Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Official Languages
Issue 4 - Evidence - Meeting of February 26, 2013
OTTAWA, Wednesday, February 26, 2014
The Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages met this day at 12:03 p.m. to resume its study on the impacts of recent changes to the immigration system on official language minority communities.
Senator Andrée Champagne (Deputy Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Deputy Chair: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I am Senator Andrée Champagne, from Quebec, and I am the committee's deputy chair. I will ask the senators to introduce themselves, starting with the senator to my left.
[English]
Senator Beyak: I'm Senator Lynn Beyak from Dryden in northwestern Ontario.
[Translation]
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Senator Suzanne Fortin-Duplessis from Quebec.
Senator McIntyre: Senator Paul McIntyre from New Brunswick.
Senator Charette-Poulin: Marie Charette-Poulin, representing Northern Ontario in the Senate. Welcome to our committee. I want to apologize in advance because, unfortunately, I have to leave before the end of your presentations for another meeting in a half-hour. I am eager to hear what you have to say, nevertheless.
Senator Chaput: Senator Maria Chaput, from Manitoba.
The Deputy Chair: We are resuming our study of the impacts of recent changes to the immigration system on official language minority communities, which we began back in March of last year.
This afternoon, we are hearing from representatives of Quebec Community Groups Network and Voice of English- speaking Quebec.
Quebec Community Groups Network, or QCGN, is a non-profit organization that brings together 41 English- language community organizations across Quebec, and works to support the development and vitality of English- speaking minority communities across Quebec.
Voice of English-speaking Quebec is another non-profit organization, but one that is dedicated to the preservation of a dynamic English-speaking community in the Quebec City area. It helps people take part in community life in both English and French.
From Quebec Community Groups Network, we have Sylvia Martin-Laforge, Director General, and Stephen Thompson, Director of Policy, Research and Public Affairs.
And from Voice of English-speaking Quebec, we have Jean-Sébastien Gignac, Executive Director.
Ms. Martin-Laforge, you can start us off, followed by Mr. Gignac. And no doubt the senators will have questions for you after your presentations.
[English]
Sylvia Martin-Laforge, Director General, Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN): Honourable senators, we are happy to come and talk to you. A couple of years ago, we came and talked to you about something we figured out might not have an implication, and that was Air Canada. As a result of coming to talk to you about Air Canada, they are now sponsoring the Goldbloom Awards, which are $5,000 a year in sponsorship. That's how they help the English- speaking community of Quebec. Therefore, we come to talk to you about innovative ways to inspire departments and agencies to maybe change the way they look at the English-speaking communities of Quebec.
Our intent is to provide you with a brief overview of issues affecting Canada's English linguistic minority communities, which we all know as the English-speaking community of Quebec. Related to immigration, this isn't necessarily an easy thing. Jean-Sébastien is going to make the point.
All of Canada's official language minority communities, or OLMCs, face unique challenges of renewal. Our community exists in a unique and delicate political space where the core Canadian value of linguistic duality does not always gently meet the vital interest of unity. We feel at times like an inconvenient minority, a perception we have adapted into a sense of resilience and self-reliance.
The challenges facing our community in terms of equitably benefiting from the support offered under the OLMC program through Citizenship and Immigration Canada are well documented in your report The Vitality of Quebec's English-Speaking Communities: From Myth to Reality, October 2011. Agriculture and immigration are areas of concurrent legislative power under section 95 of the Constitution. The 1991 Canada-Quebec Accord relating to Immigration and Temporary Admission of Aliens delineates responsibilities; Quebec selects, settles and integrates permanent residents, providing the province with:
. . . new means to preserve its demographic importance in Canada, and to ensure the integration of immigrants in Québec in a manner that respects the distinct identity of Québec . . . .''
You will hear shortly from the Voice of English-speaking Québec about what that means to community groups working on the ground with newcomers.
The 1991 accord was inspired by the Cullen Couture Agreement which itself would have been incorporated into the Canadian Constitution had the constitutional 1987 Meech Lake Accord been adopted. Indeed, it was the first item to be agreed upon between the governments of Quebec and Canada post-accord. We mention this to point out the importance of 1991 to Canada-Quebec relations, and to remind us all of the attending sensitivity surrounding the subject of immigration.
Still, the constitutional language rights of Canadians and the Official Languages Act impose a duty on Citizenship and Immigration Canada towards English-speaking Quebecers. Helping CIC understand these obligations has required significant community effort. There is still no clarity surrounding CIC's responsibilities towards our community under the Official Languages Act or section 3 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Thankfully, however, CIC's organizational culture is moving away from the notion that ``it doesn't do Part VII in Quebec.''
In fact, we are pleased to report that CIC's support to our community continues to improve. For example, there is promise that our community will be able to equitably benefit from research funding related to immigration through the CIC Roadmap program. Relations with CIC research managers are excellent and we are excited about the research capacity that these resources will build.
Our strategic goal is simple: build an evidence base that demonstrates the value of English-speaking newcomers to Quebec and the vital role community groups like VEQ play in their settlement and integration into Quebec society. The policy aim is to become a partner with Quebec, permitting the province to capitalize on the role English communities play in the attraction and retention of immigrants. We believe this is happening now in the regions, Sherbrooke and Quebec City, for example. That's why we are happy that Jean-Sébastien Gignac, my colleague from Voice of English- speaking Québec, was able to come today and I hope you will enjoy his presentation, as I have in the past. Thank you.
[Translation]
The Deputy Chair: Ms. Martin-Laforge, I remember when you and our committee worked together, taking the time to study the specific reality of English-speaking Quebecers, who represent a minority language community. I have only fond memories of a working relationship that resulted in a report that, if memory serves, satisfied the community you represent.
[English]
Ms. Martin-Laforge: We use it every day, all the time as a reference, senator. So, thank you.
The Deputy Chair: So senators do important and good things occasionally.
Ms. Martin-Laforge: No question.
The Deputy Chair: If we don't laugh at it ourselves, we will cry all day.
[Translation]
Mr. Gignac, now over to you.
[English]
Jean-Sébastien Gignac, Executive Director, Voice of English-speaking Québec: First, I want to thank you for this opportunity to present what we do in Quebec City and the challenging yet important work that we do in attracting and integrating immigrants and Canadian migrants to a linguistic minority community, the English community of Quebec City.
I'm going to quickly present our community, what our program is, what exactly we are doing, and also some of the challenges that we face in doing that work.
For those of you who may not know, the English-speaking community of Quebec is a relatively small community of slightly under 15,000 individuals that represent 1.9 per cent of the entire population of the greater Quebec City region. Despite that, it's a community that is well served by a lot of key institutions in the health and social service sector, education, churches and so on.
Newcomers are really important for our region. Every five years, 25 per cent of our entire population is renewed through newcomers, and that means migrants and immigrants. The economy development and sustainability of our community is directly linked to our capacity to attract and integrate more newcomers. It's also important for the entire region. There are a lot of employers in my region that cannot maximize their growth potential because they don't have enough qualified and bilingual resources.
Voice of English-speaking Québec has existed for over 30 years. One of the first things we did was to try to help integrate new people and that's what we've been trying to do ever since. We have developed and improved this program based on the needs expressed by newcomers and on key studies that have been produced since then, through the growing needs of employers asking us to do more and, of course, on our capacity to convince more public and private partners to invest in the work we do.
Every year we directly welcome between 400 and 500 people coming to our doors for services, English-speaking newcomers. That represents 150 to 250 families. Between 30 and 40 per cent of them are actually immigrants, versus the rest of them who are Canadian migrants. Seventy to 85 per cent were able to meet within the first six months after arrival. That's something we improved. They come from all over the country and the world — the United States, United Kingdom, and more and more we see people from Asia, China, Korea, Philippines. That is good news, but at the same time it means you are looking at a really diverse population that has different types of needs we have to address.
Some of the key needs that newcomers face include linguistic barriers of course. Quebec is 98 per cent French which means you cannot live only in English in my region. Integration into the local job market is made more difficult because of that social isolation and adaptation to a new culture. Over the years, we have developed many tools because of these needs.
I brought one of the key tools. I have one for each of you. This is our newcomers' package that we give to every single newcomer we meet and it contains a lot of information about where to learn French, what to do to get a medical card, driver's licence and so on. Most of these tools are also available online. There is a health passport to help navigate the health and social service sector if they have health problems. Employees of our institutions in Quebec City are reflective of the rest of the population; most of them don't speak English, so it's complicated.
We have been doing a lot in terms of employability and economic development. We have a job bank for English speakers; we are doing professional networking events with employers looking for bilingual people; and we encourage them to become entrepreneurs because that's often something that newcomers, immigrants, are more likely to do as a result of their difficulties finding a job.
Now it's really important for me to highlight some of the challenges we face despite the success of this program.
At the federal level, it is important to mention that the only funder we have is Canadian Heritage and it's through our core program. It's not exclusively for immigrants, but we use it in our core program to help newcomers. The problem we face is that for more than 15 years, that budget hasn't been increased, not even indexed, so it makes this important work we have to do more complicated every year.
We haven't been able to convince any agency or ministry of the importance of doing more for Canadian migrants. I know they are not immigrants, so more often than not they fall between the cracks and there is so much that needs to be done for them. In many ways, it's as if they have arrived in a new country even though it's not the case, but some of the needs are similar to what the immigrants are facing.
When it comes down to the provincial government, our biggest challenge — and that's something I have been doing ever since I was hired in 2005 — is trying to convince the government that we are part of the solution, not part of the problem. It's easy to say, but not so easy to convince the government of this. The government forbids any supported organization to provide services in English. The first thing we say to every newcomer is ``learn French.'' We have the same objective. That being said, while they are learning French, they cannot enjoy the services that are offered in French, and that's why we're there. However, it has been difficult to convince the government of that. Despite some progress, the access to subsidized French programs for Canadian immigrants remains an issue. That's another problem that we face.
With the municipal government, we've been really lucky over the past three years. The actual administration under Mayor Labeaume has invested a lot of money in our program because they believe in it and see the need to do more for employers and to attract more English speakers. The problem is now we face a real threat of losing that financial support because we are not a recognized organization by the provincial government and, as a result, the municipal level has their hands tied and are saying, ``We may not be able to continue because the provincial government wants us to finance only organizations that are recognized.'' Because we don't want to or we can't do our services in French, we will never be recognized in the actual context by the provincial government.
If we can't renew the partnership with the City of Quebec, many of our actual services will have to be abandoned or will be reduced so dramatically that we will be back to where we were 10 or 15 years ago when we were stuck in a passive approach as opposed to a really proactive approach where we can do services for people even before they arrive and obviously multiply the number of services that we are able to offer to immigrants and migrants. That's an important issue.
Finally, in terms of the challenges we face with the private sector, we have to convince more employers of the importance of what we do. We have to better use the success stories that we have with some key employers who are seeing the benefit of our work with their employees and their families. Also, we'll have to be able to convince more foundations, some of our local foundations in Quebec City, to support our program until we are able to convince somebody else to do so if we are to lose the funding of the city, which is unfortunately a possibility at this point.
Again, a lot of work, a lot of people. I mentioned 500 people we meet every year. Considering that our population is 15,000 people, that's a lot of people and we don't have the pretension that we are meeting every single newcomer who shows up in our region. It would be really sad if we wouldn't be able to continue this work as a result of losing the funding of the city.
Thank you for your time.
[Translation]
The Deputy Chair: Thank you kindly, Mr. Gignac. We will start off our question period with Senator Fortin- Duplessis, from Quebec City.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: First of all, welcome to the committee. It is a pleasure to see you again, as I still recall everything you told us when we travelled to Quebec City to see whether you were receiving the services you were entitled to.
I would also like to commend you, Mr. Gignac, on the newcomers welcome package you put together. You, no doubt, heard about the EKOS survey commissioned by CBC showing that 50 per cent of non-French-speaking Quebecers were considering leaving Quebec.
Do you have any comments in that regard?
Ms. Martin-Laforge: I cannot speak to the situation in Quebec City, but the population as a whole.
[English]
We've been doing a lot of work in analyzing numbers. Jacques Jedois and Richard Boris, we worked with these people around trends. What was interesting about the CBC trend that was surprising for most is that it's not just anglophones who are thinking about leaving: it's francophones as well. There's a higher percentage of anglophones and allophones who are thinking about leaving, but people in general are considering it for different reasons: for sure, economic reasons. I guess it's the grab bag of reasons for which people think about leaving Quebec and one of them, a big worry, is for economic benefit. Stephen has statistics around why people leave, why people stay, and what happens to them when they leave that might be appropriate at one point here in this discussion today.
I think for all of us it's not only about people leaving; it's about attracting people. I think most Quebecers want Quebec to be a place that is a good place to come and live, work and play. It's about attracting. Sure, you worry about the people who are leaving for economic reasons, but it's disappointing to see the churn around all of these surveys about wanting people to come in. I think it's a disadvantage for all Quebecers not to be an attractive place.
[Translation]
Senator, I am concerned for the entire province about the outflow of all these good people who are thinking about leaving never to return.
Mr. Gignac: I would add that I have no choice but to agree with what Sylvia just said. I can speak to the issue of anglophones in the Quebec City area; either they were born there and chose to stay or they decided to move there. They enjoy living there and want to be there.
That said, many of them can only tolerate being systematically identified as the problem for so long. It is clear that in Quebec City, tensions between the two language communities are not nearly as high as they are elsewhere, given the relatively small size of the community.
And even I am hearing people say it as well. When I hear individuals who have been pillars of our community for decades start to say that it might be time to go somewhere else, it is heartbreaking. These are people who have been the backbone of our community and institutions.
So it is tough to hear, and as Sylvia mentioned, it is not just a matter of convincing people to stay. The real work is to convince more of them to come and join us, and given the present situation, that is no easy task.
In Quebec City, I, myself, sit on a round table for immigration issues, and it has a number of representatives from various communities, sectors and client groups. Right off the bat, as soon as you introduce yourself and tell people you represent the English-speaking community, you lose a few. Some people have a bias.
In my case, however, having a very French-sounding last name helps because it piques people's curiosity. But the fact remains that this is a serious concern. And, unfortunately, we are feeling the effects of the survey's findings in our area.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Do you still feel that the full amount of federal funding for Quebec's English-speaking community is making its way to you? I ask because we often heard you say during our hearings that you were not sure you were receiving the full amount allocated to you by the federal government.
Ms. Martin-Laforge: That was mostly in education.
[English]
That was mostly in education and health as well.
[Translation]
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Yes, in education and health care.
[English]
Ms. Martin-Laforge: There are ongoing negotiations and discussions between the current provincial government and the federal government to see how more of the money coming into Quebec could be with no strings attached. That is the deal. I think all provinces — not just Quebec, to be fair — k would like to see money come in with no strings attached, but in Quebec it's a little bit more difficult.
On the other hand, there have been some linguistic clauses that have been put in recently. One was in agriculture. I never remember it exactly. Stephen could tell you.
Stephen D. Thompson, Director of Policy, Research and Public Affairs, Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN): I think it's important. In fact, it sort of came out of this committee's work. The committee should take credit for that because it was during the President of the Treasury Board's appearance before this committee when he committed bilateral agreements between the federal and provincial governments to contain linguistic clauses, and so all bilateral agreements now do contain these clauses and it's a way then to track money. At least, there is a mechanism in place. How effective it's going to be, we don't know yet; it's new, but we will see.
A point of clarification: There is no money that goes from the federal government to the government of Quebec for our communities specifically around the settlement or integration of immigrants. There is no money.
Senator McIntyre: Thank you for your presentation. I note that you are both non-profit organizations. I trust both organizations are getting along well, and I'm sure there is a lot of agreement between you.
What about disagreements? Is there some disagreement, whether minor or major, between the organizations regarding various issues facing English-speaking communities and/or English-language groups?
Ms. Martin-Laforge: I'm not sure that I quite understand. Disagreement between the organizations? How do you mean?
Senator McIntyre: Do the organizations get along well?
Ms. Martin-Laforge: Voice of English-speaking Québec and us?
Senator McIntyre: Yes.
Ms. Martin-Laforge: We are like two peas in a pod.
Senator McIntyre: Do you ever have disagreements over issues?
Ms. Martin-Laforge: Certainly not in immigration. There is always something, but in terms of the immigration issue, the QCGN, from a policy perspective, has been working, I would say, for seven years to have roadmap funding be recognized for the English-speaking community.
From a policy perspective, when I arrived — there is a note in here that we don't do Part VII, and that was said to me by immigration folks seven years ago. For those of you who remember, action plan money was $9 million. I don't begrudge the francophones outside of Quebec. That's their way of renewal. Of course, we understand that, and the best to them.
Action plan money was $9 million. The first roadmap money was $20 million, but there was never any recognition. In fact, people would worry about whether the English-speaking community talked about money out of roadmap funding for the immigration envelope to the English-speaking community.
So action plan money got through. Of the roadmap money, eventually they allotted us, kind of under the radar screen, $63,000 a year to do research because the QCGN kept saying, ``At least give us research money.'' Of course we can't have settlement money. We all get that, but give us research money.
There was an agreement that about $63,000 a year from roadmap money would be available to do research in the English-speaking community. It was very difficult to implement that $63,000, and most of it was slipped. However, a few thousand dollars were used to do research. One of the research pieces I think we've given over to the committee was research done by Professor Michèle Vatz-Laaroussi, who is already looking at social capital in Quebec regions for francophones and has accepted to do some work around social capital in the anglophones regions.
We suggested Voice of English-speaking Québec, the Townshippers' Association, Gaspé and a couple of others. She looked at that. There is a bit of a research paper that I'm sure you will have access to. That was done with a few thousand dollars of roadmap money.
We have no evidence based in Quebec to say what we would need specifically, so QCGN continued to advocate to CIC to get proper formal funding for the English-speaking community of Quebec. That came out in your report, and we kept pushing.
In Quebec City, as in the townships, the work was being done on the ground because they saw a need. It was kind of where policy meets practice. We had to join policy and practice to make the demonstration. I think that until about maybe three or four years ago, we hadn't found the juncture of policy and practice. We have been suggesting to CIC that they give us more money. It was very interesting that Minister Kenney made available in the roadmap $2.5 million for research for both communities and he specifically said, on the record, that money would be available for the English-speaking community. That was the first time we'd ever heard that, and we were very happy about it. He said $500,000, but it could be more. It will depend on the good proposals we put forward.
Out of that research money, we would like, for example, to have Voice of English-speaking Québec's model assessed or evaluated. Voice of English-speaking Québec wants that as well so that a third party can come in and do an evaluation so we can use some best practices. Voice of English-speaking Québec and QCGN believe that that might go a long way to demonstrate to the provincial government what is being done and how it is very good for all of Quebec. It's very good. Especially in Quebec, they want to have immigrants in the regions, so we believe that piece of work would be very good for that reason and also to other municipalities.
So, there have been no disagreements on this file. It was just getting the policy and the practice connected.
Senator McIntyre: My second question has to do with citizenship. A few weeks ago, the federal government introduced Bill C-24 in the House of Commons. It is currently at first reading and, therefore, it has not yet become law.
Basically, the bill amends the Citizenship Act. It sets out two language-related amendments. The first amendment requires that applicants for citizenship demonstrate in one of Canada's official languages a knowledge of Canada and the responsibilities and privileges of citizenship.
The second amendment targets applicants aged 14 to 64. It would require them to demonstrate adequate knowledge of one of Canada's official languages. As you know, this request is currently imposed on applicants aged 18 to 54.
What are your thoughts on Bill C-24? Do you think it should become law? Is the age factor a concern for your organization?
Mr. Thompson: We can talk about the experience that our community has with newcomers rather than make specific comments about Bill C-24. We can talk a little bit about what our community is, who the immigrants to Quebec are, and the experience of the community groups that support their integration.
The majority of immigrants to Quebec are 25 to 44 years of age. That's the largest cohort of immigrants that come to Quebec; 35 per cent of immigrants are in that 25 to 44 age group.
Ms. Martin-Laforge alluded to the question of out-migration. I would suggest you check with CIC; they're the folks with the numbers on out-migration.
Quebec has a problem in general in retaining immigrants. The challenge for Quebec in the integration of immigrants is that Quebec is a unique jurisdiction where settlement is conducted by the state. In other jurisdictions in Canada, settlement is conducted by community groups, so the service providers for settlement are funded by the provinces or by Canada, but the people doing the work on the ground are the community groups. In Quebec, it's done through the state, and the language of settlement in Quebec, as you know, is in French.
We have a report here, Quebec's English-Speaking Immigrants and Poverty: Sharing our analysis and building a research agenda, which we shared with your analysts. It is available. It demonstrates the challenges of immigrants when they move to Quebec, how they move into poverty and how difficult it is for folks who don't have a capacity to speak French to integrate. What happens is they don't get jobs, or they're stuck in jobs that are far below their capacity. Opportunity presents itself in other places in Canada and they move. The three gaining provinces from Quebec are Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. That's where folks move to from our province.
The requirement, then, to demonstrate a knowledge of English or French in the selection process — remember the selection process. The rule would be different in Quebec, because Quebec selects. I do not know if Bill C-24 would be applicable in Quebec, for example, because Quebec would have its own settlement. Under the 1991 agreement, Quebec has its own settlement criteria. You get a certain number of points for your capacity to speak French. So that's already accounted for in the selection process in Quebec.
In principle, it makes sense to us for folks to be able to speak one of the official languages when they come to Canada. It clearly makes their economic integration easier, and you will get better outcomes.
In practice, a knowledge of English is not necessarily a predictor of successful integration in Quebec, but that doesn't mean that it's not a successful predictor of integration into the rest of Canada once they move.
[Translation]
The Deputy Chair: According to the press release we got yesterday, the federation is working really hard to attract skilled bilingual people from abroad. It is currently doing a tour of a dozen or so cities in Ontario where skilled and especially bilingual people are needed.
Will those people be found abroad? Will they be found in Quebec and encouraged to move elsewhere in Canada? That is one thing.
Ms. Martin-Laforge, you mentioned Ms.Vatz-Laaroussi's study, and I am happy to tell you that we will be meeting with her on March 31. As you can see, this committee has no intention of turning its back on Quebec's English- speaking communities.
We will see what happens when we meet with a group that wants to attract foreigners provided they are bilingual. We will keep up our work.
Senator Chaput: It is a pleasure to have you here. Thank you for joining us.
[English]
I was going through the report of the committee before this meeting this week and I was reading about the success story program for newcomers' integration and retention, and I'm happy to see it's going well. I'm very glad to hear that you have now, if I understood correctly, proper formal funding from the Roadmap. So, that should continue now. It is a beginning, right?
Ms. Martin-Laforge: If I might say, we were so ready for this money that you might recall that the community gave itself a community development plan in March 2012, and there are priorities in that plan that lend themselves to giving priorities as well to any research that could be done on immigration.
Our board has a resolution on the priorities for immigration in Quebec, which we have given to CIC to base their research on. Maybe we could offer these to the committee. We could send that.
We have a list of priorities around immigration that we have given to the researchers at CIC and they will weigh the proposals coming from researchers and from community groups with regard to the priorities and give out the money — a lot of money, we hope.
Senator Chaput: The objective of our study this time is the impact of recent changes to the immigration system on official language minorities. I was wondering if at this point you could tell us more about the impact of those changes on the English-speaking community in Quebec, if it's possible.
Ms. Martin-Laforge: As my colleague Stephen said, it is difficult for us.
I have to tell you a little bit of a story. When we heard that you were doing the study and we were invited, I said to Stephen, ``I do not know what we're going to tell the committee, because there is a whole other regime in Quebec around immigration, integration, settlement and all of that. How do we marry what we need in Quebec with the changes that are done for the rest of Canada?''
We elected to come and see you today, notwithstanding that very big elephant in the room. It's hard.
They are also making changes in the way they select in Quebec. So how do you marry that selection with the needs of the English-speaking community? As I recall what Madame De Courcy said a couple of weeks ago, it was going to be more competency based. They would be choosing around more competency based. Well, that's good for Quebec; that's good for all of us. That's good for Quebec; that's good for all of us. Although, if they make the changes around competency based, then there is the language, and where do they come from? If they are coming from predominantly English-speaking countries, they will come to the Quebec with the competency, but they will bring their families, and their families won't necessarily speak French. What do they do with the families?
I will tell you a funny story that happened a couple of years ago about a player for the Impact, an American. I got an email from this man and he said he was coming to play for the Impact. He was from the United States and he was coming with his wife. He was looking for English websites, and he wanted to know what could she do, and could we point him in the right direction.
It's hard for somebody coming with their family. He was going to make a lot of money probably, but what was the conjointe going to do? We sent them off to Youth Employment Services because she was a young woman, and now, apparently, she's working there.
It's hard for somebody contemplating coming to Quebec with their family. I'm sure that Jean-Sébastien can tell you about this. What does the family do? Even with the employers, they can speak English in their employment and they can work it out, but they have got family.
We have not come under false pretensions, senators, but there is an elephant in the room for us, because it does not always work.
Senator Chaput: If I understand correctly, when the Province of Quebec negotiates its agreement with the federal government on immigration, you've never been part of those discussions, never at one point in time. That's it, you kept out of it?
Mr. Gignac: Even on that one, the official policy of the Quebec government, you can try to define it in many ways, but in any way you would define it, by nature it means we're not part of the equation. That's the official policy of the government. Even to, at least, the Quebec immigration minister and many of the key employers at the ministry level, I say, ``Test us. Send us immigrants, and you will see what we say to them. The first thing we say is, `Learn French. If you don't learn French, you won't like it here.'''
We work with employers. Like you say, the man is happy or the woman is happy. They have their social network at work. The spouse has nothing and the Quebec government thinks we shouldn't do anything for that person. Well, if this couple, maybe with two kids, is to stay in our region, they will need people to help them.
There are a lot of groups that do work for immigrants in Quebec City that are excellent. The quality of their work is not in question, but they can only do it in French, and they don't want to do it any other language than French. What can they do for someone who doesn't speak a word of French?
For us, just give us six months. We'll help that person learn French, and we will help that person integrate and find the resources that she or he needs here. Then, you will be able to convince that person to learn French. However, if you start by saying to that person, ``We don't really want you here,'' the chances of their integration are slim to none.
Senator Poirier: Thank you for being here. It's very interesting. I have quite a few questions, so I will just go with a couple and see how it goes.
Following the discussion that we just had, the provincial government in Quebec obviously supports immigration, right? Are there any programs in place for when they know they are bringing in immigrants who are anglophone, where the person coming in to work could be bilingual, to help the families learn that second language?
Mr. Gignac: For immigrants, there are different things that they do. Their wish is that these people learn French, and there are francisation programs for these people. On the specific point of learning French, it's a bit easier for immigrants than it would be for Canadian migrants, so there is no doubt they are trying to do that.
One of the issues that remains is that the Quebec government doesn't want these people to know that we exist and that we have English churches and English services. They will tell them, for example, ``If you have health problems, the nearest CLSC from your place is that place.'' The person will show up there in the process of francisation. If you start from scratch, learning French is not a six-month thing. It takes a lot of time. That person will show up at a health and social services centre, which doesn't understand anything the person would say. The person cannot communicate efficiently the problem they have, instead of using a logical model in which we would say, ``We have a health and social services centre that can offer service in English. Go there.'' You would convince that person to stay in Quebec City a lot more if you would do that. Even when they do offer francisation, by design, their approach is aimed at preventing these people from learning what is available in English in their region.
Mr. Thompson: It's important as well, Madam Senator, to understand the level of French instruction that's being offered. The French instruction that's available for immigrants is a basic level of French. This is not the level of French that you need to work, and this is definitely not the level of French you need to work in your field of expertise. There are heartbreaking stories in this report where mom or dad has to stay at home and take care of the kids and work two jobs in order to make the money so that the other spouse can go out and get additional French training — and this is paid for out-of-pocket by the immigrants, not by the state — in order to get an acceptable level of French so that they can enter the work force in something other than a service industry job.
My point here is that the level of French training being provided by the Government of Quebec is not sufficient for immigrants to economically integrate into their specific areas of expertise.
Senator Poirier: There seems to be a problem, at the provincial level, with the acceptance of the English community in the province. Is that fair to say?
Ms. Martin-Laforge: I think that the mentality for many — not all, but for many — is win-lose. The win for us, in our English-speaking community, would be that more immigrants would attach to our community. Whether they are immigrants or migrants, they would attach to our community, which would help us to bolster the institutions of our community. Certainly, if it's an immigrant, they won't be able to go to English schools. If it's a migrant, they would potentially because of the Canada clause. Maybe not. It's not easy, but it is. There is an issue here that, when Quebec counts ``English-speaking community,'' they count us as mother tongue. There is not an inclusive way of counting community, so the traditional English-speaking community will either die out or will be folklorique one day. There is, what, 600,000 of mother tongue?
There is not a view of ``first official language.'' So, when we are talking about those people who come into our country with English, we're talking about first official language. We believe, if it's from an English-speaking country, that they will have an affinity with us — Americans or English from Britain — and so they would come to us. Even if they send their kids to French school, that's okay; they would come to us. They would be at the churches and so on. That is not seen by most people at the ministry of immigration in Quebec as a good thing of.
Mr. Gignac: No doubt. This has been said to me word for word by key people working in that ministry. A perfect scenario would be for any immigrants to go their nearest church, school, health and service social services centre. ``We don't see a need for your institutions.'' It's clear. What's frustrating and ironic about it is that one of the key policies, programs or objectives of the Quebec government is what they call la régionalisation,, to attract immigrants from Montreal to go anywhere else in the province. If you are to do that and to be successful doing that, use the resources that you already have in these regions. That's what we've been telling them. We are a tool that you refuse to use and, in many cases, we would be the most efficient tools that you have in your tool box. Yet, you refuse to use them. Their policy goes against their own objectives.
Senator Poirier: You mentioned in your presentation that, even though you welcome immigrants, there are also a lot of people leaving Quebec for different reasons. Can you tell me what percentage of your populations per capita, francophone and anglophone, are leaving?
Mr. Thompson: It's important to understand that migration is an emotional topic. It's a topic that catches our attention.
In terms of numbers, it affects very small numbers of people. Around 1 per cent of English-speaking Quebecers will migrate in a given year. About 0.1 per cent of the francophone population will migrate. Quebec is a net loser of people, but last year, for example, the net loss to Quebec was 10,000 people. In a population of 7 million, it's almost insignificant. It is insignificant.
Who is leaving? What are the qualities of the people who are leaving? What age are those leaving? What education are they leaving with? When you think about who tends to leave, it tends to be young people who are educated. So, it's not only them leaving, but it's also the children that they're going to have. They're also leaving, even if they haven't had them yet. It's a fact of migration — and there's good research on this that we can share — that there is an economic incentive to migrate. That's why people migrate. They migrate for economic reasons, and there is an economic disincentive to come back. Once somebody has left, if they come back, they are more likely to make less money than where they're coming from and more likely to make less money than the people who stayed. Once you're gone, you're gone.
I guess that is a long-winded way of saying that it's statistically true but probably not very statistically important in terms of numbers.
Senator Poirier: My last —
[Translation]
The Deputy Chair: Thank you, Senator Poirier. Ladies and gentlemen, we have just a few minutes left because the business of the House will be getting under way shortly and two senators would like to speak.
Senator Chaput, go ahead.
Senator Chaput: I will ask my question and you can send us the answer in writing if we run out of time.
Coming back to the subject of our study, I want to talk about the impacts of recent changes to the immigration system.
How would you change immigration policies to help your community, English-speaking Quebecers?
[English]
Ms. Martin-Laforge: I think we'll have to think about that, senator.
Senator Chaput: That's fine.
[Translation]
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: You represent English-speaking communities, so I would like to know whether your communities have the resources they need to recruit newcomers and help them integrate.
I am also interested in hearing how successful Voice of English-speaking Quebec's integration and retention program for newcomers has been.
[English]
Ms. Martin-Laforge: I will only say there are not enough resources. I think we need a more integrated approach and that would be the beginning, because we're not even sure what we need. It might not all be about money; it might be about coordination and research, so that would be the top.
Mr. Gignac: There are certainly not enough resources. We basically have nothing to cover immigrants. There is not nearly enough to cover Canadian immigrants. If you look at the past few years, I think we've been able to get a lot of results through our program — not only quantitative results of people whom we've met and we've served, but qualitative results of people who now, for example, might be a nurse in one of our institutions. I can give you thousands of examples of that.
However, the problem for us over past three years is you're looking at one program — and I don't want it to look like I'm blowing my own horn — that is seen as a program that works really well for the community in an official- language minority context, yet we received the biggest percentage of resources from the City of Quebec. We are an official minority community, but the biggest percentage of resources came not from the federal, not from the provincial, but from the municipal government. Mayor Labeaume once sat down with me and another gentleman who is working in Quebec City and said that we had 10 minutes. We did our pitch in 10 minutes and he said, ``That's good, that makes sense, we'll give you money,'' and that was it.
It was great that we were able to convince him in 10 minutes, but it somehow doesn't make a lot of sense that the attraction and integration of English-speaking newcomers in my region was made possible mainly through a 10-minute conversation with one mayor.
[Translation]
The Deputy Chair: Ms. Martin-Laforge, Mr. Thompson and Mr. Gignac, on behalf of the committee, thank you for being with us this afternoon. Without checking with the other members, I think I can safely assure you that the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages will not lose sight of the interests of Quebec's anglophone population any more than it will the francophone population.
We are depending on you to send us the new documents you said could be helpful to us. We do a lot of reading and a lot of listening. Thank you very much.
(The committee adjourned.)