Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Official Languages
Issue 8 - Evidence - Meeting of September 16, 2010
SHERBROOKE, Thursday, September 16, 2010
The Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages met this day at 9:06 a.m. to study the application of the Official Languages Act and the regulations and directives made under it (topic: the English-speaking communities in Quebec).
Senator Maria Chaput (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators, welcome to the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages.
I will mention first that interpretation is provided and headsets are available at the back of the room. Please use channel 1 for interpretation into French, channel 2 for English and channel 4 to listen to the floor.
I am Senator Chaput from Manitoba, and I am chair of the committee. I am joined this morning for a second day of hearings in Sherbrooke by several colleagues, members of the committee, and I invite them to introduce themselves.
[Translation]
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: I am Senator Suzanne Fortin-Duplessis. I live in Quebec City in the borough of Sainte-Foy- Sillery-Cap-Rouge, where Université Laval is located. I have worked very closely with the university throughout my career, given that, for nine years, I was also an MP for the riding of Louis-Hébert, which includes Sainte-Foy, Sillery and Cap- Rouge.
[English]
Senator Seidman: Good morning. I am Judith Seidman, a senator from Quebec. I am an anglophone from Montreal, so I am particularly pleased to have this experience. Yesterday afternoon I was saying it was a bit of a cathartic experience for me, and I look forward to what you have to present to us today.
Senator Fraser: I am Joan Fraser, another senator from Montreal, an English Montrealer. I have been in the Senate for 12 years. Before that, for almost all of my career I was a journalist in Montreal, and for the record I should say that for a fair number of those years, in various phases, Mr. Goldbloom and I worked together, but I do not think that has any impact on these proceedings, chair.
Senator De Bané: I am Pierre De Bané, senator from Quebec. Before becoming a member of the upper house, I was a member of the House of Commons. I believe that we are blessed to live in a country where the two official languages are among the most important ones of the Western world. They are spoken on the five continents, and I am always at a loss to understand why many of our compatriots do not realize that having those two languages in our country is an extraordinary asset.
The Chair: I want to welcome Bishop's University and its representatives, Michael Goldbloom, Principal and Vice-Chancellor; Michael Childs, Vice-Principal Academic; Catherine Beauchamp, Dean of the School of Education; and Victoria Meikle, Secretary General and Vice-Principal of Government Relations and Planning.
Let me first mention that it is a great pleasure to hold public hearings in your facility. This location is a wonderful setting and is appropriate, given our study on English-speaking communities in Quebec. The committee thanks you for accepting its invitation to appear today. You are invited to make a presentation of approximately five minutes, after which the members of the committee will follow with questions.
Honourable colleagues, I remind you that this meeting is scheduled to end at approximately ten o'clock.
Mr. Goldbloom, you now have the floor.
[Translation]
Michael Goldbloom, Principal and Vice-Chancellor, Bishop's University: Madam Chair, we are very pleased to welcome you to our university today. Since you have already introduced my colleagues, I will start right into the presentation.
[English]
We will start with a profile of our university. Bishop's was founded in 1843, with the mission of providing a primarily undergraduate, residential liberal arts education. Bishop's is one of Quebec's oldest universities. Our focus on undergraduate education is unique in Quebec and rare in Canada, but there are many well-known and well-respected undergraduate institutions like ours in the United States, names that you might know: Amherst, Middlebury, Swarthmore, Williams and many others.
At Bishop's we prepare young people from across Canada and around the world to assume their roles in society as professionals and as citizens.
The essence of the Bishop's model is to bring together strong students from a range of homes and backgrounds with excellent teachers, and to enable them to learn from each other in a variety of settings, both formal and informal, within the classroom and outside it.
Our programs are constructed to expose students to fundamental ideas across a range of disciplines and to promote situations in which these ideas must be defended and can be refined.
[Translation]
Of our 2,000 students, 44 per cent are Quebecers, half of which are francophone and half of which are anglophone. A proportion of 43 per cent come from elsewhere in Canada, and 13 per cent are international students.
[English]
I am pleased to report that after a difficult period for Bishop's, we are back on track. We have recently welcomed 2,000 students to our campus for the 2010-11 academic year, including the largest entering first-year class in our history.
We have also established a research strategy focused around four themes that bring together a majority of our investigators and scholars. They are in the areas of astrophysics and cosmology; construction of social and cultural differences, including how constructed differences are challenged and transcended; multi-scale climate and environmental change; and finally, psychological health and well-being.
We have instituted a plan to bring us to a balanced budget in 2012-13, which will enable us then to begin to pay off our accumulated deficit.
Over the last year, we have completely revised our governing statutes and reformed our board structure. Working within the constraints of our financial plan, we have recruited strong administrators to complete the range of expertise needed to help us run the university. We have an ambitious plan to install a geothermal heating and cooling system that will reduce energy consumption by 62 per cent, thus greatly reducing our carbon footprint and saving energy costs.
Finally, with respect to our reputation, Bishop's was the only one of 52 Canadian universities ranked in the top six in each of the five categories of indicators included in the National Survey of Student Engagement, and this was a survey of students in their final year. We were first among all the universities in Canada in terms of the students saying that we provide a supportive campus environment. We were second in terms of student-faculty interaction. We were second in terms of active and collaborative learning and sixth in terms of level of academic challenge and enriching educational experience.
We are particularly proud of the fact that Bishop's ranked first among all universities in Canada, with 91 per cent of our students responding in the affirmative in response to the question: If you could start over, would you go to the institution you are now attending?
As I have said, Bishop's is a liberal arts university that attracts students from across Canada and around the world. We are an institution with strong professional programs in business and education, and we are the only Quebec university located outside of Montreal where English is the language of teaching, of governance and of our day-to-day operations.
We have privileged relationships with people in institutions here in the Eastern Townships, but we also have links with English-language communities elsewhere on the "mainland" of Quebec.
A number of research projects carried out within our strategic clusters have a distinct regional focus, including a joint project with faculty at the University of Sherbrooke to study health care accessibility for the small and increasingly aged English-speaking population in the Eastern Townships. The Eastern Townships Research Centre, affiliated with our university, preserves the historical records of the English-speaking community of this region.
[Translation]
The residents of Sherbrooke are very proud of the fact that their city offers young people the opportunity to attend school, from kindergarten all the way up to university, in French and in English.
[English]
Bishop's is in the process of developing a learning centre, an innovative project that will meet the needs of our university and the English-speaking community in an integrated way, enabling us to leverage support from several sources.
The learning centre will enable us to meet three major needs. First, it will enhance services to Bishop's students by bringing together, under one roof, academic support of different types; second, it will meet the needs of the Bishop's communities and local communities for additional library space; and finally, and importantly for your consideration, it will support outreach to local and more far-flung English-language communities by making available high quality communications equipment.
With regard to our School of Education, the mission of the School of Education at Bishop's is to educate teachers and school administrators for English school commissions in Quebec, particularly those outside Montreal.
Over half the students registered in the School of Education are from Quebec, and every year, we place over 250 undergraduate students in work placements in all nine Quebec English school boards. The majority of our education students find positions in Quebec on graduation.
Bishop's School of Education offers a range of master's programs designed to accommodate the professional commitments of practising teachers and school administrators working in the English-language school commissions. These programs include a concentration in educational leadership, which is critical to the development of future administrators for Quebec English schools.
Bishop's University contributes in many ways to the vitality of the English-language minority here in Quebec, most importantly by continuing to provide a high quality education to the excellent students who choose to study here.
There are several points we will make about the federal government's support for Bishop's University. The Government of Canada is the single most important supporter of universities, as you know, and Bishop's, like other universities, benefits greatly from the support to its mission.
There are several ways in which we believe the federal government can provide additional support for our university. They include, first, support for the indirect costs of research. Compensation for the real indirect or institutional costs of research will remove the need for universities to cover these costs with funding from other sources.
Second, to thrive over the coming decades, Canadian universities must attract increasing numbers of strong undergraduate students from around the world. To succeed in attracting outstanding students, we must travel to the communities from which we recruit as part of the process. Federal government support for recruitment of international students will greatly assist smaller universities while helping Canada to attract more international students.
Support for Canadian students not otherwise in a position to bear the costs of a term or a year abroad will help increase the number of young Canadians who can gain international experience during their student years. This experience will become more and more important in making them effective professionals and leaders in our society.
With respect to student mobility within Canada, for students who come from modest backgrounds, the cost of travel back and forth within Canada may be a determining factor in a decision to register in a university close to home rather than in another province. Federal support for travel on a needs basis for students who undertake a program of university study in a province other than their own will foster stronger ties between members of minority-language communities and their co-linguists in another province, as well as enhancing the vitality of our minority communities.
Support for second language training will enhance our ability to attract and retain outstanding professors and administrators by assisting their integration and that of their families into our minority-language communities.
Federal support for the costs of purchasing and operating high quality communications equipment will increase our ability to maintain ties among minority-language communities and to support more effective program delivery to English-language communities across Quebec. It will also enhance our ability to involve alumni and friends from other cities, provinces and even countries in our boards and other governance structures.
In conclusion, strong and successful institutions are critical to the vitality of minority-language communities. Bishop's most important contribution is to be a leader in Canada and beyond in the delivery of an excellent liberal arts education to undergraduate students. We have had a number of successes over the last two years that encourage us to set our sights high. Our privileged links with, and special responsibility to, English-speaking communities in Quebec are most clearly demonstrated in the role that our School of Education plays in educating teachers and school administrators for English-language schools across the province of Quebec.
Through its links with other community organizations, our learning centre will provide us with the means to play a similar role vis-à-vis the broader population across the province.
That is a quick overview of Bishop's.
[Translation]
Thank you. My colleagues and I would be happy to answer any questions you may have.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: First of all, I want to say that your university's reputation is known far and wide. Even before coming here, we knew how successful you were, and I could see that you strive for excellence. This morning, in The Globe and Mail, I also saw that Canadian universities ranked among the top universities in the world. This morning, it was so nice to read that Canadian universities were performing well.
I have always had very close ties to Université Laval, my university, and, in my view, research is extremely important in every field. How would you describe the state of research advancement regarding English-speaking communities in Quebec?
Mr. Goldbloom: I am going to give the floor over to our Vice-Principal Academic, Mr. Childs.
Michael Childs, Vice-Principal Academic, Bishop's University: First, I can say that there is recognition of the fact that research targeting Quebec's English-speaking minority is currently not in line with the problems and situations that exist. I think that English-language universities in Quebec — and all universities in Quebec, for that matter — have a role in addressing that situation. That is probably even more applicable when you talk about the English-speaking communities scattered throughout the province. At Bishop's University, we have done some research on the population of the Eastern Townships. For 30 years now, we have had a research centre in the Eastern Townships that publishes a journal presenting research on the various aspects of English-speaking communities, including their history, their socio-economic situation and so forth.
Our new research group has already started working on a few interesting projects that deal with problems specific to the English-speaking population. For instance, two of our psychology professors have conducted a study on the availability of mental health-care services in the population, and we are about to undertake a much larger project in conjunction with Université de Sherbrooke on access to the health-care system, in general.
That said, as I explained earlier, there is still a lot of work to be done, and one of our goals is to focus our research centres and groups, not all the time but on an ad-hoc basis, on regional issues and issues pertaining to the English- speaking population.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Yesterday, we met with some groups, and one woman read us a brief on mental health. You touched on that, as well. Are there other areas in your university where the need for research is more pressing? You direct research efforts in various fields, but are there areas where the need for research is more pressing? You mentioned mental illnesses, and according to the woman we heard from yesterday, that is an area of urgent concern. There must be other such areas, are there not?
Mr. Childs: As I said, I think health, in general, is a matter that very much affects the English-speaking population, particularly, access to social services and health care in their language.
I can say that, for a population that is scattered throughout the region in small clusters, the issue of access to education after years of university is probably a very difficult one, and research in that area is certainly needed.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Do you have anything to add, Mr. Goldbloom?
Mr. Goldbloom: Generally speaking, I think there is a long way to go in order to gain an in-depth understanding of the reality faced by the English-speaking community in Quebec. Some work has been done. I know that the official languages commissioner has initiated some studies on various communities. Concordia has a research centre, and we have our centre here. So there is a foundation there to build on, but I think that the reality faced by this community, which has undergone tremendous changes in the past 30 to 40 years, is not as well-known or understood.
So there will be a research centre targeting the English-speaking community in Quebec somewhere, be it within a single university or the result of a joint initiative by several universities. I would say that is very significant. There are many questions that I cannot answer. The answers are probably out there, but what percentage of our students who are eligible to attend English schools go to French schools? How many of our bilingual students still opt to leave Quebec? And why? There are a variety of questions.
I think the Townshippers provided the profile of people in the Eastern Townships. It would be beneficial in the long term to have a well-funded centre to promote the development of this community.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Thank you. I may have further questions later.
[English]
Senator Fraser: Thank you. I congratulate you on that 91 per cent of your students saying that they would do it all again at Bishop's, if they could start over. When we know that students tend to rebel against any institution with which they are associated, that is remarkable; quite extraordinary.
All of this information is interesting, but I wonder if you could tell us more about a couple of elements. First, in these four themes that you have in your research strategy, the one that struck me as possibly having interesting implications for this committee is the construction of social and cultural differences, including how constructed differences are challenged and transcended.
Have these themes borne any fruit yet? Has any work been done that can be passed on to us?
Mr. Childs: Not specifically in relation to minority language groups in this region or in this province.
Essentially, these themes are driven by faculty interests. They were chosen as a result of a consultative bottom-up process of asking faculty to share methodological, theoretical and thematic interests with each other so that cross- disciplinary themes could be identified that faculty might wish to work on jointly.
It became apparent early that a lot of faculties in disciplines such as history, sociology, literary studies and education, in regard to some multicultural issues and so on, were often working from different angles on much the same sort of issues and questions. One of these questions was about the way in which differences are manufactured culturally, are socially perpetuated, and are challenged and transcended. Some of this issue concerns these processes occurring in the Roman period, in the Middle Ages, in other cultural and national settings, in ethnic conflicts elsewhere, and so on. This theme has immediate relevance to many of the issues we face in Canada. The research itself has been there, but the groups working together are new.
One of their ambitions is to take some of these issues and questions into the street in the region about what we can learn from historical, literary and sociological studies elsewhere and about respecting differences and working with different cultural expressions in a pluralist and harmonious way.
Senator Fraser: Over the medium and long term, it is hard to think of a single academic pursuit that would be more useful and more pertinent to a country like Canada and to the work of a committee like this one. I do not know if you publish newsletters or anything, but perhaps you can put us on your mailing list.
Mr. Childs: I will do that.
Senator Fraser: The learning centre sounds fabulous, but what is it and what will it do?
Mr. Childs: It is not a totally new concept; a number of universities in North America, both in the United States and in Canada, have developed learning centres. Probably the best known one in Canada is located at the University of British Columbia.
As our presentation says, it is based on three different but mutually complementary objectives. One is to regroup the various services of student academic aid in a single setting so that students who are having difficulty in writing, math, calculus and so on, can find a common centre of help.
The second objective is to provide more library space for local archives. For people in the community who want to learn more about their community, this centre will be a central space. Third — and this is why it is linked to the library — it is to revise the library as a whole both as a centre of learning and as a centre of the delivery of knowledge, not only to the student population and to the immediate community but also as far as possible to wider communities. The University of British Columbia does it, for example, with sophisticated video conferencing facilities. It provides online information access to communities up and down the Pacific Coast, and so on.
Senator Fraser: The centre will not offer classes necessarily, but it will bring together resources and facilitate learning for those who are interested in learning in the community or in the university.
Mr. Childs: Yes; one can see linking community education to such a centre so that the community has a way to tell the university what its educational needs are. The learning centre is a way of arranging and providing that link to them, either on-site in the library, going out into the community if it is close enough, or arranging distance delivery.
Senator Fraser: Did I understand that you put this centre together without any federal money?
Mr. Goldbloom: Well, no; it is still in the planning stages. We have had preliminary discussions with both municipal officials and the federal government about this idea. It is in the early stages, so we are in the process of putting together the plan that we will present to the government to try and encourage them to provide support.
One of the realities of Bishop's is that we are a centre for learning for the community that is physically proximate. We try to do as much as we can to provide educational cultural opportunities not only for English-speaking people in the town, but also programming in English. We have a lecture series where we bring in distinguished lecturers. In fact, we are having one this evening.
A lot of cultural things occur on the campus. Last year, we started lectures in the library that were open to the public. We want to enhance that outreach. Ms. Beauchamp can talk to you more about the School of Education in terms of what it is doing in outreach. We think that technology and the learning centre are linked here. With the better use of technology, we can provide more learning and educational opportunities for English-speaking communities that are not immediately proximate to us. It is a particular responsibility that we have as the only English-language university off the island of Montreal. It is expensive to do. We are trying to think through what we want to do in terms of continuing education.
We have a small campus in Knowlton. It is one building where we have programs at the university and some continuing education. However, through the use of technology and the use of learning centres, we want to reach out to English-speaking communities across the province.
Senator Seidman: I have one particular question that is more concrete and then one more general that relates to the big picture that we have been discussing.
One of the big issues that keeps recurring as we go about our travels — we have been in the Quebec City area, where we had video conferencing with the Gaspésie and the Lower North Shore; we are here in the Eastern Townships; and then we will go to the Montreal — and one that recurs as well in my Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology, is the problem with youth. That is, the high dropout rate, especially among young boys. This dropout rate is becoming a serious problem, especially right here in Quebec.
Are you doing anything in that area? For example, are you engaged in research that will help us better understand the risks and potentially some kind of solutions? How do you see this situation?
Catherine Beauchamp, Dean, School of Education, Bishop's University: Perhaps I can say something about that as Dean of the School of Education. We currently do not have a faculty member involved specifically in that kind of research. However, the issues that you are talking about are very much on our minds as people who are educating teachers for the schools in Quebec. Filtered through the courses that we give is attention to that kind of thing.
We are not necessarily doing things in terms of traditional research, but we are doing things like working with the associate teachers in the schools who receive our students on issues that have come to the fore in terms of education. We are working with our student teachers on this issue so that when they go out, the associate teachers are aware of what we are doing here at the university and how that work might be supported in the school. We have an ongoing project that involves training the associate teachers who come to us here at the university and will then go out then and help train other associate teachers in the schools so that there is a spreading of the word about what we are doing here and how one might support a new teacher in facing some of those challenges.
We have close links with the nine school boards of Quebec. We place students across the province in those nine schools for their practicum sessions. With a couple of school boards in particular, we have an ongoing relationship in working with them, their teachers and our student teachers. There is not specific research, but it is a part of what we do on a day-to-day basis.
Senator Seidman: That is also the point. Since you do have a mission that plays an important role in education and in training teachers, then you have an enormous opportunity to develop a piece of the program, or some kind of sensitivity so that teachers can learn how to deal with this issue.
Ms. Beauchamp: Absolutely; we see that very much as our mandate. In the mission statement of the School of Education, we see ourselves as developing the school leaders of tomorrow, so of course we want them to be aware of those issues.
Senator Seidman: I do have one other question. It follows from some of the other questions that have been asked.
The Townshipper's Association yesterday spoke eloquently and specifically about the importance of the anglophone minority language communities being actors in their own lives here in the Quebec community rather than merely reactors. As I said, we heard from the Quebec City community, the Lower North Shore and the Gaspésie. There have been common themes across all these communities. We refer to them as communities because we know that the anglophone minorities are not one community only; they live in different regions and have different problems. However, there are common themes. When we write down the key words, which I think we have all been jotting down, it is remarkable. We know that associated with the vitality of a minority population is youth, and youth have enormous problems. We see that there are inequities in health, education and small business development.
We heard yesterday — and it is not the first time in these proceedings — about a lack of the sense of history and identity. Anglophones do not want to identify with the word "anglophone." There is a sense of isolation and the very survival of communities in some cases.
Here, we present this picture. I am in a university, and universities have always had a special role in my life. I have been an academic. I have always seen that as my profession in many respects, and I have worked in research in the health field. I see a university as an innovator, an advocate and a bit of a community centre.
In this university, with your mission and your mandate — and you have already touched on this issue — is there some desire to establish the kind of place that the Townshipper's Association alluded to yesterday? Is there a proactive group that can produce sound, objective public policy options for the anglophone community that can help us become actors on the stage instead of reactors, where we can take control of our own destiny?
Mr. Goldbloom: The short answer is yes. The longer answer is, first, I think we will all agree, knowing the linguistic minorities across the country, that the health of our institutions are absolutely critical to the health of those communities. Our first responsibility is to ensure that this institution is a strong institution that continues to pursue excellence. That is one of the great contributions that we can provide to the English-speaking community of the townships and to the broader English-language community.
One thing we encourage our students to do here is to become engaged in the local community. We have put a particular emphasis on experiential learning. Mr. Childs has been an advocate for tying our academic programs to opportunities for students to go out and have work opportunities in the private or the public sector. That is how we will have an engaged population. Young people are more likely to stay and be engaged here if they have had an opportunity to go beyond the university and be involved in the local community. There are challenges from a linguistic perspective, but we have a high level of bilingual students. Therefore, it is something that we are doing and want to do more.
One of the unique things about Sherbrooke, I think, although the English population has declined significantly, is that there are many people with roots in this university who are playing active roles in the leadership of different institutions: for example, the hospital; the chamber of commerce; and the Canada Games, which are coming here. In terms of a community that will be able to act and take responsibility for itself, those things are all things that I think the university is already doing and wishes to do more.
With respect to the research you are talking about, I believe strongly that is a significant need for the English- speaking community of Quebec. One must be careful in distinguishing the academic pursuit and the advocacy. We are not an advocacy organization; that is for others. It is for the Townshipper's Association and the Quebec Community Groups Network, QCGN, to do the advocacy. In particular, Quebec English-speaking universities should provide a home for a research capacity about the English-speaking communities of Quebec, which we think is important. We are willing to collaborate with the other institutions to ensure that capacity is further enhanced beyond what it is right now.
Senator Seidman: Have you thought, for example, of some kind of partnership with a Montreal university to develop an Anglo studies program, for example?
Mr. Goldbloom: I do not know that we have talked about that idea specifically. There is a research centre; you will hear more about that when you go to Concordia. We need to know more about that and determine how we might collaborate.
Senator De Bané: I heard very well what you said to my colleague, Senator Seidman. You are a university; and the university has a mission. I understand that. However, what is your reaction when you hear the spokesman of the Townshipper's Association yesterday, who in page 4 of his presentation, quoted to us from a study by Joanne Pocock at page 87 that "English-speaking Quebecers are the least likely . . . to feel that the interests of their community are represented by their provincial government."
In the townships, 77.4 per cent of Estrie English-speaking respondents to the 2005 Survey on Community Vitality felt that the future of the English-speaking community in their region was threatened.
I understand that you are not an advocacy group. I have known for many years about the first-class reputation of Bishop's. However, I did not realize that of the big contingent of Quebec students, 50 per cent are English-speaking; and 50 per cent are French-speaking. Those French-speaking students from Quebec, which are 50 per cent of the group of the province of Quebec, obviously know how enriched they are by having attended Bishop's. Can the alumni association of Bishop's encourage them to stand up and be counted, and explain to their fellow citizens how we have a great asset in our province, namely, those two important cultures?
The younger generation are a lot more open to that perspective than the older generation. I see that with the new generation.
[Translation]
They are not slaves to a mindset that dates back to a time that no longer exists.
[English]
I do not know how you would have reacted if you had been with us in Quebec City when we met the authorities of the school board there. They told us about their problems and how their students had to travel three hours a day by bus — one hour and a half in the morning and one hour and a half at the end of the day — to attend school; or the microscopic importance of the Minister of Education in Quebec. There are one million anglophone Quebecers, and the directorate in charge of English-speaking schools in the Department of Education contains about 30 people; that is it. Of those 30 people, English is the mother tongue for only two of them. What is this number compared to what exists for French-speaking students in the Manitoba Department of Education, the Ontario Office of Francophone Affairs or the New Brunswick Department of Education in Fredericton?
[Translation]
I understand that it is not your responsibility to get the word out, Dr. Goldbloom. However, in light of this new environment, the open-mindedness of the younger generation, which understands the tremendous value of having two cultures, Bishop's alumni association should encourage its members to explain that to their fellow citizens.
I find it disturbing to see the sense of despondency that exists within the population of the Eastern Townships, in general. I was told that in Quebec City, the community was invisible. We need to find a way to rectify the situation.
[English]
Mr. Goldbloom: You asked how I react to that situation. Like you, I am disturbed by it. As you may be aware, I had engagements earlier in my career in the role of advocacy, and I attempted to create opportunities for young English- speaking Quebecers to become more engaged in the society. That we are facing these realities for these communities is upsetting, particularly because we thought that the challenge was bilingualism and that, having made the effort to ensure that our young people were able to speak French, that would be the key to the success and the long-term future of the community. To hear that, as I am sure you heard from the Townshipper's Association, the competence in French of young English-speaking people in the townships is high but that there is still discouragement in those young people wanting to make careers here is disheartening. As an English-speaking Quebecer, I find that situation to be extremely disturbing and worrisome.
That being said, what can we as a university do about it? We are a small university. I do not want to go into superlatives, but my guess is that we have probably, in terms of the makeup of our student population, more English- and French-speaking people studying together in percentage terms than any university in the country. It is my belief that the young English-speaking people who study here, and who have the opportunity to interact with a large number of francophone students, will, together, form the relationships that will allow them to feel that this society is one in which they wish to be a part. We are not an advocacy organization, but we have made a conscious effort to increase the number of francophone students here. A high percentage of the English-speaking students who come to study at Bishop's, particularly from outside Quebec, come here because they want to learn more about Quebec. They want to have the opportunity to study in English, but to do so in a francophone environment. If one thinks about the future health of these communities, I think the university makes an important contribution.
Senator Fraser was nice enough to comment again on the high percentage of satisfaction of our students. Why is that? Well, it is in part because we are a small institution where people get to know each other well. We encourage young people to take leadership roles. One of those leadership roles — that was my response to Senator Seidman — is that we encourage our students to become involved not only at Bishop's but in the community beyond. There are innumerable activities where our students are engaged in a variety of social activities here in the borough of Lennoxville and in the townships more broadly. I think we provide the skill set for young people to feel they can stay and be actively engaged in this province.
With respect to the number of students that our School of Education is training to be educators across the province, I think we are contributing in innumerable ways.
Yes, I am disturbed by that degree of discouragement. We are not an advocacy organization, but our alumni are proud of what this institution is. Ms. Meikle who joined us three weeks ago as our Secretary-General remarked about something I have almost stopped noticing, and that is the degree of bilingualism within the institution itself. Almost everyone here speaks both languages, including the professors recruited from other parts of the country.
I think we are providing a model on the campus and an experience on the campus that should provide encouragement and the skill set for young people to want to stay and be actively involved in this community.
Senator De Bané: Thank you very much for those reflections. As you know, Dr. Goldbloom, one of the main characteristics of our era is that we live in a time of media communications, and the way an issue is framed of course has a big influence on how the thing is presented.
In our province, there are people who are vocal about English being a threat. Happily, those people are more often the older generation, whereas the younger generation are much more open. We need to frame the issue that, on the contrary, having two languages is an extraordinary asset and not a threat. In Europe, there are many young people, teenagers, who speak three, four or five languages.
I know there is a historical background to that situation that does not exist any longer, but there are people who are still prisoners of the past. I grew up in an era where, when I was a student, we marched to have federal cheques show the inscription, "Gouvernement du Canada." Today, it is in the Constitution that we have two languages with equal status. The world has changed, things have changed, and the question of schools and minority rights is now entrenched in the Constitution.
Why, for instance, in the Scandinavian countries do 99 per cent of the people speak English, besides their national language? They do not feel threatened by that. Why is it that we let other people frame the issue instead of sharing how fortunate we are to have the two most important languages of the Western world?
I am sure you understand those issues. For me, as a member of Parliament, I want so much for us all to understand that now that we have corrected the most important issues:
[Translation]
How do we get rid of these demons and see things in a positive light?
[English]
I want to pay tribute to your university. I admire what you are doing. of your Quebec contingent, 50 per cent are English-speaking and 50 per cent are French-speaking.
[Translation]
That speaks volumes about what a modern, open-minded and climate-sensitive institution you are. Congratulations.
Mr. Goldbloom: Thank you.
The Chair: We are running low on time, and I have two senators who would like to ask a question. Would you mind keeping your questions brief and to the point?
[English]
Senator Fraser: I take note of your suggestions for things we might recommend about federal funding, some of which I find interesting, but I want to ask about the funding climate in general.
I know you are a small university and you are an undergraduate university, so you have to fight for any seat at the table when money is handed out. Post-doctoral fellowships and nuclear physics are so much sexier, right? I do not agree with that view, but many funding people do.
Apart from those constraints, the nature of being an undergraduate and a small institution, does the fact that you are an English-language university in a French-language province create other difficulties when you seek funding?
Mr. Goldbloom: My first reaction is no, Senator Fraser, but I need to think more about that question.
I think the challenges that we face from a funding perspective, first, are shared and common with all of Quebec's universities. Also, as you said, the funding model not only for Quebec universities but for Canadian universities favours size and graduate education. Therefore, if we take the funding model not only for Quebec but for virtually any province in Canada, the one university we would not create if we were starting from the beginning would be a small undergraduate institution.
The way we can best deal with our financial challenges is to increase our enrolment significantly, and in doing that, we betray our fundamental mission. We believe that this university is an excellent learning environment for many young people.
Therefore, I think those challenges are things that we share in common with other Quebec universities and with other small liberal arts institutions like those in the Maritimes, such as Mount Allison, Acadia and what have you. They are also small undergraduate-focused institutions.
Do we have particular challenges from a finance point of view beyond those challenges? I do not see it, I must say, from the perspective of our linguistic character. There are fundamental fixed costs for running a university that, whether the university has 2,000 students or 70,000 students, remain. Universities need a vice-principal, academic, and they need deans of their schools, someone to be responsible for facilities. Because we recruit students not only from Quebec but across the country and around the world, recruiting takes resources. I hope we still need a principal as well, so those are all kinds of fixed costs that are required.
I think we want to be able to make a case to the Quebec government that there are certain basic costs for running a university that are necessary regardless of size, but I do not see them from a linguistic perspective.
We face other challenges. Recruiting people is obviously more difficult, especially with respect to one of the points we made about language acquisition. We recently succeeded in convincing a Montrealer who has been in Edmonton for the last 10 years to come back and join us, but there are language acquisition questions for her and her family. The reality of our world today is most families are ones where both spouses work, so recruiting a professor to an English institution when you want to find employment for her husband brings an additional challenge. Those issues are not government funding issues; they are the realities of being a minority language institution in a community that is majority French-speaking.
Do either of you disagree with me on the funding question?
Mr. Childs: No.
Ms. Beauchamp: No.
[Translation]
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Under heading 3 on page 7 of your brief, you indicate that students who come from modest backgrounds may see the cost of travelling back and forth between the university and their home as a determining factor in their decision to register at a university close to home rather than in another province.
What is the percentage of students from the Eastern Townships registered at your university, as compared with those from other regions in Canada? Do you have those figures?
Mr. Childs: For that region as compared with the rest of Canada and Quebec, as well?
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Yes.
Mr. Childs: I would say it may be around 15 per cent who come directly from that region, for instance, from Champlain college, here in Lennoxville, from Sherbrooke college and Granby college, and other such institutions right in the region.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: So that would mean that 85 per cent of students come from outside the region?
Mr. Childs: Yes, from Montreal, Gaspé, Quebec City and the rest of Canada.
The Chair: I would like to extend our sincere thanks for accepting our invitation to appear before the committee this morning. You took the time to prepare and to give a very good, if not excellent, presentation.
We know how busy you are, so we are all the more grateful. You showed how committed you are to the work you are doing, and we thank you for that. Keep up the great work.
Mr. Goldbloom: You too.
The Chair: Honourable senators, we will reconvene in five minutes.
[English]
The Chair: Welcome to the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages. I am Senator Maria Chaput from Manitoba, and I am the chair of this committee. I am joined this morning by several colleagues, members of the committee, and I invite them to introduce themselves.
[Translation]
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: I am Senator Suzanne Fortin-Duplessis from the Quebec City region. I was also a member of Canada's Parliament for nine years.
[English]
Senator Seidman: I am Senator Judith Seidman. I am from Montreal and I am an anglophone, so I am finding this trip to the Eastern Townships — actually, our trip throughout Quebec City and video conferencing with Gaspé has been an educational experience, and I look forward to your presentation this morning.
Senator Fraser: My name is Joan Fraser, now a senator, previously for many years a journalist in Montreal, another English-speaking Montrealer. I am delighted to have you here. One of the themes that we have been trying to learn about is education and, my goodness, there is a lot to learn. Thank you for being with us.
Senator De Bané: I am Pierre De Bané, member of the Senate of Canada, formerly a member of the House of Commons. I am someone who believes profoundly that we are blessed to have two languages in our country, the two most important languages of the Western world.
I am particularly happy, Mr. Kaeser, to meet you because my son, Jean-Manuel, studied at Champlain College. He was fortunate to attend your school. I am happy to have the opportunity to listen and to learn about what you have to tell us.
The Chair: I want to welcome the Campus Champlain Lennoxville of the Champlain Regional College and its representative, Paul Kaeser, Director.
Mr. Kaeser, the committee thanks you for accepting its invitation to appear today. The committee invites you to make a presentation of approximately five minutes, after which the members will follow with questions.
Paul Kaeser, Director, Campus Champlain Lennoxville, Champlain Regional College: Thank you very much. It is my pleasure to be here.
Before I make my opening remarks, I want to say that I am a townshipper. I was educated at Champlain, Bishop's University and the University of Sherbrooke. I have made my career, my life and my family here in the townships.
Senator De Bané, it was a pleasure to have your son at our college.
Champlain Regional College is a public English-language post-secondary institution that provides pre-university and technical college education training in English to learners in both regular day and continuing education programs. The college, through its unique multi-regional structure, responds to the needs of diverse linguistic and cultural communities, and contributes to the educational and socio-economic development of three regions.
Today, I represent the Campus Champlain Lennoxville of Champlain Regional College. I believe it is important to preface my comments today by saying that education is a provincial jurisdiction and that the college respects that jurisdiction in its entirety.
Champlain College Lennoxville is a relatively small college with a student enrolment of approximately 1,100 students. We offer pre-university education to about 1,000 of these students, with the remaining 100 registered in three-year technical programs.
As a college whose primary catchment area is the Estrie region, or the Eastern Townships, we are able to meet the needs of most anglophone students from the area when it comes to pre-university education. On the other hand, with only four technical programs, it is much more difficult to provide for the anglophone students who desire to enter into other technical programs. It is truly unfortunate that these students must leave our region to go to larger centres to continue their education. It is far too often the case that they do not return to the area to seek employment or to raise their families.
It must be acknowledged that it would be impossible to offer a full range of technical programs in every region of the province due to the costs involved. We always must live within our means. Nevertheless, there are successes to be achieved.
In August of this year, a nursing program was introduced for the first time at Champlain College Lennoxville. It is a three-year technical program leading to certification as a nurse. This program means that students no longer have to go to Montreal or other regions to be educated in English as nurses. We anticipate that a significant proportion of these nurses, once they have completed their education, will join the workforce at one of the various health institutions in the region, and will help provide English services to those who need them. We recognize that graduating 30 to 40 nurses a year will not overcome the nursing shortage, nor will it guarantee access to English services. It is, nonetheless, I believe, a step in the right direction.
In other respects, programs such as the Canada-Québec Entente and the federal reinvestment program have been extremely beneficial to Champlain College Lennoxville. Such programs have allowed us to increase the level of support services offered to our students. These programs, in my opinion, should be maintained and increased, if possible.
We have also benefited from the Infrastructure Canada Program. Funding from this program, supplemented by the provincial funding, has allowed us to undertake long overdue renovations to our science labs.
Champlain has strong ties to the community, with long-established and productive working relationships with both anglophone and francophone constituencies and institutions throughout the Eastern Townships. We work closely with other universities, CEGEPs and secondary schools. We participate as an equal partner in a number of regional consultation committees.
It is my considered opinion that Champlain College Lennoxville, as an educational institution serving the needs of the anglophone community in the Estrie region, has a strong and increasingly important role in establishing and maintaining our sense of community and our regional identity while, at the same time, making an important contribution to our regional economy. Whether our students stay in the local area following their education or if they move on to other parts of the province, country or world, we are committed to providing them with the highest quality of education that is within our means.
[Translation]
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Mr. Kaeser, welcome to our committee. I will begin with a brief aside before asking my question.
Leading up to the beginning of the 2010-11 school year, the CEGEP population seemed to have grown. The CEGEP federation recorded a 2.2 per cent increase in enrolment in the 48 institutions in its network, for a total of 172,518 students, nearly 80,000 of which were new enrolments. The statistics say it all: having a post-secondary education is increasingly essential in the job market. In that context, any increase in the student or CEGEP population is excellent news. Emploi Québec anticipates that 271,000 new jobs will be created by the year 2018, but those jobs will require an advanced education.
What are your priorities for Champlain College for the next year?
[English]
Mr. Kaeser: Thank you, senator. Champlain College, as I mentioned, started a new nursing program this past fall. Obviously the implementation of that program is extremely important to make sure that the students are prepared properly because they will graduate in three years. Our priority is to make sure that the nursing program is well delivered and the students, in three years, when they write their exams for l'Ordre des infirmières, they will be able to pass them without any problem.
Obviously, we are always working on recruiting, making sure that other students come to our college and that secondary students are well aware of what Champlain Lennoxville has to offer. Our other priorities are to establish links to keep those students at CEGEPs so we do not have dropouts and to offer opportunities to students at secondary schools so they see there is a possibility to continue their education.
[Translation]
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Would it be impertinent to ask you which other niches you want to go after in the future? This year, you added a nursing program, which is extremely significant, because based on the groups we have met with, that is the biggest challenge. English-speaking seniors with health issues have a hard time receiving service in their language. In addition to the 100 nurses you expect to train next year, are there any things you would like to add or new training programs?
[English]
Mr. Kaeser: At this particular point in time, we are looking at what the market requires in the local area. I think that market is what is important. We are looking maybe at other avenues within the medical field possibly, other technical programs, but it is still too early to say this is where we want to go. We have to look carefully at the incoming students available for such a program, and also we have look at what is available within the region for employment.
Senator Fraser: Your campus is like right over there somewhere. It is on this campus, is it not?
Mr. Kaeser: Our campus is intertwined.
Senator Fraser: When we were in Quebec City we heard from your sister institution, Champlain St. Lawrence, that some of their facilities are well below the norms for an institution of that size. There was much discussion of the lack of a proper auditorium, but there are other problems too: Their gym is not up to the norms. Do you have comparable problems here or are you okay because you are part of Bishop's?
Mr. Kaeser: We are extremely blessed with the wonderful working relationship that we have with Bishop's University and the agreements that we have in place for space utilization through the Ministry of Education, Leisure and Sports. Possibly we are one of the only CEGEPs in the province that has access to university facilities. When we look at gym facilities or library, our students have access to world-class — in some cases — facilities.
With the new gym that will come along with the arena, it is heaven here, in all honesty. We are blessed. Right next door we have the Johnson Building; it was a joint project between Bishop's and Champlain to renovate the labs, so they are being upgraded to world-class labs for science students, which is important.
The other thing I have to say is the partnership we have with Bishop's is important because when they undertake a project we are always part and partner, and they consult with us continually.
Senator Fraser: You may have said this, and if so I am sorry, but I missed it. How many of your students are francophone?
Mr. Kaeser: We have approximately 50-some-odd per cent students who speak French. Forty per cent of them have been educated in French. Those statistics are the latest I have.
Senator Fraser: You do not know about mother tongue. Some of those who went to French schools would have been anglophones who went to French schools to perfect their French.
Mr. Kaeser: Exactly: It is difficult to determine the mother tongue, but we are saying approximately 50 per cent.
Senator Fraser: The Anglophone group is probably more than that.
Mr. Kaeser: I would say it is a good mix between the two.
I was listening to Michael Goldbloom at the end where he commented on an almost bilingual campus in some respects because faculty, staff, students speak both languages. At Champlain College Lennoxville — which is about one building over — we have the same thing. The students interact in both languages. They interact within the campus in both languages. Administrators interact in both languages.
Senator Fraser: Do you know how many of your students stay in Quebec?
Mr. Kaeser: That is one thing we are trying to determine, but it is difficult, because of the data systems that are presently in place, to obtain that information. The systems are not all linked yet, so it is only by word of mouth that we understand that students are going to Bishop's or to McGill. There is no general information system — because of privacy laws too — that allow us to track where the students go after they leave.
Senator Fraser: Sounds to me as if you are a man who loves his work and what is universally acknowledged to be a small corner of paradise, this region in the Eastern Townships, but you must have problems. What are your problems?
Mr. Kaeser: One problem we have is recruiting faculty. It is not easy. Finding anglophone faculty is sometimes difficult because, as a small institution, the workloads that they start off with sometimes are small, so trying to attract someone to come to this area is difficult. If we have a full-time position it is a little easier, but then if we are also attracting an individual who has a family and spouse, we get into a complicated mix. Those are our major problems.
Senator Fraser: We all know education is a provincial responsibility. This committee does not have a hidden agenda to rewrite the Constitution, but we are from the Parliament of Canada, federally. What can the Government of Canada do to help you?
Mr. Kaeser: One thing I stated in what I presented was some of the programs that the federal government has put in place — the Canada-Québec Entente, federal reinvestment — those programs are essential. They help us enormously. To have those programs cut, reduced or eliminated would be, in some cases, catastrophic.
Senator Seidman: Senator Fraser just about covered my territory here. I was going to say it is interesting listening to you, after having listened to your cousin, so to speak, the Champlain Regional College in the Quebec City area who has serious physical plant issues. Clearly, you do not have those issues here. You are fortunate, indeed. To be on the campus of a university offers enormous benefits to the students who come here.
I am familiar with that situation. In Montreal we have a similar situation in the West Island, where we have a college on the campus of the university. They are blessed, really, with the environment.
I also wanted to ask about the proportion of francophone to Anglophone students. If I understand correctly, it is hard to know that because you do not have that data.
Mr. Kaeser: We have the data and that is why I am saying it is approximately 50/50. It depends on how the students fill out their application form when they come to college.
Senator Seidman: It is an issue of mother tongue as opposed to language spoken or schooling and education for those anglophones who are educated in French.
Mr. Kaeser: Yes.
Senator Seidman: One other thing that I have encountered, interestingly enough, as we looked at the study on access to post-secondary education in my other Senate committee on social affairs, is that Quebec is special in the rest of this country. In fact, we are fortunate to have the CEGEP, the college system, because we have a technical training component in our pre-university system that other provinces simply do not have. That technical training component makes a huge difference. I think you have spoken about that component and addressed it in an interesting way in that you have an applied approach, in a way. It is an applied approach in deciding on the programs you will introduce by looking at the community needs. We call that applied research, in a way. It is interesting.
You have offered this nursing program. What other challenges do you see on the part of the community you serve that you might be able to reflect in your programming?
Mr. Kaeser: We try to be in tune with the needs of the local population by listening to the high schools, the school board. We try to listen to townshippers, because sometimes they come up with ideas for programs that might work.
The applied research is interesting. I look at it also as a business model to make something that is profitable, in some respects, and we can make it work overall. No one wants to start a program that will fail over time.
It is not an easy task trying to determine exactly what is needed. Looking at the nursing program, even though some people would call it an easy decision overall to make and they would say go ahead and develop the nursing program because there is such demand for that profession, we also had to see if the local hospitals had room for students to intern, so it is not an easy answer. We have to look at everything carefully.
Even for the nursing program, there was a space issue. We had to find space within the campus to create nursing labs. It is okay to develop a program, but then we have to look at the space function, the faculty function and maybe a work placement function, so it is not an easy answer for me to give.
Senator Seidman: Do you, for example, offer anything for economic development; say small business training programs or something of that nature?
Mr. Kaeser: We have the accounting and management technology, AMT, program, which works fairly well. The students go out into the work community on work placements. We are creating links with the local chamber of commerce. They come in and talk to the students about starting up small business. We try to make those links so that some of those students, if they are interested, will see that there is the possibility of financing or aid for this type of work. We try to promote that business also. Most students, though, at 18 or 19 years old who are leaving a technical program prefer to go on sometimes to university or even into the workforce for a little while to develop a solid background in business before making the jump into creating their own proper business.
Senator Seidman: Do you have a problem in retaining male students as opposed to female students? Do you see that issue, that problem, in your college?
Mr. Kaeser: In Lennoxville I do not see that problem. That is not a problem.
One thing that we have invested in heavily is athletics and sports. I would say approximately, out of the 1,100 students, almost 25 per cent of our students are in athletics; some sort of competitive sport. That is an incentive for students to stay in school and to study. They create links and bonds and they stay.
Senator Seidman: Excellent; thank you very much.
The Chair: How many years did it take you to put into place the program that you have now relating to nurses? From the planning, how many years did it take?
Mr. Kaeser: Two and half — record time.
The Chair: How did you start? What was the first thing that you did?
Mr. Kaeser: The first thing we did was to obtain community support for the program. In other words, we obtained letters of support from various organizations throughout the Eastern Townships, whether it was retirement homes, local universities, CEGEPs and health institutions. We started with that support.
Next, I was a member of a number of committees here in the townships that look at technical training and help obtain the authorization through the government. Through those committees, I was able to present and complete the work and obtain the approvals, working closely with the local Ministry of Education, Leisure and Sport, MELS, office. The local member of the National Assembly was beneficial in that work also, and a strong case was made in Quebec City.
The Chair: Because you followed the right steps, your program now is successful, right?
Mr. Kaeser: It always works if we follow the right steps.
Senator De Bané: Mr. Kaeser, during our sessions in the Eastern Townships we are meeting with only two educational institutions: Bishop's University — whom we have already heard from — and you.
Can you give us a complete picture of the three levels of education besides university: primary schools, secondary schools, CEGEP and everything? Your official, main responsibility is to lead the Champlain College Lennoxville campus. However, can you give us a complete picture of what exists in this region? Later I want to know what the trend has been in demographics, et cetera. At least, I want to understand the number of primary schools, the school boards, primary and secondary systems, CEGEP, how many campuses and the total population. What was the picture five, ten, years ago, where it is heading, et cetera? I want to have the complete picture, because we do not have it yet.
Mr. Kaeser: I am not fully prepared to go into all the details because I do not have the statistics available to me.
If you look at Sherbrooke as a whole, the term "une ville de savoir" has been used. If you look at the overall population of the area and the number of educational institutions that we have, it is amazing. We start with Bishop's University and the University of Sherbrooke, then go to CEGEP of Sherbrooke and Champlain College Lennoxville. Then we hit the Eastern Townships School Board, then the Commission scolaire Eastern Townships, Commission scolaire des Sommets and des Hauts-Cantons. There are many, many schools.
Senator De Bané: I am interested in the English network.
Mr. Kaeser: For the English network we are looking at Eastern Townships School Board, mainly. I will let Mr. Murray, who will present afterwards, talk about the school board in more detail. I think that is more appropriate.
Senator De Bané: The Eastern Townships School Board deals with primary and secondary education?
Mr. Kaeser: Yes, they do, from about the area of Granby to Drummondville to here.
Senator De Bané: They will give us a briefing about the network. Is this the school board that covers the whole Estrie?
Mr. Kaeser: Right.
Senator De Bané: The Champlain colleges, how many campuses are there?
Mr. Kaeser: Champlain Regional College has three campuses. We have one in St. Lawrence, one here and one in St. Lambert.
Senator De Bané: I see. We will be at St. Lambert later today.
We are told that the English-speaking community in the Eastern Townships is about 8 per cent. Does that sound right to you?
Mr. Kaeser: I do not know the exact figure, but I imagine it is somewhere in that vicinity.
Senator De Bané: In absolute numbers, is it stable, increasing, declining, et cetera?
Mr. Kaeser: If I look at it from the standpoint of applications to our college, for me it is stable at this point.
Senator De Bané: Besides the institution that you head, as an active member of the townshippers, how would you describe the morale of the people? Are they positive? Are they concerned? What is your opinion about morale? You are not obliged if you prefer not to talk about it; only if you want to tell us.
Mr. Kaeser: Based on my experience of what I see at the college through the students I talk to, I will tell you that they are encouraged. A lot of them are planning to go on to Bishop's University, a lot of them are looking for employment within the area and a lot of them are hoping to stay within the area. I do not see morale as discouraged, I see it as positive.
Senator De Bané: I ask you that question because yesterday we had a long presentation by the Townshipper's Association. The topics they covered included declining population, high unemployment, low income levels, low education attainment, access to health services, outmigration, marginalized youth, perception of discrimination and lack of support and visibility for English-speaking artists. Outreach to youth immigrants is greatly lacking.
They covered about 18 topics. I would say they were talking more about the adult population, not students. The percentage of retired people is more than the average, et cetera. There is a sizable percentage of retired people.
They gave us a description. When I read about all those topics, one after the other, I said, my god, that is a region that has deep roots in the history of our country, where there was a vibrant English-speaking community.
In your opinion, we should not be pessimistic. There are challenges, but the morale is okay?
Mr. Kaeser: My comment was on the morale of the students I meet. It is hard for me to comment on anything the Townshipper's Association produced. I did not read their brief. They enumerated over 18 items, as you mentioned. I do not know the research they put into these items. Champlain College is not an advocacy group either and we do not perform that type of research; going around looking at all the other things. It is difficult for me to comment. However, from a perspective of seeing students and their morale, I look at the morale as positive.
Senator De Bané: Good. I thank you very much and I am happy that my son attended your college. After that, he obtained a Bachelor of Commerce degree and then an MBA at the University of Western Ontario, but he very much enjoyed Champlain College.
Mr. Kaeser: I am glad. Thank you.
Senator Fraser: Coming back to the vocational and technical training, you have four programs, one of which is nursing. I want to ask a couple more questions about that program, but what are the three other programs?
Mr. Kaeser: We have a computer science program and special care counselling. I have forgotten one.
Senator Fraser: It will come to you. Let me ask my other set of questions about nursing. While you are thinking about that, you will remember the name of the other program.
The nursing program is an English-language program?
Mr. Kaeser: Yes, it is.
Senator Fraser: I assume that when you were soliciting support, you had no trouble at all obtaining support from various English-language organizations, the Townshipper's Association and people like that. Were French-language health care institutions supportive?
Mr. Kaeser: One hundred per cent behind us.
Senator Fraser: May I ask why? Was it because they feel the need for bilingual staff?
Mr. Kaeser: They know it is important for them to have staff members that are bilingual to help meet the needs of the anglophone population.
Senator Fraser: And presumably, it is important for the access plan, although I gather that is being redrafted.
Does your program include French-language training so that your graduates can work in French-language institutions and, more immediately, can obtain the necessary French-language proficiency certificate, without which they cannot work?
Mr. Kaeser: I remember the names of the other programs now. They are accounting management technology, AMT; computer information systems, CIS; special care counselling; and nursing. Those are the four programs.
Returning to the question about French-language training, the program is obviously given in English, but a number of French courses are given within the program that are designed to help the students pass what they need to pass to obtain their certification.
Senator Fraser: I do not know who administers the tests anymore. It used to be l'Office québécois de la langue française, but it is someone else now.
Mr. Kaeser: I believe L'Office des professions could be the ones administering the tests now.
[Translation]
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Mr. Kaeser, we met with the Vision Gaspé group by video conference. It represents not- for-profit organizations that serve the interests of English-speaking communities in Gaspé. And I read recently that over the past three-and-a-half decades, more than a quarter of a million French Canadians have left Quebec, and the exodus continues. The English-speaking population that remains is older than its French-speaking cohort, because many of the people leaving are younger and more educated and thus more mobile.
I was heartbroken when I heard that. The young people who stay are less educated, have a higher unemployment rate and, very often, end up on social assistance. Even though I am French-Canadian, I find the exodus of young English speakers worrisome and disheartening.
Are you able to tell us whether the exodus is due to the employment situation, the existence of better job prospects elsewhere, the lack of infrastructure or the difficulty of living together in the same region?
[English]
Mr. Kaeser: Senator, I do not think I am qualified to respond to the question of what is happening in the Gaspé. I would feel much better looking at this area and whether an exodus is happening here or what might be the reasons.
Today we are dealing with a young population that is extremely mobile. Once they finish their training, it is nothing for them to pick up and move. Senator De Bané's son is a prime example of a student who was educated and then moved on for education elsewhere. I do not know where his son is working now.
Senator De Bané: Toronto.
Mr. Kaeser: They are extremely mobile.
One thing we find today is that students, once they have an education, are able to move not only throughout the province but throughout Canada and throughout the world. I think that in some respects, the culture we have — the Internet culture and everything else — has developed an extreme interest in being able to look beyond our borders.
When it comes to keeping young individuals within a region, much of this has to start, I think, in primary and secondary schools, where the notion of wanting to be educated has to start. This notion is cultivated at that level and then into the CEGEP level and finally, into the university level.
We are finding out possibly why there are not as many students registered in technical programs. That is a question that everyone wants an answer to. We are finding out that it is a cultural issue. This issue develops at a primary or even at a secondary level, where technical education is not valued, which is unfortunate. There are some students, some young people, who are not best suited to go on to university. However, let us face it; they could make some of the best plumbers, welders and electricians we could see, or they could go even further. They could go through college in mechanical engineering or something like that. The problem is that sometimes these programs are not valued. Why are they not valued? Part of it is that the education system has to value these programs more, but also parents and society as a whole have to value them.
Some parents say, Listen, you must go on to university if you want a good job. I know plumbers who make more than I do, and that is the reality. We must create a climate such that students or young people see a value in education, no matter what level it is or what form it takes. With education comes hope. We open doors and broaden paths. Education is something that can never be taken away, once we have it. That is important. If we can create a climate where all types of education, at whatever level, are equally valued, that is one of the great steps in the right direction for keeping students in whatever region they are in and in getting them jobs, et cetera. It is a combination.
[Translation]
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: I see that Champlain Regional College is ahead of the others, and things are going very well. When I mentioned the Gaspé group earlier, obviously, the Gaspé region does not have a quarter of a million students. It was referring to all of the students in the province of Quebec who are English-speaking and who are leaving the province. I noticed that you have implemented some very worthwhile measures and that you offer courses that may encourage students who do not want to spend years in school to attend university or a similar institution. I want to commend you for the outstanding work you are doing, but I am still very aware of the exodus of young English speakers.
[English]
Senator De Bané: Mr. Kaeser said he knows plumbers who earn a substantial income. It reminds me of the guy who phoned for a plumber on a Sunday morning, and after five minutes the guy asked the plumber how much he owed him. The plumber said, one hundred dollars. The man said, one hundred dollars for five minutes — even doctors do not charge that. The plumber said, I know; I used to be a doctor.
Senator Seidman: I commend you for what you have told us about the importance of the vocational, technical training component in the college system. We were discussing precisely this point a little earlier when I said to you that we are so privileged in Quebec to have that component in our CEGEP system.
As I discovered across the country, the fact that young boys are leaving school so early and we are missing them from our college and university system, part of the problem is that we do not fully adapt our programs in ways that might be more appealing to them. I discovered that valuing the technical component of our college system is an important piece of keeping some of those young boys in the system.
The fact that you value this education as highly as you do and that you are looking for ways to develop this importance further by looking at elements that are missing in the community and by looking at the needs of the community is extremely commendable. I do not have a question so much as I wanted to make that point.
Mr. Kaeser: Thank you very much, senator.
The Chair: Senator Seidman has said it all, and it is a nice way to end this meeting.
Mr. Kaeser, I thank you very much for your appearance this morning before the committee.
[Translation]
Thank you very much for answering our questions, and if there is any other information that you think may be helpful to us in our deliberations, please do not hesitate to send it to our clerk.
[English]
Mr. Kaeser: I want to thank the Senate committee for inviting me. It was a pleasure and an honour to be here today.
The Chair: We welcome our next witness to the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages. I am Senator Maria Chaput from Manitoba, and I am chair of this committee. I am joined this morning by several colleagues, members of the committee, and I invite them to introduce themselves.
[Translation]
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: I am Senator Suzanne Fortin-Duplessis, from the Quebec City region. I was also a member of Canada's Parliament for nine years. I look forward to asking you questions once you have given your presentation.
[English]
Senator Seidman: I am Judith Seidman and I am a senator from Montreal. I have been in the Senate for one year as of yesterday. It has been a steep learning curve and an enormous opportunity for public service, for which I am grateful.
This week has been a marvellous opportunity to learn so much more than I ever could have imagined about my own community in Quebec, so I look forward to what you have to tell us today. Thank you for coming.
Senator Fraser: My name is Joan Fraser and I am also an English Montrealer, formerly a journalist, now a senator. I have been in the Senate for 12 years, and I can tell Senator Seidman that one of the great joys of the Senate is that the learning curve just goes on, infinitely steep, but it is wonderful, and this week is evidence of that. We are grateful to hear from you because, as I said earlier, education has been one of the themes we have been interested in, not in terms of intruding on provincial jurisdiction but in terms of understanding the context for the English-speaking community and figuring out what, if anything, we can recommend that might help.
Senator De Bané: My name is Pierre De Bané, senator. Before becoming a senator, I was a member of the House of Commons. Mr. Murray, I am interested to hear your presentation. I know your roots go back several centuries in the Eastern Townships, but you came back here, and it is significant that after having lived elsewhere, you have decided to come back to the Eastern Townships. I am sure you will give us good analysis and comments about the situation and all the different boards on which you serve the common good.
The Chair: Thank you. I want to welcome the Eastern Townships School Board and its representative, Michael Murray, Chairman.
Mr. Murray, the committee thanks you for accepting its invitation to appear today. The committee invites you to make a presentation of approximately five minutes, after which the members will follow with questions.
Honourable senators, I remind you that this meeting is scheduled to end at 12:30 p.m.
Mr. Murray, you now have the floor.
Michael Murray, Chairman, Eastern Townships School Board: Thank you very much for the warm welcome.
I am delighted to have this opportunity to share my perceptions as a member of the minority English community in the Eastern Townships of Quebec.
I was invited here in my capacity as chairman of the Eastern Townships School Board, but I want to make clear from the outset that I speak as one who has chosen this area to make my home. My family can trace its origins in the Eastern Townships back to the 1790s. I was born in Montreal, and, except for brief periods, I grew up elsewhere. After graduating from Queen's University with an economics degree and working elsewhere for several years, my wife and I moved to Dunham in 1970, where we still live. We have three children, two of whom live and work in the Townships. We have two grandsons, one of whom starts kindergarten in Knowlton this year.
Over the years, I volunteered in many capacities in the community. I have been elected to boards of private and public homes for the elderly; I have been president of the local centre local de services communautaires, CLSC; I sat on the hospital board; I spent three years as vice-president of the Townshipper's Association, from whom you have already heard; and I raised funds for numerous causes and represented this area on various provincial and regional councils. I have also been a school commissioner since 1986. In addition, I have made my living entirely in the region and also contributed significantly as a member of professional associations and boards. Therefore, I consider that I can speak with some authority about the sentiments and conditions of being a member of the English community.
However, defining an English Quebecer in the Eastern Townships is not simple or easy. Does first language spoken determine linguistic status, or is it the language currently spoken at home? Small towns and limited choice of partners have resulted in extensive intermarriage between French and English youth. Family name is no indicator of linguistic orientation; nor is ancestry. In my case, I can identify English, French, Irish, Scottish, Dutch, Loyalist American and, anecdotally, Aboriginal ancestors. Divorce, separation and reconstitution of families further complicate this classification. In the end, the English community is self-defined. Those who choose to be English are.
The Eastern Townships School Board serves a territory the size of Belgium. It extends beyond the boundaries of area of the Estrie Region, past the Richelieu River in the west, and north beyond Drummondville in the St. Lawrence Valley. It borders on Maine in the east, and on Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York in the south. There are three substantial cities: Sherbrooke, Granby and Drummondville, but most of the territory is rural, and much of it is classified as socially and economically disadvantaged.
In the west, around Granby, Bromont and Lac Brome, the outer fringes of Montreal's commuter basin provide growth and higher income. Lifestyle considerations attract highly educated young professionals, and increasingly, these professionals commute via Internet for a significant portion of their work. Tourism and recreation are major economic motors in the western part of the territory. However, the Sherbrooke area is suffering from loss of manufacturing employment that was concentrated in traditional industries such as textiles, footwear and pulp and paper. Drummondville and Granby are dynamic industrial towns with diversified economic bases. Consequently, we experience a wide variation in the economic health and vigour of the different parts of our service area.
The Eastern Townships School Board has about 5,600 students from kindergarten to the end of secondary 5 in 26 widely scattered schools. We also have the equivalent of another 300 students in our adult and vocational centres in Sherbrooke and Cowansville. Our mission is to offer English education to eligible students, but about 38 per cent of our students report that the language spoken in their home is French. In some schools, this proportion rises to exceed 80 per cent. Many of those students attend our schools to learn English. At the same time, a significant number of students eligible for education in English attend French public schools as a means of perfecting their command of a second language. There is considerable transferring from one public linguistic school system to the other as students pass through the stages of their education.
Our school board has distinguished itself as a leader in integrating technology into pedagogy. We are, as far as we can determine, still the only public school board in Quebec to deploy laptop computers one-to-one to all students from Grade 3 to the end of high school. Our objectives are multiple: to reduce inequality between disadvantaged and relatively more affluent students; to break down the isolation of rural and small town areas; to make learning more stimulating and student friendly; and to compensate for the lack of cultural resources. Students are encouraged to take the laptops home, and tentative steps have been made toward paperless operation and replacing textbooks.
Initially, this six-year experiment, 2003 to 2009, was conducted using supplementary borrowing authorized by our Ministry of Education, but we are now continuing the program with available resources. This situation has required us to compress the deployment and to explore alternative configurations. All students in Grades 5, 6 and the first three years of secondary school have their personal laptop computer, but deployment at higher and lower grades is one laptop to two or three students. We use many other technological devices, such as interactive electronic whiteboards, to make our classrooms and teaching more dynamic and stimulating and to complement the laptops. All our buildings have high-speed wireless connectivity to the Internet. Since launching our technology initiative, student results have improved dramatically because of this initiative, and we attribute a reduction in dropouts, at least in part, to the laptops.
Our technological orientation has opened wonderful new opportunities for our personnel. We operate a virtual school, called the Global Learning Institute, which currently teaches students in Japan, South America and the western United States. Teaching is real-time and fully interactive. Teachers work shifts that are adjusted to the time differences so that, for example, those teaching students in Japan work from Sunday to Thursday starting at 7 p.m. each day. Training our personnel is also accomplished in part by using podcasts and video clips recorded during live presentations.
On average, a low value is attached to education in our community. For generations, most employment did not require more than the most basic skills. There is a long history of more than 40 per cent of our students dropping out before graduating from secondary school. The previous dropouts are now the parents and grandparents of some of our current students. Their attitude toward schooling is influenced by their relatively negative experience with education. In a survey conducted last spring in our schools, 24 per cent of the students in the first year of secondary school indicated an intention to leave before graduating, suggesting a hardcore resistance to our ongoing efforts to promote the benefits of higher education. At the same time, the employment availability locally over much of the territory is such that there is no obvious benefit to obtaining a high school diploma.
The English community is largely bilingual, and so are our French counterparts. There is relatively little linguistic stress, although some English speakers express frustration and dismay at the sense that government policies attempt to make English invisible everywhere, even where whole communities were founded and developed by the English whose descendants are now in the third and fourth generation of residence.
Repressive legislation aside, the English are largely integrated into the wider community in the Townships. Municipal councils, public agencies and service clubs usually have a proportion of English members elected by the whole population. Daily language of conversation is frequently whichever is the most comfortable for both speakers. English speakers integrate readily because they do not feel their language and culture are threatened. Access to English resources, always widespread, has increased in recent years thanks to cable and satellite television and the Internet. I believe this sense of cultural security leads the English to feel more willing to learn French, to integrate and to accept it, in deference to their French neighbours who do feel their culture and language are threatened.
One of the most critical needs is to ensure that affordable high-speed Internet access is available in rural areas. Those residents who are farthest away from the centres of cultural and social activity have the greatest need, yet they are the ones who lack adequate service. Providing such access may be the most cost-effective means of reducing poverty and disadvantage. New technologies that can break down the barriers of distance and ignorance are emerging rapidly, but, sadly, the rural areas are the last to benefit.
The Chair: Thank you so much. The first question will be asked by Senator Seidman.
Senator Seidman: I want to pursue the dropout issue. It is something that keeps coming up, and we know that youth contribute an enormous amount to the vitality of a community. Therefore, this issue becomes a critical one.
In another Senate committee that I participate in, the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology, we had a study on access to post-secondary education. One issue that kept recurring was the fact that young men — boys in particular — have much higher dropout rates than young girls and young women.
If we look at the make-up of high school graduation students, CEGEP students and university students, even in the traditionally male-dominated fields, these groups are becoming increasingly female dominated.
I find fascinating the high-tech component in your school and the contribution of the laptop technology to reducing the dropout rate. If you have any research or anecdotal evidence, can you please tell me more about that evidence? At the same time, I notice that you handed out information here that might have the kind of statistics I might be looking for; for example, the proportion of the dropout rate in your schools, the gender-specific dropout rate and so forth.
Mr. Murray: We have been paying attention to dropouts for about six or seven years. Sadly, prior to that time, it was not an issue within the education establishment or outside of it. You alluded to the access to higher education. One needs to wish to obtain higher education before that becomes an issue, so I believe that we are talking about two distinct segments of the population.
A large part of the population that we deal with, as young people coming through the elementary and secondary program, are preconditioned, as I mentioned in my presentation, to a negative attitude toward education beyond what is legally obligatory. When we survey and find that one out of four of all students says he or she does not intend to finish high school, that is a reflection of a cultural orientation. I do not have the breakdown between male and female, but I think there is one on the questionnaire in the information package I gave you. There is a tradition in the townships where jobs that do not require high skills or high education are the most readily available. These young people end up going to work in retail or in small manufacturing. A great many end up in the construction trades and a lot of truck driving trades — that sort of thing, where they do not require a great deal of certified education and where the demand seems to be continuous. Therefore, they see no value to persevering if they are having difficulty in secondary 1, 2 and 3.
One orientation that we adopted when we started to address this dropout issue was the early preparation of students to succeed at education. I think the education structure changes so slowly that it is counterproductive.
You asked about our technological bent. One reason we adopted that orientation was to force other kinds of change into the education system. Generally speaking, teachers are taught by retired teachers, and so there is a lag of a generation or longer between new styles of pedagogy, new technology and the application of those styles and technology or pedagogy in the classroom.
We are trying to make that change. We feel we have made a change, and the statistics show that we have. The three- year average dropout rate from 2002 to 2005 was 39 per cent; 49 per cent of the boys and about 30 per cent of the girls. That was the average for that three-year span. Finally, our educators were unable to continue to ignore the gravity of the problem.
Our most recent statistics show that in a three-year period from 2005 to 2008, the average has dropped from 39 per cent to 34 per cent, and boys are down to 41 per cent. We are making progress, far slower and far less dramatic than we would like and had hoped for, but every little bit helps. The education ministry in Quebec has recently awoken to this problem, which is not confined to either the English community or the Eastern Townships community.
When I say a 40-per-cent dropout rate, that is common to our francophone neighbouring boards, and so we have entered into joint agreements with all the French boards with which we share territory to mount programs to combat dropouts. The boards all have varying rates of dropouts, but all are high.
Senator Seidman: I have a technical question about the definition of a dropout that I am not sure you can answer. I was speaking with a member of the audience here who suggested to me that if a young person leaves one school and moves to another school, that person is considered a dropout from that school, and somehow that situation is compiled in the statistics. Is that the case?
Mr. Murray: The statistics are far from perfect. There is compensation or adjustment in the statistics made for any movements within Quebec. If a student leaves Quebec after beginning education here, that student is counted as a dropout because the student number disappears from the statistics. Conversely, if a student moves here after beginning his or her education for even as little as one year, that person becomes a student and will be counted as part of the base on which dropouts are calculated. However, if a student comes for three years and leaves again — highly mobile populations — he or she becomes a dropout again. That is, again, only for movements outside the province. The ministry is aware of the issue and has discovered, when it began to explore statistics, that this phenomenon impacts not only the dropout rate for the English school boards but also for the French school boards. Therefore, they have told us they will make attempts to separate out the student leaving the province. We do it manually, and we find we can account for 7 per cent or 8 per cent of our dropout rate by eliminating those that we know because they have sent for transcripts to continue their education from school boards outside the province.
Senator Seidman: The people we met in the Quebec City area told us they had a 25-per-cent turnover rate in a period of five years. A population that turns over rapidly exaggerates the problem. It is a statistical anomaly, in essence. If you are not tracking individuals, you are tracking aggregates.
Mr. Murray: The statistics are compiled, as I suggested, by individual students numbers. The problem is when the students disappear from the database, which means outside the province.
Senator Seidman: Can you submit something to the committee on your technology and laptop program, if you have a description of the program and its outcome? Is that possible? It would be valuable for us.
Mr. Murray: Certainly, it is possible. We have analyzed it extensively. It was an experimental program authorized by the ministry, and one of the conditions was that we measure the impact. We have tried to do so, and we have some data. We are working now with the University of Montreal, a francophone university, to measure the final impact or, at least, let us say, the end of the experimental phase impact overall.
Senator Seidman: Thank you very much for that presentation.
The Chair: I have a question to follow Senator Seidman's question. You talked about high-speed Internet. I think you said that all your schools have high-speed Internet.
Mr. Murray: They all have high-speed Internet. We are connected to all schools by fibre optic cable, so we have huge bandwidth. All schools have Wi-Fi, using the popular term, so that any laptop in the building and, often, outside the building, can connect to the Internet via the portal. The interesting thing is to see cars pull up to the schools on weekends or evenings so students can do their homework.
The Chair: Was the cost substantial? I am from Manitoba, and we are looking at this idea, and we do not have high- speed Internet in the rural communities. How do you manage to do that?
Mr. Murray: We were fortunate to be able to participate in a program of the Quebec government called Villages Branchés du Québec. It subsidized the construction of a network that was primarily or initially intended to link city halls to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs for data reporting, but was opened up for partnerships, both public and private. Throughout most of our network we share with the municipalities that are served, and we share with private service deliverers who are selling cable subscriptions to residents of those towns.
The Chair: That is great. Congratulations. That is good.
[Translation]
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: My question is somewhat unique. I would like to know whether French is taught in English-language schools at the primary and secondary levels, similar to French-speaking students who take one or two hour-long English classes per cycle. These French-speaking students who take English courses at the same primary and secondary levels do not come out of school perfectly bilingual — they get out of it what it's worth.
I am asking you this because a number of witnesses were quite concerned about that; they said there were very few English-speaking public servants. I would think that an English-speaking employee of the Quebec government must know French. Do you think knowledge of both official languages is necessary in order for English-speaking communities in your region to prosper and grow?
Mr. Murray: If I may answer in French, I can do a better job articulating or explaining the complexity of the answer to your question, which, on the surface, seems quite simple.
The real answer is that it depends. Ten years ago, our schools adopted what is known as an "approche bilettrée," which means that we try to teach both languages at the highest possible level, taking into account the capabilities of the student.
In our schools in Sherbrooke, Drummondville and Granby, where the majority of the students speak French at home, we teach a program that is technically not authorized by the government called the mother tongue program. Technically speaking, English-language school boards are supposed to teach French as a second language, and the highest authorized or recognized level is immersion. But, with a majority of French-speaking students in some of our schools, we did not see the point in doing that, so we began first-language education, in other words, teaching the mother tongue.
The reality is that, in the schoolyard, the hallways, the cafeteria and the gymnasium, the students in these schools use French as their language of choice. Perhaps even more interesting is an initiative, if you will, that differentiates the Eastern Townships school board from other English-language boards, which consists in providing bus service to a large number of our students, more than half, jointly with the French-language public school boards in the region. So, in the morning, instead of having two, or sometimes three, buses going down the same country roads, there is only one bus taking students to schools located close to one another, be they French or English schools.
These students have the advantage of another language learning environment — the school bus. It is amusing sometimes when you walk through our schools — and I encourage you to visit if you have the opportunity — to hear conversations between students that begin in one language and end in the other or one student speaking English while the other responds in French, and both of them understand each other perfectly.
In other schools, and this is not so commendable, the French they teach is not used as frequently because there is no day-to-day language support in classrooms, in the hallways and so forth. The language of the school is more so English. And as a result, the demand for French as a second language is not quite as great. Nevertheless, it is essential that, and we preach this equally to both parents and students, in order to stay in a province, which is an objective shared by most of the community groups, a graduate should be proficient in French in that they are competent and functional both in writing and orally. We do everything we can to make that happen.
Does that answer your question?
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Yes, that answers my question. Thank you very much.
[English]
Senator Fraser: Continuing on the question of the mastery of two languages, does it ever happen that anglophone children do not have as good a command of at least written English as one might expect, because of the extraordinary bilingual environment?
Mr. Murray: Possibly, but our research and other research that we have consulted indicate that the skills of language acquisition transfer readily. We have increased the number of minutes of French in all our schools beyond the minimum required, and we encourage use of French to teach subjects other than the language of French. In many of our schools, students have the option, even if they are not in an immersion stream, to take social studies or some other subject in French. Much of gym is taught in French and so forth, to encourage the acquisition of daily language rather than the structural aspects of learning a second language. The skills transfer readily.
Senator Fraser: My question was about English.
Mr. Murray: I am coming to that. Where we have a weakness in English, I think we have a weakness in the entire cultural support network, and this weakness is not only in areas where there is a lot of French. It is a phenomenon we observe in all our schools. Understand that we share with our francophone neighbours a lot of the disadvantages of a rural, small-town environment. Being from that sort of background, they are familiar with the depopulation of the rural areas that has been going on for more than a century. Lack of jobs means the people who are the most mobile, the best equipped to find good jobs, go elsewhere for the best jobs, leaving behind those least well-equipped, who in turn produce children who grow up in homes that are less well-equipped with cultural resources, books and that sort of thing. It compounds the problem.
We grapple with the issues of teaching good English as much as with French, because of the backgrounds of so many of our students that is deficient in support for that kind of learning.
Senator Fraser: I go back to your extraordinary computer program, which sounds so dazzling, and dropouts. It does not surprise me at all that having access to computers like that tends to reduce the dropout rate among boys. Once we think about it, it is a no-brainer, but there are other things one wonders about.
Let me describe what is in my mind and then you can tell me what the facts are. If a lot of your students are bused, I assume that busing means they have to leave school when classes are over, which in turn means a sharp limit on the number of extracurricular activities they can participate in. So far, so good?
I am thinking, in particular, of organized sports, which teenaged boys tend to like, but also of other things, such as drama and music, and not only football. Is that an inherent problem and, if so, what does one do about it? If it is not an inherent problem I will worry about something else.
Mr. Murray: Of course, it is a problem. I preface any other remarks by saying it is a problem we share with all other rural areas. It is not exclusive to the English language group.
We have tried to compensate in a number of ways. All our high schools, where this question of extracurricular activities becomes more important as the kids become older, run a longer school day between the arrival of buses in the morning and the departure in the afternoon. Generally speaking, twice a week they run what we call, a late bus. The objective is to permit student activities during an extended noon hour; for half an hour to 45 minutes before classes start in the morning; and again for half an hour to 45 minutes before the buses leave after the end of classes in the afternoon.
This late bus, in fact, means that we run the same bus route twice in the afternoon. One bus picks up both secondary and elementary students in the morning, goes back and delivers the elementary students when their day ends. The bus returns to the high school and runs the route again to take the high school kids home 90 minutes later, so that they have that extra time in school to participate in all the complementary activities.
Senator Fraser: Do you think that bus helps?
Mr. Murray: It helps. It is not a complete response, of course. Again, it is a compromise between what we can afford — we would like to run maybe late buses five days a week, and we cannot — and what we are able to do.
Senator Fraser: Still on the dropout rate, I think I heard you say that 7 per cent or 8 per cent of the dropouts are not real dropouts; they have gone off to school in some other province.
Mr. Murray: Percentiles is what I should have said, or points. If we are talking about a 39-per-cent dropout rate at the beginning of our curve, it is something close to 30 per cent after we have subtracted those who are identifiably outside the province and where our dropout rate is now in the low 30s; take away 7 per cent and we are into the middle 20s, approximately, after those that we can identify are gone.
Senator Fraser: Bearing in mind that education is provincial, but bearing in mind that the federal government has responsibilities, particularly for minority language communities, what would you like to see the federal government do to help; more computers?
Mr. Murray: Yes; we approached the federal government at the time we set up the computer program, with strong encouragement from the provincial government, I should say, who were ready to encourage us in this experiment, but equally willing, or perhaps eager, to see us find the money elsewhere. We approached the federal government. We were not able to fit this program into any of the programs under Canadian Heritage or the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, which was the other ministry we solicited from.
We had a kind reception, but no financial benefit. As I mentioned, alongside the high-speed Internet access in remote and rural areas where it is not available now to deliver both television and Internet access, it would help if we could find a way to fund the ongoing costs of this program. The ongoing costs are significant in terms of training and retraining teachers who are still graduating to this day from faculties of education in all our universities without any preparation for using laptops, interactive white boards, digital audio recorders, video cameras and so forth, integrated into their teaching practice. We are starting from square one with these young teachers, and having to spend a lot of energy and resources to re-educate them in the pedagogical technique.
We talked with our faculties of education from whom we hire, and they have structural difficulties in adapting to our request. We are the only board in the province that has this problem, so of course, being tiny and remote we receive less attention than if we were a Montreal or West Island board.
Senator Fraser: One hopes that you will not continue to be the only board in the province with this problem.
This question will be my last. What do you do about the translation of textbooks, the age-old problem of English textbooks not coming along until too long after the French? Do you think, from where you sit, that judicious federal funding to help speed up translation would be useful?
Mr. Murray: I have mixed feelings about situation. I think that much of the drama has been overdrawn. We have had textbooks when we needed textbooks. People have spent a lot of time in the media deploring the lack of them six months before we needed them, and when kids were in class, the books were available. To some extent, I do not think it is a genuine problem. We have a genuine problem obtaining textbooks — because we have the whole world to buy English textbooks from — that are adapted to the Quebec curriculum program. However, in part, that issue is a supply question. I was fortunate to attend a conference in Maine last June where I met publishers from Israel who already publish in three languages — Arabic, English and Hebrew — and are perfectly willing to add French, They publish for a tiny population. Their textbooks are all electronic. They will put it on paper if someone wishes to have a paper copy, but they publish e-textbooks that are then revised and updated. The books are fantastic. They are dynamic. Where we would see a picture in a textbook, they now have a little video clip. Where we would see a graph, we can see the line edging its way up. The books are a much more dynamic way to teach almost any subject I can think of at almost any level, but so far we have not worked our way through the bureaucratic intricacies of the Ministry of Education to obtain permission to use these kinds of things.
Then, of course, we will face the other issue, which might be more critical, of training and retraining teachers to use them. Again, we cannot introduce a textbook like that by simply dropping it into a computer and saying, go ahead. We are conscious that it takes a lot of professional development to make these books as useful and comfortable as they need to be before teachers will feel good about teaching with them.
Senator Fraser: I could go on for a long time asking questions, but thank you, chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: Would young people not be more interested in that kind of project, be it in electronic or other form? They are so involved in technology. Might that not encourage them to stay in school longer?
Senator Murray: In my view, yes. One thing to understand about students who drop out is that they are not the least intelligent, in other words, those with the least potential, but, on the contrary — and this is my strong suspicion without having the slightest statistic to back up what I am saying — that boredom and indifference are to blame, in the sense that what is taught in the classroom is perceived as totally irrelevant to the student's day-to-day life. And that is why, at the end of secondary III, students find having a car and a job and some steady money to take out their girlfriend more appealing than staying in boring school. And the only enjoyment they get during the day is playing soccer or football for an hour and a half after school.
[English]
Senator De Bané: Mr. Murray, on the issue of dropping out, a year ago Senator Jacques Parizeau made a statement. It might have applied only to the Montreal area or to the whole province, I do not remember, but he said that the dropout rate in the French-speaking schools is double that of the English-speaking schools in Quebec. He said this is a failure of monumental dimensions, to have double the rate of the English schools.
It is an important problem. Of course, we can all think about what will be the future of a teenager who has dropped out in an era of knowledge, et cetera. It is a serious problem. I do not see how we can envisage a bright future for those young people, so we have to do something about it.
Your say your school board covers a territory as large as Belgium, and you have 26 schools. What is the itinerary of the school bus that has the longest journey to undertake? In Quebec City, the English school board tells us they have young children who travel by bus one and a half hours in the morning and one and a half hours in the evening, to go to school and come back. It is like going from Quebec City to Trois-Rivières.
In your area, those 26 schools scattered over a country as big as Belgium, is the problem also big here or more manageable?
Mr. Murray: The problem exists, and we have been studying it. We tend sometimes to be shocked by the extreme examples. We have some students who spend 90 minutes on the bus each way. That is terrible. However, it is not a common thing. Again, I call your attention to the size of the territory and the thinly scattered population. The bus that picks up the first student does so 90 minutes before that student reaches the school, but the second student may be on it only for 75 minutes, and the third for 60 minutes. Then, as they approach the centre where the school is located, generally the population becomes a little denser and they stop more often, so the ride for the average group or the middle group is considerably shorter than those extremes.
One way we are trying to compensate is to experiment at the moment with putting cell modems on the buses so the students can access the Internet with their laptops while on the bus. It is experimental right now. We are dealing with Bell Canada and Rogers on a sort of loan-of-service, loan-of-equipment basis, but we are trying to make use of that time, because it could be valuable for the student.
Senator De Bané: You said that students of Grade 5 and 6 at the primary schools and the first three years of secondary school have a laptop?
Mr. Murray: Yes.
Senator De Bané: How does that program compare to other school boards in the province of Quebec?
Mr. Murray: The difference with us is that each student has their own laptop, which they can take home at night, on weekends and on holidays. Other schools have laptops at the rate of one per two, three, five or whatever the ratio may be of students, but the laptops are not attached to the student. They remain in school.
Senator De Bané: How have you managed to do that?
Mr. Murray: As I said, it was an experimental program that was financed independently of the usual resources.
Senator De Bané: When it was an experimental program, it went from Grade 3 and upwards. Now it is Grades 5 and 6 and the three years of secondary school, and this program is permanent, so it is not experimental any longer.
Mr. Murray: That is correct.
Senator De Bané: What is the financial base of that program?
Mr. Murray: We are financing it out of the revenue supplied to us under the normal programs of the Ministry of Education of Quebec, so we are substituting some of the costs that we normally incur for textbooks, because we put some of the material on the laptops. We use various budgets for technology that are given to us. We use other bits and pieces of budgets from other departments to fund that program.
Senator De Bané: You say in your paper that by using this ratio of one to one, and adding interactive electronic white boards, the student results "have improved dramatically."
Mr. Murray: Yes.
Senator De Bané: Those are the words you used.
Mr. Murray: According to the statistics given to us by the Ministry of Education, the one statistic that we use is a ranking of school boards. The ministry has not published it for 2009 yet, but for 2008 and previous years, we have statistics in which schools are ranked from first to last based on several criteria: number of dropouts, graduation rates and averages of graduating percentages in common exams. In 2002, the Eastern Townships School Board ranked number 66 out of 69 school boards. In 2008, we ranked 26. I think it is safe to say, based on statistics that are ministerial and not ours, that our results have improved dramatically.
Senator De Bané: Definitely.
Mr. Murray: We, of course, are not satisfied with being 26.
Senator De Bané: Can you guide us through those two documents?
Mr. Murray: I can. I will have to take out my laptop to look at my copies because I do not have them on paper; or would you like to ask a specific question?
Senator De Bané: I will read you two or three that have struck me. On the elementary schools, number 3: hours per day spent watching TV, they spend about one third less than the Canadian norm. This statistic is impressive. The last item on page 1 of the elementary: students meeting Canada's Food Guide, 52 per cent compared to 18.
Mr. Murray: Yes; can I comment on those two before you move on?
Senator De Bané: Yes.
Mr. Murray: We must take things in context. The average of 1.1 hours a day for the Eastern Townships School Board versus 1.5 hours a day for the Canadian norm may be offset by spending more screen time with a computer for those students who have computers. It may also reflect the time they spend on a bus going to and from their house; therefore, they perhaps do not have access to the time to watch television for as long.
When I regard some of these numbers, there may be a bias in the answers — this information is self-reported — toward what is perceived to be the right answer. In terms of hours of television, we know from a lot of media that a greater number of hours is seen as negative and a smaller number as positive, so the information may be slanted.
Meeting Canada's Food Guide is something different. Within the English school board we have been working for six years on a nutrition policy that is two-pronged. One is to ensure our cafeterias serve balanced, nutritious meals in the middle of the day, and we have breakfast programs in disadvantaged areas. The other prong is education, where we spend time on topics like social studies and others to try to educate the students to educate their parents about Canada's Food Guide, because we know that the parents need the information before they can adapt the diet and practice at home.
Senator De Bané: That is interesting. It is good that you give us the other angles. On page 2, the last one is hours per day spent doing homework. Maybe it is because they spend too much time on buses, et cetera; it is less than the norm.
On the secondary one, the first item, skipped classes, missed days without reason, it is a lot lower in your school board.
Mr. Murray: We may benefit again from busing. Parents do not have too much control on students who walk to school or just disappear from the home site without oversight. Our students have to travel on a bus in many cases, so there is a certain amount of parental supervision that may tell them to go to school rather than elsewhere.
Senator De Bané: It is interesting to see that they compare well with the rest of the country.
Mr. Murray: I point out for Senator Fraser that on the secondary school report, the number of students engaged in school sports is 52 per cent.
Senator Fraser: I noticed that. You are above average.
Mr. Murray: Just.
Senator De Bané: Mr. Murray, as we say, the proof is in the pudding. Going from 66 to 28 speaks eloquently of the way that you have used all those techniques. You know what is going on in Israel and the American states. You have added those means to increase the interest of students, such as the interactive electronic white board, et cetera. Obviously, you are an example for other school boards across the province and the country.
Mr. Murray: Thank you very much.
Senator Fraser: Can I ask a supplementary question?
The Chair: Senator Seidman had asked for a short question.
Senator Fraser: I yield to Senator Seidman.
The Chair: We have not more than five minutes left.
Senator Seidman: I sit here and continue to be in awe and I am thinking; my goodness, we have a model school board here. You are dealing with two major issues and, of course, the childhood obesity issue is one that is surfacing as a major issue. I am so impressed to see that you have already addressed, and are addressing, this issue through nutrition programs in your schools. I see, under both the elementary and the high school programs, your students have better dietary behaviours.
You mentioned that you have been working on this program and it has to do specifically with a food program in the school. I know that this issue is a major one: Children eat their lunches at school, and I have heard from parents that many of their children do not want to bring nutritious lunches to school because it singles them out as different from the crowd, and they would rather go to the cafeteria and pick up the hot dog and chips, or whatever it is.
There have been British school programs looking at diet and they discover that children, when shown photographs of a fruit such as a strawberry, or a potato, have no clue what it is. They cannot tell you that is a potato and that is a strawberry because they are used to seeing french fries. It is remarkable.
I want to hear something about how you have managed to create this lunchtime program. What exactly is it?
Mr. Murray: We started, as I said, about six years ago by hiring two nutritionists to go to each of our schools to assess the offering in the cafeterias, and to make recommendations on what it ought to be. We consulted parents about the maximum cost that they could afford, keeping in mind we are dealing with relatively lower income families for much of our territory. We then had nutritionists develop recommended menus for the cafeterias.
We were proud two years ago that one of our schools was identified by La Presse, the newspaper in Montreal, as having the best school cafeteria in Quebec after they conducted a comparative survey. We did not know they knew about Sutton School, much less that they would consider it a competitor to some of the other schools.
We are extremely active in promoting those kinds of things within our system. When we go to another school and ask whether they knew Sutton School won the cafeteria prize, and how their cafeteria is doing, I can say that the hot dogs, the poutines, the pizzas and so forth have been relegated to special days each month, so they are not generally available in the schools.
There is, as Jamie Oliver discovered, a learning curve in that area, like anything else; the kids reject the good food at first, and after a few weeks of having no alternatives but what they bring from home, they are there with their money buying the hot lunches. In one particular case I can cite to you, they can buy soup, a main dish and a dessert for $3.75, I think it is. The cafeteria is run by a private contractor who says that she does a little better than break even.
Senator Seidman: Might I be so bold as to ask you again if you have some kind of written document on how you developed this program and what exactly it involves?
Mr. Murray: That is probably less well documented than the laptop program. We will send you the laptop information, and I will see what I can find on the development of the nutrition program. As I have said, we hired nutritionists and they made recommendations. Those recommendations were massaged through parent consultations. It was not a smooth or single-track process.
Senator Seidman: Was it funded?
Mr. Murray: No; we do this all internally.
Senator Seidman: It was done solely within the school?
Mr. Murray: Yes.
Senator Seidman: I would appreciate if you could send us something.
Mr. Murray: I will make a point of sending you whatever I can find, and perhaps we can contribute to a dialogue subsequently.
Senator Fraser: I want to go back to the statistics: secondary school, bottom of page 4, hours per day working part- time during a typical weekday. Does that average refer to year-round or is that during the school year?
Mr. Murray: This information is self-reported, so it probably refers to within the school year rather than year- round, but I have no way of knowing how that was explained to students as they were answering the survey.
Senator Fraser: There seems to be at least a possibility here that, particularly for students who have to be bused more than 20 minutes, if on top of that they are working an hour a day, school becomes more and more of an interference.
Mr. Murray: Hence the lower number of hours in homework.
Senator Fraser: Is it considered a problem? You have terrific parent education programs, by the way.
Mr. Murray: We have, as I mentioned, a well-diversified dropout prevention program under way. One aspect is to work with employers. Only yesterday, we held a press conference at which we presented awards to three employers in one area who have undertaken to, number one, not employ any student-aged persons for more than a certain number of hours per week; number two, to provide flexible scheduling when exams or important periods of academic pressure arrive; and number three, for employees who are applying for permanent jobs, todemonstrate they have obtained a high school certificate. We are working with employers on that end of it to try and encourage a healthy approach to part-time work and later, full-time work.
Senator Fraser: We have learning to do here. Thank you, Mr. Murray.
[Translation]
The Chair: Mr. Murray, all I can say is thank you. This committee is extremely impressed. We thank you for sharing that success story with us. Your community is lucky that you returned after so many years to continue to help it grow. It is fortunate. Thank you very much.
M. Murray: Thank you very much for those extremely kind words. It is our privilege to share what we know with you, and we are proud of what we have already accomplished. We intend to do even more.
The Chair: And rightly so.
(The committee adjourned.)