yes.
Senator Chaput: Is that a net increase?
Ms. Boretsky: No.
Senator Chaput: Did any offices lose their designation? And if so, how many?
Ms. Boretsky: As we said, we added 36. We're removing bilingual services from 48 of a possible 68 offices in total. In net terms, I think it's a decrease of 13.
Senator Chaput: Of those fewer offices, how many will serve anglophones in Quebec and how many will serve francophones outside Quebec?
[English]
Ms. Maltby: Adding 25 in Quebec, and delisting — proposed; it's in the plan — 12 in Quebec.
[Translation]
Senator Chaput: And what about francophones outside Quebec?
[English]
Ms. Maltby: Outside of Quebec, do you want the breakdown?
Senator Chaput: No, just the net.
[Translation]
Ms. Maltby: I don't know what you mean by "net."
[English]
The Chair: How many bureaus were listed as bilingual and how many lost their bilingual status outside of Quebec.
Ms. Boretsky: We said we added how many in Quebec?
Ms. Maltby: Twenty-five.
Ms. Boretsky: We added 25 in Quebec, so only 11 in the rest of Canada. That means we are adding 36.
Senator Chaput: Were added.
Ms. Boretsky: Were added. Then we were subtracting —
Ms. Maltby: Forty-nine.
Ms. Boretsky: Out of how many in Quebec?
Ms. Maltby: Twelve.
Ms. Boretsky: Twelve of those are in Quebec, so the rest are in Canada.
Senator Chaput: So 37 and 12.
The Chair: It would be a net loss of 26 bureaus outside of Quebec designated bilingual.
Ms. Boretsky: That doesn't make sense because the net loss of offices is 13 all across the country.
The Chair: But Senator Chaput was asking for the distinction outside of Quebec, if you could get us that information precisely.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: What I'm going to say is more for your information. Earlier, I asked you about the small English-speaking villages on the Lower North Shore. I wanted to know whether they were served in English. Our researcher confirmed for me that they do indeed receive service in their language. That information will save you from having to check yourself.
Ms. Boretsky: So we won't be following up with you about the North Shore.
Senator Chaput: You should understand why official language minority communities need Bill S-205. It's precisely to protect their rights and ensure equal services are provided in both official languages.
The Chair: Ms. Boretsky and Ms. Maltby, thank you for contributing to our study and answering our questions.
Honourable senators, we are continuing our study of Bill S-205. Our next witness is Jocelyne Lalonde, Executive Director of the Association des collèges et universités de la francophonie canadienne. Her presentation will also relate to our order of reference to study the application of the Official Languages Act. This is the fourth time Ms. Lalonde has appeared before the committee.
You're very generous with your time, Ms. Lalonde. Thank you for joining us this evening. You may go ahead with your presentation. When you're finished, the senators will ask you questions.
Jocelyne Lalonde, Executive Director, Association des collèges et universités de la francophonie canadienne: Thank you kindly for having me back a fourth time. Madam Chair, ladies and gentlemen of the committee, good evening. On behalf of the Association des collèges et universités de la francophonie canadienne, or ACUFC for short, and myself personally, I'd like to thank you for inviting us to comment on two of the committee's ongoing studies, the study on the application of the Official Languages Act and the study on Bill S-205.
I'd like to begin, if I may, with a bit of background on the ACUFC, a new association that was just established on April 1, 2015, and its contribution to promoting Canada's francophonie and linguistic duality. I will then explain how that contribution ties in to both of the committee's studies.
The ACUFC brings together 20 French-language and bilingual post-secondary institutions, colleges and universities, across the country. This new association builds on the solid foundation laid by its two predecessors, the Consortium national de formation en santé, or CNFS, and the Association des universités de la francophonie canadienne.
The ACUFC works to improve access, synergies, and the complementarity and the completion of post-secondary training and research in French in minority francophone communities. The programs these institutions provide to nearly 40,000 students go a long way towards enhancing the vitality of Canada's francophonie and French-speaking communities and their influence on Canadian society as a whole.
Turning now to the committee's two studies, I will endeavour to illustrate how the ACUFC, as the strong and collective voice of French-language post-secondary educational institutions in Canada, makes an essential contribution to the vitality of francophone communities.
I would be remiss if I did not emphasize the unique position that our members occupy. The colleges and universities that belong to the ACUFC are, without exception, the economic, social and cultural engines of their communities. Established in predominantly English-speaking regions, these institutions offer young achievers from here and abroad the opportunity to receive quality educations in French, while giving them an opportunity to improve their English skills in their host communities. As intellectual hubs delivering French-language post-secondary education outside Quebec, our members play leading roles in promoting linguistic duality in Canada.
It is that dual role, that dichotomy, that sets our members apart from French-language colleges and universities in Quebec, making the experiences our students have in their communities unique. Our mission in minority francophone communities is significantly enhanced by our ability to deliver quality French-language educations not just to native francophones, but also to young anglophone and bilingual francophiles.
In his recent address to the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, the Governor General acknowledged that the excellence of our educational system gives Canada an advantage but also said that "our future well-being [would] be determined by our ability to renew that advantage for the 21st century." Canada's francophonie has heard that message and will examine the challenges associated with French-language learning, because the community's survival and vitality depend on it.
As several witnesses before me have mentioned, learning must be viewed as a continuum that spans from early childhood to adulthood, and post-secondary education must have a strong presence in that continuum.
In that connection, I have to point out the contribution of the Table nationale sur l'éducation, which brings together key stakeholders from the educational and community development spheres. The round table continues to focus on the learning and education continuum, by facilitating dialogue around the challenges associated with French-language post-secondary learning.
You won't be surprised to learn that there are many. Access to post-secondary education in French by young people in francophone communities remains our biggest challenge. Isn't it disturbing that a growing number of them are opting to complete their post-secondary educations in English? A determining factor for a young person who is deciding whether or not to study in French is the proximity of the post-secondary institution to their home or high school. The cost of going to school away from home also factors into the student's decision. And finally, quality programs in the student's area of interest have to be accessible to them. The ACUFC must take all of those considerations into account in order to improve access to its member institutions.
Similarly, French immersion programs at the post-secondary level hold tremendous potential for francophone communities. While nearly 380,000 young Canadians are enrolled in French immersion programs in elementary school and high school, just 5,500 students have graduated from immersion programs at ACUFC member institutions.
As the Official Languages Commissioner, Graham Fraser, recently told the committee, when it comes to official languages education, Canada needs to make a genuine continuum of learning opportunities available to young Canadians, beginning in early childhood and continuing into adulthood, at the post-secondary level. Increasing the number of bilingual employees has a positive effect on communities that are having more and more trouble recruiting the bilingual professionals they need to develop fundamental community structures and ensure they run smoothly.
Now I'd like to briefly describe for you the ACUFC's two main spheres of activity: health care training through the CNFS and justice training under the leadership of the Réseau national de formation en justice.
From 2003 to 2014, the CNFS supported no less than 100 health care programs, through which 5,000 professionals were trained to provide French-language health care services to minority francophone communities. Consequently, the CNFS contributed directly to those communities' well-being and sustainable development. As you probably know, the CNFS received funding for its activities from Health Canada as part of the Roadmap for Canada's Official Languages 2013-18.
The Réseau national de formation en justice was created last year, mainly to increase the capacity of Canada's justice system and improve access to justice in both official languages. Members of the network delegated responsibility for the administration and coordination of its activities to the ACUFC.
These activities, in both the health care and justice fields, go hand in hand with the application of the Official Languages Act and the implementation of the roadmap, which give federal departments the financial flexibility needed to respect the act. Despite the uncertainty that looms large before every roadmap is renewed, it is important to recognize that the policy has made inroads in many areas possible.
The activities of the CNFS and justice network have also contributed to the vitality of francophone minority communities and their ability to survive. Now I'd like to draw a parallel with Part VII of the Official Languages Act, which stipulates that the act and its regulations enhance the vitality of the country's English and French linguistic minority communities. We must never lose sight of that aspect of the act.
I would like to conclude by speaking briefly to Bill S-205. It will come as no surprise that the ACUFC supports a bill that seeks to modernize Part IV of the Official Languages Act. We are in favour of a broader, more flexible approach to defining the francophone minority population.
The ACUFC's member institutions have successfully adapted to the new demographic and linguistic realities of Canada's francophonie and, today, mirror that diversity. Our student body includes native French speakers, as well as young people from exogamous and immigrant families, immersion program graduates and international students whose first or second language is French. A fair and accurate calculation of the size of Canada's francophone minority population must include these francophone, francophile and bilingual youth. Taking into account solely those whose first official language spoken is French is an outdated approach that leads to the loss of French-language services.
We also believe that it's useful to look beyond the numbers and take into consideration a minority language community's vitality, including the institutional vitality to which post-secondary institutions contribute. The institutional vitality criterion is more important than ever and provides for better alignment between Parts IV and VII of the Official Languages Act. Consequently, it should be reflected in the regulations made under that act.
Thank you for listening. I would now be happy to answer any questions you may have.
The Chair: Thank you kindly, Ms. Lalonde, for that very informative presentation. Senator Fortin-Duplessis will start things off with the first question.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Ms. Lalonde, it's a pleasure to see you again. You demonstrate good judgment and you are always well-prepared.
I'd like to know whether it is possible for a student from, say, Manitoba to go and study at Université Laval, in Quebec City. And if they can afford it, how easy or difficult is it for that student to register in another university?
Ms. Lalonde: Right now, the student can study at any university they choose, in the country or elsewhere. What we advocate is students' being able to study as close to home as possible, in other words, in their communities. If they can't go to school in their community, we would like to see them study at an institution in a minority francophone community. What we want to do is ensure they have access to a complete education and programs in every field so that our students can do their schooling in French.
What we hope to do in the future is to be able to work with that student, introduce them to the options available in Canada's francophonie and show them how they can complete their education in French in minority francophone communities. The Manitoba example is a good one, with Université de Saint-Boniface offering many undergraduate and graduate programs. And even if Manitoba doesn't offer the training the student is looking for, somewhere else might, and we can work with the student from the outset to show them the educational path they have access to in our communities. What we really want to prevent is their doing their post-secondary studies in English.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: You said it could be any program and, earlier, you said your focus was on health and justice training. If, however, the student wanted to study engineering, it wouldn't be a problem; no field would be off limits.
Ms. Lalonde: The ACUFC has 20 members. In order to qualify for membership, the university or college must offer French-language programs in every field.
What the roadmap for official languages is giving us the ability to do right now is improve, enhance and increase the number of health care training programs and, soon, to do the same with justice training, but we promote post-secondary education in every field of study.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Whenever a university is mentioned in the document you gave us, is it always a francophone university?
Ms. Lalonde: They are universities that offer programs in French; they aren't all francophone universities. In order to be a member, the university or college has to offer certain programs in French.
For instance, Simon Fraser University, in British Columbia, offers three programs in French, through the Bureau des affaires francophones et francophiles. They are members of the ACUFC because students can study in French there. The Université de Moncton, however, is entirely francophone.
Our membership is quite diverse, with universities and colleges of all different sizes. We have the University of Ottawa, which has a large student body, nearly 45,000 anglophones and francophones. And then we have Université de Hearst, in northern Ontario, a wholly francophone institution with about 150 students.
Senator Chaput: Thank you, Ms. Lalonde. As usual, you're always well-prepared and you know your stuff.
According to what witnesses have been telling us for some time, a number of federal institutions are having trouble recruiting bilingual employees, be it to work at a Crown corporation, institution or department. For me, when I look at all of the training programs available at colleges and universities across the country — Ms. Lalonde, would you not say that there are bilingual people all over the country, people who speak both official languages?
Ms. Lalonde: Absolutely.
Senator Chaput: Have you ever been approached to assist with recruiting? Has anyone ever come to you looking for ideas on how to recruit French-speaking employees outside Quebec? Has Canada Post ever contacted you? Has Air Canada ever worked with you to recruit bilingual staff? I won't ask about Via Rail, since they don't have that problem. Has anyone ever approached you for assistance?
Ms. Lalonde: No. I've been the executive director for nearly 12 years now and I've never received any request from an organization looking for help with bilingual recruitment. On the flip side, when we talk to stakeholders in our francophone communities, it's quite clear that they are churning out some first-rate leaders, as far as Canada's francophonie is concerned, bilingual leaders, and there seems to be a rather sizable pool of resources to meet those needs. I think it may be necessary to revisit recruitment practices. That is not to say that we don't need to continue training people and ensuring they have the right skills.
Senator Chaput: If you were asked, would your association be open to supporting federal institutions in their efforts to find bilingual staff?
Ms. Lalonde: There's one thing that would be quite easy to do. I'm not sure whether we handed out this document to the committee.
Senator Chaput: Yes.
Ms. Lalonde: The document contains a list of every college and university program offered outside Quebec. So that information could be useful to a company that was looking to hire a certain number of people in a particular field; we could send them the document and tell them which colleges or universities train students in that field and who to contact. Every year, those colleges and universities produce graduates who could very easily work in bilingual positions. What's more, very few students who do complete post-secondary studies are unable to speak both official languages.
Senator Poirier: Thank you for joining us today, Ms. Lalonde. My question is this. You said that one of your goals was to make sure that a student who had received their education in French, whether through an immersion program or at a French-language school, could continue their studies in French at the college or university level. You also said, however, that many students enrolled in anglophone colleges and universities after graduating high school.
Has anyone done any research to figure out the main reason why young people choose to switch over to the anglophone system at a certain point? Could it be that the programs they wanted to take weren't offered in French or that they didn't want to go away to school because their program wasn't available in their region or province? What is the biggest reason that they decide to switch from French to English?
Ms. Lalonde: I don't think there is just one reason. I think there are many, and you've just identified two of them. Sometimes, students don't want to move away from home to go to school; it's also a lot more expensive.
Another issue revolves around making young people and parents aware that the job market attaches value to bilingualism. It's not a skill that parents necessarily see as being value added. Parents want the best for their children. In situations where the child has gone to elementary school and high school in French, parents wanting that child to continue their education at the post-secondary level may think it's better for the child to do those studies in English, out of fear that the child will not have a high enough level of proficiency in both languages for the job market. So I think there's a lot of awareness raising that has to happen in that regard.
Furthermore, many parents want their children to attend the same college or university they did. In terms of Canada's francophonie, however, we haven't been working all that long on building a network of institutions offering post-secondary education in French, so we have to work twice as hard to highlight the value and quality of our French-language programs.
Senator Poirier: Over the past few years, has there been an increase in the number of French-language programs available online, thereby eliminating the need for students to move to another province to complete their college or university studies?
Ms. Lalonde: That's an excellent question, and the answer is yes. There are a growing number of distance education programs available. I'll give you an example in the health field, an area I am quite familiar with. Nova Scotia was badly in need of francophone social workers. When it comes to mental health issues, people are more comfortable discussing their problems in French. Laurentian University, in Ontario, developed online training courses. Université Saint-Boniface already offered a core training program. So students were able to stay in Nova Scotia, where they could take the core training courses at Université Saint-Anne. Students could then take more advanced training courses through Laurentian University's distance education program. And now the communities have 40 bilingual social workers who earned a diploma or bachelor's degree from Laurentian University, and the only time they had to leave their province was to receive their diplomas. That is a wonderful example.
Senator Rivard: Welcome, Ms. Lalonde. This is the first time I've had the pleasure of meeting you. I occasionally stand in for some of my colleagues on the committee. Are the French teaching positions in francophone universities outside Quebec unionized? I have a daughter who is a teacher in Quebec, and she's part of a union. Do the teachers at Simon Fraser University belong to a union and work under a collective agreement with a pay scale and all?
Ms. Lalonde: Yes. I don't have all the information on that, but I can tell you that there are unions. At the college level, all teachers are unionized. In Ontario, it's a provincial union. I can't confirm that every college and university is unionized, but the vast majority are.
Senator Rivard: I want to come back to the trouble that some universities offering French-language courses have when it comes to recruiting professors in Quebec who may be willing to take on the challenge for a few years. When it's a unionized job, it must be nearly impossible to offer teachers better working conditions such as isolation allowances and moving expenses offered to workers in Quebec who go up north.
Given the collective agreements in place in just about every province, do you think the problem comes down to a career challenge, in terms of working conditions and benefits? There's no financial incentive for a professor to leave their job at Université Laval or Université de Montréal to teach in Nova Scotia or somewhere else for three years.
Ms. Lalonde: No less than there is for a University of Ottawa professor who might go to Université Laval to teach. Demand is —
Senator Rivard: They can move around freely.
Ms. Lalonde: Exactly. Sometimes, if an organization is having trouble finding a professor, we work within our association to see whether someone on sabbatical would be willing to go to university X or college Y to teach so that the institution could offer the program to students.
Senator Rivard: I imagine the phenomenon would be the same in the case of an anglophone from Manitoba who was interested in taking on the challenge of teaching at McGill University in Montreal, say. Apart from wanting to take on the challenge of working in a different setting, teachers, whether anglophone or francophone, don't have any other incentives, as far as you know?
Ms. Lalonde: Not as far as I know.
Senator Maltais: Welcome, Ms. Lalonde. What an excellent presentation; I found it very interesting and paid close attention to what you said. So you think, and I think senators Tardif and Chaput have said this often, that when a young francophone outside Quebec finishes high school, they are bilingual.
Ms. Lalonde: When they finish high school? For the most part, yes, because young people in francophone minority communities have daily interactions with the anglophone community. Very often, their friends are English speakers and they learn the language in the community.
Senator Maltais: You would agree that it's much easier to learn a second or third language when you're young than it is once you've reached a certain age.
Ms. Lalonde: Yes, I would agree.
Senator Maltais: The opposite phenomenon is happening in Quebec. In the past few years, we've seen new English-language teaching programs emerge.
I'm going to tell you a story about my children. All three of them are professionals and they never learned English in school. They had to go to Manitoba, Alberta and northern Ontario in order to learn English, because they chose occupations in fields like engineering and medicine, where you have to speak English since all the textbooks are in English. It's quite a paradox we have in Quebec. The French from France never managed to write a medical textbook in French. If you study at Université de Paris, the textbooks are in English. It's unbelievable. In Quebec, we've fallen behind because our young people aren't sufficiently bilingual. Bilingualism is a definite asset, a skill, no matter which field you're in, and, above all, a necessity. About a decade ago, English-language programs were introduced starting in Grade 1. I see it at work with my grandchildren, and it's quite surprising. So, while you are working hard to ensure your students have access to education in French, we, on our end, are trying to make our students fluently bilingual by the time they're in high school. And I'm not sure who has the right formula.
I have a grandson who has completed grades one through three in the program, and he is getting better. Today's young people are globally minded; they aren't attached to a single language, at least those who are pursuing an education. There are citizens of the world. They aren't Ontarians or Canadians, they are members of the international community.
Ms. Lalonde: Borders are no more.
Senator Maltais: I wonder whether young francophones living in minority language communities actually have an advantage, at the end of the day?
Ms. Lalonde: They have an advantage up to a certain point. But when it comes to accessing post-secondary education in French, I can't say that they have an advantage.
Senator Maltais: Let's talk about high school, from the first year to Grade 12.
Ms. Lalonde: They enjoy an advantage in terms of their ability to learn French and English because they live in an environment where they can use both languages on a regular basis. But, living in a minority language community, they sometimes have other challenges to deal with.
Senator Maltais: The real challenge for you starts after high school, does it not?
Ms. Lalonde: I think the challenge starts right from birth and never goes away. As soon as a French-speaking child is born in a minority francophone community, the challenge begins. The resources have to be in place so that that child, who may be part of an exogamous family, with an English-speaking mother and a French-speaking father, can become bilingual. They need to be able to continue their schooling in French, and bilingualism isn't the product of only the classroom. They need to have support at home, as well as opportunities to socialize in French. Maintaining their French skills is a constant battle.
Senator Maltais: I am a hockey fan and I'm always shocked when I see hockey players from all over the country who come to Montreal and are able to give interviews in both French and English. Conversely, our own junior league hockey players in Quebec have trouble doing interviews in English when they go to Toronto, Winnipeg or Calgary. The ability of those players is really something, and I think they have an advantage over us in Quebec.
Ms. Lalonde: They can have an advantage as long as they don't lose their ability to speak French.
Senator Maltais: Indeed.
Ms. Lalonde: The assimilation rate is very high. That's why I said maintaining your French skills is a challenge that begins at birth. It's great for people to become bilingual; it's value added, but retaining those skills isn't always easy.
Senator Chaput: Mainly, I would just like to make a comment that came to me as I listened to Senator Maltais's question.
Today's youth are reaping the rewards of the struggles and battles fought by their parents, their grandparents and their great grandparents. They are now enjoying the fruits of that labour and struggle. You see, their rights are more respected. I don't want to call them more privileged, because it's not easy for them to live in an anglophone world.
This morning, 38 students from école Saint-Joachim, a French-language school in La Broquerie, Manitoba, paid me a visit. I asked them which language they use when they walk into a store in their community. One student told me that he speaks English. And I asked him, "Are you francophone?" He answered, "Yes, but most times, people don't understand me." So then I asked him whether he first tried speaking French to figure out whether the clerk understood him or not.
You see, when you grow accustomed to that kind of behaviour, it's incredibly easy to decide not to speak French in case the other person doesn't understand you. I wanted to tell that story to illustrate a reality that we, outside Quebec, live with every day. I looked at those students and I thought to myself: These are francophones who are attending French-language school because of their parents and they are going to have to keep fighting for the right to live their lives in French, because it will never be something they can do automatically.
The Chair: Did you want to respond to Senator Chaput's comments, Ms. Lalonde?
Ms. Lalonde: That's exactly right. The struggle has been fought at all levels: elementary, high school and post-secondary. And it's not over yet; we are constantly having to go before the courts to fight for our right to be educated in our language. I think we're very proud when our young people are able to introduce themselves and converse fluently in both English and French, but it's thanks to some hard-won battles.
Senator Maltais: I just want to say really quickly that I agree 100 per cent with Senator Chaput's comment that this is a struggle that we have been waging for more than a century. I remember, way back when, something we, in Quebec, used to call the survival of the French language, an effort to support the battle being waged by our comrades out west, in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. It wasn't the few dollars that we collected at the school that brought us together back then, it was the language. A great distance separated us, but language brought us together. Thank you very much, Ms. Lalonde.
The Chair: It wasn't all that long ago that we finally obtained certain rights. We aren't talking 50 or 60 years ago but, rather, 20 years ago when we won the right to run our own French-language schools in our provinces. It was only in 1990, and we had to go all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. Standing up for our rights is never easy, and they are always precarious.
Ms. Lalonde, you said that you were in favour of Bill S-205. You talked about the connection between Parts IV and VII of the act. What value do you see Bill S-205 adding, in terms of the relationship between Parts IV and VII? And how do you think the bill can strengthen that relationship?
Ms. Lalonde: This may not quite answer your question, but I think it's important to look beyond numbers. We really have to take a close look at the elements that form the basis of a community's vitality; we have to examine how that institutional vitality allows the community to survive, and it's a matter of more than just size. If I may, I'll draw a parallel with the presentation of the previous witnesses. If we look at the number of services available in French that were eliminated, solely on the basis of Statistics Canada data, that's when we see what our communities can lose in terms of French-language services. When the services are taken away, the members of our communities are forced to speak more and more English and will, as a result, eventually lose their French language skills. That's the only way I can answer your question.
The Chair: Thank you kindly. Are there any further questions, honourable senators? Since there are no further questions, I would like to thank you, Ms. Lalonde, for sharing your insight and expertise with the committee. Your input has been very valuable, and we are very appreciative.
Honourable senators, this being our last meeting, I'd like to extend a sincere thanks to all of you for your participation. I also want to say thank you to our Library of Parliament researcher and our clerk. Thank you both.
Since the session began on October 16, 2013, the committee has heard from 137 witnesses and produced three reports. The first one is entitled CBC/Radio-Canada's Language Obligations, Communities Want to See Themselves and Be Heard Coast to Coast! The second is entitled Seizing the Opportunity: The role of communities in a constantly changing immigration system. And the third, focusing on second-language learning, will be tabled tomorrow. Unfortunately, the title is still a secret, so I can't share that with you. I'd say we've done a great job, so thank you.
(The committee adjourned.)