Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Official Languages
Issue No. 6 - Evidence - Meeting of October 5, 2016 (Afternoon meeting)
VANCOUVER, Wednesday, October 5, 2016
The Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages met this day at 1:00 pm to continue its study of the challenges associated with access to French-language schools and French immersion programs in British Columbia.
Senator Claudette Tardif (Chair) in the chair.
The Chair: Thank you for being with us today to present your research and thoughts on the challenges relating to postsecondary education. As you know, we are studying the challenges associated with access to French-language schools and French immersion programs in British Columbia. Of course, we do recognize that there is a continuum from early childhood to postsecondary education.
Before we proceed with your presentations, I would like to ask the senators to introduce themselves, starting on my right.
Senator Jaffer: Mobina Jaffer from British Columbia. Welcome.
Senator McIntyre: Paul McIntyre from New Brunswick.
Senator Gagné: Hello everyone. Raymonde Gagné from Manitoba.
Senator Maltais: Good afternoon. Ghislain Maltais from Quebec.
The Chair: I am Claudette Tardif from Alberta, and I have the privilege and honour of chairing the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages.
We have with us today Ms. Claire Trépanier, from Simon Fraser University's Office of Francophone and Francophile Affairs. From Simon Fraser University's faculty of education, we welcome Professor Diane Dagenais and Ms. Cécile Sabatier, also a professor, and finally, Mr. Yvon Laberge, Executive Director of the Collège Éducacentre.
Our time is limited, so I would ask you to limit your presentations to five minutes. The senators will then have some questions for you. I would also ask the senators to be as brief and concise as possible.
We will begin with Mr. Laberge from the Collège Éducacentre, followed by the team from Simon Fraser University, starting with Ms. Claire Trépanier.
Mr. Laberge, you have the floor.
Yvon Laberge, Executive Director, Collège Éducacentre: Thank you very much. Hello, Madam Chair, honourable senators, dear colleagues and those in attendance.
Madam Chair, I would like to thank you for the invitation, on behalf of the board of directors of Collège Éducacentre, of which I am the executive director. Collège Éducacentre is a non-profit organization founded in 1992, which was certified as a private college by the Ministry of Advanced Education in December 2015. As a result, the college can now award its own certificates and degrees, whereas previously it had to award them in partnership with a recognized institution. The only French college in British Columbia, Collège Éducacentre is also on the list of institutions that accepts international students.
In order to reach out to francophones and francophiles right across the province, our courses, programs and services are offered in classrooms at our three campuses, in Vancouver, Prince George and Victoria, or online through our virtual campus. In 2016, we added a satellite location in Surrey.
Collège Éducacentre makes a key contribution to the development of the French fact in British Columbia and bilingualism in Canada. We help meet the growing needs for access to a varied range of high-quality training services for British Columbia's francophone and francophile population.
With an annual budget of $2.5 million, Collège Éducacentre serves over 1,700 people, about 50 per cent of them immigrants. The college has a staff of 120 employees and contract workers, both part-time and full-time.
The college offers college-level training services, ongoing training and basic French-language training. But it is not a training institution in the traditional sense because, in addition to training services, we offer students resource services that include academic and career counselling, employment assistance services and immigrant orientation and integration services.
Collège Éducacentre's comprehensive and integrated model allows us to refer our participants to the various services and training offered by the college or in the community, depending on their stated needs. Collège Éducacentre's needs are in four main areas: recruitment, capital assets, access to and use of the latest technology, and funding. of course.
Collège Éducacentre is always looking to broaden our client base. To do so, we have to promote college education as a viable option at the postsecondary level or for professional development. We must also better understand the needs and expectations of our clientele, which is made up of francophones and francophones from various backgrounds: French-speaking parts of Canada, Europe, Africa, more than 50 countries around the world, with different cultures and covering a vast territory. In addition, we are trying to understand labour market needs and expectations by conducting ongoing studies and analyses. In order to promote our services and training, we rely on a clear marketing strategy that focuses in particular on social networks, and we must visit French and immersion schools.
Collège Éducacentre must also develop strategies to offer double credits at the secondary/college and at college/ university levels. Moreover, the recruitment of international students offers a number of benefits. This kind of recruitment could help meet priority needs, such as teacher resources for early childhood education. Other priorities fields include health care and the tourism and hospitality industries.
This goal of becoming more international has major spinoffs. The arrival of new students can create a critical mass that would enable us to offer more programs. Equally, the registration of international students would bring in significant funds, helping us to meet our budget objectives. Finally, it encourages an increase in French-speaking immigrants, thereby bolstering British Columbia's francophone community.
The main campus of Collège Éducacentre is located in Vancouver, in an old building in very poor repair that does not meet our current or future needs in terms of space and layout. We must bear in mind that this takes up a significant chunk of our operating budget. To ensure the institution's survival, Collège Éducacentre must find premises that are larger, better equipped and less expensive.
The federal government's contribution is indispensable in the following three areas: improving access to buildings it owns that are underutilized; supporting us in calling on the provincial government to transfer to us a property that it manages, such as a school slated for closure; and also contributing financially to purchasing and renovating a building.
Technology, especially digital technology, is evolving quickly and constantly. Historically, Collège Éducacentre has received federal funding to keep up with the latest technologies, especially for distance education. The purchase of new equipment and software depends on having the staff who are able to fully utilize the new technology and develop new methods of delivering various training. That would require the ongoing training of college employees. A long-term investment is needed to ensure that the college can remain a leader in distance education so as to offer francophones and francophiles training services that are of equal quality to that of the services available to the majority.
Collège Éducacentre recognizes that the institutions and agencies that offer services and training in French in British Columbia are underfunded. The college level, however, is still the poor relation in terms of funding in the province. In order to meet the growing need for the services and training offered by our college, a major increase in our funding is needed.
Collège Éducacentre is aiming to double its clientele from 1,700 to 3,400 learners by 2023, and multiply the number of courses and services it offers. This ambitious projection will require a progressive increase in funding in order to reach the $7 million threshold by 2023. That of course will mean increasing the funding provided under bilateral education agreements and other federal programs, but it will also mean that, as regards devolution, the province must live up to its obligations under the Official Languages Act.
Since 2010, the college has tried to increase its independent revenues, which represented 7 per cent of our budget at that time, and reached 17 per cent in 2016. Collège Éducacentre is committed to continuing its independent fundraising activities. The federal government's support will therefore be essential in developing our skills in the social economy.
Collège Éducacentre is a key force in developing the French fact in British Columbia. An increase in federal support, both politically and financially, and in upholding official languages obligations, would help the Collège Éducacentre achieve its medium-term and long-term objectives.
Once again, I thank you sincerely for kindly inviting me here today. I will be very pleased to answer your questions.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Laberge. I must say that the committee really enjoyed visiting Collège Éducacentre yesterday morning and meeting members of your staff.
Mr. Laberge: Likewise.
The Chair: I now invite Ms. Claire Trépanier, from Simon Fraser University's Office of Francophone and Francophile Affairs, to take the floor.
Claire Trépanier, Director, Office of Francophone and Francophile Affairs, Simon Fraser University: Madam Chair, ladies and gentlemen, senators and members of the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages, on behalf of the senior management of Simon Fraser University (SFU) and my colleagues here with me, Diane Dagenais and Cécile Sabatier, and on my own behalf as director of the Office of Francophone and Francophile Affairs (BAFF), I would like to thank the Senate committee for the invitation to testify as part of your study of French-language education in British Columbia, something that is so important to us all.
I would like to thank the committee for considering the report we have submitted. This report, which you have before you in both official languages, is entitled Ensuring the continuum between K-12 and post-secondary education in British Columbia: Simon Fraser University's Office of Francophone and Francophile Affairs 2018-2023 Action Plan. This report highlights the commitment that SFU made 10 years ago to contribute to the development of postsecondary education in French and thereby support young people in the province who want to pursue their education in French, right here in British Columbia.
I must also stress the strong political will of SFU's senior management which, in 2004, proudly supported the creation of the BAFF, an administrative entity that operates in French within an anglophone institution and that works with the faculties and departments on the development, promotion and delivery of French-language courses and programs.
Our comments today pertain to the importance and I would say the need for a continuum in French-language education from K-12 to postsecondary education in British Columbia. When I say French-language education, I am referring to the teaching of French as a first language, a minority language and a second language.
With regard to the committee's study, SFU has identified a number of major obstacles to French-language education for students and young people in the province. These obstacles include the shortage of qualified teachers, a recurring theme; current teachers' poor knowledge of French; and the lack of strategic planning to reduce attrition rates among students from French-language schools and French immersion programs.
SFU intends to overcome the obstacles mentioned by including original initiatives in its next BAFF action plan for 2018-2023. My colleagues, Diane Dagenais and Cécile Sabatier, will describe the first two obstacles and suggest innovative solutions in their presentations.
I will now give the floor to Ms. Diane Dagenais.
Diane Dagenais, Full Professor, Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University: Madam Chair, members of the Senate committee, the need for qualified French teachers has been expressed in many studies conducted by the French-speaking community, by organizations such as Canadian Parents for French, and by the federal government. In British Columbia, there is a strong demand for a greater number of teachers qualified to teach French minority-language and French second-language education.
As indicated by Canadian Parents for French in its 2014 report, the quality of French immersion programs is threatened as school districts indicate that limited physical classroom space, unique start-up costs, and the shortage of qualified French immersion teachers is hindering their ability to provide equitable access to this well-established and life-changing language program.
In British Columbia, there are many vacancies for French teachers due to the lack of qualified candidates. The school districts have tremendous difficulty recruiting qualified candidates for French as a first and second language programs, given the steadily increasing enrolment rates in French as a minority language and French immersion programs across the province. The shortage is critical.
In 2012 and 2013, Make a Future, British Columbia's job posting website for careers in education, had 234 and 245 postings for French immersion teachers, respectively. By contrast, British Columbia's two main universities, UBC and SFU, graduated only around 60 qualified teachers for French Immersion and Core French per year. SFU will continue to respond to this shortage of qualified teachers by recruiting students and teachers, in particular francophones, from outside British Columbia and Canada, for its teacher training programs.
After completing SFU's teacher training program and becoming familiar with the British Columbia Ministry of Education's curriculum and with the diversity of its student population, these francophones are deemed sufficiently qualified to teach students. Moreover, these newcomers will revitalize the province's Francophone community by moving to British Columbia.
Furthermore, SFU has forged strong relationships with institutions in Canada through its membership in the Association of Colleges and Universities of the Canadian Francophonie and has worked closely with partner institutions in Quebec. These universities will be a significant source of recruitment for this initiative.
SFU has also developed contacts with the consul general of France in Vancouver and with the French embassy in Ottawa to see whether students from France would be interested in coming to teach in British Columbia.
France is grappling with high unemployment among well-educated young people. Through its ministry of national education, France has confirmed that French students are very interested in coming to teach in British Columbia. Not only would this initiative improve access to French-language education from K-12 by attracting qualified teachers to the province, but these newcomers to British Columbia would have a positive impact on the diversity of culture and economic growth in the province.
The Government of Canada's Roadmap for Canada's Official Languages 2013-2018 cites the intensification of efforts to recruit French-speaking immigrants to minority communities as a key factor in maintaining community vitality. This part of the action plan addresses two of British Columbia's main objectives: improving the quality and number of teachers in French-language education programs, and attracting highly qualified French-speaking immigrants.
There is also a shortage of qualified teachers in the regions. One of the key components of SFU's initial professional training program is the practicum that gives students the opportunity to gain practical experience by working right in the province's schools, under the supervision of a qualified mentor teacher, in cooperation with a member of the faculty of education. These practicums help many students make the transition into the workforce as many are hired after graduation as full-time teachers in the schools where they completed the practicum.
For the time being, the practicums are only in the Lower Mainland, which does not help address the demand in the rest of the province. SFU would like to give its students the opportunity to do practicums in other regions of British Columbia as well. Once students have completed their professional training, they might very well want to continue working in those regions, thereby providing quality instruction to students right across the province and not just in Vancouver and surrounding areas.
I will now give the floor to my colleague Cécile Sabatier.
Cécile Sabatier, Associate Professor, Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University: Madam Chair, members of the Senate committee, a UBC 2007 survey of 800 Core French teachers found that only 22 per cent of elementary teachers reported being at ease conversing or reading in French. This number increased to 29 per cent for middle school teachers. By contrast, at the national level, 75 per cent of elementary and middle school Core French teachers reported being at ease in conversing or reading French.
There is no doubt that this alarming lack of French-language proficiency amongst elementary and middle school Core French teachers in British Columbia impacts the quality of French second-language instruction.
In a study we conducted in 2011, we even found that the way Core French teachers perceive their language competence in French influences how students feel about French second-language education. Students in French teacher education programs share the same lack of confidence.
As noted by Canadian Parents for French in its 2013 report, poor knowledge of French also limits the growth and vitality of the French language in British Columbia. Without the necessary French-language skills, these teachers are simply unable to meet the curriculum objectives, and French knowledge and culture are not properly imparted to students.
In British Columbia, many generalist teachers at the Grades 5 to 8 level are required to teach Core French. Most generalist teachers are certified with methods coursework in all subject areas except French.
There is usually no proficiency screening for Core French teachers. And, even though Core French is now commonly offered from Grades 5 to 12, no French course or even second language methodology course is required by the Ministry of Education for the certification of generalist teachers.
According to the Government of British Columbia, teachers in French immersion programs should have a high degree of oral and written proficiency in the French language, as well as a sound knowledge of the culture of French-speaking peoples. To achieve this, they should have taken a course in French immersion methodology and continued to develop their skills through professional development. In order to effectively communicate with parents, teachers are expected to also have a good working knowledge of English.
Principals of French immersion schools should also be functionally bilingual. However, proficiency standards for French immersion teachers and principals vary by school district and these goals outlined by the Ministry of Education are often unmet.
At present, an alarming number of British Columbia's teachers are ill-equipped linguistically, pedagogically and culturally to respond to the needs of students in French second-language education programs. We must therefore invest more in pedagogy and French-language teacher training depending on their needs.
SFU has launched initiatives including pedagogical and linguistic training in the form of professional learning workshops and bootcamps, such as immersion weekends offered throughout the academic year as well as longer-term summer institutes. These initiatives will allow teachers to learn French in an immersed setting similar to the Explore program currently available to post-secondary students. SFU intends to include activities that will involve British Columbia's French-speaking communities and will contribute to community engagement by the teachers, while encouraging the contribution of members of the francophone community to French-language education.
Over the past twelve years, SFU has acquired significant experience in offering similar field programs on a smaller scale to in-service teachers. SFU currently mainly offers workshops or professional learning series in Vancouver and the Lower Mainland. The university is ready to expand its programs in order to reach more teachers across the province.
These are a few of the initiatives that could help improve the French proficiency level of current teachers.
I will now give the floor to Ms. Trépanier.
Ms. Trépanier: Madam Chair and members of the committee, I will now address the third obstacle. Beyond ensuring that French education programs are accessible throughout the province and staffed by qualified instructors, more must be done to retain students and reduce attrition rates in French education programs. To achieve this, we have a three-part solution, which we hope will have a direct impact on student retention.
The first part of our solution relates to the need to offer a wider range of university-level programs. We believe that the variety of French-language programs has a direct impact on retention rates at high schools. The range of programs offered by SFU is limited right now, but the university is prepared to develop new programs.
Developing programs in various fields of study must, however, be done carefully. We can no longer rely on the traditional approach of simply creating opportunities, creating programs, and waiting for young people to enrol. Our approach must also include a needs analysis and surveys in order to understand young people's academic interests.
SFU is committed to offering more post-secondary programming in French in a broader range of academic subjects. This expansion will not only encourage British Columbia's young minds to stay in the province to complete their degrees in French, but also further bolster SFU's position as a Canadian leader in French post-secondary education that will attract francophone and francophile students from across Canada and even internationally.
According to the national panel on education, whose report I gave you this morning and which held discussion forums across Canada last spring, promoting programs is crucial in order to motivate young people to pursue postsecondary education and thereby maximize their retention at high school. Under this program, it is young people themselves who must do that promotion as young ambassadors recounting their experiences; educational institutions and the community are also involved in promoting programs.
The second part of our solution to reducing high school attrition rates is to offer opportunities for student mobility, at the provincial, national and international levels.
I will focus today on student mobility within the province. To attract high school students from various regions of British Columbia, financial assistance is essential in order to support student mobility and enable students from other parts of the province to attend schools in the Vancouver area. In recent years, recruitment officers have promoted SFU's French Cohort Program across the province and have met with close to 3,000 grade 10 to 12 students in French immersion and French-language programs from the seven regions outside Vancouver. We believe that a strong student mobility program for young people in remote regions could bolster retention in French programs and programs offered in French at high schools.
The third and final part of our solution relates to the need to link post-secondary education with students' involvement in Francophone communities in British Columbia and across Canada. SFU offers students the opportunity to participate in community activities that are directly related to their studies. These include workshops, conferences, experience-based learning activities, and research in the field, all of which enrich and complement programs, in our opinion.
Over the past 12 years, SFU has had the privilege of forging close ties with members, associations and agencies of francophone and Francophile communities, at the provincial and national level. Through the partnerships that have been established, students come into with experts, mentors and future employers. This fosters a sense of belonging to the francophone community and promotes its vitality.
The possible solutions that we have just outlined should help retain high school students as intended and enable young people to benefit from the continuum of French-language education in British Columbia.
In conclusion, on behalf of SFU, I would ask the Senate committee to review the recommendations made in BAFF'S 2018-2023 action plan, as set out in the report we provided. I would also like to reiterate SFU's commitment to providing a continuum of French-language education from kindergarten to grade 12 and then on to postsecondary level in British Columbia.
Thank you for your attention.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Trépanier.
We would like to thank you and the team from SFU for welcoming us here today. We very much enjoyed visiting the Office of Francophone and Francophile Affairs, meeting your staff, and the students of course. Thank you also for the lovely reception.
I would also like to congratulate you on your excellent report. It will be extremely helpful to us when we draft our report.
The first question will be from Senator Jaffer, followed by Senator McIntyre.
Senator Jaffer: Thank you very much for your truly interesting presentations.
My first question is for Ms. Dagenais. Much has been said about the French language and other languages.
[English]
For me, it is not a matter of it is this language or that language. In Europe and many other countries they teach many languages, and people do it proficiently. Obviously my preference or desire is that every child is taught both of our bilingual languages and then other languages are taught.
I am aware of your research. In your research can you tell us what kind of approach should we have? For me, there is no question that we should provide French but how do we tell the communities they have to absolutely take French and of course have other languages around?
[Translation]
Ms. Dagenais: Thank you very much for your question.
Our research over several years pertaining to students from different linguistic backgrounds that are enrolled in immersion programs has shown that these parents chose French immersion over the English program because their arrival in Canada represented an opportunity for their children to have access to both official language communities in Canada. It was nonetheless very important for them to maintain their family language at home and to take community classes. This was very important to them to ensure that, when they travel to their country of origin, their children can maintain relationships with their family. It was very clear to the parents that official bilingualism was the entry point into Canadian society, but without sacrificing their language of origin. They make every effort to maintain their language of origin in many ways.
My research with Ms. Sabatier and our colleagues at the Université de Montréal and Simon Fraser University clearly showed that teachers are trained to be able to support all the languages of the multilingual students in their class. We worked with French immersion teachers to help young people recognize and gain awareness of Canada's multilingual nature, learn about the languages represented in their community, appreciate them and make comparisons between the structures of the various languages in the community and the language of instruction at school.
Including other languages helps strengthen and better develop their French, as a language of instruction, and their English, the second language in French immersion programs that include English classes. We have also started doing this work in French schools.
So it is possible to equip teachers of Core French, French immersion and those at French schools to recognize and appreciate students' multiple linguistic backgrounds at school. This can be achieved through the French language, by speaking French in class and also by developing the English skills of students in French immersion classes and those in French schools because, we must recognize that they are also bilingual in British Columbia, in both official languages, and often in other languages also.
Does that answer your question?
[English]
Senator Jaffer: I struggle with one thing in your research. We had a parent from Surrey appearing this morning who spoke about how the numbers were bigger in Surrey. I am using my words, not hers, but one language was sort of being pushed to be taught in schools perhaps at the expense of providing French.
For me, I believe that the leadership needs to come from us, our Prime Minister and the B.C. MPs to have a campaign that speaks about the heritage of two languages.
Have you come across that? The others can answer too. If there were a campaign what should it look like? When I go to Ottawa many times I feel I have gone to another country because we live differently here than in Ottawa. They are different worlds. The Rockies really cut us out. Sometimes the messages that come from the centre of our country don't get here. What should it look like to reinforce to all of Canadians that we are a bilingual country?
[Translation]
Ms. Trépanier: In marking Canada's one hundred fiftieth anniversary, the federal government will have to launch a national campaign about bilingualism in Canada. A good way to promote bilingualism nationally is by involving young people. Our youth represent our future. There will have to be events that mobilize young people and students across Canada in order to encourage and support education for a year in the other component of our linguistic duality. I think that if young people are involved, the campaign will be a success, and we will owe them that success.
[English]
Ms. Dagenais: It is important to show in the schools that we can teach French and value other languages. We can enable and support children's language development in their family languages as well. There is a need for a campaign that shows that learning French and English in Canada is not at the expense of maintaining your family languages.
Many teachers across the country are working very hard to support student language development. We know very well that if children do not maintain their family languages they have great difficulty learning other languages in schools and progressing as they move through the grades and literacy becomes more and more important. Research has shown over the decades that they can struggle when their family language is not valued and maintained.
Senator Jaffer: In B.C. I think we are past the idea of anybody telling us we can learn our languages. We have gone beyond that.
Ms. Dagenais: You are right.
Senator Jaffer: The challenge is for us as politicians who think we provide one or the other language. In Belgium they teach five languages and there is no issue, and here it is one or the other. My frustration is we are not getting across that it is okay to learn four languages in school. We as providers are saying it is one or the other. It should not be one or the other. It can be both.
Ms. Dagenais: It can be not just both but multiple languages. I am with you 100 per cent. We need to strengthen French language education and English language education in places across the country where it is not the majority language, to strengthen the maintenance of children's heritage languages, and to value and support multilingual development among students.
We need our students to be more than just bilingual. We can support that in many different ways. Teachers have pedagogical approaches at their hands that they can use and mobilize.
[Translation]
The Chair: I would like to point out to those who are making presentations today that, in our last report, entitled Aiming Higher: Increasing bilingualism of our Canadian youth, our second recommendation pertained to the need for the federal government to raise public awareness of the use of both official languages in Canada and to encourage bilingualism.
The next question will be from Senator McIntyre, followed by Senator Gagné.
Senator McIntyre: Thank you for your presentations and explanations of the role that an institution such as yours plays in promoting the learning of French as a first or second language.
I have a few brief questions for you. I will ask them all and you can answer in whatever order you prefer. First of all, do you offer distance education? If so, what proportion of your students is enrolled in distance education?
Secondly, does your institution offer linguistic exchange programs and bursaries to encourage students to learn French?
Ms. Sabatier: It seems that I will be answering the questions.
With regard to distance education, our distance education programs are made possible through the latest technology, which enables us to reach teachers that are in the province but not in the Lower Mainland or in Vancouver specifically. These programs are offered at the master's level.
It is nevertheless difficult to reach these teachers because, although distance education offers some advantages, there are also disadvantages. Surprisingly, teachers prefer face-to-face communication for certain things. People like the traditional method of seeing the teacher in person, a teacher who presents problems that can be resolved by working together rather than all alone in one's corner. Distance education requires a great deal of autonomy and, in the case of distance education, the teaching community is not always the same as when teachers work together physically. So we do have distance education programs and perhaps my colleagues would like to add something.
With regard to language exchanges, we have various initiatives. We send teachers or student teachers. We have an exchange program with the Université de Tours, whereby SFU students spend a semester in immersion in Tours to begin their immersion in the profession and in education courses. They spend one semester in France, and then return here to do their professional training program. That is one of the initiatives.
A second initiative that was launched this year is coordinated with SFU's French department and the literature faculty. With my colleague Catherine Black, we have created a major with a concentration for future teachers. For their major, the students spend a semester in Tours or in Sherbrooke. So they can experience the francophonie in France or locally, in Sherbrooke. This is a new program that seems to be attracting future candidates to teaching because it immerses them in another language and culture, which will make them much more fluent in class.
Scholarships are our lifeblood because, up until last year, they were available for nearly all our students in the French module of the program, that is, the professional training program in French. They could be sent to Quebec for a practicum in the summer, for intensive immersion. Unfortunately, these scholarships have been significantly cut. In the past, a lot of scholarships were awarded to UBS and SFU specifically. Now all the scholarships are in a common pool. For the first time this year, some of our students will not get a scholarship to study and do their professional training in French.
Funding, that is, scholarships, is really a problem for us because it limits the mobility of our student teachers and, for those who want to teach French or teach in French, mobility is important nowadays in order to experience other francophone communities, whether locally or internationally.
Ms. Trépanier: I will start with scholarships. SFU is a member of the Association of Francophone Colleges and Universities of Canada (ACUFC). Through this membership, SFU students have been fortunate to obtain mobility and entrance scholarships, that is, for French-immersion students who want to continue their education in French.
Since 2011, SFU students have received 27 scholarships, of $5,000 each. There is no guarantee, however, because every year the ACUFC applies to Canadian Heritage for these scholarships. So that is the model. Will this model remain in place? That would be ideal. That is my answer regarding scholarships.
As to student mobility and students' ability to do a study term in French, we have a program that is unique in Canada, the public administration and community service program. You met a few students yesterday who are doing a concentration in political science. Through inter-university agreements, whether the institutions are in Canada or in France, Belgium or Switzerland, students can do a student exchange lasting one or two semesters to live and study in French. The unique part of the program is that it is compulsory. This is a model we developed whereby, in the third year of a four-year program, students are required do the exchange, and they have no choice.
I would like to return to the commitment of parents who have enrolled their children in French immersion. When they get into the immersion program, these students coming from the immersion or French-language program, their parents are committed to supporting them in their third year so they can go study somewhere else. It is a good model and it works very well. It transforms the linguistic, cultural and academic experience of the young people who come back in fourth year to complete their bachelor's degree.
I would like to add a final point about distance education. My colleagues will talk about the programs offered in French at the Faculty of Education, at the graduate level. We intend to develop a bilingual program with SFU's School of Criminology. The School of Criminology currently offers 38 online courses, in English. We could offer the same thing French, with funding, of course, but it would be feasible. The benefits of this program derive from the fact that SFU is a member of the Réseau national de formation en justice. This network has twenty or so partners, agencies and institutions, including the Collège communautaire du Nouveau-Brunswick. That college approached us to create a "two plus two'' initiative, that is, two years at the community college to train police officers, for example, followed by two years to complete a bachelor's by taking online courses through the School of Criminology, or even through student mobility programs. I spoke earlier about the importance of student mobility. You can imagine students from New Brunswick coming to Vancouver for a semester or two to study criminology in French.
It is this kind of original initiative that we are prepared to get started.
Senator Gagné: I would also like to thank you and your president for the lovely reception yesterday; your campus is just wonderful. We really enjoyed it, especially the collegial atmosphere last night.
I would like to consider the development of postsecondary education from a different perspective. Postsecondary education is an important part of the French-language education continuum, starting in early childhood, through elementary and high school, right up to the postsecondary level. In my opinion, postsecondary institutions not only foster student development but also contribute to the renewal of francophone communities and their growth and vitality.
In the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, section 23 stands out. The scope of section 23 is however rather limited. We know that judges tend to interpret it increasingly narrowly. We agree that it establishes the right to have schools, protection for schools, but we do not look beyond that, that is, fostering early childhood development and the development of postsecondary education.
I wonder if we should not start thinking about public policy. There is none. I wonder whether, to address that, we could influence the Government of Canada to develop a government policy on postsecondary education in order to finally confirm that postsecondary institutions play a role in fostering the growth and vitality of francophone communities in Canada.
Mr. Laberge: I completely agree with you. If we want to fully implement the intent of section 23 so that it is interpreted in the interest of the vitality of official language minority communities, I think it is absolutely essential that young francophones in minority communities, such as in British Columbia, be taught in French, their first language.
That said, to elaborate on the need for public policy, as you pointed out, section 23 does not defend access to postsecondary education, whether at the college or university level. The impact this can have on the application of section 23, as demonstrated in your research, I believe, is that if students from French and immersion schools do not see any opportunities in the labour market and in most cases go on to postsecondary education, this curbs their interest in continuing their French-language education from kindergarten to grade 12. I think this is one of the reasons for the significant dropout rate from immersion and French as a first language programs, at the high school level in particular.
If we had the support of a national perspective, a public policy that could support postsecondary education in French, I think that would provide a tremendous boost to the application or at least the intent of section 23. I think we can create a policy, but it must be applied, and that is the crux of the matter in many provinces.
I also think, and this partly addresses Senator Jaffer's questions, that we should get back to encouraging bilingualism and multilingualism in Canada and modernize the approach to some extent so that it is no longer limited to heritage languages, for instance. As my colleagues described, the approach must instead, in the context of globalization, stress the importance of knowing many languages and how that can be personally enriching, while also enriching each culture and community and so forth. So I think that the development of a public policy should include reflection about a national perspective on bilingualism, multiculturalism and multilingualism.
Speaking from my own interests once again, while I can, I think that we must remember, with regard to the education continuum and in developing a public policy, that not all students have the ability or interest to go to university, but colleges must not be overlooked.
With regard to the education continuum, I would point out the studies that have shown the importance of nurturing children's interest in learning from the time they are born. I would argue that the education continuum should start at birth and then perhaps be encouraged by French-language family literacy initiatives, for instance. I think that is an important aspect.
I have taken a lot of time, thank you.
Ms. Trépanier: This morning we heard from parents from the Fédération des parents francophones de la Colombie-Britannique who called for initiatives starting from the time of birth, as Mr. Laberge just mentioned. That means everything before kindergarten. To answer your question, Senator Gagné, I want to see a continuum rather than three separate sectors, because the danger with three separate sectors is deciding how each of these three sectors will be funded, and of course each will be trying to get the most it can. So a continuum is important so that the initiatives taken have an impact on all three sectors.
I would like to add another point regarding postsecondary education that involves an inclusive approach to the training we provide, for young rights holders and for children from French immersion or Core French programs. When we offer courses in French in various subjects at Simon Fraser University, the courses are taught by francophones, as though we were in a French-language institution, meaning that the students we teach are francophones, rights holders and francophiles. I will call them "francophiles''. I would like to share a comment by a student who is currently taking a course about the francophonie. The professor defined the terms francophonie, francophone and francophile. The student who was among the francophiles said, "I don't like the term francophile; it makes me feel less than.''
This led me to question the name of our office, whether we should keep the name, Office of Francophone and Francophone Affairs, and why these two terms are used at a university where we want to teach in French to further French-language education.
Senator Maltais: Thank you very much for your testimony, ladies and gentlemen.
I had the opportunity to talk to a representative of your university who travels British Columbia to attract children, young people to your university. We had a lot to talk about over dinner, so we did not have the time to discuss what you do to welcome them. Do they get scholarships? How does it work? I see the lady here but we did not have time to discuss it. I am curious. Is that exclusively for universities or for colleges also?
Ms. Trépanier: Recruitment officers go right into French immersion classrooms across the province to recruit students, as well as French-language program classes. We want to attract francophones and francophiles.
How can we attract young people? Money is the key, of course, scholarships are key. Our main competitor for scholarships is the University of Ottawa, which has a lot of money to hand out. Our students have access to immersion scholarships from the ACUFC, two or three scholarships per year. There is also a scholarship for studying an official language. Students can receive $5000 over four years. Scholarships are of course vital to recruitment; they are what attracts students. So there are scholarships and there are also opportunities for student mobility, as I mentioned earlier. That is very appealing. Once again, student mobility is supported through funding. Subsidizing student mobility, admission scholarships and access scholarships yields results. It means that students will really want to continue their education in French.
Senator Maltais: With respect to mobility, Ms. Sabatier, you mentioned your affiliation with the Université de Tours. I imagine you are from the Tours area? You want to show them the famous, extraordinary clock at the Gare du Palais and make sure your students do not feel disoriented since there is a McDonald's on the corner and a Starbucks across the street?
I would like to make a suggestion and, if you do not like it, you can throw your water at me. We are approaching Canada's one hundred fiftieth anniversary. I will repeat that Canada has two founding nations. One of the founding nations is in a minority. Why not have a 150th anniversary scholarship with some of the money coming from governments and some from sponsors?
I can suggest some sponsors: the Royal Bank, the Toronto Dominion Bank and the Bank of Montreal. If they refuse to give your foundation 5¢, they will be against Francophones, not only those in British Columbia, but right across Canada. Those are potential future clients.
It is an idea for you to consider, because I have done it in other areas and it works. It makes them very nervous. A foundation would give you continuity for scholarships. Internationally, you could go not only to Tours but also to Mauritius and Madagascar. The francophonie is not just in Canada and France: it is universal. As Ms. Trépanier clearly stated a number of times, money is the key to being able to do that. Let there be no mistake: it is 2016 and you need money for such exchanges. As you said, students are ambassadors of the francophonie when they come back home. So you multiply your chances by the number of students who become ambassadors in their own part of British Columbia.
But to do all that, you have to find money. I will make a suggestion, and you can do with it what you will. But if you decide to adopt it, I will defend it in the Senate. And if you decide to adopt it, I think that governments will have no other choice but to get on board. It would look very bad for one level of government among the three that exist — municipal, provincial and federal — to not support this project.
You will probably be told that Heritage Canada is already giving you money. They will say that, certainly. But that is not the objective. The objective is to allow your students in British Columbia to experience the broader, universal francophonie. Thank you.
Ms. Sabatier: I simply wanted to make a clarification on this issue of a much broader francophonie. I agree with you entirely and I think we are all aware that it is more than France and Quebec. Today we also have francophones who come from elsewhere, including in our programs, such as our teacher training program. We have an increasing number of francophones who come from Black Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and North Africa.
For two years in a row, we had the opportunity of taking 16 students from the French module, the initial training module, to Mali for three months. We wanted to give them a chance to become acquainted with another francophonie, which was neither the French nor the Quebec one, and place them in an environment where French is the first language and the language of the school. We also wanted them to get a chance to meet others, to experience another environment, because our province is extremely diverse, as we said, and we have youngsters who come from everywhere. So we wanted to give them this experience and place them in a much broader context.
For two years I had the opportunity of going with them. I saw them change and grow. The collaboration we had with our Mali colleagues was not limited to providing teacher training. We wanted a real partnership, that is to say that we wanted to learn from our Mali colleagues, just as they wanted them to learn from us. I must say that the two years I had the opportunity of going with them were two extraordinary years. It was an extraordinary experience. And I know that the young teachers who took part in it still get together today to talk about it. When they came back, they obtained positions immediately. It was quite an experience. If you told me I had to leave for Mali again tomorrow, I would leave in a minute. Unfortunately, the international context put an end to that.
We tried to get something going with Morocco. I have a Moroccan colleague who is arriving next week to see how we could arrange this, but we are aware however that this remains a part of the world where things are a bit complicated currently. Our idea is that since we cannot necessarily send our students there, perhaps the teachers could travel. My Moroccan colleague would come to talk about cultural exchanges, to talk about the other francophonie, and then we would go to Morocco.
We totally understand this idea that the francophonie today is much more diverse, without forgetting the francophones of Quebec and France.
The Chair: Since there are only five minutes left, I am going to give the floor to Senator McIntyre.
Senator McIntyre: I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate your office, the Office of Francophone and Francophile Affairs of Simon Fraser University, for its excellent report. I understand that it is a 48-page report in which you make seven recommendations.
Without going into detail, and very briefly, could you tell us more about these recommendations? We have already read your report.
The Chair: Since we only have five minutes, we are going to go to Senator Jaffer's question.
Senator Jaffer, could you ask your question and then we could hear both answers?
Senator Jaffer: It is not for SFU, but for Collège Éducacentre.
Ms. Trépanier: You have the recommendations before you. The first of course consists in improving the skills of teachers. I think you heard about the issue. Our objective is really to have a major impact over the next five years, through the action plan, to bring about significant improvements in the linguistic and pedagogical skills of teachers. That is the first recommendation.
The integration of practical training and the mobility of young people in the province are crucial. We talked about the recruiting agent who does recruiting throughout the province. If there are young people throughout the province, we need teachers, and the reality in the regions is different from that of the Lower Mainland and Greater Vancouver. So that too is crucial.
We spoke about higher education. Continuing education must come after the training of teachers. It is also very important. Promoting and marketing programs is very, very important. We can create all of the programs we like. Nowadays we have a student clientele that is demanding, that has needs and that pays a lot, also. So it is very important to promote our programs, recruit, and market the programs.
Of course we want to keep the most brilliant youngsters in the province by broadening the programs. But we also want to allow them to go elsewhere. We want to allow them to have experiences elsewhere, throughout Canada and internationally. We do not want to limit ourselves to Canada. We have seen very concrete examples of students who studied here, in French, in political science, and who then went to study law, for example, at the University of Ottawa, and came back to British Columbia to work in their field, in both official languages.
The sixth recommendation is to create links with the community. The strategic vision of the university really is community engagement. And that is no joke, it is true. Our president, whom you met yesterday, is very committed, and over the past 10 years we have developed links with other organizations. We have activities, very concrete engagement on the part of our students who are in the programs.
The last point concerns the creation of a funding structure that would allow for contingencies. That is to say that when we submit an action plan with a five-year budget, that budget is normally attached to some very concrete, very specific initiatives. It is important that there be flexibility, not only to continue to support the planned project, but also to be able to meet emerging needs.
The Chair: Senator Jaffer, please, you have the floor for the last question.
[English]
Senator Jaffer: My question is for you, Mr. Laberge. Listening to all of you from SFU is a good thing. We had a very extensive briefing from you yesterday. I feel that what you are doing is very important because it reaches different groups of people.
Not everyone is a student. From what I understand you reached out to older people and people who had just come to the country with your English program, the link and the diversity program with Oasis.
How do we find a way to talk about what you are doing and what SFU is doing when we talk about recruiting? Everyone does not go to university or everyone is not able to go to university. One of the things I learned from students yesterday is that some of them were not there full time because they had to work. Can you think of how do we complement each other?
Mr. Laberge: Thank you very much for your very good question. I would like to emphasize that one way is to work in partnership. We work very closely with le BAFF, with Canadian Parents for French, with the Conseil scolaire francophone, and so on.
The partnership element is essential to collaborating and getting the message out. Something we could be better at is the concept of a public policy to which I think Senator Gagne alluded. What may happen from there is that we would have a more coherent message and common message that all of these partners can present. That is one of the key elements.
Another part is that we could multiply the opportunities for students. We talked about la mobilité étudiante. The mobility is not only among institutions and provinces or international, but how can we facilitate and encourage the mobility from one level of education to the next?
We presented the dual credits from secondary to college level and opportunities from the college level to the university level. The more options and opportunities we can offer students, especially in French, is one means of reaching out. The access to bursaries is another extremely important enticement.
Senator Jaffer: I want to very quickly share something with you. Ms. Sabatier, you were talking about Mali. I spend a lot of time in Mali so I know exactly what you were saying.
This morning we received this document from le Conseil scolaire francophone. For me, I have sort of died and gone to heaven because it reflects the people of B.C. That is what needs to be done. If my face or my grandson's face is reflected in it then I feel I belong. That is where we have to go to show people they belong to that community.
[Translation]
The Chair: On behalf of the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages, we want to thank you sincerely for your excellent presentations. You have made some good suggestions, some good recommendations, and you have good ideas, good initiatives and excellent projects. Thank you very much.
The second group we will hear this afternoon in the context of our study on the challenges associated with access to French-language schools and French immersion programs in British Columbia is a team from the University of British Columbia, and it is our pleasure to welcome them.
[English]
We have Francis R. Andrew, Program Director Emeritus, French Centre, Continuing Studies; Monique Bournot-Trites, Associate Professor; Wendy Carr, Associate Dean, Teacher Education, Faculty of Education; Meike Wernicke, Coordinator, French Programs, Faculty of Education, Language & Literacy Education; and Kenneth Reeder, Professor Emeritus, Faculty of Education, Language & Literacy Education. Thank you all for being here today.
[Translation]
There are a lot of you making presentations. I would like to ask you to be as brief as possible, and to limit your statements to five minutes, so that the senators have time to ask their questions and we can have a dialogue.
I am told that we will begin with Mr. Andrew.
Francis R. Andrew, Program Director Emeritus, French Centre, Continuing Studies, University of British Columbia: Good afternoon. The first thing I would like to say is that if you follow my text, the text I am going to read is actually shorter, because I calculated the time it would take and six minutes would not have been enough. That is the first thing I wanted to say.
The second is that I am speaking on behalf of my department, on behalf of André Lamontagne, and of the professors in the French, Hispanic and Italian Studies Department. However, I am not speaking on behalf of UBC, and I think none of us will be speaking on behalf of UBC, because the university has no policy on French. When we consulted each other to determine whether we would write something for UBC, I believe that it was Wendy who very wisely said that we would do better to make our own individual presentations. And so I think that we will only be speaking on behalf of our departments.
However, we have the complete support of our colleagues, and in the case of André Lamontagne, they have all signed to obtain an independent French department, which we are still waiting for after many years.
I will begin with André Lamontagne's presentation, because it is more specific. The presentation I intend to make is very similar to that of my colleagues, so if I have to cut it short, I will give them the floor.
I would first like to thank the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages for giving me this opportunity to speak on immersion. To my mind, immersion must not be limited to the school; it has to continue at least partially at university. I think Simon Fraser said the same thing previously.
The training of French immersion teachers, in particular, is very important for the quality of the programs. And I want to express my full support for what Claire Trépanier said for SFU.
The University of British Columbia is very proud of its accomplishments and of its former students. I think you know at least one of them in Ottawa. We are proud, but in the case of French, there is definitely a deficiency, since it is not being given the preeminent status among languages that we would expect from a Canadian institution. The idea would be to offer a French language and culture studies program, which would also allow us to obtain additional resources we would not have to share with our Hispanic or Italian studies colleagues.
Here is what Mr. André Lamontagne, who was the director of the French department for 10 years, so for two mandates, said. He was replaced by the director of the German department, which tells you something about who defends the French cause at UBC. He has now returned to teaching.
UBC is in an exceptional situation, which I find regrettable as a francophone. One could say there is systemic discrimination. There is no independent French department. The Department of French, Hispanic and Italian studies, by combining three languages and forcing its director, who does not necessarily speak French, to divide its resources fairly among the three languages, cannot give French its proper place in our bilingual country.
The French program at UBC has existed since its foundation, over 100 years ago in 1915, with 3,000 students. In the case of UBC, the figures are still enormous. There are 3,000 students in undergraduate programs, 25 masters and doctoral students, 13 tenured professors, 5 senior lecturers, 6 lecturers, and 15 teaching assistants. This is the most important French program west of Toronto. It is a very large program. I think it is second only to the English program at UBC, but it is not an independent entity. There are 3,000 students in the French program. That does not include students who are taking Italian, Spanish and other Romance languages.
Despite its undeniable success in both teaching and research, and despite the crucial role it plays in the training of future immersion and core French teachers before they register in the Faculty of Education, the French program still does not receive the required institutional support.
In 1998, the French Department was unilaterally combined with the Department of Hispanic and Italian studies. It was the beginning of the decline of French at UBC. The administration is now considering a fusion with other European languages in the near future. There is even talk of a fusion with Asian languages, which would make the department a gigantic school of languages other than English. It would be an enormous language department, with probably over 10,000 students, with French just being reduced to a part of it. That is why we are counting on you a great deal for support, not financial, because this is not a funding problem, it is a problem of image, of ideology. We are hoping for political and moral support.
The consequence of such fusions is a weakening of the position of French at UBC; it then becomes just one language among others, with no regard for its status as an official language of Canada. In addition, the purpose of these administrative reorganizations is often to reduce resources and deprive programs of their autonomy. Whereas the large North American, Canadian and British Columbian universities have independent French departments, UBC persists in not giving French its proper place. There is no French policy at UBC that would allow us to join the ranks of the Association des collèges et universités de la francophonie canadienne.
A few years ago, some continuing education professors from the Department of Language and Literacy Education, including Ms. Monique Bournot-Trites, and from the French, Hispanic and Italian Studies Department, in the Faculty of Arts, felt the need to take the initiative and created the Centre de la francophonie d'UBC. So, as you can see, francophones, even if they are not recognized, are trying to get organized.
The mandate of the centre is to promote the French language on campus and in the community, to celebrate the francophonie that exists here and elsewhere, and to encourage dialogue among cultures in Canada. Among its medium-term objectives, the centre would like to offer and promote courses in French, in addition to the French courses already in the program, that is to say French courses in disciplines other than French language, literature and culture, such as history, political science and Canadian studies. What is interesting is that in these departments we have francophones who are teaching in English. They would be quite willing to teach their courses in French, and we proposed creating additional sections that would be taught in French. It would be the same content, and since the professor is already a francophone, he or she would only have to teach in French. The only problem for the university is that we do not have 45 students in a history section who are francophone or francophiles. We would have to make some small financial adjustments to offset the lack of students. The project was prepared. It was submitted on several occasions, most recently in 2014. If we could obtain your support for this, we would very much appreciate it very much.
I will present the rest quickly; I do not know how many minutes I have left, but there was one point I wanted to emphasize. There are good things happening in British Columbia, and one very good thing is that the Department of Education has changed its formula for awarding bursaries to teachers who want to improve their French. Those bursaries are now being provided not only to those who teach, but also to those who already have a teaching certificate and are looking for work.
We heard earlier that there was a shortage of French teachers in our province. This new bursary system would allow schools to recruit more people among those who are looking for work.
Monique Bournot-Trites, Associate Professor, University of British Columbia: In this presentation, I will first demonstrate that there is a lack of qualified teachers for French as a second language programs, that is immersion and core French. I will then show that this has negative consequences for students and teachers, and I will put forth recommendations for addressing the problem.
Having excellent French as a second language programs requires confident teachers who are proficient in the French language and knowledgeable about French culture. However, the context of French as a second language instruction in British Columbia and Canada in general presents challenges in terms of the lack of qualified teachers, particularly with regard to language proficiency and knowledge of or experience with francophone culture, as demonstrated by a number of research projects since the 1996 Day and Shapson study. In their study, Day and Shapson sent a questionnaire to 2,000 immersion teachers, and found that approximately two-thirds of them indicated "a great need'' or "some need'' in the area of French language and culture. Other studies have shown that the situation has not improved since.
In fact, in 2007, the newsletter of the British Columbia and Yukon branch of Canadian Parents for French featured an article that was boldly entitled: "Does your Child's French Teacher Speak French?''. This article informed parents of the lack of French proficiency of a number of teachers in immersion programs. The problem is exacerbated by the growing number of students in immersion programs in British Columbia. School boards are having difficulty filling vacant positions and maintaining adequate substitute lists. A study I published with Ingrid Veilleux in 2005 found that school boards in British Columbia are often forced to compromise with regard to the level of French required of immersion teachers, particularly in rural areas outside of Vancouver.
Consequently, there is an urgent need for teachers of French as a second language to be given access to programs for improving their knowledge of the French language and culture. Added to this is the issue of the legitimacy and self-confidence of teachers, which has become a focus of research in the last 10 years. In fact, unlike in the past, teachers in French immersion and core French programs are often teaching their second or even third language. Even if they have a high degree of proficiency, they feel they lack legitimacy, that they are marginalized compared with teachers who are native speakers, and they do not feel part of that community.
In his 2008 study, Bernat spoke of the impostor syndrome. This lack of self-confidence is worse for those who do not have sufficient proficiency and are hired regardless, due to the lack of qualified teachers. These teachers in particular therefore require professional experience in francophone contexts in order to improve their proficiency and self-confidence.
By all evidence, the lack of proficiency among some French second language teachers has a number of negative consequences for the teachers and their students. In fact, the communicative or action-oriented, approach presupposes that teachers speak the language fluently, but also that they are sufficiently familiar with the rules of grammar to provide corrective feedback to their students. The sciences and humanities present difficulties for teachers with a limited vocabulary or difficulty expressing themselves in French. Such a situation obviously reduces their level of confidence in their teaching, as well as their capacity to effectively run the class.
The consequences for the students are just as serious, if not more so. In immersion, the teacher is almost the students' only model. When the teachers lack proficiency in the language, the students' degree of proficiency is diminished. As a result, they have difficulty understanding texts in French, and even more difficulty writing in academic subjects. At some point, the students' level of proficiency may prevent them from learning the content of the curriculum, which can cause problems for them at the post-secondary level. Furthermore, students who have difficulty in immersion will abandon it for English-language programs. This attrition could be limited if a lot more teachers were more proficient.
In core French programs, a teacher who has difficulty speaking fluently cannot make the material interesting, and this has consequences for the students' motivation. The result is that many students coming out of a core French program indicate that they do not like French, that they are not good at language studies, and that they cannot communicate in French. Not only have they not learned what they should have learned in their French course, they are not in the least motivated to continue or improve later on.
I therefore recommend encouraging more young people to want to become teachers by conducting recruitment through targeted advertising and by offering more financial support. And for existing teachers, grants could be used for promoting long-term professional experience or exchanges in Quebec or abroad, in order to improve the language proficiency and sense of legitimacy of teachers who need it, as we found in a recent study.
Secondly, providing free access to courses in French and French-language teaching that are specially designed for teachers, like UBC's online Gramligne or SFU's oral course.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Bournot-Trites.
Ms. Carr?
[English]
Wendy Carr, Associate Dean, Teacher Education, Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia: This presentation will be shared by Dr. Wernicke and me. Our focus is teacher education, the shortages my colleagues have spoken about, and the challenges that affect 90 per cent of the children in Canada who learn French in core French classrooms which prevent them from becoming functionally bilingual.
The goal of all of us is to increase the number of bilingual Canadians. We will share with you some promising practices and programs at the University of British Columbia that could be extended to other teacher education programs. Then my colleague Dr. Wernicke will share some recommendations.
First, we have a longstanding specialized teacher education program for each of the elementary and secondary years in schools. Some programs combine these and we at UBC keep them separate because they are quite specialized contexts.
Second, we have a graduate degree, a master's of education. It is a cohort model for practising French teachers and we are now in the fifth cohort. My colleagues Dr. Bournot-Trites and Dr. Wernicke are the ones behind this program. There are about 25 teachers per year who complete the masters of education program every two years.
Third, we are increasing the number of dual degree programs that we offer at UBC so that students in undergraduate programs from across our big faculty can consider the notion of teaching French earlier in their academic careers. We need to be recruiting at all levels. We need to be opening pathways into a bachelor of education.
Fourth, UBC is B.C.'s only teacher education institution in the province that requires a French methodology course for all of its elementary and middle-years teacher candidates. We feel this is key to changing what has happened in the field. That is where our required grades 5 to 8 are being taught by teachers who, as my colleague said, lack the confidence and the specific methodological or linguistic preparation to do a really good job in their teaching and thus to inspire children to continue taking core French past the required grade 8.
We find that each year we are graduating about 300 elementary and middle-years teachers who have completed this core French methodology course. We hope this will make a difference in B.C. schools and schools elsewhere.
Finally is the long-established FSL teacher summer institute. Dr. Andrew was the one to start that program with federal bursary support.
[Translation]
Ms. Wernicke is now the director of the Institut d'été in Quebec. She has trained many teachers who teach French and who want to improve their level of proficiency in language and methodology.
I now yield the floor to my colleague.
[English]
Meike Wernicke, Coordinator, French Programs, Faculty of Education-Language & Literacy Education, University of British Columbia: Madam Chair, I am going to continue to talk a bit about some recommendations that we have at the UBC Faculty of Education.
For pre-service teachers in the teacher education program ongoing language development in the form of bursary support and exchanges is extremely important. We are able to do this perhaps in collaboration with other programs across our campus and integrated into the programs we offer.
Another area where bursaries are important is to support all of our teacher candidates and French language teacher education in our cohorts. As our colleagues at SFU have already noted there has been a reduction this year. This year we are able to support only 60 per cent of our teacher candidates. It was quite a shock, I have to say.
It would be extremely important to support all of the candidates in our secondary and elementary French programs. It is really not a large bursary. We are looking at $1,600 per candidate for the year. This is both for francophone students and students who come to us with French as a second language.
Recommendations for in-service French second language and first language teachers include support for mentoring programs that connect early career FSL and francophone teacher candidates with experienced French second language teachers and innovative practices. This is very crucial right now with a new redesigned curriculum in B.C. and implementation happening as we speak.
We also would like to see bursary funded professional development for every educator already practising. I am talking specifically about the master's of education program that Monique Bournot-Trites started and I am now coordinating. We would like to see every teacher in that program receive continued support throughout the two-year program, which is not always the case.
We see ongoing professional development and language and intercultural learning with a focus on pedagogy and methodology in the well-established programs such as the Institut de français à Québec that Dr. Andrew has been leading so far and which I will now be taking over. We have a fabulous program yet we are very aware of the fact that there is much more competition. These programs have rising costs that we have to keep in step with. That is something to be taken into account.
Finally support for inquiry based learning and teaching specific to FSL and first language French programs is something that we have in our teacher education program at UBC. We are finding that the teachers graduating with inquiry based education are continuing this in their professional development. They are even taking initiative to do so with their colleagues in their communities of learning.
An important component to perhaps address or build on some of the concerns in your 2015 report which spoke to a common framework of reference for languages in Canada is of course the common European framework of reference for languages, acknowledged as a suitable pan-Canadian framework for French second language education by the CMEC in 2010 and by Dr. Vandergrift in his 2006 report.
The CFR is not currently integrated into B.C.'s redesigned French K to 12 curriculums even though the framework offers the kind of flexibility we are seeing in that curriculum. It is well suited to an inquiry based approach which is a key component of B.C.'s redesigned curriculum, together with an emphasis on core competencies and action oriented project based learning and interdisciplinarity.
Here especially research funding is needed to examine potential use of the CFR concepts such as plurilingualism, which was discussed quite in depth with our colleagues at SFU, and to perhaps look at how we could make this happen not just in the classrooms as some teachers have decided to do on their own but at the institutional level and in terms of governmental jurisdiction.
Kenneth Reeder, Professor Emeritus, Faculty of Education-Language & Literacy Education, University of British Columbia: Madam Chair, honourable senators and esteemed colleagues, my sincere thanks to the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages for the opportunity to address the committee as you tackle this important topic of access to French language schools and French immersion programs in British Columbia.
I understand that members are particularly interested in hearing about research on and teaching in French schools and immersion programs in B.C. Therefore I propose to offer a short summary of a study that I carried out in collaboration with my dear colleague Dr. Monique Bournot-Trites in the late 1990s — we date ourselves — in a French immersion program here in British Columbia.
After telling you the story of our study I will conclude with several implications of that research that I hope might be of use to policymakers and educational planners in addressing the question of full access to French immersion programs and their well-documented benefits to learners.
The story begins one evening at a parents meeting in my two children's local elementary school here in Vancouver where the whole school is devoted to offering a fine early French immersion program kindergarten through grade 7. Like all early French immersion programs in the Vancouver School Board the program began with 100 per cent French instruction in the first few years, introduced English language arts by the third grade, and by fourth grade introduced a number of additional subject areas taught in English including mathematics, computer studies and quite often physical education, with the result that only about half the instructional hours for grades 4 through 7 were actually being delivered in French.
The school's principal proposed to parents that the school increase that proportion of French language instruction by continuing to deliver mathematics in the French language since the current English textbooks were approaching the end of their useful lives and had to be replaced in any case.
The very fact that our children were receiving what could generously be termed a bilingual French-English curriculum and nowhere near an immersion program met with considerable surprise. None of us had done an analysis of the language of instruction in those middle school years, yet many of us had chosen the school's neighbourhood for access to this very program.
The proposal was met with near unanimous support from parents and school staff alike, and the initiative was phased in about the year 1995 at the fourth grade in the school and extended year by year to succeeding fourth grade classes until all intermediate years enjoyed what came closer to a 75 per cent French/25 per cent English program.
We calculated that children in the new intensified French immersion program would receive close to an additional 1,000 hours of academic experience in French over the life of the program when compared to their counterparts who had taken part in the earlier 50 per cent French/50 per cent English model in the intermediate years.
Staff of the school had several specific goals for the intensified French immersion program. First, the intensified French immersion program should result in enhanced French language and literacy proficiency. Second, the intensified program should not come at a cost to English language proficiency or English literacy proficiency. Those goals were adopted by staff and parents alike.
I am going to ask you now to flash forward a year following that implementation when the parents asked for a consideration of an interesting third goal, which was also quickly adopted by the school. Third, mathematics instruction in French should not come at a cost to mathematics performance, academic performance, and should not put those students at a disadvantage in the event they needed to change in later school years to mathematics delivered in English.
The principal's proposal to the parent group quickly led me to a conversation with that principal about how the school planned to assess whether the intensified French program would meet those stated goals. It was quickly agreed that I would investigate ways of developing an unobtrusive but rigorous joint UBC/Vancouver School Board study of students' linguistic, literate and mathematics performance, as it would later turn out, over the course of several years of the program.
In collaboration with my colleague Dr. Bournot-Trites and a team of talented graduate students who kindly agreed to work for mostly nothing we were able to study the new program from its initial implementation in its first fourth grade class of 36 students through to those students' completion of the program in their seventh grade. Moreover we were able with the co-operation of the school staff to assess not only the new program members' French and English proficiency in each year but also the previous years' classes, 30 in number, that were still working under the 50/50 model through to their school completion at grade 7. Thereby we were able to obtain year-by-year comparisons at grades 4 through 7. For mathematics performance we were able to assess those 36 students in the new intense program at grades 6 and 7 at the end of those years and compare their performance with that of their 30 student counterparts in the earlier program at those same grades.
What were some of the things we learned by the end of those five years of grade-by-grade comparisons? With regard to the first goal for the intensified 75 per cent French immersion program we discovered that students in the intensified program outperformed those in the 50 per cent French program. This was particularly the case in our teacher-led assessments of academic and descriptive French written expression across all of the grade levels.
Concerning the second goal for the intensified French program, no harm to English literacy proficiency, we found no differences between the 50 per cent French students and the 75 per cent French students' performance except in the case of academic English reading skills. The students who had 50 per cent of their instruction in English, taking math through English, slightly outperformed those who were receiving only 25 per cent of their instruction in English.
It is worth noting, however, that despite this difference both program groups were achieving at levels in the top echelon in the province according to the province-wide achievement tests administered in their seventh grade years.
The Chair: Dr. Reeder, could I ask you to summarize?
Mr. Reeder: I will just hit the third goal and conclude there then.
With respect to the third goal, equivalent mathematics performance, the intensified French immersion group that continued the mathematics experience in French massively outperformed the group that received mathematics in English, their mother tongue by and large, when they were both tested by means of the English language Stanford diagnostic mathematics test.
This advantage was evident in every facet of the test. Hence not only was the goal of no harm met. There appeared to have been by the end of the four years' experience of 1,000 hours of additional instruction in a second language a remarkable academic advantage even when assessed in an English medium test.
The take-home message I would like to leave you with in conclusion is that it is not sufficient to gain the clear, well documented benefits of immersion in French to deliver only a half-baked program. Intensity seems to be the key and is the only sufficient way to gain full access to the benefits of strong bilingualism for our students.
Thank you very much. I apologize for running a little over.
Senator Gagné: Thank you very much for your excellent presentations.
[Translation]
I was once the president of a university. I was a little surprised, Mr. Andrew, when you mentioned that you hoped we would support you in conveying the message that it would be important for UBC to establish a policy. As a former president, I know that we did not like the Canadian government or other people telling us what to do.
The fact remains that it is extremely important to have infrastructures, or an organization or francophone environment in the university. This would allow students to take other courses besides French, other subjects taught in French, and to offer them an environment that allows them to converse and socialize, and to have a student life that supports their development in French, an additional language.
In the recommendations the committee will have to make to the Canadian government, how would you like to us to formulate your recommendations, aside from saying to UBC that it should offer that environment? What message should we transmit, in a way that might make it more appealing for them?
Mr. Andrew: I think that one indirect solution which could be very beneficial would be to invite UBC to join the Association des collèges et universités de la francophonie canadienne. Why is it not a part of it? And UBC should be able to answer that question. It could be the beginning of a conversation.
I should add that there is quite a large number of francophones on campus who study in English. We have lot of students who are perfectly bilingual on campus, Quebeckers and French students, among others, especially in post-graduate studies. It is not that we have a lack of francophones, but rather a lack of structure.
So asking the question would be the starting point. We made these proposals, so what is stopping the university from saying yes? I was with Mr. Lamontagne when we met the president at a reception. André asked him why he had not answered the request which was made two years before. He replied that he was studying the matter. To that person, this is clearly not a priority. UBC of course has a campus where approximately 55 per cent of students are of Asian origin, which is enormous. We cannot really talk about bilingualism, because everyone in the cafeteria speaks another language than English.
The problem of bilingualism does not have the same context at UBC as elsewhere. However, we really need to have people understand that there is a francophone reality in Canada, and a Canadian reality at UBC. On several occasions I have criticized President Toope for never using the word "Canadian'' in his speeches. All he talked about was globalization. We want to compare ourselves to the big American universities, and sometimes we hear about Toronto or McGill, but never about the French-language institutions of Quebec.
So asking those questions would probably be a starting point. You have the recommendation in your files, so you know exactly what we are talking about. We are looking for moral support, not financial support.
Ms. Wernicke: I arrived in this position very recently, and I manage several French programs in the Faculty of Education. I am also in touch with people in the Faculty of Arts. It seemed to me that when I listened to the BAFF presentation, there was collaboration in SFU programs. In fact, that is something we lack at UBC, that is to say a centre that will deal with promoting all of the programs. We are also lacking financial support, perhaps not the will, but I think that people would be willing to work together. But that is really what we are missing, this type of cooperation at the institutional level in order to better manage programs and promote them. I find that people communicate with us to say: "Okay, the BAFF submitted something to us. Can you come on board?''. And then I run around all over the province to do the same thing. But we do not really have the same resources at UBC.
The Chair: Ms. Carr, did you want to add something?
Ms. Carr: I think my colleagues answered well. I have other perspectives on training, but from the institutional point of view, I think they have clearly explained what we need.
Senator Gagné: For all practical purposes, you still need a will on the part of the university to give you that space so that you can collaborate. Am I correct?
Mr. Andrew: Absolutely.
[English]
Senator McIntyre: I have two questions, one in French and one in English.
In your presentation, Dr. Reeder, you touched upon research and I just want to clarify an issue with you. What is shown by recent research into French second language learning? In your view should students with learning disabilities be encouraged to enrol in second language programs such as immersion and why? Should young immigrants be encouraged to enrol in second language programs such as immersion and why?
Mr. Reeder: I really should be deferring to my colleague Dr. Bournot-Trites but I will take a quick stab at it briefly and then may just hand off.
Very early on in the history of French immersion programming in Canada the question of special needs students arose. This was in fact studied in considerable depth in the Canadian situation. It was pretty clear at that stage that there was simply no need for a student to move to a monolingual program to benefit in the same way.
In response to the question about speakers of additional languages other than the two official languages in our country entering programs like French immersion, the reality in those same French immersion programs gives us a pretty good answer.
When Dr. Bournot-Trites and I were conducting this study in the mid-1990s there were perhaps only four per cent of the school population following the French immersion program who spoke a language other than English or French. Today that percentage would be closer to 30 to 40 per cent, and they are thriving in fact. I am not sure whether Dr. Bournot-Trites could add to the science base.
Ms. Bournot-Trites: For students who have a learning disability in fact being bilingual would bring them a big advantage. I was convinced of that one day quite a long time ago when I was a teacher in a French immersion school. There was a child who was very disabled. She wanted to stay in French immersion. Her parents wanted her to stay in French immersion but there were 18 specialists around the table telling the parents that she should not stay there, that her place was in English.
The parents fought against it. They said, "Our child may not be able to do any job in the future but she will have French and she will be proud to speak French. Maybe she will be able to go to places where old people are and discuss with them in French and she will have a purpose in life.'' For me, that was such a powerful example that I think people with learning disabilities will gain from being bilingual. They have an advantage.
As for immigrants I have been working on this topic for the last few years. What we find is that immigrants are told, "Don't go to French immersion first. Go learn English first. Then you can come in late French immersion if you were still willing but you should definitely go to learn English first.'' They feel rejected. They want to learn French. They came to Canada with the idea that Canada was a bilingual country, that they could learn French if they wanted to, but principals and people in the schools told them to learn English first.
For them too it would be an advantage and they would be proud to learn French. It is not learning English first that we make them learn French better.
Ms. Carr: You were asking about research. I have also done research here in B.C. schools with immigrant children in FSL. Callie Mady's research from the University of Nipissing is quite conclusive. As Monique was speaking about policy, Canadian education policies across the provinces vis-à-vis the kinds of myths that are perpetrated in schools about how immigrant children learn a second or in most cases an additional language, they thrive. They are on a similar a level playing field with other children learning a second language and in fact bring additional resources to that endeavour because they have already learned English as a second language.
[Translation]
Senator McIntyre: Thank you for your comments. My second question concerns the francophone clientele in your university.
What that clientele like? Do students come to you mostly from francophone schools, French immersion or other French as a second language programs? And what is the retention rate for students in your French programs? Where do the students go after their studies? Do they stay in the province? Do they work in French? What is their placement rate in the labour market?
Ms. Bournot-Trite: You are speaking about the university?
Senator McIntyre: Yes.
[English]
Ms. Bournot-Trites: We don't have many francophones coming to the university. They are not the majority of our students in the BA program or in the masters program.
Ms. Wernicke: There are 25 per cent in this cohort.
Ms. Carr: We have francophones who come into the teacher education program. That is a post-baccalaureate program. They get jobs very easily, as do all of the graduates from our French teacher program.
In terms of the broader university, of the 60,000 students on our UBC campus, I don't know the stats for how many are francophone. As Francis has said many of them are incognito in the sense that they are taking English courses.
Senator McIntyre: Yes, we are talking about the profile of your students.
Ms. Carr: Right.
Ms. Wernicke: In this year's cohort 25 per cent are francophone and three-quarters French as a second language teacher candidates.
Ms. Carr: Sixty is a full complement. We have elementary and secondary.
Ms. Wernicke: Yes. Then I would say our master's of education program, the two-year program that we run at the master's level, is an online program which has worked very well. It includes two summer courses face to face in Montreal. It is a pan-Canadian program with web conferencing sessions. We actually communicate synchronously on Saturdays. We have students from different regions across Canada. I would say it depends on the intake. I believe the fourth cohort had probably a third of francophones.
Ms. Bournot-Trites: Yes, but they are francophone when they speak to you, but when they do their papers suddenly they prefer to write in English. I don't know what you call francophone but they are sort of lost between the two languages. It is very difficult to really say this is a francophone. That is why I have difficulty answering.
[Translation]
The Chair: Is the course offered in French?
Ms. Bournot-Trites: The courses are offered in French, but we do not force the students to write their thesis in French. They can write in the language of their choice.
The Chair: Is that a university policy?
Ms. Bournot-Trites: It is a policy we decided to implement in our programs. It is not a university policy, but we wanted to give people a choice. We are a bilingual country and since the teachers understand French and English, we want the students to write in their strongest language so that they can show their knowledge and what they have learned to best advantage. If they write in their weakest language, perhaps their skills will be measured rather than their knowledge of content.
Ms. Wernicke: I think SFU has the same practice, in fact, in its program.
Another thing that makes studies a little more complicated is that research is often published in English, in our North American context. So a lot of the research we examine is published only in English. So in these programs you are always doing some translation between English and French.
The Chair: Does the university offer methodology courses in French?
Ms. Carr: We have several methodology courses. For the French cohort, the course is offered in French. So there are two examples of that. For most of our students, it is offered in English and French. The part that shows how to teach is provided and taught in French. The pedagogy part is often given in English. This applies to the 300 students who take their regular course in English.
Senator McIntyre: To complete the second part of my question, regarding the francophone clientele of your university, do you know if those students remain in the province? Do the graduates work in French?
Ms. Carr: Insofar as the training program is concerned, yes. Most are immediately hired by the Conseil scolaire francophone in immersion schools, and most of them stay here in the province.
That is one of the universal questions regarding immersion. One of the assets of the program is that it offers a lot of choice to graduates. They understand that they can work anywhere. A lot of our graduates from the Bachelor of Education program teach elsewhere in the world.
So for the francophones who are part of this group, I can state that there is a lot of demand for these teachers. They are hired quickly.
Mr. Andrew: To answer your question more generally, aside from the courses in the Education Faculty, there are about 200 or 300 invisible francophones on campus who are in other programs, and a large number of them are from outside of Canada. They are from France, Belgium, Mauritius, and Africa. And in addition to the students who are Canadian or new immigrants, every year we welcome international students who come to UBC for a semester. In that group at this time there are also a lot of Europeans and people from France. They want to leave their country, because things are not going so well there.
For our program called Explore, I hire monitors, which gives me an opportunity to meet a lot of francophones on campus. They are very comfortable in English. Unless you ask them whether they speak French, you would not recognize them on campus. So this is an asset we have. These people came to study in English. They are not necessarily trying to find their place as francophones, but they are a resource we use in our Explore program.
[English]
Senator Jaffer: Thank you for all your presentations. You really have given me a lot to think about.
In the last few days I have heard this term, and maybe Professor Reeder could explain it. I hear people saying we want them to get functional French and my blood pressure goes up. If it is functional French after 10 or12 years, why bother? It must be because I don't know the definition of functional French. Maybe it is my problem. Maybe you can define what functional French means.
Mr. Reeder: I wonder if any of my colleagues can help me out. This is why I have emeritus after my name. I am one year out of date, and look what happens.
Senator Jaffer: You used the word.
Mr. Reeder: I am quite sympathetic, Senator Jaffer, to your rising blood pressure. I have it too but for me it is about the lack of ambition in many French immersion programs that trade upon some of the myths my colleagues have brought to your attention today. It seems to me that we need to be much more ambitious with respect to core French programs, to francophone programs in terms of access.
I strongly support the report and intensifying French immersion so that it immerses and goes well beyond an unambitious goal, which I suspect is what people mean when they refer to functional.
That is a long way of saying I don't have a scientific or any sort of science-based definition of what we mean by functional but I certainly think from a policy standpoint we can do better. We ought to be aiming higher from the standpoint of access to the shown and proven benefits of bilinguals. By the way the research is Canadian-made research. The top work in multilingual research and bilingualism has been done here in Canada. I don't know if there is any science with respect to the term functional.
Ms. Wernicke: It speaks to almost a reconceptualization of how we see language knowledge today. It is not so much how much knowledge we have of the language but how well we are able to make use of it. Functional really speaks to how we function in that language.
The common European framework of reference for languages has descriptors divided into the six different levels. I am not sure it is specifically placed because it varies from language to language but perhaps you may want to place it between the A and B levels somewhere.
It is a very important question. It really demonstrates the need for us to think about the potential of the framework for Canada, the need to think about how such a huge country with two official languages uses this framework. We need to talk about how we use language and how it is relevant to us across Canada in our different regions.
Senator Jaffer: Professor Andrew, you talked about UBC and the separate faculty. You now have a new president. This gives members of Parliament and federal Senators something to talk to him about when he comes to meet with us. I certainly will take that up with him. We do meet with the president from time to time.
I want to throw something out about functional. I almost went at break to my son and said, "I don't think we should keep our grandson in immersion if all he is going to get is functional.'' I am quite concerned about that. He will not come out functional. I will make sure of that, but I want us to be very careful when we use the word immigrant because we get into this idea of who is an immigrant.
Vancouver is changing. I am constantly fighting with people to say every brown face is not an immigrant. I am worried about it. I am not saying you. It is not you at all, but I am really worried when we talk about who the immigrant is. I will give you an example.
The first day my son, who is now much older, went to school he was put into the immigrant track. I won't tell you how I reacted. It wasn't very pleasant because he wasn't immigrant. He was born here. He knows English. They were sending him to English as a second language and for months I didn't discover it.
What I am saying is that we have to watch who the immigrant is. What I am really fighting hard for in B.C. is I don't want people to think that if it is a brown face they have another language and they do not want to learn French. That is not true.
We have to define who the immigrant is. Every brown face that comes into school is not an immigrant. We all have to work together because we want to keep bilingualism in our country. I truly believe that. We have to find who is a Canadian and how do we advance our languages. I put that challenge to you as to how we deal with that.
Ms. Carr: I think Monique raised this when she was speaking about what she discovered about children she taught whose first language was not English or French. Their families want them to acquire both of those official languages in ways that are more powerful than children who were not born in this country. That is one fact.
We are all language educators and we actually don't use that term. It was in the question so I think we picked it up that way. They are learning English as an additional language or French as an additional language in their repertoire. They really value the English-French official status. That is an important part of being Canadian whether one is born here or whether one's family was born here or not.
We don't generally use that term. It is about their status as a language learner.
Senator Jaffer: It was most profound for me and for some of my colleagues too this week when a young Chinese boy talked about how he speaks Chinese at home, how he is in French immersion, and how he speaks English with his friends. He is a Canadian and he wants to learn French.
You as educators have to be the leaders because we have to stop this thought that because you are different you don't want to learn the language or you don't want to be bilingual. I need your help. We have to work together.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: Welcome ladies, gentlemen. I am always impressed to meet eminent professors from such a great university, recognized Canada-wide. You have a problem with your president who does not know if he is Canadian, but ask him what it says on his passport. This could bring enlighten him.
I brought this little sign closer. Look at what it says on it, in French and English. As you can see, the word "langues'' is plural, as is the word "officielles''. My country, Canada, was founded by my ancestors, and of course by the British after the Conquest. The Canadian government recognized that there are two official languages. There is no second language in my country, there are only third languages. Please remove the words "second language'' from your vocabulary when you talk about French. It is disturbing for francophones.
If I told you that in Quebec English is a second language, I would get pilloried on the public square. We say to anglophones that they speak the other official language. So here, French is an official language; it is not on the same footing as Italian, Spanish, Mandarin, Hebrew or any other language. It is an official language of our country. As long as that is the case, it will be an official language.
Mr. Andrew: Come and tell our president.
Senator Maltais: If I had the opportunity, I would tell him immediately, in both official languages.
Mr. Andrew: And in Japanese, so that he would understand.
Senator Maltais: No, not Japanese. He has to use both official languages. Japanese to my mind is a third language.
My question concerns the exchanges. In the francophone section, does your university have exchanges with francophone Canadian universities?
Mr. Andrew: In this respect, regarding international exchanges, UBC is really exceptional. A number of our students go to take political science courses in Paris, for instance. In the context of our Go Global program, all of the baccalaureate students are strongly encouraged to spend at least one semester abroad.
Senator Maltais: Excuse me, Mr. Andrew. I was asking about exchanges within Canada. We can get back to Europe later.
Mr. Andrew: Okay. In that case. . .
Senator Maltais: We are in Canada, remember.
Mr. Andrew: UBC has recognized that it is a problem that there are not enough exchanges between east and west, and particularly between Quebec and British Columbia. Our students will choose Europe before Quebec when they want to pursue their studies in French.
The only program that is doing very well is the Explore program, that allows students to spend five weeks in Quebec during the summer. That is not a problem. There is no shortage of British Columbia students who want to go to Quebec. Every year, we have between 200 to 300 students. But as for a complete year in Quebec, at Laval or elsewhere. . . The programs are not exactly comparable. And so that does not happen very frequently.
Senator Maltais: I am also thinking of universities in Toronto, Moncton, Queen's University, Calgary.
Mr. Andrew: The problem is similar. I think that happens, but I believe there is more interest in international exchanges.
Ms. Bournot-Trites: In the case of our French master's degree program, we send students on exchanges for two summers. They go to the Université du Québec in Montreal. The idea is to develop their intercultural proficiency. The point is to learn more, to acquire resources in French, to live in French. It is not just a matter of taking courses. They participate in festivals and all of that. And it is very important, because when they come back, they have acquired francophone cultural experience. And that is what is most important. You cannot know everything about a culture. For that matter, what is culture? It is what we have learned to know, it is the experience we have acquired. So when they return, they are sure that they have a francophone cultural experience, and they share it with their students. They are more authentic. They are more passionate. And this can be seen afterwards in their classrooms.
Senator Maltais: Next year we will be celebrating the 150th anniversary of our country. You should take advantage of this to ask Heritage Canada for additional funds to allow students to get to know the French language within Canada, in some very normal exchanges. If you send 100 students a year, perhaps with the 150th anniversary, you could send 300.
The Atlantic provinces are in a position to receive many young people, as is Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta. And not only will they discover that there is a whole other world in our country, but that there is another official language and that it is present in all of those provinces. It is not only the language, but also the culture and the way of life.
The Chair: I would like to know if you have any continuing professional education programs for teachers.
Ms. Wernicke: We have the French Master's in Education program for teachers who are working. It is a part-time program offered online. All the teachers in that program work at the same time and we insist on a link between their work and the content of our courses.
Ms. Bournot-Trites: We also introduced a course called Gramligne. We had noticed that teachers spoke fluently, but that they had trouble teaching grammar. They could identify grammar mistakes, but they did not know how to correct or explain them.
We put in place a course called Gramligne, which is offered online during the summer. Very few teachers take this course, and I think that is due to the fact, first of all, that they have to pay. They wonder why they should pay although their school board has said nothing to them. Their school board hired them. So they must be well qualified enough to teach. They do not feel the need to improve further.
However, the tools are there. When we worked with SFU, we decided the courses provided at UBC would be more focused on grammar, but it's not a grammar course. It's a course that focuses on writing different types of texts and different speeches. If we describe the tools we need. . . The understanding was that SFU would provide the course orally. Therefore, our students could travel from one place to another and we worked together.
It's one of the courses provided. During the summer, we often provide courses for teachers who are already on site, namely, for teachers who are earning their Bachelor of Education or who are taking optional courses. In addition, the teachers on site often join our students as well.
The Chair: Did you ask the federal government to fund certain programs at UBC?
Mr. Andrew: We have bursaries for summer programs. With the new Ministry of Education policy, they will probably also apply to the courses provided the rest of the year. However, continuing education is a bit different from the faculty of education. We have courses that are purely language courses and teachers in these programs who come to study French or improve their French.
During the era of the former Trudeau government, the federal government was much more generous. French was taught on site to teachers in the school boards. At a central school in Surrey, Langley or elsewhere, any interested teachers could meet at 5:00 p.m. with a teacher who helped them improve their language skills. I think certain school boards still have this program, but UBC doesn't have it anymore.
The Chair: Since there are no other questions from the senators, I want to thank you for your excellent presentations. Thank you for taking the time to present your research and projects, and, of course, for sharing your concerns. We hope your voice will be heard at your university. Of course, we'll review the concerns you raised today as soon as we can.
Mr. Andrew: Thank you for listening.
The Chair: We'll continue with our third group of the afternoon. Have we saved the dessert for last?
The Francophone Youth Council of British Columbia is here. Welcome. We're pleased to have you here this afternoon. We have Sophie Brassard, the president; Rémi Marien, the executive director; and Noah Rondeau, the representative for 19- to 25-year-olds on the board of directors.
We're eager to hear you speak. Ms. Brassard, will you begin? The senators will ask you questions after your presentations.
Sophie Brassard, President, Francophone Youth Council of British Columbia: Honourable senators, in the next few minutes, I'll be speaking to you about my experience as a francophone born in British Columbia and about why I'm able to express myself in French today.
I was born in New Westminster, and I always lived in the suburbs near Vancouver with my two brothers, my sister and my parents. My parents are from the Saguenay region of Quebec, and I grew up in a household where the only language spoken was French.
My parents made a conscious choice to always have the radio tuned to Radio-Canada at breakfast. In the evening, the sound of the news in French was always in the background. Despite this constant effort to expose us to French at home, we learned English very quickly at daycare and in our neighbourhood. My brothers, sisters and I all went to the École des Pionniers-de-Maillardville, a francophone school that's part of the Conseil scolaire francophone de la Colombie-Britannique. We're lucky to have received an education in French, because not everyone in our province lives in a region where that option is available.
I have two cousins who grew up in Oliver, a small city in the Okanagan Valley. Like me, they had two Québécois parents. However, they were unable to attend school in French because there were no French schools in their city or even in their area. They are now in their thirties, and they hardly ever speak French, even with their parents. This shows that the isolation of francophones in the regions can result in the loss of a mother tongue, and that services must be provided for francophones who don't live in the metropolitan area.
I appreciated my education in French at the École des Pionniers. However, I was one of the rare people who stayed until graduation, in Grade 12. Each year, some of my friends left to attend larger secondary schools. Their reasons for leaving varied, but it was often related to the lack of course options or the shortage of sports or arts programs.
It's a vicious cycle. When some people left our school, more and more young people followed them, because there were fewer and fewer students and the social life became less interesting. That's why the quality of education must match the other schools in the area. We sometimes had the impression that our culture was not really valued. A number of our teachers didn't even send their children to our school.
When I reached Grade Nine, I started becoming involved in the Francophone Youth Council activities, such as the francophone youth parliament and British Columbia's francophone games. I loved these events immediately. They really connected me with my language and culture and with many other francophones and francophiles my age across the province.
The Youth Council often received mixed support from teachers. Most teachers encouraged us to participate in the events. However, a number of them did not know what the Youth Council was or did not like the fact we sometimes had to miss a school day to participate in events.
I think it's important to have strong ties between the schools and the francophone community so that French learning takes place outside the classroom as well. I want to see more solidarity among francophones to generate collective pride in our language and to give young people a greater sense of belonging to their community.
Another thing that helped discourage young people from continuing in French in secondary school was the lack of opportunities in the language afterward. There are so few French programs to choose from here in British Columbia that hardly anybody expects to be able to study what interests them in French. If they want to study in French all the same, they can move to Ottawa, Moncton or Montreal, but only if they're financially able to do so. I know in my family, it wasn't an option.
So, what do you do if you don't have the means to study in French? Work in French? I wasn't thinking about that in secondary school. I wasn't aware of the possible jobs in my language. The only way for me, my brothers and sister to have French-speaking friends or a French love life was to move to Montreal. All four of us wanted to do so. We were unable to contemplate a life in French here.
One of the main reasons why I still speak French and why it's part of my life today is that I chose to become involved in the francophone community through the board of directors of the Francophone Youth Council of British Columbia. This organization has enabled me to live a large part of my life in my mother tongue in recent years. Like most other francophones here, I completed my bachelor's degree in English and I work in English.
A number of my friends have discovered a sense of linguistic pride and a Franco-Columbian identity through the Youth Council. If all the young francophones and francophiles from the CSF and immersion schools could have access to the Youth Council's services, I think we would have an incredibly strong, proud and vibrant community. It would help with French education, because so many more young people would have a love of French.
I consider myself very lucky to have had opportunities here in British Columbia. I would very much like all the other youth to have access to the same things.
Thank you for inviting me to appear before you today and for taking the time to listen.
The Chair: Thank you, Sophie.
Mr. Marien?
Rémi Marien, Executive Director, Francophone Youth Council of British Columbia: Honourable senators, the francophone community of British Columbia is unique. Obviously, it includes the cultural diversity that results from immigration, which is vital to its richness and development. But the community's vitality also reflects its youth, including young francophones born in Victoria, Nelson, Vancouver or Prince George who have spoken French since they were born, but also young anglophones who are learning a language, culture and history. These youth are moving forward with dreams and promises, whether it's living fully in their language, being prepared to seize opportunities or adopting the Canadian identity of being bilingual.
While educational institutions play a fundamental role in teaching our youth language skills, not everything can be learned in the classroom. Building an identity requires belonging to a community, having a solid social circle and learning transferable skills such as communication, teamwork and dedication.
That is why, 25 years ago, B.C.'s francophone youth founded the Youth Council, an organization governed by and for youth, not only to represent their interests, but also to create this community and educational space that is so critical to their development.
Through youth parliaments, forums and francophone games, youth develop their potential, meet others like them, create, think together and ultimately build and form a community.
Many challenges are standing in the way of this desire and need. Young francophones face a difficult path from birth to adulthood. In B.C., linguistic discouragement is very common. Examples of linguistic discouragement include a lack of recognition of their contributions to B.C. society, of cultural referents they can identify with, of post-secondary programs they need to work in French, and of infrastructure they can gather in.
In this context, it is vital to see community spaces as places of learning and building, but also as linguistic safe zones. If we want to overcome the problems with retaining our youth in secondary schools, they need a linguistic environment in which they can flourish as adolescents, including extracurricular activities and opportunities to meet friends, laugh or even fall in love in French. This kind of environment encourages youth to take ownership of their language, their accent and their identity. It gives them the tangible experience of living in French.
However, youth lack the human and financial resources to fulfil the Youth Council's mission. We have a province-wide mandate, but B.C. is vast and home to many communities. We have only one office in Vancouver when we need branches in, for example, Victoria or Kelowna. In remote regions in particular, youth suffer from linguistic isolation and desperately need access to social activities.
Each year, we serve a few hundred members, while the number of youth who need our services is in the thousands. B.C. has one of the highest rates of French immersion enrolment in Canada. After graduation, tens of thousands of youth need social spaces and opportunities to keep using the French they learned. This is critical to giving all their efforts to learn the other official language a purpose.
Youth have the ability to innovate and create projects to meet their needs. The Youth Council's programming includes about 20 projects across the province. However, they need funding to maintain an organizational capacity and continue operating in the long run. It is this structural funding that we lack today.
In closing, I would like to offer my sincere thanks for the opportunity to speak to you today. It is rare that youth can have their voices heard, and your invitation to the two youth here today shows that you care about their needs and their education. On behalf of the Youth Council, thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Marien.
Noah, you have the floor.
Noah Rondeau, Administrator — 19-25, Francophone Youth Council of British Columbia: Hello. My name is Noah Rondeau, and I am the administrator for 19- to 25-year-olds on the board of directors of the Francophone Youth Council of British Columbia.
More importantly, I am a Franco-British Columbian. For those who are not familiar with the term, a Franco-British Columbian is a francophone who grows up in British Columbia in the province's francophone community. I am part of a generation of children of francophone immigrants, including people from Quebec, France, the other provinces or the global francophonie. This is a generation that is losing its culture and assimilating in large numbers into the surrounding community.
I am speaking to you today because I am part of the minority that has survived this process. I could have easily been lost to this assimilation and this great discouragement of francophones perpetuated by the province's public institutions. I grew up in Victoria, the son of a francophone father and an anglophone mother from Ontario. I learned French in early childhood. But given the English-speaking environment in which I grew up, it's no surprise that English quickly became the language used at home.
When I started elementary school, I went into French immersion, not a rights-holder program. My parents were simply not aware that francophone schools existed. It was my first-grade teacher — a woman originally from Quebec — who told my parents about that option. Yet, at a meeting with officials from École Victor-Brodeur, the Conseil scolaire francophone's school in Victoria, we were advised to stay in immersion because the province provided so many more resources for that program.
So I stayed in immersion. I learned spelling and grammar. But my language remained an academic exercise, with no link to the culture or community. In fact, it was my weekly involvement in Scouts francophones de la Colombie-Brittanique that gave my life a bare minimum of francophone context.
Only in sixth grade did I finally go to École Victor-Brodeur, after a modern new school was built and resources were finally allocated. The number of students at the school exploded after the new school was built. There was enormous demand for French-language education among parents and young people. Yet, over the years, nearly half of my peers switched to public high schools. They often left for very simple reasons. For some, it was distance. I have friends who had to get up at five in the morning and drive two hours just to be educated in their mother tongue. It's not surprising that most of them left.
I know that, if the province had given us the funding needed to provide an adequate transportation system and to build schools in communities far from the city, many of my friends could have stayed in the francophone system. Yet, just last week, after a six-year legal case, the Supreme Court finally ruled that the Ministry of Education failed in its duty to provide adequate resources for these services.
For other students, the francophone school simply couldn't offer them a complete educational experience. We didn't have sports teams. We didn't really have extracurricular clubs. We didn't have enrichment programs. The school simply did not have the means. As a result, we didn't really have a French-language social life connected to the school.
Some simply did not see the relevance of French to their lives. They saw only the barriers. Many left because they were afraid that, once they entered an English-language post-secondary institution — since, of course, there is only one French-language university program in B.C. — they would be at a disadvantage. They wondered what good all this effort was if they couldn't live in French afterward.
I think there was a lack of identity markers. French was only an academic concept, with no cultural referents. The history curriculum, for example, focused solely on the history of Quebec and France. It was interesting on an academic level, but not relevant to my reality. Yet, there was a time when 40 per cent of the province's population was francophone, but I wasn't taught this at school. I learned about it only last year.
It was only when I discovered the Youth Council's activities that I had an epiphany and that I realized the richness of my heritage and my community. These activities — youth parliaments, francophone games, leadership workshops — helped me develop an identity as a francophone and as a citizen. It was at that point in my life that I moved from speaking about French to speaking about my francophonie. Yet our community organizations are also hindered by a lack of funds. The Scouts francophones, in which I participated in my youth, are bankrupt. The Youth Council wants to reach every young francophone and francophile to help them discover their sense of belonging to the francophonie and to their community, but we are often forced to turn down registrations from youth because of a lack of resources.
When I think about my experience, I wonder how I managed to keep my francophone identity alive when so many friends lost heart. In reality, I was the perfect candidate. I lived in the city. I had a school bus service. I had new infrastructure. I was more interested in academics than sports. I was drawn to an organization that promoted activities in French. I had a social life and a community, all in French. My friends did not all have this chance. But no one should have to satisfy a list of criteria in order to live in the official language of their choice.
The province simply does not take its francophone communities seriously. It provides a veneer of support, but our existence is simply an inconvenience for it. For real progress to occur, for my generation of francophones to stop losing their heritage and their francophonie, we need the resources to provide modern infrastructure; transportation; a rich, accessible, diverse and culturally-oriented education; and support for francophone community and extracurricular organizations. But this will not happen until the institutions that are supposed to uphold our rights stop opposing us and a rich, fruitful and genuine partnership is forged.
Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you for your presentations. They were very powerful, and I must admit they moved me.
I'll turn the floor over to Senator McIntyre.
Senator McIntyre: Thank you, my friends, for your presentations. I'm very impressed. Rémi, in your presentation, you mentioned that the Youth Council's programming includes about 20 projects across the province. Can you speak a bit about the activities offered in French to youth in British Columbia?
Mr. Marien: Absolutely. The Youth Council is often presented as an organization that has two mandates. One is a community mandate, and the other is closer to schools for various reasons. Obviously, the youth want to create spaces outside the school environment and support the schools in all the gaps they have in life, in extracurricular activities at school.
Our programming includes province-wide events. We have the B.C. francophone youth parliament involving 20 participants. The event has media, member of Parliament and lobbyist components. We meet for three days over a weekend at the Victoria legislature. The youth organize the event together with the Youth Council. The youth choose the project and topics that interest them. They then debate the topics in the House according to the province's parliamentary process. This event has been running for 20 years in British Columbia.
We also have British Columbia's francophone games, which are held in May over four days. Training sessions and various workshops on leadership, sports, visual arts and performing arts are provided at the games. About seven training opportunities are provided. It's our largest event. We bring together 150 youth for four days. The youth come from across the province, as they do for the youth parliament. This event has been running for 25 years in British Columbia.
I think both the Parliament and the games are the oldest youth organization events in Canada. These two events truly represent our identity. I would say they are defining events of the Youth Council. They're also regular events. We have managed to convince funders to keep contributing to the events.
Each year, we organize various one-time events with the support of our partners. We have the Franco-Columbian Improvisation League. It's part of our partnerships with the schools. We have seven teams spread out across the province. We train the youth by having them practice for several months with trainers. We then organize a provincial tournament as part of the Festival du Bois, one of the largest francophone festivals in the province. This event has been running for the past six years.
We also have a youth radio project where we provide workshops in schools. It's a mobile radio we created in partnership with the Centre de la francophonie des Amériques, an organization established in Quebec. It's the same concept. It's a travelling radio station. We noticed it could compensate for the linguistic isolation of youth. The radio station travels to communities and classrooms where youth are more isolated and less exposed to the francophonie to give them an opportunity to speak and express themselves in French.
We also have the SAGA, one of our more recent events. It was launched two years ago. We created the event to organize our annual general meeting. You have no doubt heard a great deal about the Parler pour les jeunes initiative. Our philosophy is to work. That's what represents us. To give you some context, before our annual general meeting, in the course of the francophone games, we quickly realized that an annual general meeting was required in a non-profit organization. We needed a place where youth are individual members and where we can get them to vote on an annual budget and programming and make strategic decisions for the youth organization, such as budget-related decisions. We're using an event that already exists in our programming to give them a voice. Some youth don't want to have an annual general meeting, which is completely understandable.
As a result, we created SAGA, a three-day event focused on civic engagement and community involvement with a view to building ties with community organizations. Workshops on governance and community involvement are provided to participants. The goal is to give young people opportunities. We work with a smaller pool of youth, somewhere between 30 and 40 young people looking to make a difference in their communities. Since launching the initiative, we have already seen positive results. We get about 10 or so applications for each position on the board of directors. That shows how interested young people are in making a difference by being on the board of directors. The initiative has been in place for two years now.
Needless to say, as far as all of these programs are concerned, we face some clear financial challenges. Every year, we have to start from scratch. We never know how much funding we will get, which makes it incredibly difficult to keep these programs going.
In addition to all of these positive community-based events, we have developed school-based programs. The new Empreintes project put in place this year is designed to educate youth about violence and bullying at school. We will be travelling all over the province to teach young people about prejudice and violence, regardless of whether it relates to the francophone reality. We have also created youth advocacy committees to encourage young people to take more effective action in dealing with issues in their school environment.
We are in the midst of launching a province-wide performing arts competition because we feel that remains an underdeveloped area among young people in the community. A similar competition already exists for adults, but youth do not have access to spaces where artistic expression is encouraged. So we really want to showcase the talent that young people in the francophone community have, the talent that lies within each of them; we want that talent to be a source of pride for them and the community. For that to happen, young people need guidance, training and a space where they can be creative. We plan to hold a province-wide competition in partnership with schools, as well as another competition that will take place in March in the greater Vancouver area. The competition will be open to members of the community so they can watch the young people perform on stage.
We are also responsible for coordinating the provincial student council in partnership with the French-language school board and 13 young people each representing their schools. In other words, they are representing their schools and, by extension, the entire student population of the French-language school board. We organize four face-to-face meetings every year. We hold virtual meetings as well; we try very hard to make sure that francophone youth are given an opportunity to be heard in the French-language school board. We serve as mentors and guides, and we bring young people into the decision-making process. We have built a number of strong ties with the board of directors of the French-language school board, which agreed to allow youth representatives on the board. After six years of tireless work, we are finally seeing the fruits of our labour.
We organize leadership internships for all grade 8 students in the French-language school board. For two months, facilitators work in camps providing three-day workshops to young people to make them aware of the importance of the francophone community. The goal of the internships is to deter young people from leaving the community by encouraging them to pursue their French education at the high-school level. We need to get that light bulb going off in young people's minds, as Noah said earlier, and give them that sense of belonging to the francophone community. The program is meant for grade 8 students.
That is an overview of the various projects we deliver. No doubt, some have slipped my mind. In addition, we offer a range of projects for young people between the ages of 19 and 25, and we get no funding for those. The young people, themselves, organize social events such as informal gatherings from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Once a month, Sophie Brassard organizes such a gathering; all the young people are invited to come for a drink and socialize in French. Some 30 to 40 young people who don't necessarily know one another eagerly await the opportunity to get together in Vancouver to speak French. For many of them, it can be the only opportunity they get all month long to converse with others in French for a whole evening.
The Chair: I am going to have to ask you to wrap up so that other senators have a chance to ask questions.
Mr. Marien: No problem. My apologies. I will stop there, then. Thank you.
Senator McIntyre: Thank you, Rémi, for your answer. Could you also comment on how important certain tools are when it comes to encouraging young people to learn French in British Columbia? I am referring to tools such as websites, movies and reading material.
Mr. Marien: As we mentioned in the presentation, the tools, or cultural referents, are incredibly important, especially to show young people that interesting things are happening in French. That is a challenge for young people in our generation. It's well and good to show students examples of cultural referents from a different era and to teach them about events that helped further the francophone community both in Canada and around the world. But I think what young people need is an accessible francophone community.
These days, it is not easy to find a concert given by a French artist that young people like. They don't know very many. It is important to connect young people with what they like.
As Noah was saying earlier, it is also a matter of showing them that the francophone community isn't limited to Quebec, France or other cultural referents; they need to be shown that they have a place in the community. By seeing local cultural referents, by seeing young people who live where they live singing in French, for example, young people can assume their francophone identities and feel as though they belong to the community. I think that is what young people need. I think they also need access to resources such as school and public libraries. They need to see that institutions and groups have a French-language presence on social media and are posting in French. Employment is another area that comes to mind. Sometimes job postings are in English only even though candidates are required to speak French in order to apply. Why aren't those job offers posted in French? It is necessary to stimulate visual contact with French, the presence of French, be it on the Internet or in day-to-day life.
Senator Gagné: Thank you for sharing your story with us. Thank you, as well, for what I am seeing and hearing. You are truly living your mission and philosophy; you really exemplify the idea of for and by youth. Just from the description of all the activities you are working on and your remarks, it is clear you are living your mission.
The Prime Minister made a commitment to young people. He is the Minister of Youth. Have you contacted him to set up a meeting to discuss your vision for francophone youth?
Mr. Rondeau: On the surface, no.
Senator Gagné: Not yet? Tomorrow?
Mr. Rondeau: Maybe one day soon. But I did have the chance to participate in a round table with the Minister of Canadian Heritage in Victoria recently.
I was encouraged that the round table addressed the reality of the francophone community and its renewal, especially outside Quebec. What really surprised me, and this relates to the topics we were just talking about, was that, out of 15, 16 or 17 participants, I was the only young person at the table, despite the fact that we were talking about the renewal of the francophone community.
In fact, I noticed that the somewhat archaic view of francophones as warriors fighting for their rights, be it in Quebec, Manitoba or elsewhere, is still present in people's minds. That whole notion of francophones struggling against assimilation still exists. But something has changed. It's hard to pinpoint the problem, but it is no longer simply a matter of fighting for rights and services. We need to support and strengthen our local identity here. And, unfortunately, as things stand, if it boils down to education, there is no real desire to consult young people and ask them their thoughts on the renewal of the francophone community. We can all agree that the community's renewal cannot happen without the involvement of its youth. Nevertheless, the practice of consulting only long-standing organizations continues. I am referring to organizations such as the Société francophone de Victoria and francophone organizations in Vancouver, groups that are led mainly by people over 40. I am not saying it's not a good idea to consult them. But they aren't necessarily organizations that address young people's needs when it comes to the community's renewal and the continuity of its members' identity. They are working on ensuring the renewal of the services we currently have, but we will have further needs. And those needs are not being taken into account. That is really the gap we want to address. Unfortunately, the youth aren't being consulted on the issue.
Senator Gagné: If you wanted to tell Prime Minister Trudeau one thing about the future of British Columbia's francophone youth, what would it be?
Ms. Brassard: One thing?
Senator Gagné: I know there are many, but I also know that other senators have questions they would like to ask.
Ms. Brassard: I feel a bit put on the spot.
Senator Gagné: You can think about it and get back to me. As Executive Director, Rémi —
Mr. Marien: I prefer to let the youth answer that.
Senator Maltais: Sophie, Rémi, Noah, kudos to you! Your short presentation is worthy of a film in each of your cases. I could call you unwavering French-Canadian British Columbians. You are the epitome of those who charged headlong into the battle. You went for it and you succeeded.
Earlier, Noah, you were talking about history. I asked the question to a group of teachers here, and no one had an answer for me. Don't look to Quebec, France or elsewhere for history. You have your own history, and it is important. It is the blood running through your veins and the fire inside you. Don't look elsewhere for culture because you have your own. Build it. To do that, you need money.
But, as a francophone from Quebec, I will tell you one thing: you will get nowhere without fighting for it. It took us 300 years to acquire language legislation in Quebec. We know how to be patient. Now we have it. It will take a long time, but it is young people like you — You are right. It is no longer the generation of 40- to 50-year-olds who are going to be the bearers of that culture, who are going to ensure its growth. It is you. Young people like you. It is the thousands of young people all over British Columbia.
I urge you to keep up your efforts, but not to fight. It's fun to do what you are doing. You enjoy it. You are living life, you are meeting each other. Sophie even said she could fall in love doing her job. What is also great is that, on top of the fact that you enjoy doing it, you are helping the generations that will come after you, without even knowing it. At your age, you are not thinking about the future generations. You are thinking about yourselves, and that's normal.
I may have a question on funding. I am from the world of finance, so I am always interested in money. If I can help you get some, even better. But if I do help you out, I will do it 100 per cent.
How is your board funded, Rémi?
Mr. Marien: We get core funding from Canadian Heritage.
Senator Maltais: Recurrent funding?
Mr. Marien: Yes, recurrent funding. But we do have to apply every year. Although, in the past year, we have had an opportunity to obtain multi-year funding. That means we have core funding of $85,000 for a provincial organization.
Then, we get funding from Canadian Heritage for specific projects — the francophone games and Parliament — and that funding is not recurrent. We have to apply every year and we have to prepare reports outlining the results of those activities every year, even though the events have been going on for 20 and 25 years respectively.
Since launching the SAGA initiative I was talking about earlier, we have received funding support from the Ministry of Education to the tune of $10,000. Prior to that, we weren't receiving any support from the ministry.
The combined project funding from Canadian Heritage for the games and Parliament is $40,000, for the two province-wide events. So, all told, it's about $150,000.
For 2016-17, our budget is $650,000. All the rest comes from what we earn selling our services to schools. We show them that we have expertise they need. The amount is negotiated every year and depends on the strength of our partner relationships, because, personally, we have —
Senator Maltais: I have to stop you there, as I have other questions.
Do you get any funding from patrons, sponsors?
Mr. Marien: No.
Senator Maltais: Perhaps I can give you a tip.
Mr. Marien: We have a charitable organization registered with the Canada Revenue Agency.
Senator Maltais: If you receive donations, you can issue receipts for tax purposes.
Mr. Marien: Yes.
Senator Maltais: Why not ask financial institutions for support? I can easily picture Noah and Sophie walking into the Royal Bank and saying, "Here is our project. Now how much would you like to contribute?'' The bank would have a hard time refusing. Saying no to you would be akin to saying no to British Columbia's entire francophone community. The same goes for the Bank of Montreal and TD Bank.
Try looking for patrons. I know it's not easy, but it is doable. It is done in other fields, in other parts of the country. It would be very much in their interest to support you.
You know, money has no colour, no language. If financial institutions pony up, they will advertise their generosity. They will promote the fact that they are supporting you. Tim Hortons has its charity, and so does McDonald's. So why would they not help British Columbia's francophone community? It is doable. It's not easy, but it is doable.
Mr. Marien: We tried that in the past, and I can assure you that the only argument they accepted was that we were a youth organization. Our francophone status gave us no leverage whatsoever. It was not an argument that was at all heard or understood. To them, we are foreigners or we have absolutely no credibility to make the request. They are unaware that British Columbia has a francophone community.
Senator Maltais: So bring your sign with you. Solicit their support holding your sign. This country has two official languages. Two official languages, not a second language. Don't ever let someone tell you that French is a second language. That is not true. It is an official language. Other languages, Italian, Japanese and all the rest, are second languages. French, however, is an official language. Never let anyone treat you as though you are second-class citizens.
When I am in Quebec and I talk to anglophones, I say that they are speaking the other official language, not the second language.
Senator Jaffer: Thank you for your presentation. As a British Columbian, I am very proud of your presentation. But I am also very proud of what you said. You called the francophone community big, saying that it had grown. That is music to my ears because it's precisely why I fight so hard. I would like my colleagues to understand that the francophone community here, in British Columbia, is growing. Many more people are arriving, after all.
I have a question for you. Yes, the francophone community is growing, and that is wonderful. But, in terms of bilingualism in our province, it is really important to include other communities and to talk about our bilingualism. Yes, there are other languages, but it is particularly important that we refer to ourselves as bilingual.
How do you communicate with other people? Forgive me, I am a French learner.
[English]
How would you convince your friends, the people around you? I say this with a lot of respect. Don't take it the wrong way. I worry that we speak to each other rather than to increase the circle.
How do we make sure that we are a bilingual country, that more and more people understand that and want to speak French not just because we are bilingual but because they love to speak French?
[Translation]
Ms. Brassard: For people who speak only one language, it is often hard to understand how enriching it is to speak more than one language. I even have trouble explaining it to my friends. For example, at work, sometimes it is so much more than simply translating something from English into French. It is an entirely different way to express yourself. It comes with a different sense of humour as well. There are a variety of ways to say something in French and in English, and that makes you look at things differently. You think differently, and what an advantage that is. I don't think that is specific to French; I think it happens with any language. I am jealous of anyone who can speak three or more languages. I wish I spoke more of them.
The significance of French is tied to a person's identity. French brings so much more than just another way of expressing yourself. That is how I explain it to people.
Mr. Marien: I will approach it through the lens of the young person. How do we manage to also convince immersion students, who haven't necessarily had the same experience with French as young francophones who have grown up speaking only French at home? That is something we wonder a lot about when it comes to young people. How do we be inclusive? How do we make those young people realize that we are all part of the same French-speaking family?
I think it has a lot to do with the idea of language security, and that is why we often say we are trying to do away with the words "francophone'' and "francophile.'' We refer to French-speaking youth, young people who speak French. Every single young person has access to the youth council's services and French-language social activities, regardless of their skill level. They are welcome as soon as they have the desire to live the experience. Young people have different francophone realities; some of them live in Quesnel and very remote towns, where their only opportunity to speak French is in the classroom. We need to tell them that the council's events are for them, even though, it's not unusual for people to go back and forth between French and English. We aren't anti-English. That is not what we advocate. We promote the value of young people's identity, and that identity is bilingual.
That is why we take a different attitude at the youth council, unlike some schools who reprimand students for speaking English. We recognize the bilingual identity. All we want is for young people to use the opportunity to speak French so that they can become fluent, and such opportunities are very hard to come by. But we also want them to feel safe from a language standpoint. In other words, if they are struggling to express what they want to say in French, for example, telling someone they have feelings for them, we want them to feel comfortable expressing themselves in English if they prefer. The other person might answer in French. That is our view of bilingualism, respecting the dual identity.
Mr. Rondeau: I agree with Sophie and Rémi. But, in addition to that, I take a more general view, focusing on the francophone community rather than on French. At the end of the day, people are often taught a very academic variant of the French language, a standard version of French that does not necessarily reflect the great diversity or many dialects of the francophone community. No one speaks the perfect variant of French. That is a message seldom communicated to students in immersion programs or those attending the school board's French-language schools, for example. We should not reinforce a narrow view of the francophone community, to basically say that a person's identity boils down to nothing more than a language, and not just a language but a strict variant of that language. By doing that, we are cutting out a wide-ranging perspective and a broader view, we are denying a cultural asset that not only exists, but is also necessary to integrate different perspectives. To my mind, those perspectives are incredibly important to a person's sense of citizenship. Similarly, it is important to consider the perspectives of immigrants coming from other countries, immigrants from Hispanic and Asian countries, for example.
We cannot understand one another without a certain level of knowledge or some window into what underlies the language. Unfortunately, as things stand, that consideration is being overlooked, especially in immersion schools where students do not always have access to programs like those the youth council would like to offer. Despite wanting to reach all immersion students through its activities, the youth council simply doesn't have the resources to do that.
What's more, students of the French-language school board sometimes lack those opportunities as well. That explains why they choose to discontinue their education in French and transfer to other schools. I wanted to add that perspective.
Senator Gagné: I am not sure whether you've had a chance to consider my earlier question about what you would like to tell the Prime Minister if you had a chance. Of course, I don't mean Minister Joly but, rather, the Prime Minister of Canada.
Ms. Brassard: What I would really like to convey is the importance of recognition, an understanding of the value of French in British Columbia, the French spoken here by us, as local francophones and those coming to the province. As is the case with the entire francophone community, I would like to find a way to promote integration, specifically between immersion schools and the French-language school board, in order to build an even stronger local community. Something else I care deeply about is support for the transition from high school to adult life. I think that is where we lose a tremendous number of francophones. That is something I feel very strongly about. I have two brothers and a sister, and we are constantly wondering how we are going to keep French in our lives. How are we going to manage to live some aspect of our lives in French this month? It breaks my heart when I struggle to find the words I need, when I am no longer able to express myself properly, like my mother and father. So it is really quite important to provide support after high school, as well, and to not just cut off funding because someone is 19.
Mr. Rondeau: I hadn't given it any thought, but if you'd like to give him my phone number —
Senator Gagné: In fact, I do — No, it's not true. I spoke to him once, but it was about my appointment. I don't have a direct line to him.
But I do have a comment. I believe I mentioned this to Mr. Marien yesterday since I had the pleasure of having dinner with him. Noah, I'm going to let you speak, but I just wanted to say that you underestimate the power you have, the power of your voice and your influence as young francophones in Canada. Use it, be bold and you will make headway.
Mr. Rondeau: If I were to tell the Prime Minister one thing, I would stress how important identity-based support outside the school environment is to the continuity of the francophone community, particularly outside Quebec. As we have clearly seen, young people's experience with the francophone community cannot be limited to an academic interaction, where they acquire a narrow view focused on grammar and spelling. That is not enough to keep young people in the community and to ensure the continuity of francophone heritage and culture.
My message for the Prime Minister would really be to seriously consider how we can broaden that experience for young people and to look at how we can put systems in place to support organizations that ensure that sense of identity outside the school environment.
Senator Gagné: A million thanks. I very much appreciate it.
Senator Maltais: The Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages came to meet with the members of British Columbia's francophone community. For me, it has been very eye-opening.
Madam Chair, through you, I would like to invite these three young people to appear before the committee in Ottawa, when the Minister presents the next roadmap. Of course, since we are the ones inviting you, the cost would be covered by your tax dollars, meaning, you would not have to pay. The committee would take care of that so you could come and share your story. For the rest of the francophone community, your experience here, on the other side of the Rocky Mountains, is incredible. The rest of French Canadians need to hear it.
If you recall, Madam Chair, we had a similar experience with a young man from New Brunswick last year. He left quite an impression on me. And hearing these young people today has also left an impression on me. Why not invite them to the capital so that they can share their story, just as they did today, for the benefit of the rest of the country's young francophones? It would be beyond rewarding.
The Chair: We will certainly have an opportunity to discuss that with the entire committee.
I must tell you that the reason I was so moved during your presentations was that I am very proud of you. I was also thinking about all the young francophones who had been lost. When I say "lost,'' I am referring to the fact that they lost the opportunity to keep their language and their culture for all the reasons you mentioned.
It was emotional to think about the fact that the opportunity to give so many young people a bilingual identity had been lost. Perhaps they will have that opportunity again in other circumstances, at other times, later in their lives, but for the time being, the assimilation truly continues. Clearly, the future of the community depends on young people, and we need youth councils like yours. We can see the value of the activities you provide in an effort to create an environment that transcends an academic understanding of the language and culture. You conveyed that powerfully and so eloquently that we were all moved.
Senators, I agree that it would be a wonderful idea. We will have to check whether it is possible. We'll see, but what an excellent suggestion.
Thank you for accepting our invitation. That brings our public hearings to an end for today. The young people gave an excellent presentation to close out our meeting.
Thank you.
(The committee adjourned.)