Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Official Languages
Issue 7 - Evidence
OTTAWA, Monday, March 21, 2005
The Standing Senate Committee on Official languages met this day at 2:34 p.m. to study and to report from time to time on the application of the Official Languages Act and the regulations and directives made on it, within those institutions subject to the Act.
Senator Eymard G. Corbin (Chairman) in the Chair.
[Translation]
The Chairman: I would like to draw your attention to a document which comes from the Fédération nationale des conseils scolaires francophones. This document describes the francophone school boards' needs, the state of schools' facilities, and other associated matters. We will distribute it for your consideration. The document is somewhat dated, however the federation will be publishing a new one this spring or at the start of summer. We will send it to you as soon as we get it.
This afternoon, it is our pleasure to once again welcome the Honourable Liza Frulla, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Minister responsible for the Status of Women.
[English]
You will have noticed, and probably have in your hands, the text of a statement that the minister wishes to make. We only have an hour with most witnesses this afternoon, so I have already requested of Ms. Frulla that she give us the essentials of the information she wishes to convey in a condensed form, as far as possible, and then we will proceed with questioning.
[Translation]
Welcome to our committee, Ms. Frulla! I can see that you have the same colleagues with you today as you did at the previous meeting.
Ms. Liza Frulla, Minister of Canadian Heritage: Indeed, I have the same colleagues with me as last time, Ms. Eileen Sarkar, Assistant Deputy Minister at Citizenship and Heritage, and Mr. Hubert Lussier, Director General of the Official Languages Support Programs. They are currently responsible for negotiating agreements with the provinces. They are working tremendously hard to ensure that these agreements are signed within the next two weeks.
I would like to set the record straight by talking about education. I would like to talk about a particular part of the statement, as we are talking at length about negotiations and their current status.
[English]
Last November I spoke broadly of our official language programs. This time around, I am pleased your committee focused on official language education, since we are negotiating now. We have to understand that we cannot negotiate in public, but we will try to give you a sense of where we are going.
Education has the lion's share of the Government of Canada's Action Plan for Official Languages funding. Education is the key to community development, as we know, and the community's ability to deal with the challenges that face them and those associated with our knowledge-based society.
I will remind honourable senators of a few facts, even if they may seem obvious. First, education is a provincial and territorial jurisdiction. The Government of Canada does not act in this area without the express collaboration of provinces and territories. However, it has been a remarkable partnership for 35 years.
[Translation]
You have the document. I would invite you to read it, including the sections on challenges and progress, but for the moment, I would like to refer you right away to page 9, under the section "Encouraging interprovincial and inter- territorial cooperation." In the past, the Government of Canada established dedicated funds for minority language education. However, a 10-year long-term vision will not come to fruition based on a number of ad hoc measures. This is where the Action Plan comes into play. It mobilizes substantial resources, renews collaborative efforts and necessitates coordination on the part of all partners. This is why the new generation of partnerships resulting from the Action Plan is so important. We want to work with the provinces and territories and support the efforts of educational institutions, universities and colleges.
We want to encourage the provinces and the territories to cooperate on joint projects. Furthermore, the CMEC is responsible for promoting horizontal cooperation between the provinces and territories. Such cooperation has made Canada-wide programs, such as the Second Language Summer Program and the Language Assistant Program, such exemplary success stories. This horizontal cooperation seems promising. A concerted effort on the part of several governments will be necessary in order to develop the teaching tools that are the best suited to minority community teaching. Such coordination will also be necessary to promote research on these matters and to develop adequate instruments to measure outcomes.
The CMEC can be a crucial forum in which to tackle these challenges. We also want to get all the provinces and the territories involved in meeting the Action Plan's objectives. We want to ensure that all federal investments, whether in the Action Plan or the protocol, are managed in a transparent, fair, complementary and convergent manner.
So at what stage are we in negotiations with the provinces and territories? I know that several organizations that have appeared before you have made known their concern about delays in negotiations. This is understandable. However, real progress has been made over the recent months which I will now describe to you.
[English]
With respect to what is happening on the ground in the current school year, 2004-05, all provinces and territories have submitted their action plans for core financing and the implementation of targeted measures within Canada's Action Plan for Official Languages. They have known their budgetary envelopes for this year for some months. Negotiations toward bilateral agreements are concluding with all the provinces and territories, and the provincial and territorial governments have until June 30, 2005 to spend their funds this year.
As I mentioned earlier, we have been negotiating with the Council of Ministers of Education for some time to renew our protocol of agreements. The protocol is the multi-year umbrella agreement with the provinces and territories on official languages and education. It provides a common framework of collaboration to meet the ultimate goals of Canada's Action Plan for Official Languages and paves the way for the negotiation of bilateral agreements, where the specific concerns and challenges of each province and territory are taken into consideration.
[Translation]
What are we referring to when we talk about CMEC? First, we are talking about the implementation of the Action Plan's objectives; the transparent, equitable and efficient allocation of available budgetary envelopes to the provinces and territories; collaborative mechanisms to that enhance the achievement of pan-Canadian initiatives; strengthening of the accountability framework; and assurance that there is consultation between groups and associations that are interested in minority language and second language education, such as, for example, the Conseils scolaires francophones du Canada.
[English]
We have gone a long way in accommodating the provinces' and territories' concerns. Our goal was to come up with an adequate framework that will ensure that our objectives in the action plan will be met. Now the ball is now in the provinces' and territories' courts.
As we speak, I understand that the ministers of education are still negotiating among themselves. I cannot answer for them, but I can express my hope that they respond positively to our offer to renew the partnership and pursue the objectives of the action plan together so that we can announce an agreement in principle by March 31.
In conclusion, we are working very hard to deliver on all our obligations and promises with respect to official languages. Our commitment is strong and much progress has been made.
[Translation]
Since my appointment to the position of Minister of Canadian Heritage last August, I have met several education ministers throughout Canada, several community organizations, including the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada, as well as the Commissioner of Official Languages. Recently, I met with the president of the Fédération nationale des conseils scolaires francophones. She talked about the federation's strategy to improve the French as a first language education system in Canada. This is indeed a remarkable initiative. From all stakeholders, from coast to coast to coast, I am hearing the same message: how children's education is a priority and that there are major — if not huge — challenges before us. I intend to work with all those who are interested in advancing French language education throughout Canada.
I would invite you to share your vision and your ideas with me. I would like to thank you for inviting me to appear before you. Despite the fact that sorting out the various agreements has not been easy, I should point out that the progress that has been made over the recent weeks with the provinces is very encouraging and I am very pleased about this.
The Chairman: Thank you, Minister.
Senator Comeau: Minister, I would like to thank you for coming and sharing your ideas and the status of the current negotiations. I would like you to explain the difference between the two types of negotiations that are underway: there is the memorandum of understanding and also the negotiation on amounts. Is that correct?
Ms. Frulla: This year, fiscal 2004-2005, we had to conclude agreements and this is what has happened, 26 agreements have been entered into. The provinces are managing the funds and in June, for this year, fiscal 2004-2005, the funds will have run out. So that is one aspect. We have also negotiated with the provinces bilaterally and are aware of some of their needs.
Our objective has always been long-term negotiations to avoid having to waste energy year after year and to enable the provinces to make long-term plans. Currently we are negotiating a memorandum of understanding on the targets that I read to you. Once agreements have been reached with the provinces on the memorandum of understanding, and the way funds will be allocated, we will undertake bilateral negotiations with the provinces to ensure that each province agrees to the provincial action plan. This will provide for a more transparent accountability framework.
Senator Comeau: So is the issue of funding not essential?
Ms. Frulla: No. Currently, we are negotiating the way funds will be divided up. We have worked with a formula that is already on the table. The CMEC is reviewing this formula and the provinces are negotiating amongst themselves. This is normal. I think that the agreement that is on the table is extremely generous, both in terms of basic funding and dedicated funds. We cannot force the provinces to factor in the school boards, as this is an area of provincial jurisdiction. However, under the agreement, we have try to go as far as possible to ensure that the provinces take stakeholders, including school boards, into account.
Senator Comeau: Given that education is an area of provincial jurisdiction and that section 23 of the Charter stipulates that this is a constitutional responsibility... I am simply trying to understand how far the federal government can go to move these interests forward, given the rights afforded it under the Charter.
Ms. Frulla: Section 23 applies to provinces because they are responsible for education. However, to help and encourage the provinces, we use our spending power and support them. We also want to ensure that minority education is of the same quality as that offered to the majority. We help them provide education. That is how we act.
Obviously, education is a provincial area of jurisdiction. We are proud of having a country with two official languages, and the federal government, through its federal spending power, supports the provinces. That is why we cannot tell the provinces exactly what to do; we cannot, for instance, force them to negotiate with francophone school boards. Through our spending power, we can strongly encourage them in a positive way.
Senator Comeau: I think you are answering my question. In fact, it is the provincial government's responsibility to comply with section 23 of the Charter. Sometimes, it does not have the means to do so and that is when the federal government steps in. If the federal government did not exist, the courts would be the ones compelling the provinces to comply with their obligations.
Ms. Frulla: Section 23 does not stipulate how much we can invest. So, because we consider it important, because it is in the Constitution, and it has been adopted, the federal government, through its spending power, has a moral duty to help the provinces offer the services, especially in education.
Senator Comeau: Several groups have appeared before us, and one of the requests we heard from various groups working to advance the interests of communities is that they want a seat at the negotiation table. I think they would like to be one of the negotiating parties. They would at least like to be able to listen in on the ongoing talks.
It makes sense, because some provinces do not have knowledge in the field. They are, however, reluctant to include community groups at the table. Have you tried to do this when you negotiated the protocol?
Ms. Frulla: Yes. Again, we cannot force it upon the provinces because it is a partnership between them and us. We want to ensure that various stakeholders are consulted.
Senator Comeau: There is always some reluctance from the provinces. Have you sensed an openness on their part?
Ms. Frulla: That is a part of our negotiations overall. Today, I can say that I feel very encouraged, because the negotiations are going well. Some provinces remain somewhat hesitant but I think that that should be resolved. The plan negotiated by Hubert Lussier or Eileen Sarkar is very generous because it leaves a great deal of room for flexibility. However, we want to see transparency, accountability and negotiation. If the negotiations stumble by the 31st — which we do not expect — we would still be able to carry out bilateral negotiations, but we would be less generous. In that case, we would have to maintain an insurance policy just in case. In terms of planning, even for the provinces, negotiations could end up being more arduous.
Senator Comeau: In the Official Languages Commissioner's 2003-2004 report, mention was made of Nova Scotia possibly not having made an appropriate use of funding. Have you looked into that? Have you tried to find ways to ensure that the funding is spent as it should be?
Ms. Frulla: I will hand over the floor to Mr. Lussier because he looked at this issue very closely during negotiations with Nova Scotia. I must also add that funding for Nova Scotia has been increased. For the last two years, this province has made tremendous progress when it comes to French-language services. We are aware of this and we are proud of it. However, there was an audit and it was not conclusive.
Mr. Hubert Lussier, Director General, Official Languages Support Programs, Canadian Heritage: In fact, the commissioner was referring to the expenditure of funds granted to Nova Scotia. What we call a "client audit" was done two years ago. It showed that the province had in fact spent the funds as anticipated, and that it had measures in place to ensure the funds could be tracked. The document in question was given to the province and to some of the stakeholders in the file.
Senator Comeau: I simply wanted to point out that the issue has been raised on several occasions.
Ms. Frulla: That is why the protocol is important. The protocol also includes accountability agreements, transparency agreements, and common objectives. That creates an obligation for the government and the provinces. It is bilateral. We work in partnership, but that mechanism also exists.
The Chairman: Since the iron is hot, as regards accountability and reporting, who is accountable and to whom? The governments have their respective electorates. Is there public accountability?
Ms. Frulla: Yes, as with all federal-provincial accountability, they are accountable to Canadians, and to the communities.
The Chairman: Through an identified program?
Ms. Frulla: Through all of the programs.
Mr. Lussier: There are two levels of accountability. The first level is the production of documents that shows that the projects for which the federal government has provided funding have indeed being completed. The payments are made when statements of expenses have been provided. The second level, which is a bit more difficult and ambitious, involves producing results, and that is something we are working more and more on with the provinces. The results are often in education, and in many areas of social activity that are measurable over rather long periods of time. The action plan is one example, and we think the protocol will help put in place better mechanisms for illustrating these results.
The Chairman: The Commissioner of Official Languages has been paying particular attention to that point.
Ms. Frulla: Rightly so.
Senator Chaput: My first question dealt with consultation mechanisms. My colleague discussed that. If a province were to agree to include school boards at the negotiating table, if a miracle were to occur, and Manitoba, for example were to agree, would the federal government have a problem with that?
Ms. Frulla: I am going to be honest; the provinces would probably never accept that. We have talked about it very openly. I do not know of any provinces that want a third party involved. However, it is important for the province to have consulted its stakeholders, including the school boards, to know where they want to go and for what they are accountable. These school boards will not be sitting at the table. These are federal-provincial negotiations.
Senator Chaput: The federal government and the provincial government are at the negotiating table. When we talk about budget envelopes one for French as a first language, and the other for French as a second language, who determines what amount goes into each envelope? Is it earmarked ahead of time? I do not really understand.
Ms. Frulla: In the protocol, there are percentages that go to the various provinces. Once the provinces have accepted the protocol, the accountability measures and so on, to be able to measure all of the results together, we agree on the percentages of a province compared to another, for both the base funding and the targeted funding. The action plan determines what goes to second language and what goes to minority languages. That is established ahead of time.
Mr. Lussier: That is correct. When it was announced two years ago, the action plan established specific amounts, one for the second language and the other for the minority language.
Senator Chaput: What would happen, for example, if a province were to ask for more money in the minority language envelope? Can that be negotiated as well?
Mr. Lussier: Some provinces do in fact come with that type of request. Because of the action plan, we are required to respect the total allocations: second language, minority language.
Within the funding envelope for each province, a certain amount of flexibility, or exchanges, can be introduced over the course of a year, provided that the ground lost in one of the envelopes is recovered in the following years, so that at the end of the action plan, they end up with the predetermined overall envelopes.
Ms. Frulla: I will just give you an example for official language community development. The budget for minority language education for 2004-2005 is $153 million. It is $81 million for developing official languages and second language learning. So it is somewhat predetermined, and I repeat for those who want to hear it that the protocol is important, as it enables us to work within a five-year framework — for the next four years — which gives the provinces some flexibility and enables us to negotiate with them. We also have to be accountable in terms of the action plan.
[English]
Senator Murray: Mr. Chairman, in the written text, the statement is made that two-thirds of eligible elementary and secondary francophones go to French schools.
Ms. Frulla: If they have a choice, yes.
The Chairman: What page are you on, please, Senator Murray?
Senator Murray: The English version, page 4. La version franchise, page can.
We have had testimony here from several witnesses that scarcely more than 50 per cent avail themselves of their constitutional right to attend a French school. You may want to comment on that discrepancy, just in passing. I think it is important. Whether it is a little more than 50 per cent or something approaching two-thirds, there is still a large proportion, an impressive proportion, of those who have a right to French schools who do not avail themselves of it. There are various explanations for this that you know better than I. There are various possible approaches to it, one of which is the availability of early childhood education, child care, this sort of thing. We will hear from your colleague, Mr. Dryden, a little later this afternoon. He has $5 billion over five years to negotiate something with the provinces. All of us here are of the view that there ought to be a component of whatever national program he is able to negotiate that provides for minority language communities. That being said, I think it would be unrealistic of us, or anybody, to expect the Department of Social Development to carry the full freight of what needs to be done here. For one thing, I do not think $5 billion is very much against the needs, so they will need money. Also, I do not believe that the department has the institutional expertise that yours does on this issue. Obviously, there are the provinces to deal with, and on language matters, your department more than any other deals with the provinces. There is a vast difference in the situations in various provinces. It is fair to say that in New Brunswick and Ontario, where there is a critical mass, it will be easier to design a program than in some other provinces. If there is a successful minority language component to child care in this country, or indeed in most of the provinces, your department will have to be fully involved, both financially and in the design of the program. It would be unrealistic to expect that the program that your colleague is negotiating will be able to carry the freight.
Ms. Frulla: First of all, I will talk about the two-thirds. We took the numbers from the plan of action. When it was presented it talked about 68 per cent of les ayant-droit going to French schools. Now, statisticians are fighting over it, but since it was a governmental position, we do believe in our numbers, so we carry the 68 per cent.
Senator Murray: It must be right because they said so.
Ms. Frulla: We do not have even the capacity to check. When they gave out the ultimate objective of 80 per cent, they based that on the 68 per cent. There are consequences of this. We took their numbers and are working with them. Accessibility is the key. I have talked to a lot of parents, and they were saying that the restriction is not only the access to the schools, but also the quality of the schools. When I say "quality," I do not mean educational quality, but infrastructural quality. We retain money to help different provinces. We have also negotiated this year some projects in Manitoba and New Brunswick, as examples, for infrastructure that will last not only for this year, but over a few years.
As far as Minister Dryden and Social Development are concerned, I was Minister of Social Development last year. I got the $5 billion. Minister Dryden talks about it, but yes, they are the negotiating the protocol, they are doing pilot projects. They do have one strength. They have the expertise in early childhood development, how to ensure that the tools that are developed are good for the children, and how to involve the parents and the children. They have that capacity, that knowledge and that experience. We also participate in the early childhood education, even if our main action is at the primary and secondary levels. Now we are going into the college and post-secondary sector. We also work with others on developing tools. We will be helping the provinces and the parents and also with tools for the parents. We are developing also a way to make sure that if a child is in a francophone milieu but is not bilingual enough to get into first grade, does not know enough French to avoid having difficulty, that we step can in. That is, we support the provinces in stepping in. This is our action, including having specific tools.
I would say that the department does have some specific expertise that we do not. I am saying that because I was responsible for it for six months, and I was impressed.
Senator Murray: Not to belabour the point, but you have expertise that they do not have.
Ms. Frulla: In negotiating with the provinces.
Senator Murray: In negotiating programs for language minorities with the provinces. You will have to be deeply involved if there is to be a satisfactory minority language component to the still hypothetical national program that Minister Dryden is trying to negotiate.
Senator Buchanan: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, thank you for coming to our committee. I am trying to piece all this together. I am just a young man, but I go back a long time.
I like to look back to 1978-1991, when I was the Premier of Nova Scotia. I like to pat myself and the Government of Nova Scotia on the back because I believe that since we signed the Constitution Act in 1982, Nova Scotia has pretty well complied with section 23. There have been bumps along the road, but during that period we started to build a fairly good foundation in the francophone areas of Nova Scotia, primarily the area that Senator Comeau is from, and some in Cape Breton and the Halifax-Dartmouth area.
Contrary to what my learned friend says here, I believe that two-thirds of eligible elementary and secondary francophones do go to French schools in Nova Scotia at present. Am I wrong on that?
Mr. Lussier: I would have to check the numbers for Nova Scotia. I am not sure about that. We have those numbers and could get back to you with them.
Senator Buchanan: If I told you so, you would believe me?
Ms. Frulla: I would.
Senator Buchanan: What provinces have you had difficulty with in arriving at the protocol agreements in the last couple of years, and primarily in the last few months? You probably have not had difficulty in New Brunswick. It is a bilingual province. I do not know about the other provinces in the Atlantic area. I suspect and hope that over the last year, Nova Scotia has continued to be at the forefront of those provinces that have complied with the memorandum of understanding and the agreements that you put together. Is that the case?
Ms. Frulla: Senator Buchanan, it is not difficulties with the provinces. We must understand that each province has its needs, and provinces are very different. New Brunswick, the only bilingual province, has a different challenge from Saskatchewan or Alberta, and Alberta stepped later into the process. It entered the process only 20 years ago.
It is not difficulty with provinces; it is only that the provinces want to ensure that they have their own share in the protocol, and I think that is very normal. That is why Mr. Lussier and Ms. Sarkar were on the phone almost every day for weeks, ensuring that certain provinces understand our meaning and fine-tuning our proposition. Now, two weeks before the deadline, the fine-tuning is done and the ball is in the court of the provinces.
Senator Buchanan: You have two weeks left?
Ms. Frulla: Yes, the deadline is March 31. The ball is in the court of the provinces, and I am quite encouraged, although it is not done until it is done.
Senator Buchanan: Perhaps you could get me the statistic on Nova Scotia.
Mr. Lussier: I will.
[Translation]
The Chairman: I am going to take this opportunity to make a comment, followed by a question. From listening to witnesses from communities, school boards, cultural associations, and so on, we have seen a certain degree of frustration with the process. I am talking about the process in general. Be it the agreements in education with the communities, the cultural community or the associations, it seems that the process is not moving quickly enough and that it is sometimes complicated. That led me to ask one of our witnesses if, in his opinion, the system was broken. That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but it is a good way to bring up the topic.
Clearly, there is always a delay in meeting the objectives of the federal government and the provinces. Do we currently have in place the best system to accomplish our objectives or could we improve certain aspects? Is the Council of Ministers of Education of Canada the only vehicle available? Could we not think about something else to achieve our objectives more quickly to satisfy everyone and avoid problems?
Ms. Frulla: I cannot say that the process is perfect. There is no such thing as a perfect process. However, we try to adopt new approaches. The protocol is one of these new approaches in that a protocol was signed. With the action plan, we have put $750 million over five years on the table. Of course, there is something in it for everyone. We have surpluses.
The government's requirements and the management of public funds must also be taken into account. If I could have an additional $100 million for communities, I would give it to them. We are working with this additional amount, which is huge, it is nearly $1 billion. Under the action plan, we must ensure we are fair, equitable and transparent. We must also make sure that the Auditor General is well informed. Of course we negotiate. Twenty-six agreements have been signed. By the end of the negotiations, about 38 agreements will be signed. I would like to move more quickly, and believe me, Mr. Lussier and Ms. Sarkar would like to move more quickly, but these agreements must be negotiated. These agreements must be reached using a transparent and clear process. So it will take the time that it takes.
We are almost there, so that is why I say we have to get these agreements settled for the next four years so that we can move on to something else. Whether we like it or not, we could put our collective energy into improving the education system and helping the provinces and the school boards to go further. We have to deal with the basic issues because of the budget surplus. When there is a surplus, everyone wants to ensure they get the maximum. And I do not blame them, because when I was a provincial minister, I did exactly the same thing.
The Chairman: That does not mean that once the matters are settled, you will be unemployed for the next four years.
Ms. Frulla: Not at all.
The Chairman: So are you beginning the next round of negotiations?
Ms. Frulla: First, there is the whole issue of reviewing all of the needs of the communities, and second, we have to work with the communities to ensure that each group gets what it deserves, but also that each group is very representative of the target group. Next, we have to ensure that the action plan is implemented properly, make any corrections that are required and see whether there are some additional elements, because each budget brings its own little surprise. We have just finished with that. There were no budget cuts despite the fact that all departments were asked to put some money on the table for reallocation. We really managed to get the message across that we had no extra money. The next budget, however, is another matter.
[English]
Senator Murray: On that note, I am a member of the National Finance Committee too, and the significance of March 31 is that it is the end of the fiscal year. Is all of or part of the money for that program coming from the fiscal year 2004-05?
Ms. Frulla: No, we are negotiating until June because the provinces' fiscal years end June 2005.
Senator Murray: For some of them.
Ms. Frulla: I would say almost all of them.
Mr. Lussier: The current in-year negotiations have to be completed before March 31. I am talking about the one- year-only money, including the action plan for 2004-05, which, as the minister says, allows the provinces to spend that money until the end of their school year, which is June 30. Therefore, March 31 has much significance in terms of 2004- 05.
In terms of the protocol, and here we are looking at the years beyond us, starting in 2005-06, as the minister says, there is no absolute requirement for the protocol to be signed by March 31. It is a deadline that has been chosen by the minister as reasonable.
Ms. Frulla: The day after my birthday. I thought it was a good deadline.
Senator Murray: You have the money going forward.
Ms. Frulla: Yes, we do.
Senator Murray: For each fiscal year in the fiscal framework.
Ms. Frulla: Yes.
Senator Murray: I will leave it at that.
Ms. Frulla: I will tell you why I chose March 31. It is the end of our fiscal year. We do have the money, but it is the end of the fiscal year. Second, we have been working on it since I came in, July 22. I think we have to go ahead with it. They have been negotiating all those months. We are trying, negotiating, and seeing if our plans can be adjusted. At a certain point, we have to say we do agree, because we could negotiate for another five years. It gives the provinces the flexibility to plan, to put more into one focus versus another, because it is a five-year plan. If the provinces decide that it is a no-go and they want to go with bilateral agreements, then we will go year to year. That does not give them the same flexibility.
Senator Murray: Without identifying provinces, is the sticking point in the negotiations with the federal government usually the money?
Ms. Frulla: I would say there is not much left to negotiate. As Mr. Lussier says, it is not the money, because it is there. It is the share of the money, the percentage. However, as I said, a month ago it was more problematic. Today I would say that I just hope I will have a very nice birthday gift.
Senator Murray: When Senator Buchanan was Premier of Nova Scotia, he used to make big announcements and then add "pending federal funding."
Ms. Frulla: I saw that. Yes, I did that too when I was minister.
The Chairman: I wish to ask about the protocol.
[Translation]
Will this document be made public?
Ms. Frulla: Yes, it will be made public.
The Chairman: Will it be detailed?
Ms. Eileen Sarkar, Assistant Deputy Minister, Citizenship and Heritage, Canadian Heritage: Yes, definitely.
Senator Léger: If I understand correctly, the Charter was introduced in 1982, and with it came section 23. It applies to the country as a whole and to all the territories. Education is a matter of provincial jurisdiction. When I travel around in the country, I go to some provinces where it seems as though French does not exist. But I am still in Canada, as I understand it. When I go to some regions, it is as though none of this ever happened.
Will the federal government provide some money to implement section 23 only for those who want it? And will those who do not want it or who do not talk about it not get anything?
Ms. Frulla: No, not at all. At the moment, our negotiations are with all of the provinces. I must say that the provinces negotiate for their percentage. A number of provinces go much beyond the federal investment; others contribute on a 50-50 basis. The figure might be less for the territories, because their capacity is more limited. Nevertheless, all the provinces are represented on the Council of Ministers of Education. All the provinces are involved in the negotiations.
Of course this is a matter for the provinces. For example, when we go to the Maritimes or Ontario, there is no doubt that we hear more French. French is gaining strength in British Columbia and Manitoba at the moment. Our desire to see Canada as a perfectly bilingual country is a wonderful dream. I have seen improvements in French — as a citizen, not as minister. When I travel throughout the country, I am often surprised. I often make a point of speaking French to try to encourage a discussion, and this works quite frequently.
Of course, we have not achieved a fully bilingual country. It is a wonderful dream that should be possible if everyone believed in it as much as we do.
Senator Léger: The various provincial departments of education would like to have section 23 enforced in their case, would they not? So, as I understand it, if departments do not ask for much, they do not get much; and if they ask for a great deal, they get more.
Ms. Frulla: Some provinces, because they were not involved early enough, now think that we could perhaps add more, because they need to catch up. But the real problem is that they were not involved earlier. We cannot penalize a province that has done everything right in order to help out another. We cannot rob Peter to pay Paul—we are simply trying to be fair and balanced in our approach.
The Chairman: If a province wants to do more in order to catch up, you would not close the door on it, would you?
Ms. Frulla: Not at all, we would encourage it very much to continue its efforts.
Senator Chaput: We have heard from some witnesses, Minister, who have spoken about the importance of culture and cultural enrichment in schools, and the importance of teaching the arts and developing our children's potential. I would like to know what you think about this and whether these agreements will support cultural and artistic activities.
Ms. Frulla: Yes, they do provide support of this type. When I say we negotiate bilaterally, we also negotiate with the provinces depending on the school programs they have established after consulting the various community stakeholders—at least that is our hope, and we are going to state it explicitly.
Yes, in my view, cultural and artistic activities are fundamental. They are the best way to get students to love language and to learn French. Nevertheless, I must say that our institutions, and we will come back to this tomorrow, such as Telefilm Canada, Radio-Canada and our Canadian Television Fund, do set aside a certain percentage of their budget for minority francophone communities.
Senator Comeau: You travel throughout the country and you have noticed an interest in French that may not have existed a few years ago. I have noticed this as well. There has been tremendous progress in Nova Scotia. We now have an Official Languages Act which is similar to the one in place in P.E.I. There is an interest in French on the part of anglophones in areas where francophones were not always very well received.
This places a great deal of pressure on groups that support francophones in these provinces, such as the Fédération acadienne de la Nouvelle-Écosse and others. The budget of these various groups has not increased for years, whether the focus is primary school students or seniors. These groups see this new interest on the part of the people of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, but they have not seen any increase in their funding. They do not feel supported by the federal government. Can we give them some hope that their budgets will be increased soon?
Ms. Frulla: I have met with Mr. Arès and representatives from all the community groups. I told them that there was $750 million on the table and their budgets went up by $19 million over five years. There have been some consultations to determine whether all the groups that received funding are still active. Other groups have been added as well. Should we be providing funding for them? Are some of them less effective than others? That is the purpose of the discussions going on at the moment. We have to do one thing at a time. I have another budget next year and we will be able to provide support to the communities because we will have information about exactly which groups should be supported and funded.
We also require the support of these community representatives. It is not enough just to ask for more money and to maintain the status quo. We want more money in order to be more effective and to meet the new challenges before us. That is very important. We also have to evaluate how effectively the funding we are providing at the moment is being used. How do we go about insuring that the best possible use is being made of this funding? We also have to know what we are doing when we increase funding.
This is the type of thing we talk about. The community representatives were disappointed, because at a certain point they wanted more. I remember very well a meeting held in the room behind the House of Commons where I told them that I was promising them nothing this year. That was very clear. However, that does not prevent us from working and from making some adjustments with them. There is no doubt that I will keep them in mind if I come across some secret pockets of funding. But I have to proceed in an orderly way. I cannot tell the Minister of Finance that I want more money, without providing some justifications.
The groups have to do more than just say they do not have enough. We all agree with that. Ultimately, the Auditor General will be asking for a justification of the funding, how it will be used and what accountability procedures are in place. That is what we are going to be working on.
Senator Comeau: Maybe we could set up a foundation!
Ms. Frulla: That is not exactly what within in my jurisdiction.
The Chairman: Unfortunately, we will have to end this part of our hearings, because, as I understand, Ms. Frulla has to leave Ottawa.
Ms. Frulla: Yes, and in fact I would invite you to watch the Genie Awards this evening — our Canadian Oscars. Sixty per cent of the people nominated are francophones! We are very proud of this!
[English]
Senator Buchanan: What time are you on?
Ms. Frulla: I do not know, actually. I am not presenting; I am just sitting down and celebrating.
Senator Buchanan: You will be there. I have no doubt they will have the cameras on you all the time. I will be watching you.
The Chairman: Senator Buchanan, your duty will be to be in the Senate this evening.
[Translation]
The Chairman: On behalf of the committee, Ms. Frulla, I would like to thank you and your officials for meeting with us today.
Ms. Frulla: I will be pleased to come back to explain the protocol once the agreements are signed. Keep your fingers crossed.
The Chairman: As you can see, we have set aside another hour to hear from the representatives of the Association des universités de la francophonie canadienne. We are pleased to welcome Yvon Fontaine, the President of the association. He is also the Rector of the University of Moncton. I always expect Senator Comeau to ask me why we have so many witnesses from the University of Moncton. The answer is that they are the official spokespersons for various national organizations.
Senator Comeau: I am a graduate of the University of Moncton.
[English]
Senator Buchanan: May I make a comment on that? It is great that we will hear from the University of Moncton and the others, but I think you had better understand that Senator Comeau not only was a member of Parliament from that area, but he was a professor at the University of Sainte-Anne. I hold one of the very distinguished doctorates from the University of Sainte-Anne. The two of us can take on anyone you bring from the University of Moncton.
The Chairman: We hope to visit Senator Buchanan's fair province next fall, so we will cover whatever territory we miss in this current examination of various questions then.
Senator Buchanan: I can assure you that when you go to parts of Cape Breton, you will know why I was able to get elected down there. I know everyone.
[Translation]
The Chairman: We will have a question and answer period after your presentation, Mr. Fontaine.
Mr. Yvon Fontaine, President, Association des universités de la francophonie canadienne: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Since you have made a few jokes, perhaps you will allow me to say a few words to Senator Buchanan.
[English]
I would like to remind Senator Buchanan that my team, les Aigles Bleus de l'Université de Moncton, did beat St. Mary's and Acadia, and we are going to the nationals next week.
[Translation]
Mr. Chairman, it is a privilege for me to be here this afternoon. As you no doubt know, today is the Journée internationale de la Francophonie. I think it is quite appropriate that you are hearing from witnesses regarding the major issues facing francophone communities. I am here as the President of the Association des universités de la francophonie canadienne. This is an unpaid position. I am also the rector of the University of Moncton. It is a privilege for me to represent our association to discuss with you the issues facing French-language universities in Canada.
I know that you have received a strategic plan that we have submitted to Minister Frulla a few months ago. Our association is made up of 13 universities located throughout Canada, except for three provinces, where there are no French-language or bilingual universities — P.E.I, Saskatchewan and B.C. — as well as the territories. The other seven provinces all have universities that belong to our association.
If you look at a map, you will notice that these institutions are all located in areas with the most dynamic francophone communities, where their vitality is expressed on a daily basis. It is important to say that, because there have been two types of major institutions that insured the vitality of francophone communities outside Quebec over the years. First of all, of course, there was the Church. That must be recognized. There were also the post-secondary educational institutions, which I am representing today, which have been an integral part of francophone communities for many decades. We need only think about the Université Sainte-Anne, which is over 100 years old now, the Université de Moncton, which is about 40 years old, but its component colleges, which were classical colleges in New Brunswick, date back 130 years. The same is true in Ontario and in the west.
The universities we represent are really one of the main reasons for the survival of francophone communities and for their vitality in recent decades. Why is our action plan essential and why must it be supported by the Canadian government? I will come back to that.
Let me give you the context of the action plan and the reason why we do it up. Earlier, we heard Minister Frulla refer to the negotiations underway with the provinces with respect to the action plan introduced by the Government of Canada in March 2003. To a large extent, the action plan came into being because various reports were prepared for the Canadian government around the end of the 90s. To some extent, the reports recommended that the Canadian government reassert its willingness to take action to ensure the development and vitality of francophone communities. I chaired a group that wrote a report for the Canadian government on government transformation which did indeed refer to the fact that it was time for the government to reassert its willingness to act under the Official Languages Act, of course, but also in accordance with the Canadian Constitution in order to ensure the vitality of francophone and Acadian communities in Canada. As a result of the tabling of these reports, the government did demonstrate some willingness, first in the form of a statement by the Prime Minister in the House, that he was going to make the official languages one of the government's priorities.
In 2003, the government's action plan was warmly received by the communities, and definitely by the university institutions I represent. The Canadian government's action plan involved the people of Canada, the government and university institutions in various ways.
The first was to insure a broad range of university training that was accessible to the francophone communities in the institutions we represent. It is quite simple. If we do not have a respectable range of university programs in our institutions, it will be very difficult for francophone communities to continue their university studies in French.
For example, if the Collège universitaire de Saint-Boniface does not offer an adequate program, the University of Manitoba, which is not far away, will offer such a program. If I cannot offer programs to the francophone Acadian community of New Brunswick at the Université de Moncton, UNB or Mount Allison or other institutions will do so. The same is true of the Saint-Jean faculty in Edmundston. It was very clear in the Canadian government's action plan that something had to be done to strengthen the capacity of our universities to provide educational programs and to broaden the range of university programs available for francophone communities in French.
There were two other factors of interest. First, anglophones who spoke French. It has been demonstrated that anglophones in immersion programs are relatively good at speaking French by the time they get to grade twelve. Ms. Frulla said that she has found that she is increasingly able to speak French throughout the country and to receive services in French. There is an interest in the French language. This stems from two sources. From francophones themselves who are not afraid to stand up for themselves, but also from anglophones who have taken immersion programs.
[English]
In order for them to sustain their capacity in the French language, it has been proven that they need to go through some of their university education in their second language. That is another part of the action plan of the Government of Canada. We need to reinforce the capacity of universities to accommodate those students who want to pursue some of their post-secondary education in the French language.
[Translation]
This is an extremely important point, but we must be cautious. At the moment, it is mainly the institutions I represent that can offer programs in French to immersion students. This can be done in two ways. We can help them strengthen their structures so as to accept more immersion students or we can decide to provide significant funding to the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser or the University of Manitoba to enable them to offer programs in French.
I have a suggestion, but it is important to be cautious and pay attention to that balance. The day the Canadian government starts investing significantly in the universities of the majority to develop second-language education, that will surely affect our ability to survive and attract anglophones students to share a university experience with francophones in Canada. So we have to be careful.
The action plan also states that in order to provide for the vitality and development of our communities in the medium term, there needs to be some coordination with Canada's immigration policies to promote the arrival of immigrants into the francophone communities. There too, it has been quite clearly demonstrated that when international students studying at our universities decide to apply for a permanent resident visa, there is a far greater chance that they will remain in the community where they have studied for three, four or five years instead of going to the big cities, Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver.
One way to encourage immigrants to settle in francophone regions outside Quebec would be to allow our universities to compete with Quebec universities to attract francophone students from abroad to our universities. There are three examples of how the Government of Canada's action plan struck a chord with us.
We have tabled an action plan that is quite but not overly ambitious. Why I am here today? For one thing, I got your invitation. Two years ago, when the then prime minister and Mr. Dion released the action plan at Cité collégiale in Ottawa, we were confident that in the following months we would start to see the money flow. However, two years later — and Ms. Frulla said so earlier — we still have not received any new funding.
For two years, our university funding has been the same as before 2003, so if the new budget allocations have been used, they certainly have not been used to create a positive impact in the universities we represent. That is a concern.
We are asking for two things. First, the action plan involves more than one department. There is the Department of Health, Industry Canada, Canadian Heritage and others. In the case of the Department of Health, direct agreements with universities have been made. Under the agreements between the federal Department of Health and the universities, $68 million was allocated to strengthening our education programs for the health profession.
The same thing goes for Industry Canada for new technologies. We have had direct agreements between the Government of Canada, through ACOA, which you know well, Senator Murray, and the universities. And it is the same for Western Economic Diversification. The bulk of the funding that should affect our universities has to do with official languages in education and the other programs under the Department of Canadian Heritage. We have repeatedly asked the Government of Canada to do what it has done in other departments but also with the universities of the majority. The Government of Canada has dealt directly with the universities to fund the Canada research chairs, and to fund the Canadian Foundation for Innovation. It does not go through the provinces. I am fully aware that the Constitution of Canada says that education falls under provincial jurisdiction. I also know that for the public system, there have to be federal-provincial agreements, but universities are ultimately quasi-public corporations with the ability to act independently of provincial governments. It is important that part of the Government of Canada's initiative, through Canadian Heritage, maintain the ability to deal directly with the universities rather than going through the provinces.
That is what is in the action plan we presented to the Department of Canadian Heritage. However, our vision of things is not limited to that action plan. My own university, for example, is going to benefit from federal-provincial agreements. Across New Brunswick, we also receive funds to strengthen the education program capacity of the Université de Moncton. It is a plan that will provide for better cooperation among all of our universities and add value to what they do for the communities.
I would like to quickly explain what we are trying to do. I know that you have had a chance to look at the document in advance, and perhaps we could go into greater detail and try to answer some questions. I would remind you that in order to preserve language retention, you have to start from early childhood and go all the way through to university. If our students do not have the opportunity to pursue their university education in their mother tongue, there is a good chance that they will associate with people from the majority at English-language universities, beyond our communities. It will then be much harder for them to come back home.
I will conclude by giving you some statistics. At our university, 80 per cent of our students are from francophone New Brunswick and 80 per cent of our graduates work in New Brunswick. From my point of view, these statistics show that when university students can be trained in French in our universities, there is a good chance that they will contribute to the development of this society.
The Chairman: Are you part of the Association of Atlantic Universities?
Mr. Fontaine: Yes. I am vice-president of the Association of Atlantic Universities. As a matter of fact, we have meetings in Prince Edward Island next week. I pay close attention to the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada. I have had the privilege of sitting on the board of governors for four years. It is very important for our universities to be networked among themselves and with all Canadian universities, and we are. We are also engaged in some interesting co-operation, albeit more informal, with the CREPUQ, the Conference of rectors and principals of Quebec universities. We are not isolated, but we have enough unique features to be grouped together and put forward a certain number of our priorities. Because in addition to being universities of the minority, we are also small universities, except for the University of Ottawa. My university is relatively large in the Atlantic region, but it is considered small on the national scale. Our linguistic realities are not negligible: we have unique features that require us to work together to develop our own positions, in addition to what we do with the other university associations.
Senator Comeau: It is a pleasure to see you. I am a Université de Moncton graduate. I feel that it is my university too. Next month, Louis J. Comeau will become the new chancellor of the Université de Moncton.
You mentioned that $750 million was earmarked for all programs for the Canadian francophonie, right?
Mr. Fontaine: The Government of Canada's action plan put the overall budget for the next five years at $750 million. That includes Government of Canada initiatives on behalf of minority language communities, including Quebec anglophones.
Senator Comeau: But the Association of Atlantic Universities has still not received anything?
Mr. Fontaine: We have received small grants for the secretariat's operation, but not for programs.
Senator Comeau: Your plan and Minister Dion's plan contemplated initiatives, including benefits and chairs, for universities in your network. You still have not received anything of that kind?
Mr. Fontaine: No where in the Government of Canada's action plan does it say that the Association des universités de la francophonie canadienne would be tasked with accomplishing this or that objective. There can be no doubt that our universities must be involved in order to accomplish the objectives set out in the action plan. That contribution, in my opinion, is indispensable.
Senator Comeau: It would be hard to turn to an anglophone university to meet the needs of francophone minorities. It makes no sense, for example, to ask Acadia University to meet the needs of minority francophones in Nova Scotia.
Have you expressed any concern about anglophone immersion programs being provided by anglophone institutions?
Mr. Fontaine: That does sometimes happen. There are also bilingual universities in Canada. If we wish to develop additional capacity to accommodate anglophone immersion students in our universities and give them the option of pursuing a university education partly or fully in French, you have to consider our network of universities. Following the action plan, certain anglophone universities undertook some initiatives, including Simon Fraser University, where federal grants were awarded to develop its capacity to accommodate students. Those grants enabled Simon Fraser University to provide immersion courses to francophone or anglophone students wishing to study in French. It is hardly surprising, because there is no university in British Columbia that can provide programs in French.
Where such programs do exist, it is important not to overlook the capacity of those institutions to make a significant contribution toward that goal.
Senator Comeau: The success rate of immersion programs in our universities is obvious. Immersion is happening in francophone communities, and it accelerates the rate at which people can become bilingual. The process is faster than at Simon Fraser University, where people are taking courses in French, but outside the classroom everything is in English.
In my opinion, it makes no sense for the federal government to contemplate this model and contribute to francophone programs in purely anglophone universities. We should probably focus specifically on that issue.
Allow me to make one last observation. I am happy that you mentioned that 80 per cent of graduates from your university appear to remain in New Brunswick. That is an interesting statistic. One of the goals should be to keep our young people in their community and to make sure they come back.
Have you discussed this issue with federal officials to advance the cause of the francophonie in francophone communities?
Mr. Fontaine: I do not know whether we mentioned it that specifically. When we negotiate with government officials, be they provincial or federal, the importance of developing additional capacity in our universities has a direct effect in terms of investments in human resources that will contribute to the economic, social and cultural development of our communities.
You can look at the numbers for other institutions. Take Saint-Boniface, for example. Several graduates from that institution tend to stay in the Saint-Boniface community. In Moncton, where there is no English-language university, and if you consider the percentage of university graduates, the percentage of francophones is far higher than the percentage of anglophones. That statistic does not imply that anglophones are not going to university. However, when those anglophone students leave Moncton to study at other universities, a good number of them do not come back.
So it is important for our institutions to have the capacity to provide relevant programs, because it gets harder and harder to attract students to our universities.
Senator Chaput: My question has to do with immigrant arrivals and competition for international students. In your document, when you refer to student recruitment, you indicate that universities in minority francophone settings are disadvantaged. You also talked about Quebec universities and the advantages they have, given that international students receive grants from the province of Quebec to pay for tuition. That is a provincial contribution, if I understand correctly?
Mr. Fontaine: Yes.
Senator Chaput: You also mentioned the possibility of universities in francophone minority settings having a bursary program. Could you elaborate on that point?
Mr. Fontaine: I would be happy to. A student from Paris attending a French-language university in Quebec pays the same tuition as a Quebec student. There are agreements between the government of Quebec and Quebec universities that provide for an international student to be admitted to a university program at the same cost as a Quebec student. That student will also be given the same consideration as a Quebec student when it comes to provincial grants.
However, in the case of my university, I can invite an international student and say that he or she is going to pay the same amount as a New Brunswick or Canadian student. However, I cannot consider that student eligible for a provincial grant. As a result, a student from Paris who wants to study at the Université de Moncton will have to pay $9,000 in tuition, whereas in Montreal, the fees would go no higher than $1,800.
In our view, one way for the Government of Canada to encourage francophone immigration to francophone areas would be to give us the tools to attract those francophone students from abroad to our universities.
You are right that in Quebec, those costs are covered by the Quebec government. As a matter of fact, all costs for things francophone in Quebec are covered by the government of Quebec. However, things francophone outside Quebec are covered in part by the federal government.
That contribution would therefore constitute an indispensable tool for us to attract international students.
The Ambassador of Tunisia came to see me one day and expressed the desire to send more Tunisian students to Moncton. But he told me that the preference was to send them to Quebec, because for a set number, they pay the tuition in Quebec. So I told him I would be willing to match that if someone helped me cover the costs associated with those students at my university.
That is the spirit of the program at issue. We have a number of international students. However, I believe that we have far greater potential. That support would attract more immigrants, create additional critical mass for our programs and enable us to offer a wider array of programs. As soon as we are no longer able to sustain enough relevant programs at our universities, our own students will start looking elsewhere.
So the stakes are high. That is why this program is one of our priorities in the action plan tabled with the Government of Canada.
Senator Chaput: Has this discussion been broached with the federal government?
Mr. Fontaine: Yes. And even with the previous minister. We have been discussing this particular project for two years. A lot of interest has been shown.
We asked several questions about the division of federal and provincial powers in relation to education. In my opinion, that is not the real issue. There are many precedents for direct federal intervention to assist universities. For example, there is the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Atlantic Innovation Fund. The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) funds universities directly without going through the provinces.
So, where there is a will, there is a way.
Senator Chaput: Could there be a specific fund for that?
Mr. Fontaine: Yes. We made a proposal and we are prepared to find a way. If it is the process that is lacking, I can assure you that we can be quite creative.
[English]
Senator Buchanan: I hope I was following what you were saying correctly. In the other universities, we call them foreign students. How many foreign students are in the francophone universities throughout the country?
Mr. Fontaine: Do you mean outside Quebec, or in my association?
Senator Buchanan: No, from outside the country. How many students come from other countries?
Mr. Fontaine: In our universities?
Senator Buchanan: Yes.
Mr. Fontaine: In the universities I represent today, I think that 90 per cent of international students here would be either at the University of Ottawa or Moncton. There might be around 450 international francophones. We have about 350 to 400 at the University of Moncton and I would suggest that there might be another 50 at other universities. We are talking about probably between 800 and 900 foreign students in our universities right now.
Senator Buchanan: Do they pay the same tuition as Canadian students?
Mr. Fontaine: No, a lot more.
Senator Buchanan: As you know, in the Atlantic provinces, the tuition for foreign students is not set, but each province follows what the APEC sets out. Therefore, in Nova Scotia, a foreign student from the United States or Mexico pays more than the Nova Scotia students.
Mr. Fontaine: They would pay about twice as much as Canadian students. It would depend. Let us say at my university tuition fees are $4,500, then international students pay $9,000. At Dalhousie, if it is $5,000 for a Canadian, then it would be $10,000 or $11,000.
Senator Buchanan: Okay, thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Murray: Let us talk a little bit about these new foundations created by the federal government, such as the Foundation for Innovation and the health research foundation. I assume your network sees to it that your institutions get their fair share of the research mandates issued by those foundations. Are you satisfied with the distribution of funds coming from those foundations? I am asking the question because there are some critics — and I am thinking of Brian Fleming, whom you know. There is some connection with Ste. Mary's or one of the Nova Scotian universities, and the claim is that most of the research mandates and most of the funding go to the large universities and that the smaller universities, by comparison, are disadvantaged. What has your experience been?
Mr. Fontaine: You must understand that most of those major initiatives of the Canadian government set up those foundations specifically to build up research capacities in universities.
As the term says, the major research universities have greater accessibility to those funds. We were very conscious of that at the very outset.
The small universities, especially those belonging to the AUCC, did make a lot of representations to have a minimum quota of research chairs in Canada. This led to a few results. As for the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, some of the criteria allowed some of the smaller universities to access those funds. At the end of the day, the gap in the area of research potential between the major universities and the smaller ones got broader.
I can say that most of Canada's small universities, including mine, obtained results during the first rounds with the Canadian Foundation for Innovation. On the other hand, we rapidly hit the bottom of the barrel because we do not have the 50 major research teams that can compete at the national level.
If I transpose this to the institutions who are members of this association, we did not make any representations to the effect that there were perhaps systemic language barriers in the major federal initiatives. I do not think there were any language barriers. There is no doubt that the smaller research universities handing out bachelor degrees do not have very good access to those funds. Of course, there are some exceptions such as the University of Ottawa. The small universities got very little, financially speaking, through the major federal programs.
Senator Murray: Could the situation be improved?
Mr. Fontaine: That was always a concern for the small universities when dealing with federal programs. Moreover, Canada's major research councils in human sciences, sciences and engineering imposed indirect costs for research. Take the University of Toronto, for example: 20 per cent of one hundred million dollars is an additional $20 million for indirect research costs. Some of that amount can go to the universities' operating funds. To the Canadian government's honour, they did say that for the smaller universities the indirect research costs would be paid at 40 per cent because there is a minimum base line. Some awareness raising was undertaken with the Canadian government to ensure that the small universities would not be totally left out of the process. I have no blame to cast on the Canadian government on that. However, there is the additional reality of reinforcing Canadian universities to meet the concerns of the Canadian government and ensure the existence of our universities. The Canadian government must find a way to fund our universities directly through a process as we suggested. I am concerned if it is done only through federal-provincial agreements. The Canadian government must promote direct intervention with the Canadian francophone universities in order to allow them to continue playing their vital role. That does not mean that those sums will not be paid through federal-provincial agreements but the latter will have to prioritize the public education system from kindergarten to 12th grade and that is a great concern.
[English]
Senator Murray: I have one partly technical, partly political and partly policy question about that. The main federal program of support for post-secondary education in this country has been, as you well know, first, through Established Programs Financing, and then through the Canada Health and Social Transfer. Recently, and for good reason, the federal government separated out the health transfers, so we now have the Canada Health Transfer. This is a kind of hobby horse of mine. Do you not think that it would be a good idea to separate out the post-secondary education transfer — which would not do away with arguments — so perhaps there would be fewer arguments about how much each order of government is contributing to post-secondary education?
Mr. Fontaine: I fully agree with you. I think one way of transmitting that money through the provinces is to have the same kinds of arrangements as you have with health. You know for sure there is X amount of money that goes to post- secondary education.
We need to be careful about channelling that money through a system like that; I am afraid that most of our institutions would be lost in the transfer when the provinces then apply it to the different universities. I would like to see a clause that says a certain amount of that money should also go to institutions for minorities. If that is not the case, if it is too general and the federal government says it did finance post-secondary education through agreements with the provinces, you have to go and knock at their door if there is no specific requirement that a certain amount would flow to our institutions.
If you compare that system to the system we have had in the last 10 to 15 years, when we did receive some direct money from Heritage Canada, I would be worried that we would be the losers in the end — not the university system as a whole, but the institutions that I represent here today. In my case, in the province of New Brunswick, it might not be too difficult to get my share; but I would be a bit worried about some other provinces.
Senator Murray: Do you think those universities are now more dependent on the federal government for support than on provincial grants?
Mr. Fontaine: No, they all have operating grants from the provinces.
Senator Murray: That money comes through CHST — a good part of it comes from the federal block funding.
Mr. Fontaine: Probably, yes.
[Translation]
Senator Léger: What amazes me is the amount of money put into recruiting students. I am aware of the phenomena of aging and the decrease in the birth rate. But in your report you are suggesting an amount of $52 million by 2010.
Mr. Fontaine: Yes.
Senator Léger: Of that, $33 million will go to recruiting students. That is an enormous amount of money. That means you need a certain number of students. Today, you have problems attaining that number and you have to go recruit elsewhere. In my opinion, $33 million out of $52 million is a huge amount.
Mr. Fontaine: You have to understand that the amount of $55 million does not represent all the financial resources our institutions have available. The total budget of our university network is at least $600 million a year.
That said, within the context of this request, we wanted to come up with an action plan meaningful to the Canadian government in the context of the objectives of the action plan. One of the great challenges facing our university institutions is to attract a student clientele from outside our communities.
Even though more people speak French in Canada, there is still a demographic decrease within Canada's francophone communities. In that case, in order to maintain a meaningful range of programs, we need a critical mass of students. That is why I believe Canada must make additional efforts to attract more students from the outside.
We have to draw in more anglophone students who went through immersion. In most of our institutions there are funds available for bursaries. Those funds were set up through funding campaigns. They could be earmarked for students from the Clément Cormier Polyvalente in Bouctouche, but they are not immersion students.
I think we have to offer bursaries to those students to draw them to our institutions otherwise they will go to Mount Allison or Acadia or elsewhere. We have the responsibility to build up bursary funds in order to offer them to immersion students and not only to francophones.
Senator Léger: Those figures apply to this program. What with the decreasing birth rate, we really need people who will be qualified caregivers for others. We can train architects who can interpret plans and all kinds of professionals, but we also need people who can drive a nail. We should not forget the practical side that we often seem to look away from. Am I wrong?
Mr. Fontaine: The most noble thing is certainly to offer as much education as possible to those who have the abilities and the will to pursue university studies. I think that things finally balance out. As the rector of a university, my responsibility is to make sure that all students who have the will and the ability to pursue university studies actually do so. Contrary to some of the perceptions out there, 95 per cent of Canadian university graduates join the labour market in the months following their graduation.
We all know the story that says that a university graduate, during his or her career, will earn an average of one million dollars more than a non-graduate.
I think it is an extraordinary investment and Canada has already recognized it. Actually, the government's objective is to make Canada the fifth country in the world in terms of research capacity and I think that is a great objective. To get there, we have to train university students and I believe that we will never have too many university graduates in our society.
The Chairman: I read the presentation you made to the House of Commons official language committee. I would like you to tell me if I have interpreted it correctly.
If Canada accepts to give university training to students from Benin, the Ivory Coast or elsewhere in the world, it has a moral obligation to encourage them to turn to their country of origin. You were saying that if we train minds in Canada, then we can encourage them to stay here or they might want to stay here of their own volition.
You said that if they stayed it would enrich Canada. I think that very fact actually bleeds their own home countries dry, do you not think?
Mr. Fontaine: You are right. There is the phenomenon of a brain drain from the poorer countries to the richer ones. It is a world-wide phenomenon for both francophone countries and all others.
Canada itself underwent quite a brain drain towards the U.S.A. One of the reasons the Canada Research Chair Program was set up was to bring back to our Canadian universities some of the better known Canadian brains working in the American universities.
If we train people from elsewhere in our Canadian universities and a percentage of those people stay here, it will never be 100 per cent nor even 50 per cent. We know what our Canadian immigration policies are. We accept a certain number of immigrants every year. The number of foreign students in Canadian universities is higher than the number of immigrants we accept each year. The immigrants we accept will not be students registered at our universities. All that to say that there is a question of balance. There is something else going on: a lot of landed immigrants in Canada go back to their countries of origin or close to them as soon as possible. It just naturally happens. The greatest objective of an Acadian who has managed a great career in Calgary is to go back to Acadia as soon as he can earn a living back home. It is inevitable.
Canadian society has to attract immigrants. We have to make sure that in so doing, we take into account a certain number of elements that lead to a balancing out. Canada needs academics, but we also need people in the trades. That is not a contradiction as such. The Canadian government can do more to contribute to the development of poorer societies. The Canadian government has an interest in opening more doors to international students in our Canadian universities.
The Chairman: I have one last question before closing this part of the meeting. I was present at meetings with the Association of Atlantic Universities of which you are the vice-president. The problem of keeping teachers at Atlantic universities was raised many times. Do you have that problem at the Université de Moncton? The Universities of Toronto or Guelph, for example, can pay better salaries, have better working conditions, bursaries for research and that means that your professors might actually follow the money. Is this a problem for the University of Moncton?
Mr. Fontaine: Small universities in general do have a problem holding on to their teaching staff. The problem has less to do with salary scales. With the latest collective agreements signed in the Atlantic provinces, university salaries in the Atlantic area are quite comparable to those in central Canada. The smaller the university, the less research capacity it has. People wanting to have a career in research will go to universities where there are already several groups of researchers working in different university disciplines. Those are the real stakes. The Canada Research Chair Programs actually exacerbated the problem. While the small universities got 5, 10 or 15 research chairs in Canada, the major universities like Toronto and UBC got hundreds and hundreds of chairs. They both recruited professors from the U.S.A. That is something we have to live with. Some are a bit philosophical about the whole thing. They figure that if they managed to attract some brilliant professor who stayed seven years, then we have had that teacher for seven years before he or she leaves. The retention rate of the teaching staff must vary between 80 and 85 per cent and the crucial period happens during the first five to seven years. After that, when they have really established a research program, it is harder for them to have that mobility. That is the reality with which we have to live. I think the problem does not have only to do with the salary as such but also with what can be offered to further research at the major universities.
The Chairman: President, in the name of the committee I thank you for having come here this afternoon. You made recommendations that the committee will doubtless want to implement. Thank you once again for coming. We appreciate it.
Mr. Fontaine: Thank you all.
The Chairman: There has either been a misunderstanding or a problem concerning the possibility of our sitting after 6 p.m. as the Senate will be sitting at 6 p.m. tonight. When we adjourned last Thursday, I was under the impression that we had the permission to sit in order to hear the witnesses scheduled for our meeting until 7:30 p.m. or 8 p.m. tonight. It would appear that the motion was not clear on that. We had first thought of calling the witnesses from the Senate at 8 p.m. and then at 7 p.m. and then at 6 p.m., in other words at the very same hour we were to hear Minister Dryden and another minister. I consulted with the government deputy leader. He told me this matter would be resolved during the first minutes of tonight's Senate sitting and that we would be able to finish our work even though the Senate is sitting at the same time we are. I just wanted to inform you of that.
[English]
It is not my doing; it is the house leader's doing. There are problems, and I am told that they will be resolved in our interests.
[Translation]
We now have the pleasure of welcoming Ms. Dyane Adam, the Commissioner of Official Languages. With her are her collaborators that we already know for having seen them several times. I will still ask her to introduce them.
Ms. Dyane Adam, Commissioner of Official Languages, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages: Thank you. To my right, you have JoAnn Myer, the Director General, Policy and Communications Branch; to my immediate left, Johane Tremblay, the Director of the Legal Affairs Branch, and next to her we have Gérard Finn, our advisor and person in charge of parliamentary affairs.
Thank you for having invited me to appear in the course of your review of education within francophone minority communities. I am delighted by the committee's effective follow-up on this important matter. I must say that seeing three ministers appear before a parliamentary committee the same day is certainly a great average! It is impressive!
Let us talk about education. Outside of the home, the main living space for francophones is the school, where a sense of belonging develop and values are built. One goal of the action plan for official languages is to implement measures that will promote the establishment of a comprehensive educational system and a full francophone educational administration in minority communities. Such a system must be tailored to community needs, rather than simply being modeled on the majority system. We seek to create an educational continuum from early childhood to the post-secondary period, which will also include continuing education and adult training programs.
I would like to discuss the key components of this continuum: access, and continuity. I shall conclude by discussing our expectations and those of the communities, and the excessively slow implementation of the action plan.
[English]
On access, the first challenge is to recruit and retain students. The action plan's code is clear — boost the proportion of eligible students while enhancing educational quality. The bar is high: Provide French language instruction to 80 per cent of the target school population by 2013. Any drop in student numbers will have an adverse impact on the vitality of the communities and the institutions involved. Without the ongoing recovery of this target group, the rights holders, many francophone educational systems will find themselves in difficulty because one segment of this community will have lost its constitutional rights for future generations.
That is why we must formulate a national recruitment plan in partnership with the provinces and the communities. Such a project must define all issues, whether they pertain to the development of infrastructure or needed improvements in the educational system. Such a plan must rely on hosting programs, the support of exogamous parents and targeted early childhood development initiatives. Access to francophone schooling is prepared long in advance, from the time of the child's birth.
In the recent federal budget, the Government of Canada said that it would devote $5 billion over five years to fund a national early learning and child care initiative. Negotiations have begun, but we do not know what shape this initiative will take in terms of minority community needs. Our experience shows that the lack of clear linguistic provisions within intergovernmental agreements has often resulted in official language minority communities being left by the wayside.
Our discussions with central agencies and the government's public responses on these negotiations offer no clear indication of results for early childhood services in the minority language. Francophone communities have nonetheless defined their vision, which is one of high quality, universally accessible services run by parents in association with primary schools. I ask your committee to remind the Government of Canada that inertia and lack of leadership fail to comply with the letter or the spirit of Part VII of the act.
"Access" also means we must bolster our post-secondary networks. Both levels of government must empower bilingual institutions to offer a full range of programs. To improve access to education, it must be possible to provide input on the range of programs offered. In the Rae report, Ontario recognized the educational and identity-related mission of the post-secondary French language educational network and the financial resources associated with it. Post-secondary networks wish to develop their programs and remain on the lookout for emerging student groups within their institutions, such as graduates of French immersion programs and international students.
[Translation]
I shall now address the second point which speaks to and continuity. Educational equality means far more than just equal access. It means ensuring conditions and funding throughout the educational process that will guarantee equal performance for both official language communities. Parents also seek education and true educational alternatives. At the present time, gaps may exist when compared to the majority. Efforts are needed to catch up by providing better training to teachers and by developing better educational resources. This also assumes that efforts will be invested to make a priority. For example, students who attend French language schools in Edmonton or in Fredericton must be able to complete their primary school studies under optimal conditions and have unimpeded access to high quality secondary and post-secondary studies in their language. It is only under such circumstances that these individuals can fully participate in an English-dominated working environment without losing their language or their identity.
The same rule applies for continuing education and adult education, which underly the development of these communities.
To meet this goal, we must also expand the French language educational space. We must reconfigure the space through technological means and through cooperation among communities and among governments. Universities and colleges, for example, possess language resources that could serve to enhance the availability of post-secondary French language services.
To overcome these many challenges, the Table sectorielle de l'éducation, which comprises the main French language community organizations operating in the field of education, is preparing for a summit, which will be held in June 2005. At this summit, a comprehensive plan will be proposed that seeks to fully implement educational rights throughout the entire educational continuum. I hope that all levels of government participate in this event and commit to taking action.
In fact, your report will serve to remind the federal government of its obligations toward these communities and the concerted effort they have demonstrated.
The third point is meeting expectations. I would now like to say a few words about expectations. Let us be clear: the communities feel a legitimate and steadily growing sense of frustration. They had expressed their desire to be equal partners in the implementation of section 23. This means they must be regularly consulted on all projects that pertain to them, particularly with respect to implementation of the action plan. On the other hand, not only do the provincial governments sometimes fail to view the school boards as partners, they are even less likely to consider these boards as equal partners.
Furthermore, delays in concluding the memorandum of understanding with the Council of Ministers of Education, as well as the bilateral agreements, have caused deep concern. In view of the size of the challenges to be met, the delays that have occurred are unacceptable and have an adverse effect on the provinces and on the communities, which find it difficult to plan their activities for the coming year. This situation could negatively impact second-language instruction, for example. We must work better and faster.
The Minister responsible for Official Languages and the Minister of Canadian Heritage have indicated that they wish to conclude these agreements before the end of the month. Today is March 21, this means that time is running out.
[English]
We all seek greater accountability and more leadership from all levels of government, and the federal government must play its role as champion of the official languages in education. It must rally all stakeholders around a common vision that can serve as a catalyst for the actions of its provincial and territorial partners. Doing so also presupposes heightened responsibility and greater accountability. However, we continue to await the action plan accountability framework as well as the establishment of performance indicators.
Although the second year of this five-year plan will soon draw to a close, we still lack a clear notion of what has been done and what remains to be done. We thus eagerly await the progress report that the government is scheduled to produce this fall. We need tangible results. Furthermore, I would be pleased to discuss with you at another time other aspects of the action plan, such as the educational needs of the Quebec English language community and the instruction in French and English as second languages. All of the topics are, to a certain extent, related, because their overall purpose is to reinforce Canada's bilingual identity.
Finally, to contend with the gradual erosion of minority French language communities, we must repair past injustices by ensuring true educational equality. This also means creating genuine partnerships between provincial governments and school boards.
Repairing the injustices of the past requires leadership from the federal government, the active participation of provincial and territorial governments and involvement of communities at all phases. It also requires an unwavering sense of responsibility and accountability.
I perceive within these communities a great desire to work together and a new, concerted effort to ensure the full achievement of educational rights. The strategy formulated by the Fédération nationale des conseils scolaires francophones to complement the French language educational system is an excellent example of this promising vitality. It is beginning by developing the educational systems of our official language minority communities that will fortify Canada's French language communities of tomorrow. I thank you, and I will be happy to answer your questions.
[Translation]
The Chairman: Thank you, Ms. Adam. Before giving the floor to Senator Comeau, I would just like to repeat something I already said to members of the committee. Clearly, we are now studying the education system in the minority francophone environment. Far be it from us to think that we would not also study the situation of anglophones in Quebec or the French or English immersion systems, depending on the province.
This is a long-term project and we thought it would be useful and more productive to go by linguistic sector in order to avoid confusion. This is because the situation of anglophones in Quebec is certainly not comparable to that of francophones in Manitoba, for instance. The challenges are sometimes very different from the points of view of administration, service delivery and language policy in certain provinces. It is therefore to avoid confusion that we decided to proceed this way, but we will take your remarks into account. They are timely.
Senator Comeau: Welcome once again, Ms. Adam. It is always a pleasure to have you appear before the committee to help us in our work. My first question concerns early childhood education. Minister Dryden will be with us a little later on this afternoon.
One of my concerns in this area has to do with the $5 billion which were announced as a solution. I do not know if it was presented that way, but those are the facts. I do not want to repeat what Senator Murray said. Ultimately, $5 billion over five years is not...
Senator Murray: That is not a lot, you can say so.
[English]
Senator Comeau: How did he say it? "God forgive me for saying this, but $5 billion does not respond."
[Translation]
I agree with him that $5 billion is not a lot of money for what we would like to accomplish. You talked about a quality, affordable and universally accessible system. I have two questions. First, have you had the opportunity to see whether the money was distributed fairly across the country? Will the $5 billion spread out over five years meet the needs as expected?
Since minorities are not mentioned here, if there was a distribution per capita, what type of day care would be offered to children living in minority regions, since we have not yet examined the issue of compensation for past injustices?
Ms. Adam: As far as I know, the government promised to spend $5 billion. However, it did not say how the money would be distributed nor under what conditions or provisions. The government has not signed any agreement with the provinces and territories to meet that objective. There is still time to intervene in order to make sure that this time the federal government will act by taking into account the needs and interests of minority official language communities. This is why the communities have argued that it was necessary to include in the agreements provisions guaranteeing equal access to funding and services which would meet the needs of the community.
I met with Minister Dryden to explain the importance, during negotiations and meetings with his provincial counterparts, of arguing that the federal government is responsible for protecting these minorities and to ensure that they have access to equal services. We still have not received any clear answers as to whether the federal government will really make this a condition and include it in the agreements. I will conclude on that point: too often in the past, money was spent in certain sectors, such as manpower training, but no language clauses were included. As a result, it will be very difficult for the government to set things right.
Senator Comeau: The federal government has already announced certain things for which the provinces have shown an interest. This is probably because there have already been discussions, because nothing was said on one side of the table. The federal government made the announcement without committing the provinces to anything. There was no mention of how much money would go to the provinces. Linguistic minorities did not mention this in any press release. Will there be negotiations on this issue at the next meeting?
Ms. Adam: I would hope that Minister Dryden, who is responsible for negotiations with the provinces in order to implement this national program, receives a clear mandate from the federal government to fully take into account the needs of linguistic minorities, and that he will act accordingly. When the agreements are signed, we will see whether the $5 billion are enough to promote bilingualism in Canada.
Senator Comeau: Several groups appeared before the committee and spoke to the issue of education beginning in early childhood right through post-secondary studies, but no one even mentioned trade schools, electricians or carpenters, for example. Tradespeople often work with people on the outside. Even colleges are not very interested in this area, which means that almost all tradespeople are trained in English. Did you ever take note of this shortcoming?
Ms. Adam: A little earlier, I insisted on the learning continuum. Throughout our lives, we develop new skills. Depending on the province, learning a trade may be possible or not in French, but in a province such as Ontario, which has a fairly well developed French post-secondary education system, it is not always possible to learn a trade in French. I recently had a discussion with the president of the Cité collégiale regarding learning a trade in French.
Francophone communities and the education system need to recognize all stakeholders in order to highlight the importance of building this continuum. If a young person is not really interested in studying, in excelling or in graduating in his or her language, it a loss for the community.
Senator Comeau: Almost every post-secondary graduate living in a coastal area ends up leaving. We spend our money to educate them from early childhood to university only to lose them. Those who stay are often tradespeople and they are not even recognized. But they form the very fabric of our community. I cannot believe that we are ignoring these people. Perhaps we should take a closer look at the situation.
Ms. Adam: That is what you are doing.
Senator Comeau: Yes, but no one has mentioned them before.
Ms. Adam: They are not infrequently forgotten within the system and you are right to point it out.
Senator Comeau: Practically none of the experts who appeared before the committee mentioned the tradespeople. However, I see them regularly in my community, because those who graduated from university moved away.
My last question concerns rights holders. Our objective is a rate of 80 per cent. Senator Buchanan questioned this percentage. But I think the figure is closer to 50 per cent for people who are in the system. It is nevertheless fairly significant.
Ms. Adam: You found that significant?
Senator Coma: Did you study the figure for communities?
Ms. Adam: I can only to speak to our study and the last one conducted by professors Landry and Roussel. The figures are constant. The rate is 50 per cent.
You have to understand that the rate is lower in certain provinces. In other provinces, such as New Brunswick, it is about 80 per cent. So for all intents and purposes, New Brunswick has met the objective of the plan of action. In Ontario, I believe it is about 60 per cent and in a province like Saskatchewan it may well have fallen to 25 per cent. If we work the numbers, you get an average of about 50 per cent. So certain provinces face huge challenges.
Senator Comeau: Perhaps we should focus more on provinces like Saskatchewan which has a rate that leaves much to be desired. Our efforts should target the communities which have the most problems.
Our objective is not to strengthen communities which have a low rate, but to try to save those where rates have fallen.
Are you satisfied with the source of these figures? I presume that this information was based on the census?
Ms. Adam: Yes.
Senator Comeau: Are you comfortable with the way the figures have been calculated, that is, based on census data?
Ms. Adam: Before Mr. Landry published his study, we came out with our own. That one was conducted by Angéline Martel. In fact, the office of the commissioner published the first study on this matter.
To our knowledge, it is the most reliable data. Of course, some people do not respond truthfully to the census. However, in my opinion, the figures reflect reality.
Senator Comeau: I asked the question because Acadians are not identified in the document. As an Acadian, I have trouble being recognized as a French Canadian or as person of French-Canadian descent. What does one say in such case?
I wonder if anyone has an idea of the percentage for communities similar to communities like the Acadians.
Ms. Adam: Rights holders are defined in the Constitution. Of course, there are several definitions. However, the definition is always based on one's mother tongue and whether one still speaks it. The studies which were carried out are based on the mother tongue. The mother tongue of the respondent and the school which his or her children attend are some of the factors taken into account.
So I think you can trust the data. In five or ten years, that is, in 2013, at the end of the plan of action, when we see whether the 80 per cent objective has been met, if the same methodology is still being used, we should be able to see whether the plan failed or succeeded.
[English]
Senator Murray: Commissioner, I thank you for contributing to my education by explaining what an exogamous couple is. I did not know until today what it meant — and I will not tell what you I thought it was. Instead, I take it that it is when a francophone enters into a marriage or a conjugal partnership with an anglophone.
Apropos early childhood education and child care, you say that negotiations have begun but we do not know what shape this initiative will take in terms of minority community needs. You also say that your discussions with central agencies, and the government's public responses on these negotiations, offer no clear indication of results for early childhood services in the minority language.
You are in the same boat as the rest of us. I do not think it is because they are keeping things from us; I suspect it is because there is less to this than meets the eye. We will have Mr. Dryden in due course and find out, but let us talk for a minute about what we do know.
I had a written response to a question I asked in the Senate about this, and they are attempting to negotiate it within the framework of the Social Union Framework Agreement that was negotiated by the Chrétien government several years ago. That agreement poses a number of hurdles that the minister will have to get over.
First of all, he will not have a national program unless he has at least six provinces on board. I do not know, and I do not think you know, whether he has six provinces on board for an agreement. Failing that, I presume he will have to negotiate bilaterally; perhaps he will have to do that in any case.
I said to a previous witness that it is probably unrealistic, knowing the little we do about this negotiation, to expect that this program that he is trying to negotiate would carry the freight, would achieve the objectives that the linguistic minorities want. As you say later, they do know what they want, and I think we understand the importance of it in terms of the overall picture.
I wonder if this is not a fair question to ask you, except by way of information, if you know of other examples. It occurs to me that we might want to end up with something quite separate and apart from what the government is negotiating in the way of early childhood education or child care. We might want something quite separate, perhaps through the official languages education program or some other program under Canadian Heritage, to achieve these objectives that I think are pressing in a particular sense.
The whole issue of child care is very important from a number of standpoints, but that is not our discussion today. We know from the point of view of minority language education that it is quite important. Are there precedents that you can think of for separating out the official languages component, the linguistic minority component, and making a separate agreement on that?
Ms. Adam: I am not sure that we can compare different issues. Before answering that question, I would like to make an overarching comment. I am always a little uncomfortable when we ask to create specific programs for minorities. Why? Usually they are add-ons, and are not that well funded.
In the past, for example, regarding the training component in the social union agreement, when this was negotiated, the question of training in French for different types of professions, or for Metis, or continuous training for employment for the French minorities was not taken into consideration. They created separate programs or additional arrangements that were not really part of the agreement. In that circumstance, I think you create a situation where the minority group is always put in a position where they have to almost beg to be considered. They are not in the mainstream, or maybe they cannot be in the mainstream.
I believe that the provinces and the federal government, when they negotiate special programs for Canadian citizens, since we have two official languages communities, should start to recognize that the programs may have some common goals, but they may need to be adapted to the realities of the minority community. I find that when you create something separate, the minority does their thing and the real "thing" is elsewhere. If you cannot get a strong and clear commitment to bring the two official languages communities into the program, then yes, you will go separately.
I can give you an example. When I was in the university business in Ontario, we had access to special funding for the French and bilingual universities, but we wanted access to the full range of funding, which is a lot more generous than the special bilingualism grant. At the end of the day, it played out against you over time, and that is my worry. I do not know if I answered your question.
Senator Murray: I appreciate that. I think that is well said. One of the issues in the Social Union Framework Agreement, as you know, is that there is provision for a form of opting out for provinces that have more-or-less similar programs. It is hard for me to say right now, and we will know more when the minister comes, whether we will have a national program. In any case, it occurs to me that the official languages component or the minority language component is probably better done — correct me if I am wrong here, as you have more experience in this than I — in the bilateral agreements because conditions vary so much from one province to another. In New Brunswick and Ontario, it will be easier than in some other provinces.
Ms. Adam: Yes.
Senator Murray: Perhaps rather than being part of the national agreement, except by way of a general commitment, the minority language component will have to be negotiated in the bilateral agreements. Am I wrong about that? Am I missing something there?
Ms. Adam: I believe it is in how you define the national program. Will it be specific? To what degree will it more or less define how to implement the program? If it is only in the objectives, then you can tailor the program to the needs of the communities. In Ontario, you have not only the official languages, a French-speaking community, but you have a diversity that may not be present in some of the Atlantic provinces. There are other issues specific to each province. Things may need to be adapted for areas that are more urban than rural. I am sure you need to be able to adapt that program.
I would go by principle, and the principle is that if the federal government is investing in an early childhood national program, they should ensure that the two official languages communities in Canada are treated as equal citizens and can benefit equally from that investment. Secondly, the principle is that in the crafting of that agreement, there should be sufficient flexibility to tailor it to the particularities or specificities of the different communities, because they are different, and so it has to be adaptable.
Senator Murray: I think in some cases, it will have to be something more than equality.
Ms. Adam: Equal results.
Senator Murray: Well, yes. It has to be something more than what we think of as equality in order to take special account of a minority language community in certain parts of the country.
Ms. Adam: If you will allow me, the Supreme Court has been very clear in guiding us on that. When you are speaking about equality, it is not equal treatment. It is that you should ensure that, for both communities, the results are the same. You may need different means to achieve similar ends.
Senator Murray: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Chaput: I would like to raise three points. You talked about — I agree — equal partners. Today, we heard Minister Frulla say that during the negotiations on the agreement on education, the federal government and provincial governments were at the table. Despite the fact that communities would also like to be at the table, they are not. You talked about catching up, and there is no doubt that there is a certain amount of catching up which needs to be done.
When I think of the upcoming negotiations on the agreement between Canada and the communities, the communities will have to validate their existence and that of certain organizations. We are not only trying to catch up, but we also have to show that we must be there to continue the work. You talked about widening the scope of French education. This should include all the services necessary for education, including early childhood education. The community will have to deal with a new department for early childhood education.
I just talked about the fact that the process is slow and cumbersome. I also want to mention what we were told by a researcher at one of our most recent meetings: if we continue to educate minorities, our schools will feed the minority complex. The smaller you are, the poorer you are, the less money you have, and you just do not have what it takes.
If you were us, what are the first recommendations you would make to the government to bring about real change?
Ms. Adam: I would strongly insist on the fact that the Department of Canadian Heritage is the department representing the federal government in the area of education and in negotiations with the provinces — and that it should play a bigger role. No agreement has been signed yet. The plan of action is a slow process. Unfortunately, we cannot applaud the progress of the implementation of the action plan. But since second-language education and minority languages make up more than half of the plan, and since it is not progressing to our satisfaction, we cannot really be satisfied with the implementation of the plan, although we are already at the end of the second year. The Department of Canadian Heritage has to be a catalyst. It has to work with the provinces.
Provincial education ministries want the plan to succeed for minority communities as well as for majority communities. The fact that negotiations are progressing slowly, people often say, is due to the bureaucracy and federal- provincial relations.
I am not part of the process, I am only an observer, but I believe that when things are repeated too often and when they are repeated by different sources, it is time to take a hard look at the situation and ask whether the federal government is facilitating the process or unduly creating obstacles. When obstacles are created, the process slows down. Some provinces were willing to act, but their motivation has probably decreased in the meantime.
Senator Léger: You talked about the bureaucracy. Should we perhaps not change the bureaucratic process?
A university degree is something which is prized and valued. But when people talk about the trades, it is as if it had nothing to do with education. What can the official languages committee do to take a new look at the education system?
Ms. Adam: I always believed that the government was there to serve its citizens, and not the opposite. You talked about a partnership with communities. Everyone knows that the Constitution guarantees rights to minorities. It gives them the right to manage their own schools. School boards are key partners and they should be able to be involved in any decisions affecting education.
If these people feel excluded, I think it is incumbent upon us to reflect on structures which could provide them with the tools or processes they need. I do not know how this can be done because I am not an expert on the machinery of government or intergovernmental relations.
People are most probably feeling frustrated, legitimately so, they would like to be heard, and currently, they cannot seem to have their say, despite the fact that they would be the first to benefit from the effects of these decisions.
Senator Léger: Given the trend in research chairs, we could perhaps create a university chair which would aim to simplify the government's system. That could help us in our search for solutions.
The Chairman: We have gone beyond the time allocated for Ms. Adam's testimony. We thank you, Ms. Adam, for having taken part in this exercise.
[English]
Colleagues, this is committee work and some of it is informal. One or two of our colleagues will be back momentarily. Senator Comeau had to be in the chamber for a few minutes. He will be back, which means that we should be getting under way because of time constraints for everyone.
It is a pleasure to welcome the Honourable Ken Dryden and his officials to this committee. I am sure, Mr. Minister, you have been briefed on what we are attempting to achieve, do, find out, or whatever. It all has to do with education for the francophone minority. What you have in the offing is of great interest to them, and that is what we would like to discuss here tonight.
We will be dealing with the other minority group, the anglophones in Quebec, at a later date; but right now we are focusing our efforts on the francophone minority throughout Canada.
Welcome to you and your officials. You may wish to introduce them.
The Honourable Ken Dryden, Minister of Social Development: First, I would like to introduce the people here with me today. Peter Hicks is the Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Strategic Direction at Social Development Canada; Christian Dea is the Acting Director General, Knowledge and Research; Robert Coulter is the Director of Horizontal Initiatives and International Relations; and John Connolly is Acting Director, Operations, Community Development and Partnerships Directorate, Partnerships Division.
[Translation]
I am very pleased to be here today to discuss the activities that Social Development Canada is undertaking to meet its commitments under the Government of Canada's Action Plan for Official Languages.
Specifically, I will outline today what we are doing in early learning and child care in our Understanding the Early Years program and in two initiatives funded by the action plan.
[English]
As you know, in response to commitments made in the October 2004 Speech from the Throne and in the 2005 federal budget, the Government of Canada is currently negotiating a new agreement with provinces and territories on early learning and child care. It will build on the success of the 2000 Federal/Provincial/Territorial Early Childhood Development Agreement and the 2003 Multilateral Framework on Early Learning and Child Care.
[Translation]
In these two previous agreements, the governments recognized that early childhood development in early learning and child care programs and services should include and be responsive to children living in various cultural and linguistic circumstances.
In our discussions to date, federal, provincial and territorial ministers responsible for social services have agreed that the QUAD principles — quality, universally inclusive, accessible, and developmental — will guide the development of early learning and child care across the country. These principles are intended to be inclusive of all children, including those living in official language minority communities.
At our recent meeting on February 11, we discussed this question at length.
I made the case for specifically including official language minority communities in the new agreement, consistent with our federal objectives under the Official Languages Act.
I also took the opportunity to emphasize the importance of these programs and services for young children.
[English]
One of the understandings that we have in approaching this, and part of the understanding that we get from those in the francophone community and others, is that the language of first instruction of a child will very likely be the language of next instruction and ongoing instruction. When the language of first instruction is in elementary school, as it has been traditionally, then that would continue in high school as well. Now and in the future, early learning and child care will play a much larger part and will represent that first language of instruction. It makes the language of instruction available under early learning and child care that much more important and that is the principle under which we are approaching all of this.
[Translation]
Our negotiations are on going, and I assure you that we will continue to emphasize the importance of official language minority communities.
Let me turn to Understanding the Early Years. Understanding the Early Years is an initiative that helps communities collect information on their children's readiness to learn, the factors that influence children's development, and the availability of local resources to support young children and their families.
[English]
This localized information allows communities to respond with programs, policies and investments that will give their children the best possible start in the early years. After a successful pilot initiative, it was expanded in March 2004 from 12 projects to include up to 100 communities across the country. An important objective of the selection process is to ensure even regional distribution and representation. The concept of "community" will be broadly defined so that any region with the minimum number of children could participate. A call for proposals that opened on February 16 and closes on April 11 will see approximately 25 new communities begin their Understanding the Early Years projects in the fall of 2005. Specific consideration is to be given to communities that include children living in official language minority situations.
Social Development Canada has received funding under the action plan for two specific initiatives related to minority communities, $10.8 million to implement a project on child care and $3.8 million to develop the capacity of non-governmental organizations. The child care pilot project is a four-year research initiative designed to test existing programs and to obtain evidence of enriched child care services in French on the linguistic, cultural and overall development of preschool children living in minority francophone communities.
The evidence obtained will add to our collective knowledge of what works. It will eventually inform the design and delivery of child care services for minority francophone children by identifying program, family and community factors that influence the development of a sense of identity and positive child outcomes. At least five minority francophone communities and 200 preschool children will participate in the project. Half of the participating children will receive the enriched services. Project impacts will be assessed by comparing outcomes for the children who receive the enriched services with those of the children who do not.
The $3.8 million in funding is being managed by the department's Social Development Partnership Program that makes investments through grants and contributions to promote the generation and dissemination of knowledge, to foster partnerships, to achieve shared goals and to strengthen the capacities of the non-profit sector. Funding for 2003- 04, 2004-05 and 2005-06 has been provided to the Commission nationale des parents francophones to support early childhood development in official language minority communities for community-based project such as Partir en français, which has received $1.055 million, and Partir en français 2, which has received $315,000. These projects are developing tools and teaching materials for early childhood education and child care in official language minority communities. In addition to these projects, a grant of $276,000 was given to the Canadian Teachers' Federation to develop a "Profil d'entrèe à la première année dans une perspective langagière et culturelle," aimed at facilitating the successful integration of children in French schools.
Officials with the Community Development and Partnerships Directorate will be working in collaboration with stakeholders from francophone and Acadian communities to determine how best to spend the $680,000 earmarked for each of 2006-07 and 2007-08 in the Action Plan on Official Languages.
[Translation]
In conclusion, we at the Department of Social Development take very seriously our commitments under the Action Plan on Official Languages.
I welcome your questions.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, Minister. We will start with Senator Murray.
[English]
Senator Murray: First, I should say that I think I spoke in error earlier when I said that these negotiations are taking place within the context of the Social Union Framework Agreement. I have since been informed that that is not the case. I had thought that indeed in answer to a question that I had posed in the Senate I was told it was the case, but anyway, it is not.
The Chairman: Was that in your exchange with the commissioner?
Senator Murray: Yes.
Now, minister, I have not had the opportunity to go through the initiatives under the action plan that you describe here and Understanding the Early Years and so on — and it is quite impressive — but what interests me and, I think, us at the moment is where you are going in terms of a national agreement on child care. Will it be a national agreement? How will you get a satisfactory minority language component to that agreement?
You have had agreement, it says here, with federal, provincial and territorial ministers responsible for social services. You have agreed that the QUAD principles will guide the development of early learning and child care across the country. Okay. What is the next step in your negotiations?
Mr. Dryden: We had our first meeting in early November, at which we essentially agreed to what you read there, the QUAD principles, and we had the beginnings of agreement on definition of those principles. Subsequent to that meeting in November, and involving lots of conversations between officials and deputies, we developed a draft agreement that goes into substantial detail on how all of this would work. The essence of it is that the provinces themselves have the authority to deliver this program.
All of this program money comes from the federal government. The provinces have the responsibility of delivering it through those QUAD principles, those understandings of quality, developmental and so on. Then, as part of the $5 billion over five years, $100 million is for what we would call an accountability package, where we would do lots of surveying, testing, seeing where the money goes and with what benefit.
We met in mid-February and have not come up with a final agreement. We have agreement amongst a substantial number of provinces and territories. Since that time, we have had further conversations amongst officials. I have had conversations with my counterparts and we are confident that we will have a multilateral agreement involving all the provinces and territories. We are not at that stage yet, but we believe that we are close to it.
In some of the other earlier conversations, and at the February meeting, the question of official language minorities was brought up and discussed. There was not a great deal of agreement from the provinces and the territories. I made the point that I think that there are a few things that the provinces and territories experience that for the most part would have to do with the education system and the kinds of trials and tribulations that are sometimes there. I point out to them that this is a much smaller-scale system. You do not need 150 kids or 100 kids or whatever that magic number is in order to create a school. You do not need that number to then trigger a large expenditure of money, a couple of million dollars, in order to build a school. Most of early learning and child care in this country takes place in quite small facilities, to a considerable extent, in home-based facilities. You can in fact provide for a linguistic minority with a couple of kids. The key in this so far as we are concerned is that all of this — this money and this program — is for children under the age of six in regulated child care and in child care that is delivered according to those QUAD principles. A significant percentage of that will be delivered in home-based care, certainly in the next number of years. A lot of it that is centre based will be small-centre based, and so it may be for 7, 10, 12 kids. Therefore, there is a greater flexibility than the provinces and territories might have experienced historically when dealing with matters of education.
My question to them is, are all of those issues that they recall as real challenges the same kind of issues under this? Therefore, are the kinds of questions and the resistance that we meet as valid as their experiences may have been in terms of the education system? Why should the cost of delivering early learning and child care, given the scale of those operations, be any greater for a small minority language community than for a majority language community? Why should an application from a centre for 10 in an anglophone community generate a greater cost than a similar application for 10 francophone minority kids in that same community?
It may be something of a different experience, although it does mean dealing with the same people and it does take some talk and some persuasion.
Senator Murray: I will not engage, because I think it is a matter for other committees, in the question of whether the services will be delivered by not-for-profit or commercial daycare centres or whatever. I do not think that is our principal concern here. You have said that the delivery will be by the provinces and that the money is coming from Ottawa. In other words, this is not a cost-shared program you are negotiating.
Mr. Dryden: That is right; it is not a cost-shared program.
Senator Murray: You have $5 billion over a period of five years.
Mr. Dryden: That is right.
Senator Murray: You indicate that the agreement you are working toward will be fairly detailed. I do not know that it is fair to ask you to enumerate the details. My question is whether, once the national agreement, assuming you get one, is achieved, will there then be a series of bilateral agreements with individual provinces as to what is expected of them and so forth?
Mr. Dryden: Each province and territory would develop their action plan, business plan, whatever one would call it, on how they would end up delivering this service to meet those principles.
Senator Murray: Where in all this is there an assurance that the minority language component will be dealt with satisfactorily? Political and demographic realities are such that I have less fear about New Brunswick and Ontario, where you have critical mass and so forth. I would expect you would have less difficulty in those provinces, but more difficulty in a lot of other provinces in terms of the francophone minorities there. The need is great and it is rather urgent. We have had testimony at this committee that anywhere from one-third to one-half of students who have a constitutional right to be educated in French schools choose not to be, or their parents choose that they not be. There are reasons for that; some of it has to do with lack of competence in the French language in the case of children who are in exogenous families and so forth. One of the important avenues to a solution to this problem — and you alluded to it when you talked about the first language of instruction — is the availability of early child care education in the French language for those minorities in their communities. Without bilateral agreements in which provinces sign on to specific commitments, how will you ensure that this takes place, unless the national agreement is quite specific about the commitment with regard to minority language communities?
Mr. Dryden: First, I should reinforce the fact that we are in the midst of a negotiation. Nothing is finalized.
You would know the range of approaches that one might take to it — in your words of "assurance" and "satisfactorily." One way to approach it is, again, to take the situation as it is. In part, it is asking people for a moment to forget their own specific histories and experiences in all of this and saying these are citizens within a jurisdiction. It is an important national purpose; the delivery can be extremely flexible in terms of the numbers and you do not need a large core; the additional cost is not present. Therefore, why would you, as a jurisdiction, province or territory, not deliver on that application as you would on the next application that came from a linguistic majority? Why would that linguistic minority not be as well served? That is a first question.
Senator Murray: Minister, while you are on that topic, what do you mean by "home-based" child care? How can you have regulated home-based child care?
Mr. Dryden: It is a huge percentage of what is provided now, including in the Province of Quebec. Close to 50 per cent of the child care that is offered in the Province of Quebec would be both home based and regulated. It is a matter of regulations on appropriate standards; but at the same time, it is a service that is offered out of the home.
Senator Murray: Does there have to be a minimum number of children in the home, or would your mother-in-law looking after her grandchild qualify?
Mr. Dryden: It depends on your mother-in-law and what she is offering. There is nothing against the mother-in-law offering the service; it is whether the service is of sufficient quality and up to standard. What often happens with the smaller services — and there is at least one in Ottawa that operates this way — is that you have a kind of hub model. You have a larger centre. In Ottawa, one example would be the Glebe Centre, where they have something like 70 or 80 kids who are regulars, but they would deal with about 300 kids in total. It is kids that would be, on a day-to-day basis, in other arrangements that would be provided in the Ottawa area by, in a lot of cases, home-based services.
There would be five kids, three kids, eight kids, that would be part of that home base, then one day a week, those kids, plus the person who operates the home-based centre, would come to the larger centre. At other times, they would also have available to them through that centre equipment, books, toys, et cetera. It would be a kind of lending facility. A lot of what is provided currently in this country operates out of a home-care system.
Senator Murray: I am glad to have that information.
The Chairman: Your questions were very useful, and so were the answers. May I just ask the minister, when you spoke to your interlocutors' fears or concerns about this program expanding like language and education and the massive investments that have to be made, how did they react to what I thought were your positive comments — without naming names? Who are these interlocutors; are they basically ministers of education?
Mr. Dryden: No, they would be ministers of family services. The title is different from province to province, but I think in no case is it somebody who also has the title of minister of education.
One of the questions that I think will evolve out of this, and it is central to the question that you are working on, is what role will the existing schools play in this early learning and child care system? What role do they play now and, imaginably, 5 or 10 years from now? My guess is that, in general across the country, they will play a very large role. In part, that is because the school boards see this as an area where there is big opportunity when they are not sure where their other opportunities are. As well, it is an area where they can address the competition.
I had somebody from one school board say precisely that: "In order for us to deal with competing school boards, we know that we need to compete at the youngest level," for the same reason that I gave before, about language of instruction. Once you are part of one school board, you are very likely to remain as part of that school board. Instead of the competition between the boards happening at an elementary school level, it will happen at a child-care level.
The Chairman: The same is true for the linguistic community.
Mr. Dryden: Exactly. My guess is that, given an equal opportunity in this — and that is where a lot of the groundwork has to be done — the francophone communities will do extremely well. They are organized, they have fought local battles before and they sense the urgency of this.
They will be as well or better organized than just about any other community group. The hub model could work very well in that regard as well. You might have a smaller community with three or four or five kids, but they could also take advantage of a francophone school not far away, in terms of associating with it and helping themselves in that way.
Senator Chaput: I must say I like what I am hearing, minister.
I have a question about the national agreement that you are presently negotiating with the provinces, if I understand correctly. That agreement discusses the QUAD principles. Will there also be a linguistic clause in that national agreement to ensure that the provinces that will be receiving the monies from our government provide equality of access for francophones in a minority situation, and also that the monies will go where they should? Have you discussed that or have you thought about that?
Mr. Dryden: We have thought about it, and where the wording lies now is —
Mr. Peter Hicks, Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Direction, Social Development Canada: "Cultural and linguistic minorities," I believe is the phrase.
Mr. Dryden: It is a more general phrase; it is also used in other agreements. The phrase, again, is under "inclusiveness."
Mr. Hicks: I am not guaranteeing, minister, this is precisely the wording, but it has the meaning of cultural and linguistic minorities.
Senator Chaput: Is it strong enough to keep the provinces accountable? In the past, we have seen agreements that had some kind of a clause, but it was not strong enough and did not help at all.
Mr. Dryden: That is the right question. We are wrestling, as are you, with the extent to which all of those other things that I talked about are enough to deliver the right result; also, knowing and making sure the provinces know that if in fact this is not delivered to, we will be monitoring carefully, and adjustments can be made down the line.
It is all part of trying to figure out the best way of delivering the result that we are all talking about. Against that is the challenge and understanding that we have set out for ourselves, that very likely, that first language of instruction will be the ongoing language of instruction. That is what the stakes are. How can we deliver to those stakes properly?
Senator Comeau: Thank you very much. The Minister of Heritage Canada deals quite regularly with provincial education ministers, who are, in turn, quite familiar with the responsibilities of the federal government vis-à-vis linguistic minorities. Over the years, there has been an acknowledgment by the ministers and their officials of those responsibilities. I do not think your department has that long-term experience that Heritage Canada has, and the ministers and departments with which you are dealing do not either. That shows up in the fact that in the communiqué that was issued after your negotiations with the provinces there was not even a mention of linguistic minorities. I believe that caused some concern to the linguistic minorities about the depth of the knowledge of both your ministry and the provincial ministries. It has caused some of our communities to be concerned about whether it will be given the kind of attention it might have had, had it been through Patrimoine. Can you assure us that in the second phase of your negotiations — which I think is what you are doing now — this kind of attention will be there?
Mr. Dryden: I am not sure that the problem in the first go-round had to do with inexperience.
Senator Comeau: I might have been mean in saying that.
Mr. Dryden: My understanding is that there was simply no agreement on it and the communiqué listed those items on which there was agreement. Again, our approach has been that if, historically, the participation of Heritage Canada became the way of delivering this because it was asking of the provinces and territories something that perhaps they otherwise might not have done, why is that the case here? Is this not precisely something the provinces and territories would be doing? The francophone minorities are citizens like everyone else in that particular jurisdiction, and what makes it quite different is that sense of scale.
If in fact you are talking about delivering on something in an education system that requires a certain substantial scale, or if the scale is not there but you have to take on the cost even so, that is one thing. However, when the scale is so much smaller in this instance, why would a province look at an application from francophone group A with five kids any differently from anglophone school B? Why would those provinces and territories not respond, why would the participation of Heritage Canada be necessary in order to deliver on the obligations that are agreed to under this?
Senator Comeau: Historically, we have not had the best of responses from provincial or territorial governments. I will not zero in on any one of them. Historically, we have not had a great deal of success in getting provincial governments to respond to our needs. Every last bit of help that we got from provinces some years ago, we had to wrestle from them. It has been getting better in the past few years, but some of us who have been fighting for this over quite some years do not have all that great a trust in provincial governments to look after the interests of minority communities.
Mr. Dryden: All I would say to that is that historically, you have also not had the same circumstances, the same scale.
Senator Comeau: For sure.
Mr. Dryden: The question is can this set of circumstances, and given the scale, generate a different result from the one that you are talking about?
Senator Comeau: Has there been any kind of consultation with minority language groups such as the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadiennes du Canada, or others? Has there been any kind of consultation between your officials and these groups to be able to be mindful of their concerns and ideas?
Mr. Dryden: Yes. The principal message received is the understanding that I was talking about today, that of the language of first instruction. That came through loud and clear from talking to some of the groups that you mentioned.
Senator Comeau: They have had no problems getting access to the minister. I have not heard of any.
Mr. Dryden: I have not heard of any either, but I cannot promise that there have not been. I am fairly accessible.
Senator Comeau: We will keep an eye out.
Mr. Dryden: Yes, I am sure you will.
Senator Léger: Thank you. What a department, Minister of Social Development. You talked of early learning, child care and home-based care. At what age does child care start?
Mr. Dryden: It is essentially described as zero to six. Somebody under the age of one can be part of it.
Senator Léger: This is all I will say. I feel we should be born and die in our language, and if it is Chinese, I cannot see how we will apply the official languages of Canada to a child under the age of one, or to an Aboriginal. I feel there is a lot of entanglement in the QUAD, in the words, when we are talking about this. That is all I wanted to say. Do you know what I mean? The application of official languages starts there. If your mother and father are French, yes. Will there be a choice for all the immigrants? Will you have to decide if it will be French or English? I have a hard time applying all these documents to a human life.
Mr. Dryden: To try to help you out a little, I hope, child care is one of a series of options that parents have. How many children under the age of one are in early learning and child care? The percentage would not be immensely high. That would be the first part.
Parental leave also exists as part of that option. Certainly, the key to all of this, and why we are taking this big initiative now, is that we do understand better than we did — and studies would help confirm — how important those early years are to the development of a child and to the development of a life. We know for a fact that a great percentage of both parents are in the workplace. That will almost assuredly continue to be a fact. What do we do during those years? Of course, all of this will evolve and get better, but "better" is an experience that is appropriate to the particular age of a child. It is not learning the alphabet and your times tables. It is experiences; it is different circumstances; it is being with other kids. It is lots of those things that are happening at the very earliest of ages and, of course, all happening within a language context. However, the direct learning of language would be less a part of the earliest years' experience but more indirectly, as part of your life at home and your interaction with your parents and language being a part of you, but obviously and crucially, in that way. Early learning and child care are about understanding the difference stages, and providing the right kind of environment, atmosphere and experience as the child gets older.
Senator Léger: Hopefully, the official language will come in somewhere. Thank you very much.
[Translation]
The Chairman: On behalf of the committee, I would like to thank you, Minister. You comments have been very useful to us. This is our first round and I hope that in the future, you will be making yourself as available to the committee as you did this evening. Thank you for your presence here as well as that of your officials.
We are now reaching the end of a long journey, and we now have the Minister responsible for Official Languages. This will be our last committee hearing on education in a francophone minority environment. We have heard from spokespersons from several national organizations and met with two of your colleagues earlier today, Ms. Frulla and Mr. Dryden. Mr. Bélanger, we will be concluding our discussions with you this evening.
The Honourable Mauril Bélanger, Minister responsible for Official Languages: Since the last time we met, when I informed you of my travels and initiatives, I have continued on my journey throughout the country. I had made the commitment of meeting with communities. I visited a number of them in northern Ontario.
Last week I went to Manitoba where I had the opportunity to meet with representatives from all communities and one representative from the field of education, the new rector of the Collège universitaire Saint-Boniface. I also visited the Précieux Sang school where I had the opportunity of seeing an eight-child nursery school in action. The babies are quite cute. It is interesting to note that there are 57 people on the waiting list. This gives you an indication of what the needs are. The same applies to other schools in the province.
I went to Quebec City where I met with representatives of the QCGN. I also visited the Saint-Laurent CEGEP and the Saint-Vincent elementary school. I had a good long discussion with representatives from the community on education and childcare.
During a caucus meeting I met with community representatives from New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and finally, in Banff, I also met with communities that were holding a semi-annual meeting with officials. There are two sets of annual consultations: one with officials and government branches and one in the fall, with the ministers. I still have some communities to meet with in PEI, Newfoundland and Labrador, and in the territories. I will be going to Toronto and Montreal and perhaps to a few communities in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. I will then have a comprehensive view of the situation.
We had had some discussion on other points. My role as Minister responsible for Official Languages is to see to the implementation of the action plan. I do not have any direct control over the programs. My colleagues have a part to play under the action plan. You met with two of them today. I need to make sure that they do what they have to do. This fall, I will have a mid-stage report to prepare which should be very useful and very interesting because it will be a report on findings in order to take stock of the situation in each area of the action plan. This will lead us to a complete evaluation of the plan in view of its future renewal, so we can build on what will have been accomplished by 2008.
This in no way precludes other responsibilities from being added to the action plan under the Official Languages Act. We are in fact presently considering Bill S-3 in the House of Commons as well other government initiatives which could be added to budget measures from year to year as is the case for early childhood and childcare programs.
All of this needs to be well coordinated, and we must see to it that the action plan is complied with and implemented in full. If there are setbacks, we need to work to address them. I feel I am at a bit of a disadvantage because I was unable to follow the debate you had with my colleagues earlier today. If there are to be any questions on their presentations, please note that I am not well aware of the statements they made today.
The Chairman: I would like to start by telling you that the people we have spoken to have been formulating the following concern: they say that Minister Mauril Bélanger is a good man, but that he has been given no actual power. As a minister he has no power. Essentially, you are there to see to the implementation of the action plan as you stated.
I would imagine you must have spoken with Mr. Dryden, who shared his vision on his $5 million program with us. I suppose you have also spoken to other ministers to remind them of their obligations as well as to ensure that the services we would expect for linguistic minorities in the country are being delivered. Is that basically what is happening?
Mr. Bélanger: To say that I have no power is not quite accurate.
The Chairman: I withdraw my words immediately.
Mr. Bélanger: I do have some power to intervene in cabinet, as well as the power to convene ministers to the Committee of Ministers Responsible for Official Languages. Cabinet has clearly stated — many times, in fact — that it intends to ensure the action plan is fully implemented. I also have the power to speak publicly in the House. As you no doubt remember, during the expenditure review process some people were saying the plan might be cut down, but it was not. I am willing to exercise what power I have within cabinet and cabinet structures; I do have some power to intervene, and if necessary use a number of mechanisms to call colleagues to order — that is what it would in essence amount to.
[English]
Senator Murray: Minister, when Mr. Dryden was here, he told us a little about some of the pilot projects and other initiatives in the field of child care that are being financed through the action plan. That is good, but that is not what I want to talk about. I would like to ask you about the national child care plan that Mr. Dryden is in the process of negotiating.
How familiar are you with the state of play there?
Mr. Bélanger: I believe I am in the loop.
Senator Murray: I am sure you are. I cannot believe that Ottawa can simply bring the hammer down on provinces in areas where they have jurisdiction, and this is one of them. That being said, what he described to us as the state of play is that they have agreed on the QUAD principles, but the next step is to achieve an agreement with the provinces that they will deliver the services in a multiplicity of ways, including what he called regulated home-based child care.
When it came to a component for linguistic minorities, there was mention of a clause that said something about cultural and linguistic factors in communities or something of that kind. Against that, I do not have to tell you about the need for an effective child care component for linguistic minorities. We have heard testimony here that perhaps one-third to one-half of the kids who have a constitutional right to education in the French language do not avail themselves of that right. Just to telescope the argument, you know that one of the avenues to a solution for this is to start early.
The commissioner, when she was here, said that her discussions with central agencies and the government's public responses to these negotiations offered no clear indication of results in early childhood services in the minority language. Francophone communities have, nonetheless, defined their vision, which is one of high quality, universally accessible and affordable services, run by parents and associated with primary schools.
How will we make this happen in the context of Mr. Dryden's national agreement, assuming he gets one? Or will we have to do something separately through Canadian Heritage, official languages and education, or some hypothetical other vehicle that I have not thought about?
Mr. Bélanger: Thank you for the question, senator. By the way, I congratulate the committee for holding these hearings on this particular day and in this particular week. It is quite timely; and the way you have structured them is helpful in getting out the information and perhaps bringing some pressure to bear in the right places.
There is no doubt that communities see this particular program as a key element in their future well-being. Whether they are francophone minorities or anglophone minorities, there is no doubt about that; and I must say that the government sees it the same way. Therefore, it is a matter of coming to terms, if we can, through negotiations with the provinces.
I will back up to last fall, when I had occasion to meet in Moncton with my counterparts on the francophone side — the ministers responsible for francophone affairs of the provinces, including Minister Pelletier, representing the Government of Quebec. It was quite clear from that group that they wanted a component for linguistic minority communities in the overall commitment that the government made — at the time it was still a commitment because we did not have a budget. That is certainly something that the Government of Canada would like to achieve as well.
We are at the stage now where Minister Dryden is negotiating with his counterparts to come to terms on an overall agreement, and then, following that, bilateral agreements.
Senator Murray: I did not get that impression from him, that there would be bilateral agreements, although he did not say there would not be.
Mr. Bélanger: That is traditionally how it is done. If he can achieve it all in one, so much the better. That is what he is working on now. He knows his mandate and it involves some component for the minority linguistic communities; there is no doubt about that. It is a negotiation, so we are not talking about bringing the hammer down; hopefully, we will come to terms with the provinces.
Senator Murray: Your job is to bring the hammer down on negotiators —
Mr. Bélanger: To put pressure on them as gently and effectively as I can — but it is not only me. Without telling tales out of school, because I have to respect cabinet confidentiality, there is broad support for this. This is the mandate that we want to see — the minority linguistic communities represented so that they can find themselves in this program and the agreements with the provinces. That is where we are now. I cannot prejudge those discussions, those negotiations, but the intent is clear.
[Translation]
Senator Comeau: Senator Murray talked about a discussion with Minister Dryden. At one point, we were told that there would be cultural component and a linguistic component.
I do not know whether I am comfortable with the answer I have received. Do they clearly understand the distinction between the cultural component and the linguistic component? If not, I hope that you can make that distinction.
Mr. Bélanger: It is true that, all too often, the provinces' response is to lob the issue back to Canadian Heritage or other organizations. The government would like to ensure that, as part of the agreement it is currently negotiating with provincial governments, particularly for early childhood and day care, a component for minority official language communities be included within the program itself, rather than in a separate program under a different department. In fact, the government is acting as spokesperson for communities, and expressing the will of communities: they want to have the official language communities component included in the programs of individual departments, not set up as separate programs. The Government of Canada's intent at this time is clear. We would like a component on minority official language communities incorporated into the agreements we are currently negotiating with the provinces.
The Chairman: Is it not also what the Official Languages Commissioner would like to see?
Mr. Bélanger: Yes. The communities would like that component to be incorporated into all programs, in all departments.
Senator Comeau: The provincial ministers also agree with this approach?
Mr. Bélanger: We have to make a distinction. My counterparts were ministers responsible for francophone matters. At the outset, they expressed their support for this approach. They want that incentive to be on the table during our negotiations with the provinces, which began in February. This is what the Government of Canada is doing.
Now my colleague Minister Dryden is aware of his counterparts' views.
Senator Comeau: And they are indeed different. Minister, I am trying to find a model that illustrates your position.
Mr. Bélanger: If you can find one, I would be happy to hear about it.
Senator Comeau: You are almost like an internal auditor. You are not the boss, but you have access to all documents and to your colleagues' performance appraisals. Would you agree with that statement?
Mr. Bélanger: You are pointing out some aspects of my role. However, I would like to comment on the comparison you made. Generally, an auditor conducts audits after the fact.
Senator Comeau: No, you did not quite understand what I mean, I was talking about an internal auditor who conducts ongoing audits.
Mr. Bélanger: I am not conducting an audit, or assessment. I would rather be involved from the very start. For the day care issue, I did not become involved after the fact but at the very start, before negotiations with the provinces began.
The people with me are with the Privy Council. Everything that is brought to cabinet goes through the Privy Council. In this case, the secretariat on official languages has to ensure that the Official Languages Act is complied with where necessary. This is a much more active role than conducting after-the-fact audits. We agree that it is an internal activity, but it goes beyond a simple audit. I am an agent who may sometimes be called an "agent provocateur". I stir things up. My goal is to question things, push and ensure that any of my colleagues who have a specific mandate under the action plan fulfill it. Beyond that, I am responsible for ensuring compliance with the Official Languages Act. This also goes beyond a simple audit. In most cases, I take action before the fact, whenever possible.
Senator Chaput: I would like to come back to the language clause and to the cooperation agreements. Earlier, we were discussing the language clause with Minister Dryden. At the time, I asked whether the clause wording was strong enough to make the provinces accountable for the French-language services they are required to provide to their communities.
You said that, in your discussions with ministers responsible for French-language services in the provinces, you found they all agreed with this kind of language clause. That is not surprising, because the ministers in question are responsible for providing French-language services. So it makes sense that they would be of the same mind.
However, let us talk about the departments — Health Canada, for example. When we negotiated the agreements with the provinces, I spoke to the Minister of Health informally to ask him whether the agreements would go so far as to include a linguistic clause. He was very open, and answered that he did not think they would.
Mr. Bélanger: You are talking about the agreement on $41 billion over 10 years?
Senator Chaput: Exactly. These statements were made some time ago. Does the federal government eventually plan to include, in all or most of its cooperation agreements, a linguistic clause that is strong enough to make the provinces accountable? The provinces receive money from the federal government, and are required to provide services to official language minority communities. So they must become responsible, be aware whether the money is being properly spent. May we hope that this goal will be achieved some day?
Now for my second question. In your assessment of your plan and your report, do you plan to raise the issue of linguistic clauses?
Mr. Bélanger: Yes. In fact, the process is already underway. I remember a report prepared by Yvon Fontaine, who is now rector of the Université de Moncton. The report was on these very agreements, and on the decentralization. He ensured that the government returned to considering the issue, and include linguistic and accountability clauses in new agreements with the provinces.
We can see how much progress has been made in the area of education, for example. The agreement negotiated and signed with Ontario to set up school boards across the province included very specific provisions on how the money would be used. Only three categories were included. Each time we negotiate with the provinces, we improve these clauses. So I have no difficulty believing that, one day, there will be genuine accountability in all agreements we negotiate and sign with the provinces. That is the direction in which all governments appear to wish to go, and we are only too happy to encourage them.
This is what we are seeing in agreements currently being negotiated for education. Almost half the action plan focuses on education. Some two-thirds of the $380 million are earmarked to increase the number of people entitled to services to 80 per cent. The remaining third will be used to increase the number of young bilingual people.
We should strengthen these goals within the framework of bilateral agreements with the provinces. Measures must be implemented to report, audit and guarantee accountability. Will I be dealing with this issue in my mid-term progress report? Why not?
Senator Murray: The Official Languages Act and federal policy have different components such as the language of service, the language of work and the fair representation of both language groups within the public service. Are you in charge of monitoring and ensuring equitable representation in the various departments and agencies of the federal government?
If that is the case, how do you carry out this task? Do you have an inventory of francophone and anglophone representation or of English-speaking and French-speaking Canadians at the various departmental levels?
Mr. Bélanger: The ultimate responsibility lies with the President of the Treasury Board. Three ministers have been assigned particular responsibilities, under the act — with which you are more familiar than I am.
I play a supporting role. We must recognize that the francophone community is, generally, proportionally represented within the public service. However, the anglophone community in Quebec clearly is not. I admit that I have not looked into each and every department. Currently, we are satisfied with an overall view of each region. There have been talks with the QCGM in order to correct this situation in Quebec. That is the most obvious part of the problem.
Senator Murray: If I understand your role as a minister, you have legal authority over any official language initiative tabled before the cabinet. You also have legal authority over appointments to the public service and over order in council appointments. Do you specifically and directly supervise the fairness of representation?
Mr. Bélanger: Yes.
Senator Murray: We have with us two persons from the Privy Council. Are they your assistants in this task?
Mr. Bélanger: Yes.
[English]
Senator Murray: You see Order-in-Council appointments and suchlike coming to cabinet. You have the right and responsibility to flash an amber light if you think that —
Mr. Bélanger: It might have been done already, who knows?
Senator Murray: I would not dream of asking a question like that.
Mr. Bélanger: I have more than the ability to flash an amber light or to question. I can also act in terms of bringing together a committee. That is one of the tools given to the Minister responsible for Official Languages in the action plan.
There are two principal tools there. There is accountability, and I am hoping to come back to have a discussion on that. It is an important tool. The other is the cabinet committee of the Minister responsible for Official Languages. I have not used it extensively in the past, but certainly it is a tool that is there to be used to focus the attention of a number of ministers on the committee and the full cabinet. It is not just waiving a flag or legal authority; it is also a right to act and to bring issues to the attention of cabinet, with possible courses of action.
Senator Murray: When you talk about the ministers responsible, are you referring to the President of the Treasury Board and the ministers of Canadian Heritage and Justice?
Mr. Bélanger: Plus all the ministers who have an identified role in the Action Plan for Official Languages — Industry, Immigration, Treasury Board, all of the regional economic development agencies, HRSD, you name it. It is an important group.
[Translation]
Senator Léger: If I understand correctly, provinces tend to divide things into departments by drawing distinctions, for instance, between education and heritage. Was this imposed on them by the federal government, or by our system? Or could it be just a means of defence?
Mr. Bélanger: I cannot answer your question. I need more information. However, this seems to have come about naturally, without any planning by anyone. Programs were initiated by Heritage Canada and the rest simply followed. Thus, we ended up with agreements negotiated by Heritage Canada, for education, services or communities.
Minority communities, both anglophone and francophone, then showed an interest in participating in the negotiations. This became one of the keystones of the action plan. We wanted to make all the departments accountable. This is also why the Mulroney government amended the Official Languages Act in 1988, and inserted sections 41, 42 and 43 in Part VII of the act. In accordance with this amendment, departments and agencies are henceforth responsible for community development. Since then, we have tried to establish a horizontal results-based management structure.
Thus, there is no doubt that this trend arose from the circumstances, and then there was an effort to catch up and allocate responsibilities in each department and agency, and I think that this is the right way to go about it.
Senator Léger: Thirty-five years later, we can really sense that there is more open-mindedness, especially in the North West Territories and among aboriginal people. Is this open-mindedness becoming more generalized? Are attitudes more open to the concept of equality between French and English?
Mr. Bélanger: We are constantly closing in on that objective. The statistics tell us that a greater percentage of the population is learning both languages. The number of bilingual persons is increasing all over Canada. This increase is mainly occurring in the younger generation.
Although there are still some pockets of resistance, there is less and less questioning of the bilingual nature of Canada. As far as I know, no political party is opposing this.
Senator Léger: This is a good step forward.
Mr. Bélanger: We must see it as such. Provincial governments show a clear political will. Good progress has been made during the past few years. Saskatchewan has a policy on services in French that it did not have before. Nova Scotia has a new act for services for Acadian communities. Secretariats have been set up in Alberta and British Columbia. So things are really opening up.
Let me add that the governments of Manitoba, Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are very serious about defending both official languages in this country. Consequently, we can say that there is a clear political will. However, as in any democratic society, it takes time for positive results to come about. Currently, I can tell you without doubt that things are moving forward in Canada.
[English]
Senator Murray: The glass is half full.
Mr. Bélanger: It is a little more than half full, actually.
Senator Murray: Good. I think so, too.
[Translation]
Mr. Bélanger: Besides, these governments do not hesitate to ask for our help. And we are glad to extend as much help as we can.
The Chairman: Now our debate has come to an end. Mr. Bélanger, we thank you very much for making yourself available. We will heed your recommendation with regard to accountability. Let me also thank the public servants who are with you this evening.
The committee adjourned.