THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON OFFICIAL LANGUAGES
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Monday, April 20, 2026
The Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages met with videoconference this day at 5 p.m. [ET] to examine and report on the regulatory framework of Part VII of the Official Languages Act; and, in camera, to examine and report on such issues as may arise from time to time relating to official languages generally.
Senator Allister Surette (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Before I begin, I would like to ask all senators to consult the cards and our guests here this evening for guidelines to prevent audio feedback incidents.
It’s simple. Keep your earpiece away from microphones at all times. The activation and deactivation of microphones will be controlled by the console operator. Please avoid handling your earpiece while your microphone is open.
[Translation]
I am Allister Surette, a senator from Nova Scotia, and the chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages.
I would like to ask my colleagues to introduce themselves.
Senator Gerba: Amina Gerba from Quebec.
Senator Cormier: René Cormier from New Brunswick.
Senator Moncion: Lucie Moncion from Ontario.
Senator R. Patterson: Rebecca Patterson from Ontario.
[English]
The Chair: I would like to welcome everyone with us today as well as those listening to us online on sencanada.ca. Today, in the first hour of our meeting, pursuant to the order of reference received from the Senate on October 8, 2025, we’re studying the regulatory framework of Part VII of the Official Languages Act.
Tonight we have with us from the English Parents’ Committee Association, Katherine Korakakis, President; Doug Bentley, Vice President; and Jessica Sabatini, Director. Also, from the Quebec English School Boards Association, we have Joseph Ortona, President; and Marion Sandilands, Lawyer, Partner of Conway LLP.
Welcome. As we normally proceed, we allow approximately five minutes per association or group, and then we will move on to questions and answers.
If I understand it properly, we will begin with the English Parents’ Committee Association of Quebec. All three representatives will speak, but Ms. Korakakis will begin.
[Translation]
Katherine Korakakis, President, English Parents Committee Association of Quebec: Good evening, and thank you for the invitation to appear before you today.
[English]
My name is Katherine Korakakis, and I am a parent volunteer. I am the chair of the English Montreal School Board’s Parents’ Committee and the president of the English Parents’ Committee Association of Quebec, or EPCA.
Doug Bentley, Vice President, English Parents Committee Association of Quebec: I’m Doug Bentley, vice president of EPCA. I’m the chair of the Lester B. Pearson School Board Parents’ Committee. I sit on two governing boards, one of which I chair, and I’m a parent volunteer.
Jessica Sabatini, Director, English Parents Committee Association of Quebec: I am Jessica Sabatini. I’m a director and an executive member at the English Montreal School Board Parents’ Committee and I am the governing board chair.
EPCA is a coalition of parent committees from English-language school boards across Quebec, representing nearly 100,000 students in the English-language youth sector. It is a non-profit organization that is funded by the Quebec’s ministry of education. Whenever there is an educational issue, we are the voice of parents.
Our work begins at the local level, where parent committees and governing boards see directly how decisions affect students and families. At the provincial level, EPCA sits with MEQ partners on many provincial committees and is consulted by the ministry of education on matters affecting public education. We, therefore, bring both the lived realities of families and direct experience with the policy process. Federally, we engage on issues where official language policy and minority language education intersect, particularly when federal commitments are meant to support English-speaking students in Quebec.
EPCA is so grateful to be here today, and we thank you for the invitation.
Mr. Bentley: As you know, the English public school system in Quebec is underpinned by the constitutional guarantees under section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. As minority-language parents, we are the key stakeholders of those constitutional rights. We are proud that our children receive a quality, bilingual education to contribute to a vibrant, diverse Quebec society.
The past eight years have been very difficult for the English‑speaking community in Quebec. We have experienced a barrage of bills that directly undermine our community’s viability and our educational governance: Bill 40, Bill 96, Bill 9 and Bill 94. This has taken a toll on our sense of belonging in Quebec society.
Over the past several years in Quebec, EPCA has witnessed the steady erasure of English-speaking parents in decision making at the provincial level. This erasure has been slow but unrelenting. Parents have been removed from decision-making bodies, like the provincial table for the National Student Ombudsman. We have to fight at every turn for provincially required educational materials to be available in English.
This is why the federal government provides us with a beacon of hope. We understand that the Official Languages Act provides the legal framework for federal support for English public education in Quebec by way of a Canada-Quebec agreement. However, this means that all of the federal funding meant for English public education in Quebec is channelled through the provincial government.
Ms. Korakakis: Unfortunately, from our perspective, the system is flawed. The problem is that, once federal funding is transferred through the province, there is very little transparency about when it flows, how it is allocated and whether it reaches the English-speaking students and families it is meant to support. Too much depends on provincial discretion, and there are too few accountability mechanisms to ensure timely and effective delivery on the ground.
For example, in the case of tutoring services, funding intended to support students is often significantly delayed before reaching organizations like LEARN Quebec, which plays a critical role in delivering tutoring supports to English-speaking students across Quebec.
Similarly, with the universal lunch program, funding was available, but for years, it was held back before being implemented in a meaningful way.
Federal support for English public education in Quebec is essential. The regulations might be one step in that direction, although we didn’t see anything in the regulations that will actually help unblock the funding blockages I have just described.
The regulations seem to be mainly procedural rules. They do not seem to create any specific obligations for federal institutions to follow, and they don’t create any binding obligations when it comes to federal-provincial agreements. Therefore, we do not see how they will address the serious problems we face on a daily basis with federal funding not reaching its intended targets.
We ask the committee to take note of our broader concerns, even if it does not translate into specific recommendations for the regulations themselves. We do note one possible improvement for the regulation: The regulations set out how federal institutions are to carry out consultations with community stakeholders. We agree that consultation is fundamental, but in order for consultation to be meaningful, resources need to be provided to the organizations being consulted.
EPCA is no exception. We are a volunteer-run organization with very little core funding. We have a lot to contribute but need the resources in order to engage meaningfully in these consultation processes. Thank you for your time.
The Chair: Thank you. Now from the Quebec English School Boards Association, the president, Mr. Ortona.
Joseph Ortona, President, Quebec English School Boards Association: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Honourable senators, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today.
My name is Joe Ortona. I’m the president of the Quebec English School Boards Association, or QESBA, and I’m accompanied by our lawyer Marion Sandilands.
The QESBA represents nine English-language school boards, serving approximately 100,000 students across more than 300 schools and centres throughout Quebec.
Today, our focus is not only on institutions but on the students who walk through the doors each morning. These students are learning not only subjects like mathematics and science, but how to live, contribute and thrive in a society shaped by two official languages.
Our schools operate in diverse communities, from large urban centres in Montreal to smaller, often fragile, minority communities across regions, such as the Eastern Townships, the Outaouais, Montérégie and the North Shore.
In many of these areas, the local English school is far more than a place of instruction. It is often the last remaining public institution anchoring the vitality, identity and continuity of the English-speaking community.
Beyond the school walls, access to essential services is frequently limited, and, in some cases, entirely absent. That is why the study before this committee matters so deeply.
The vitality of Quebec’s English-speaking minority is inseparable from the strength of its institutions that educate its children. English-language school boards are not simply service providers. They are the constitutional expression of the rights guaranteed under section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, enabling minority communities to manage and control the institutions that shape their future.
As the committee is aware, the English-speaking community has repeatedly had to turn to the courts to ensure these rights are respected. Since 2019, QESBA has been involved in many legal challenges to protect its constitutional rights. In virtually all of those cases, the courts have ruled in favour of our association, finding the legislation or directives in question to be inconsistent with section 23 guarantees.
This pattern reflects a broader concern: a persistent lack of meaningful consultation and transparency in how decisions affecting our institutions are made.
It is in this context that we emphasize the importance of the actionable obligations set out in Part VII of the Official Languages Act. Part VII is not merely symbolic. It requires the federal government to take positive, deliberate and measurable action to enhance the vitality of official language minority communities.
For Quebec’s English-speaking community, this means ensuring that federal engagement is intentional, responsive and capable of strengthening the institutions that serve minority-language learners, particularly in education, where long-term community vitality is determined.
The draft regulations before you represent an important step forward. They recognize that federal institutions must analyze their decisions, consult communities and document their actions. We welcome this effort. However, our central message today is clear: Process alone will not protect minority-language communities.
The proposed framework emphasizes analysis, consultation and documentation. These are necessary elements, but they are not sufficient. Communities cannot live on consultation reports, and students cannot build their futures on procedures.
Under the current proposal, federal institutions could demonstrate procedural compliance without necessarily producing any measurable benefit for minority-language communities or the institutions that sustain them.
For communities like ours, this gap between process and outcome is not theoretical; we have seen it and lived it firsthand. Key decisions affecting minority-language education in Quebec are often made through federal-provincial agreements, particularly those tied to the Action Plan for Official Languages. Yet, our recent experience has been troubling. English-language education institutions were not meaningfully consulted, nor were we at the table. These agreements contained no binding provisions ensuring concrete benefits for our education system, and there has been limited transparency regarding how federal funds are allocated or used.
When federal commitments are filtered through provincial frameworks without clear conditions, transparency or accountability, the result is predictable: The obligations of Part VII risk being diluted in practice.
Consultation must, therefore, not be a formality. It must be meaningful, structured and capable of influencing decisions. Minority-language institutions must be engaged early before agreements are finalized, especially when those agreements determine how federal commitments are implemented.
Transparency must also be strengthened. Federal institutions should not only conduct analyses under Part VII, but make them public, allowing communities to understand how decisions are made and assess whether the act’s objectives are being achieved.
Finally, the regulations must reflect a fundamental principle: Where federal-provincial agreements fail to ensure that Part VII obligations are fulfilled, the federal government must be prepared to act. The vitality of official language minority communities cannot depend solely on arrangements that lack enforceable safeguards.
Honourable senators, legislation can declare rights, but only strong institutions can allow communities to live those rights every day. For Quebec’s English-speaking minority, our schools are where that future is built: one student, one staff member, one classroom and one community at a time.
The question before you is whether these regulations will simply document federal intentions or whether they will truly strengthen the institutions that sustain minority communities. We urge you to ensure that the obligation of Part VII is realized, not only in process, but in the lived reality of the learners and communities it was meant to protect.
We welcome the opportunity to share clear, real-world examples of the barriers and systemic hurdles that limit the effective use of the Canada-Quebec agreement funding within our school boards. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you. We will proceed to questions from senators.
Senator Cormier: Thanks for being with us today.
My first question is for Mr. Ortona. I have to tell you that I am a bit moved asking you this question because I was this afternoon in the Senate, and I listened to the magnificent concert that was given by students from one of your commissions. This was a project that Senator Housakos put together with your organization and other organizations. This is a demonstration of the immense role you have in this country and in your province. I want to congratulate you for that.
I would like to know more about the barriers. You talked about the barriers in the Canada-Quebec agreement. Could you tell us a bit more about the barriers that you think prohibit good solutions for you and your organization?
Mr. Ortona: Thank you for the question. The obvious one is that there is a lack of transparency. We don’t know where the money is going. We are not given any of those details. There is nothing at all.
The Quebec government gets the money, and then they decide where it goes. We get very little, if any, information at all. We are not part of that process. We are not consulted on that process. If the money even goes into education, we don’t even know that it goes into English-minority education. Even if it goes into English education, we don’t know that it’s going where we need it to go.
We are the elected officials at the local level. We understand the needs of the local community because we are the ones who work closest with the local community. We don’t have any of that at all, so transparency is the biggest barrier that there is, and, obviously, as a minority community, we need extra funding that perhaps we don’t need in larger urban centres or in French service centres because there are other needs and extra costs that we have to address.
I can list many examples. We require this because schools are more dispersed across the province; we have greater transportation costs as a result of that. Our funding is largely based on, from what we understand, a per capita formula. So it is based on the number of students, but the cost of maintaining a building remains the same: whether that school is full or whether that school is at lower capacity.
Definitely, transparency is the number one problem.
Senator Cormier: How could the regulations, the project we have in front of us, help or solve that problem? Are there any measures or additions to the actual regulations that you would suggest?
Mr. Ortona: For anything having to do with the actual text, I would refer to the attorney. Thank you.
Marion Sandilands, Lawyer, Partner of Conway LLP, Quebec English School Boards Association: In QSB’s brief, they set out five recommendations for the regulations. The third one has to do with the fact that the regulations should establish clear requirements for federal-provincial agreements, including enforceable language clauses, prior consultation with minority‑language education institutions and transparent public reporting on outcomes. Some of the themes that Mr. Ortona has talked about could potentially be written into the regulations as requirements for the federal level when they are negotiating these agreements.
Senator Cormier: Thank you.
My question for Ms. Korakakis is about consultation. I understand that there are many issues that come from the provincial legislation, but in terms of consultation, how would you define consultation and what would it mean for you if you wanted the federal government to consult you? What does it mean? What type of consultation? It’s not that precise in the regulation right now.
Ms. Korakakis: Your first question, if I remember correctly, is this: What does consultation mean to us?
Senator Cormier: Yes, in a way.
Ms. Korakakis: It gives us a voice. They are our children who are in the school. We are — for lack of a better word — the victims of when money doesn’t flow the way it’s intended to flow. It’s our children who bear the brunt of waiting to have programs in English, waiting to have services in English, waiting to have materials translated into English, tutoring and universal lunch programs.
For us, it means what we are doing with you folks today: We are talking to you about what’s happening on the ground. For us, it means having a voice and being able to let you know how these decisions impact the citizens of this country.
That’s what that would mean for us: the ability to talk to you wonderful folks about what it’s like when things don’t flow the way they are supposed to.
Senator Cormier: However, during the process of building the regulations, does it mean having more meetings with you? What would it look like?
Ms. Korakakis: That’s what it would mean. It would mean perhaps setting up regular meetings. Perhaps it would mean having a dialogue, recognizing us for the role that we play in Quebec with parents. We are the interlocutors with the government. We represent English-speaking parents. We represent the minority community there.
Having that recognition, ability and funds to do the consultation would be very important for us as well. We are a completely volunteer-run organization. We have no staff. It’s us. We took time off work to come here, which is great. Thank you for the invitation. Those kinds of things as well as having meetings. I think that’s what it would be.
Senator Patterson: Thank you very much for this. It is very interesting, and I also read your letter that was submitted with interest.
Some of my questions were covered by my colleague, but I want to dig a little bit into recommendation No. 5. You state that the regulations should clarify where the agreements or other mechanisms fail to ensure compliance; the federal government must pursue alternate approaches, including direct support where appropriate.
We have talked about barriers, which was one of your recommendations, and on No. 5. We certainly have heard before that enforcement becomes a challenge, and it seems that there are some complexities in Quebec, which, across Canada, is a minority language, with the French language, and then that’s a minority within a minority.
We acknowledge that there is a unique challenge that you face, but when you talk about alternate approaches, saying, “. . . should pursue alternate approaches and direct support,” what would that look like to you? We can have regulation, most certainly, but what would that look like to you?
Mr. Ortona: I want to contextualize the situation that we face in Quebec, not only as an official-language minority, but as constitutionally protected school boards.
In the Conseil scolaire francophone de la Colombie-Britannique v. British Columbia Supreme Court case in 2019, Chief Justice Wagner said that even well-intentioned people from the majority could still, while trying to help the minority, actually harm them. A lot of people just don’t understand section 23, and they don’t understand the rights that are attached to that.
Historically, we have faced that same reality as well. But in the last seven and a half years, we have faced a provincial government that has actually tried to eliminate our institutions altogether. They enacted legislation to abolish school boards. We had to go to the courts to get an injunction to block that from happening. We had to go to the courts to declare that unconstitutional, and we still see the government trying to fight that all the way to the Supreme Court, so that is the reality that we are facing.
There could be a lot of well-intentioned people who, in other provinces, are not doing enough to fulfill their obligations. We are dealing, in Quebec, at least with this government, with a government that really doesn’t care whether our institution thrives or not. In fact, it actively works to harm it.
When we find ourselves in a situation where they may not have any interest in fulfilling these obligations, our recommendation is to say, look, it may not be the first option, but the last resort, if all else fails, is to bypass the province and deal directly with the school boards.
The problem with that is that the province has legislation that says that school boards or any public institutions can’t get money from any government without their permission, including from the federal government, which may or may not find its way in litigation through the courts one day. We will see, but that is the recommendation that we are making.
Senator Patterson: Thank you. I appreciate it and I apologize. I will have to leave, but thank you for your submission.
Mr. Ortona: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: Welcome to the committee. I have a question for Mr. Ortona and another question for all of you.
Mr. Ortona, you said that the draft regulations would provide a framework for the process and analyses and that the government was seeking to regulate that aspect, but that it wasn’t sufficient.
How should the draft regulations be amended to better address your expectations?
Ms. Sandilands: I think the Quebec English-Speaking Communities Research Network has voiced the same criticism as many other stakeholders, namely, that the draft regulations are too focused on the process and not focused enough on measures or substantive guarantees. Many of the association’s recommendations seek to address this issue.
There is a legal issue concerning how to address this matter in the regulations, rather than in legislation. The association has made several recommendations on areas that can be improved in the regulations to make them more focused on the substance and the goals. The recommendations pertain to substantive achievements rather than the process.
Senator Gerba: For example?
Ms. Sandilands: For example, I will look up the first recommendation in their brief.
[English]
Federal institutions should be required to demonstrate how their decisions and agreements produce measurable benefits for minority-language education systems.
Number two, where positive measures are considered but ultimately not adopted, institutions should be required to provide written and reasoned justifications and made accessible to the affected communities.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: Thank you.
This question is for all of you. Were your organizations consulted?
Ms. Korakakis: Consulted when?
Senator Gerba: As part of these draft regulations.
Ms. Sandilands: No.
Ms. Korakakis: No.
Senator Gerba: Would that have made any difference?
Ms. Korakakis: We tried.
[English]
Was that the law when they were putting in M40?
[Translation]
I recall that when Bill 96 was passed in Quebec, another piece of legislation was being discussed here.
[English]
What was the law here, the language law, M —
Ms. Sandilands: Oh, Bill C-13.
Ms. Korakakis: Bill C-13.
[Translation]
We really tried, but no one listened to us. We really tried to tell you how this was going to affect us. We tried to say that if you did this, you would give weight to what was then Bill 96. Now, Bill 96 is a disaster for people who live in Quebec.
[English]
There are so many victims to this law; it hurts so many people on the ground that I don’t understand how this is happening, and nobody is listening. Perhaps if we were consulted, you would have listened to what is happening on the ground.
Consultation is super important. There are real consequences to Bill 96. Real consequences. I’m sorry.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: Okay. Are you satisfied with the Canada‑Quebec agreement?
Ms. Korakakis: I would say no, because we never know where the money will go. We never get any answers. As someone who will receive the services set out in the agreement, I’m not satisfied.
I’ll give you an example. We have to wait ages for services or to have documents translated into English. That is just wrong. Anglophone children and francophone children are simply children. There’s no difference between them. We’re creating a two- or even three-tier system, one where some are entitled to services and information, and others are not.
Access to information is a top priority for people. A person is trapped if their ability to understand homework or responsibilities is taken away. That is what is happening. Obviously, French has to be protected, and we all believe in that. That’s why we live in Quebec. However, it should not be protected at the cost of eroding our rights or jeopardizing our children’s development and future. Who will always be the victims? The most vulnerable. That’s it. What good will that be for French? It doesn’t help anyone. It penalizes and takes away opportunities.
Senator Gerba: Okay.
[English]
Senator Moncion: I would like to hear about some of the items that are silent, in the regulations that are being presented, on the estimates of the rights holders. Are you affected by that portion?
Ms. Korakakis: Are you asking me if I am affected?
Senator Moncion: Any one of you. The estimation of the rights holders.
Ms. Sandilands: I don’t think the QESB covers that issue in the brief.
Ms. Korakakis: No, I don’t know what that is.
Senator Moncion: In portion 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the government has to provide you with the ability to identify the number of children who need access to English education. I believe the regulatory regime that is being presented is silent on that. Is that affecting you?
Mr. Ortona: I will speak to what I know about that. I know that, for a long time, we’ve asked to be able to have the ability to get those numbers. It was only in the last census round — I forget exactly what year it was, maybe 2021 or 2022 — where an actual question was included in order to be able to identify whether people are minority-language rights holders. So we were able to get numbers. With the numbers and being able to locate where exactly they are, that has helped immensely in order to be able to better understand where — because we can’t take for granted that everybody is in the English public system. We have people, especially in the regions, who for all sorts of reasons, including proximity, will choose a French public school or even private education. But we have a lot of help in that regard.
You are talking about the regulation being silent. I know that those obligations seem to have been met. We have those numbers, and we are working with those numbers in order to know exactly where our rights holders are so we can go and try to attract them to be in our system.
Senator Moncion: Okay. But the fact that they are not in regulation but they are now in the census doesn’t mean that it will stay in the census. So the fact that it is not in the regulation might be a problem in the future.
Mr. Ortona: Sure. That’s a great point.
Senator Moncion: It was the same with the francophones on the other side who have been mentioning that since 2021, but that doesn’t mean it will stay there. This is part of the information that the regulation is silent on, but that is important. Again, are you affected by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in your schools and the fact that they are not mentioned in the regulation? That means that, if an immigrant comes to your region and wants to have access to English education, would that be a problem?
Ms. Sandilands: Sorry, are you referring to the commitment to bilingualism and promoting French abroad at 42(1)?
Senator Moncion: Yes.
Ms. Sandilands: For everyone at the table, the Government of Canada has committed to advancing the use of English and French in the conduct of Canada’s external affairs to promote French as part of Canada’s diplomatic relations. I believe you are asking whether that is of any relevance or concern to anyone here.
Senator Moncion: Yes, because this is not in the regulation. Actually, the regulation is silent with a lot of ministries, and there were concerns mentioned by the other francophone groups that we heard. I was just wondering if you have the same situation.
You’ve talked about the consultation, and this is something that we’ve known about. So I am going in different directions to see how you are affected by other things.
Mr. Ortona: The best information that I can provide is this: First of all, paragraph 23(1)(a) of the Canadian Charter doesn’t apply in Quebec. So the government’s position is that every immigrant must go into the French system. They provide virtually no exceptions. So, even in the case when we took in Syrian refugees about a decade ago or Ukrainian refugees after the war began by Russia, we offered to be able to take students because they are at their most vulnerable and we have the space to accommodate them, but we’ve been given no leeway in that regard.
Ms. Korakakis: I would like to add something. One of the biggest calls I receive from parents across the province is parents trying to access English education because they are barred and their children have significant delays or are coming from war‑torn countries, and English is something that would be easier, and having the French is a barrier doesn’t allow them to learn. That’s the number one call we get trying to help parents, and it is desperate. Either they started falling behind or they were moved for work; these are heartbreaking stories. Either they have special needs and they have to keep falling behind in order to be allowed. It is just heartbreaking.
Senator Moncion: Do they choose other provinces in that case and just leave?
Ms. Korakakis: That’s a great question. Many times when people come in, there’s their port of entry, and they’ve already committed to a job or they are vulnerable, and it is, I guess, difficult for them to move. In some cases, that has happened. Last year, we received 1,111 calls — just so you understand the volume and there is data behind this. Some of them stay and some of them choose to leave, but the majority are just in vulnerable positions. Already if you have left a war-torn country, it is very difficult with all that trauma to go someplace else and start again.
[Translation]
Senator Moncion: Accountability.
Ms. Sandilands: Yes.
[English]
Senator Moncion: You talk about that quite a lot. I’m not sure it is in regulation, but it is more in Bill C-13. This was one of the areas where, even on the francophone side, there were problems with where the money was going. In the regulation, what are you looking for to really be able to put that in? I ask because it is not something, I believe, right now, that the officials are necessarily looking at putting into regulation. I don’t think they even put it in the legislation, but I would have to go back to read every fine line in the regulation.
I think it is something that the federal government stays away from as much as they can, and they don’t want to regulate or even put legal language around it.
Ms. Sandilands: Ms. Korakakis has sent this question to me, so I will do my best.
The revised 41(10) requires Canada to put in evaluation and monitoring mechanisms for the positive measures that are taken under that whole part. The issue here in education in Quebec is that all of that funding is channelled through a federal-provincial agreement.
Senator Moncion: Agreed. With every province.
Ms. Sandilands: Probably, yes. The regulations don’t require the federal government to put an accountability measure into the agreement. All they do is require them to ask for a linguistic clause. That’s just not strong enough to address the issue that either of these organizations have raised.
Ms. Korakakis: I don’t know about the rest of Canada, but they don’t want to give us anything. They are doing things for us not to have services. I don’t think that’s the case in other provinces. So we’re working in the context where they want to erode and take things away. Our voice is taken away. Our services are taken away. Our access to information is taken away.
We are in a specific context in Quebec where they just don’t want us there. They say they do, but everything they put in place makes me feel unwelcome. My children don’t feel welcome.
It is kind of difficult to have a paintbrush and say that perhaps it is working there. But in Quebec — I don’t want to use the word hostile — it is not welcoming. It is not a welcoming environment to be an anglophone there.
Senator Moncion: I understand, but it is how the regulations can really be fixed.
When we were looking at Bill C-13, I understood the portion of 41 and the one you were mentioning is not strong enough. It is not strong enough for Quebec parents, and it is not strong enough for francophone parents across Canada. That’s why I was looking at the regulation and what is needed.
[Translation]
The Chair: I’d like us to do something before we proceed to the second round.
[English]
I’d just like to continue this discussion here. I have flashbacks to my earlier life, one in which I was the lead in establishing the Acadian School Board in Nova Scotia, which was the last province to adopt the francophone system. Then, at post‑secondary school, we were always after the federal government to support us in the minority situation in Nova Scotia.
To go back to the regulations and how we can get around some of this, I am assuming that when you say you have no transparency in your agreements, you are talking Canadian heritage with the official languages. In English, it is OLEP. We call it at PALO. Is that where you get your funding from?
Ms. Sandilands: I can take this one.
The Chair: My question was this: Has the funding stayed constant over the last 20 years?
Ms. Sandilands: There is the DEPLOI, and Quebec does not sign on to that framework. Quebec has a separate framework and a separate format for its federal-provincial agreement with Ottawa. So, yes, the official languages action plan federal funding is channelled through a federal-provincial agreement with Quebec, but that federal-provincial agreement does not look like the ones with the other provinces. It is far more flexible with respect to what the province can do with the funding and how the province reports on the funding. That’s the issue that the stakeholders have raised over and over again. We are hoping to see more accountability required in those agreements, but it is not coming in through the regulations.
The Chair: So the only part in the regulations possibly would be the section you just made reference to, 41(10), or to reinforce the linguistic clauses in there. Is that correct?
Ms. Sandilands: Exactly. The regulations touch on this a little, saying that the federal government is required to ask for a linguistic clause, but there is no obligation of result there or of what those agreements actually need to say.
The Chair: You are not going further and saying what they should say? I ask because we’ve heard from other witnesses that the Treasury Board should add some guidelines so they would be consistent across the country. You haven’t put more thought into that?
Mr. Bentley: That’s where Senator Cormier asked about where consultation comes in. You have here a group of people who represent parents in Quebec. You have Mr. Ortona, who represents all the English school boards in Quebec. We have access to all of this constituency who can speak for their needs, so you don’t have to go through the Quebec government that does not have our best interests at heart. You can go directly to the stakeholders.
You have your consultation mechanisms in place. You can ask us to tell you what is needed, and then it is up to you to put in clauses to say this is where the money would go. I don’t know. That’s not my end of it, but we can tell you where we need the help.
Mr. Ortona has all of the nine school boards under his organization. We have all the parent committees under our organization. You have the parents. You have the commissioners, the councils and the administration. You have the resources here. If you have the questions, we’ve got the answers. We can tell you what to do with it. That’s the consultation that we’re talking about, and that’s meaningful consultation. That will give you what is required from our end. Then it is up to you to figure out how to tell the government, and the Ministry of Education specifically, how to disburse the funds that are supposed to be for our community.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator Cormier: I have two questions. Do federal institutions in Quebec have the means to clearly understand the distinction between the goal of enhancing the vitality of Quebec’s English-linguistic community as set out in section 41(1) of the Official Languages Act and the goal of predicting and promoting French set out in section 41(2)?
What I hear is that you don’t feel that you are heard and understood, that your needs are not understood on a provincial level, but there are federal institutions in Quebec. Do you feel that they have the means to totally understand the issues that you face? If not, should something be clarified in the draft regulations to make sure it is clearer?
Mr. Ortona: It’s complicated when you even ask if the federal government has the ability to understand. Minority communities are unique. They carry this certain uniqueness, and it’s very difficult to understand. Sometimes even members of the minority community themselves don’t even understand fully the extent of, for example, their section 23 rights.
I’m going to try to answer both of the questions at the same time.
It is difficult to quantify exactly what we need to put in this regulation, what has to be put in there or how much. Our needs vary, so we need to be at the table, and we need to be consulted on the process. We need to be there from the very early stages. We need to not only be heard for the ability to be able to say that we went through the motions to hear, but an actual consultation, where what we say and what we’re asking for is considered, and when it is not put into action, it is explained why.
I can give you one very good and clear example. It doesn’t fall within Part VII, but in the middle of the global pandemic, the federal government gave Quebec something like $240 million for the sole and unique purpose of air quality in schools. Not one dollar went to air quality in schools. Where did that money go? Was it even spent on schools? Did it go into education? We have no idea.
We know that the current formula that is being used is not working. The Quebec government has to be accountable, and, of course, we do our part to try to make sure they are accountable to us. But the federal government, which is giving them money, must demand that accountability on behalf of Quebec, who, right now, is pretty much getting a blank cheque and then doing what they want with it, without any reporting of any kind.
[Translation]
Senator Cormier: I’m going to ask my question in French, so it’s clear and direct.
Some would say that English-speaking communities in Quebec don’t have any problem. The English language is not at risk, there’s an anglophone community, you have hospitals and you have schools. Bearing in mind the draft regulations, how can we focus on the real issues, make some additions, amendments or clarifications?
You talked about Bill 96 and provided examples of the bill’s impact. Can you give us some examples to clarify that for us?
Ms. Korakakis: I’ll give you one glaring example. Right now, there’s an entire cohort of young vulnerable people with special needs, including my son, whose future has now been robbed because there is a new regulation that requires them to take six courses in French at CEGEP. What will happen to children with special needs, including my son and other children? There’s an exemption in high school, which means that they can do this, but for medical reasons, and they have to apply for an exemption from the provincial government.
That exemption was there before Bill 96. That meant that with that piece of paper, someone could graduate high school, and go to CEGEP and not be forced to take mandatory courses in French. They were exempt.
That is no longer the case. For many children, some politician decided that their future stops in high school, and that’s it. However, my child has spent years in therapy, and we’ve spent thousands of dollars and dedicated time to support him in his journey, and then, just like that, his life stops in high school. He can’t go to CEGEP, since he would not be admitted, because, as we know, first, exemptions are no longer allowed, and second, there are mandatory courses in French now, and the child can’t keep up with them. I’m speaking from my personal experience, but as I said, I represent parents, and the examples are many. His future ends in high school, because someone decided that this was enough for him. It ends there.
Senator Cormier: How can the draft regulations solve an issue that falls under provincial jurisdiction? Can you add anything else on this type of issue, which is squarely in the provincial jurisdiction? As you can appreciate, our responsibility as lawmakers is to see how the federal government can deal with this type of issue.
Mr. Bentley: You asked for an example, and she gave you one. We don’t have an answer to the question about how to manage all of this.
Mr. Ortona: Thank you for the question. You have brought up a number of issues. I took some notes and I’ll do my best to address each of the topics you raised.
First, you say that English is not at risk. We obviously recognize that there are francophone communities across Canada that are at risk. There’s no debate about that. That’s clear and obvious. Does the English language face the same kind of risk in Quebec? Not exactly. The further you go out of Montreal and the further you go into the regions, the more the situation mirrors the reality of francophone communities outside Quebec.
One thing is certain: Regardless of how we feel about the English language, whether it’s at risk in Quebec, whether English-language institutions and schools are at risk, that’s a reality. All statistics show that. The number of students has dropped significantly since 1972. There hasn’t been a year when the number of students went up; it has dropped steadily each year.
The Chair: Time is flying, so could you please link it back to the regulations?
Mr. Ortona: It’s hard to say exactly what needs to go into the regulations, but one thing is clear: The federal government should require the Government of Quebec to account for the funds it receives, telling Quebec where it needs to spend the money. That’s where there’s an actual need in the English-language network, which is not the reality today. The court of appeal said that during the challenge to Bill 40: The Government of Quebec cannot dictate how English school boards spend their money. They know better than the bureaucrats in Quebec City where the money should go. Quebec has not respected that requirement.
Senator Cormier: Thank you very much.
Senator Gerba: This discussion about accountability is great because we know that Quebec is fighting for the survival of the French language. This issue does not have an easy solution.
Mr. Ortona, in recommendation 5, you state that the regulations should clarify that where agreements or other mechanisms fail to ensure compliance, the federal government must pursue alternate approaches, including direct support.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by that?
Mr. Ortona: Thank you. I believe I addressed that in a previous question, but in a nutshell, Quebec has a duty to the minority anglophone community. If Quebec fails to fulfill its duties, its constitutional duties under the agreement, the federal government should have the power to bypass the province and sign agreements directly with the English-language school network. That would mean that funds go directly to the public English-language education system. We would know where the funds are allocated and the amount of money spent, and the money would go where it is actually needed in each and every school board and school.
There is provincial legislation prohibiting public institutions, including English-language school boards, from accepting or borrowing money from any government, including the federal government. We’ll see whether it leads to a court challenge one day, because we believe that this does not comply with section 23 of the Constitution either. This is a recommendation, because we believe it’s important.
The goal is to ensure that minority institutions and public schools in official language minority settings have the necessary funds to sustain themselves and meet their needs. That’s the goal, and the federal government should do all it can to attain it.
Senator Gerba: Thank you.
The Chair: That brings us to the end of our hour. Thank you very much for being here. I can see parallels with our minority situation outside Quebec, even though it’s different there. Nova Scotia eliminated English-language school boards, but not the French-language ones, for the same reasons as in your case. We understand some of the issues, and we also understand the other issues that might be slightly more difficult for you.
[English]
Thank you, once again. I truly appreciate it.
If I understood properly, you were not consulted either by Treasury Board on the regulations? No? Okay.
Your message was quite clear tonight and your brief was fantastic. The thing that wasn’t mentioned in your brief was bilingualism, which I thought was very interesting, so thanks again.
[Translation]
Our two witnesses for our second panel are participating remotely.
From the Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities, we have Éric Forgues, Executive Director.
[English]
We have, from the Regional Development Network, Lorraine O’Donnell, Senior Research Manager and Affiliate Professor at Concordia University, Quebec English-speaking Communities Research Network.
We will allow you approximately five minutes for opening remarks, and then we will go on to a period of questions and answers.
[Translation]
Mr. Forgues, I understand that you will speak first.
Éric Forgues, Executive Director, Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak on the draft regulations for Part VII of the Official Languages Act, or OLA.
Part VII is unique compared with other sections of the OLA because it includes the concept of community. “Community” is used in the English version of the act, while “minorité” is used in the French version.
The concept of “community” prompts us to think about government action as doing more than just providing services to individuals, for example. In the case of Part VII, government action focuses on the development and vitality of communities.
When the standard of interpretation for the achievement of substantive equality is applied to Part VII of the OLA, it is understood to mean supporting the development of official language minority communities — which I will refer to as “communities” for the rest of my presentation — to ensure that they can provide their members with the conditions they need to live and thrive in the minority language from cradle to grave, in all areas of their lives.
In Part VII, the Government of Canada commits to support the development of communities, so they can offer their members these conditions. The regulations should serve as a guide for the Government of Canada and all the relevant institutions. They should have more stringent obligations than those proposed in the draft regulations.
The draft regulations focus on the procedures for the implementation of Part VII, but do not provide measures to ensure substantive results.
They focus on analyses and consultation to ensure compliance with Part VII, but they do not contain any measures to ensure that government actions move official language minority communities, or OLMCs, towards substantive equality. They do not contain concrete commitments.
To add a substantive dimension, the regulations must reiterate the general purpose of the Official Languages Act, namely, to advance substantive equality.
As such, affected institutions should have to demonstrate not just their compliance with the procedures, but also the extent to which their actions have moved communities towards substantive equality.
The regulations should require each affected institution to analyze the aspects of their programs that have an impact on communities and to develop action plans to help them move towards substantive equality. The regulations should require every department and agency affected by Part VII to develop an action plan to advance substantive equality in their area of responsibility, in consultation with stakeholders and through the use of data. Treasury Board should ensure that each affected institution complies with this requirement and submits its action plan to Treasury Board.
The plan should be developed based on a model that includes clear objectives, the means to achieve the objectives and a methodology to evaluate communities’ progress towards substantive equality. At all times, this should be done in consultation with stakeholders and be supported by research.
Furthermore, the regulations should require the Government of Canada to develop a five-year action plan for official languages, as it has been doing since 2003. The regulations should explicitly state that the development, implementation and evaluation of action plans must be based on research, consultation and dialogue. Progress towards substantive equality should be measured using research-based indicators, and independent internal and external assessments. The results of these analyses should be made public at the midway point and end of the period covered by the plan.
Furthermore, every institution subject to Part VII should establish a mechanism for reviewing each policy, program and service through a language lens, taking into account the general objective of advancing substantive equality. This mechanism should review the action plan for official languages that the institution will prepare and make recommendations to more effectively achieve the objectives of Part VII. In addition, the mechanism should provide guidance to the institution to more effectively achieve the objectives of Part VII and help communities move towards substantive equality. The mechanism should provide guidance to the institution on the process for consulting communities and the use of research data to develop, implement and evaluate the institution’s policies and programs. Finally, the process should provide for the development of tools and guides for implementing Part VII in accordance with its mandate.
Every institution must consider how it can move communities towards substantive equality.
The regulations must specify the role of the Treasury Board and state that it must provide internal leadership and help institutions operationalize the general spirit of Part VII of the Official Languages Act.
Without this substantive approach, institutions will merely have to comply with procedures and have no obligation to achieve concrete results.
Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Forgues.
We now welcome Lorraine O’Donnell, Senior Research Manager and Affiliate Professor at Concordia University, from the Quebec English-Speaking Communities Research Network.
[English]
Lorraine O’Donnell, Senior Research Manager and Affiliate Professor at Concordia University, Quebec English-Speaking Communities Research Network: Thank you, Mr. Chair and honourable senators of the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages, for the opportunity to appear today and to contribute to your study on the draft regulatory framework for Part VII of the Official Languages Act.
My name is Lorraine O’Donnell. I am senior research manager at the Quebec English-Speaking Communities Research Network, or QUESCREN, housed at Concordia University in Montreal. QUESCREN is a university-based research and knowledge mobilization network.
Our role is to support understanding through evidence. The perspective I am sharing today reflects that role: how information generated under the Part VII regulatory framework can be structured, accessed and used over time to support learning, accountability and informed public oversight.
Framing the question: In reviewing the draft regulations, QUESCREN asked a simple but important question: How will Parliament, official language minority communities and those responsible for implementation know whether the Part VII regulatory framework is achieving its intended objectives?
Our interest is not limited to whether institutions comply with required procedures. We are concerned with whether the regulatory framework enables learning — learning about what works, where impacts are uneven and how federal action under Part VII translates into meaningful support for community vitality.
The situation: The draft regulations rely heavily on the production of information. They require impact analyses, documentation of decision making, records of the consultation and dialogue activities and mechanisms for evaluation and monitoring. Taken together, these provisions presuppose a substantial and continuous flow of qualitative and analytical information across federal institutions.
What the regulations do not address is how this information will be organized, standardized, made publicly visible or assessed cumulatively. In the absence of such guidance, Part VII information risks remaining fragmented, variable in format and difficult to follow over time. Existing reporting often emphasizes process rather than effects.
For research networks and organizations serving official language minority communities across Canada, this creates real challenges. Finding, understanding and interpreting Part VII‑related information requires time, continuity and expertise not always available, given limited resources and competing priorities.
As an illustrative comparison, I would like to talk about QUESCREN, the research unit of which I am senior manager. We have encountered similar challenges in the past in relation to information about English-speaking Quebec. Research, data and community documentation were once dispersed across disciplines and institutions and were difficult to locate or synthesize.
Over time, QUESCREN invested in building information infrastructure that is centralized, standardized and discoverable resources that bring together different forms of evidence in one place. This infrastructure does not prescribe conclusions or outcomes. It enables learning by making patterns, gaps and cumulative effects visible. At present, there is nothing comparable to what I’m calling a “one-stop shop” for Part VII implementation across federal institutions.
Therefore, on this basis, QUESCREN makes three complementary recommendations, all framed as information architecture and governance measures.
First, use the regulations to require standardized documentation of Part VII implementation so that the analyses, decisions and monitoring of information can be compared across institutions and over time. Second, clarify, either in regulation or through supporting Treasury Board guidance, the public life cycle of Part VII documentation. What information — and here I’m thinking of the background analyses, for example — may be made public, and at what stage? Third, enable a centralized public access point, or a one‑stop shop, for Part VII information generated under the regulatory framework.
Taken together, these measures would translate regulatory requirements into a durable information infrastructure. They would strengthen transparency and assessment for official language minority communities, Parliament and federal institutions, and support cumulative learning rather than one-off reporting.
QUESCREN’s experience has shown that information becomes knowledge when it can be located, compared and used. Without a coherent information infrastructure, Part VII will remain easier to comply with procedurally than to evaluate substantively. Thank you for your attention. I look forward to your questions.
The Chair: Thank you. We will go directly to questions.
Senator Cormier: Listening to both of you, my first thought would be that the Government of Canada should hire both of you to implement this regulation and to bring in precision.
[Translation]
Your suggestions, remarks and insights are entirely consistent with what we have heard, and they are extremely well structured. The question that comes to mind in light of your needs analysis of the draft regulations is fairly straightforward: What role can research organizations like yours play to help the government implement these regulations? Do you have the necessary financial and human resources to undertake that kind of work? Did the federal government seek your services during the development of the regulations or broader consultation on the Official Languages Act? That’s my first question, and it’s for both Mr. Forgues and for you, Ms. O’Donnell.
[English]
Ms. O’Donnell: Yes, I can think of a couple of answers, Senator Cormier. First, as mentioned in more detail in my brief, which I presented to the committee, we at QUESCREN can serve as an example. I already mentioned that QUESCREN has now spent 18 years pulling together and making accessible data, analyses and other information about, in our case, the English official language minority community, but the logic there is obviously relevant across Canada.
First, without sounding too boastful— I hope — we could serve as a potential best practice.
Second, in terms of what we can do, there’s analysis, which, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, would be much facilitated by the availability of a one-stop shop where all the documentation is located. As a case in point, as I was trying to prepare the brief and trying to figure out where to find the information, it took me down a complex path.
Third, there is certainly potential scope — we don’t have the human resources to do this now in our unit, but policy development support is needed. One of the challenges that has repeatedly been mentioned for official language minority communities and for groups serving them — here, I am thinking particularly of community groups, but it goes, too, for research units, such as our own — is the challenge of being adequately responsive to opportunities like this one here today just because we don’t have enough staff. It takes time. It takes time to familiarize ourselves with the law, with the regulations, with the differences between regulations and policy and the implications of the different measures.
Ideally, as I mentioned in my brief, there would be an enhanced presence in the research units, either CIRLM or QUESCREN or both, or externally, where community stakeholders — and maybe beyond that, to Parliament or government officials — could turn for unbiased, non-advocacy-oriented information about all of this, about all that’s going on related to Part VII. It’s a very complex and ever-shifting environment. Thank you.
[Translation]
Mr. Forgues: I really love Ms. O’Donnell’s ideas. The Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities was created in 2002–03 and began operating in the wake of the first action plan for official languages. It is supported by an endowment fund administered through an agreement with Canadian Heritage and the Université de Moncton. Revenue generated by the fund supports a team of four researchers. It’s a fairly small team, and it has to apply for funding for research projects.
Currently, we don’t have the necessary resources, unless the institute is to be truly mobilized to play a specific role in measuring progress towards the objectives set out in Part VII of the act. We would require more resources to play such a role. We can provide expertise, and we have the capacity to leverage knowledge. As my colleague noted, there is a challenge when it comes to generating knowledge and locating existing data that can be useful to policy-makers.
There are official languages programs. We have the capacity to leverage knowledge and a community of researchers that can play a role in official languages matters.
A structure and resources would be needed in order to provide a fairly independent outside perspective on the government’s actions on Part VII and a more objective research-based viewpoint. Sometimes the research is available, and other times, the research has to be carried out. The time needed to conduct research and the resources needed to undertake various projects should not be overlooked. This would probably be a large project because Part VII covers many community sectors across several provinces. Sectors intersect with provinces, different dynamics and regional realities. It would likely be a fairly demanding process.
Senator Cormier: Thank you very much.
Senator Gerba: My question is for Mr. Forgues. In your opening remarks, you stated that the regulations should require the Government of Canada to develop a five-year action plan for official languages. Can you expand on that point and tell us why this addition would be necessary?
Mr. Forgues: The government does this already. It has been preparing five-year action plans since 2003. The current iteration is the “Action Plan for Official Languages 2023–2028,” but as far as I know, there is no requirement to prepare plans. Enshrining this requirement in the regulations would ensure that action plans continue to be prepared, because the regulations would have that explicit requirement. I mentioned a “five-year plan” because that’s been the practice since 2003. I suppose that’s a good practice. The five-year time frame may be up for debate, but in the meantime, it would fill a gap in the regulations.
I listened to the previous panel, and Senator Moncion noted that there are some omissions in the draft regulations. For example, section 43 is not covered in the draft regulations, and neither is section 42. The whole issue of the number of eligible children is also not covered. This could be discussed. Section 43 talks about the role of Canadian Heritage. The draft regulations don’t really have any reference to section 43 of Part VII.
I think it would be possible, then, to include the requirement to prepare five-year action plans in the reference to section 43, in relation to the Department of Canadian Heritage’s commitment to help with coordination across the various departments and institutions. What constitutes an action plan could also be clarified. Normally, an action plan lays out clear goals and the means for achieving them, and the ways in which results will be measured. The objective is really to ensure visible outcomes on the ground.
Senator Gerba: Thank you. You also stated that the draft regulations should specify the role of Treasury Board and state that it must provide internal leadership to make institutions operationalize Part VII of the act. In your opinion, would that be enough for all affected federal institutions to implement Part VII properly?
Mr. Forgues: I think it would be one of the conditions that would increase the chances of Part VII being implemented effectively, one that also respects the spirit of the Official Languages Act to advance substantive equality. There is shared responsibility between Canadian Heritage and Treasury Board. I believe this should be more explicit in the regulations, and the role of Treasury Board should be clarified, so that it can effectively provide that leadership internally, take the lead and bring the institutions subject to Part VII to fulfill their obligations.
This could involve establishing the mechanisms I spoke about. This would need to be carefully considered within each institution and within the relevant mechanisms. Official languages champions already exist — and likely still do — but that is not enough. We really need groups dedicated to the implementation of Part VII in every department and institution to act in an advisory capacity. For example, they could provide advice on how to develop action plans within each institution. That should be a requirement.
The role of Treasury Board would be to ensure that action plans are consistent with an established model and that the end objective is always to achieve substantive equality. This needs to be reiterated and reinforced constantly in all the mechanisms that will be established within institutions. I’m talking as if this has already been accomplished — far from it — but I believe that, at the very least, including it in the draft regulations, in the regulations, would be more likely to ensure that the measures taken move us closer to substantive equality. Substantive equality should serve as an action-oriented horizon that drives us to initiate the next steps.
Senator Moncion: Unfortunately, I missed your opening remarks. Mr. Forgues, I want us to go back to what you said about the regulations and the fact that the regulations are silent about the role of several departments. In light of the issue you raised and what you said about an action-oriented horizon, it’s important to have people specifically designated within departments to move things forward and ensure that things are being done to meet specific objectives. That is not happening.
I would like to hear your thoughts on the fact that the Department of Foreign Affairs is not mentioned. You spoke about Canadian Heritage. There is also Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. CBC/Radio-Canada has not been mentioned either. I would like to hear your thoughts on that, the fact that the regulations don’t mention them, and on the importance of making additions to the regulations concerning these groups.
Mr. Forgues: When I started to examine this issue, I wondered whether a section had been left out. I thought that perhaps the regulations applied only to section 41, not to the following sections. I started to have doubts, but then I thought, “No, I’ll raise this issue, because it seems to me things have been left out, and certain elements simply need to be incorporated into the regulations.”
First, the regulations put a lot of emphasis on procedures. This has come up multiple times. The regulations make no mention of ensuring that certain outcomes are achieved, and, here, the other sections that make up Part VII were left out. It’s therefore important to have regulations that also provide for action. For example, section 42 would . . . . I don’t know section 42 by heart, but I think it refers to external affairs. The Department of Foreign Affairs should therefore be required to have an action plan to advance substantive equality within the department.
This involves all external relations and the way Canada is perceived on the global stage through the department, so it’s important to include measures in the regulations. It’s important to have an action plan that always reflects the spirit of advancing substantive equality and moves us closer to that goal. However, it’s also necessary to provide for consultation and decisions informed by data and research.
The whole idea of consultation and dialogue . . . . The distinction between consultation and dialogue may also need to be clarified. Some concepts need to be clarified and defined in the regulations. This should crosscut all measures: Institutions must consider what they need to do to prevent their decisions from having negative impacts. The regulations should specify what institutions have to do to move communities towards substantive equality. This needs to be done within each institution.
Senator Moncion: Thank you. You’re talking about substantive equality, and I would add that all of this must have actual weight, simply because I think the regulations were drafted a bit cautiously so as not to make them overly binding.
Mr. Forgues: They can be made more binding. This may also be an opportunity to provide leadership and really involve departments and institutions. It requires structures, obviously. That’s why I spoke about mechanisms, which are yet to be clarified, within each institution, mechanisms that would push departments and agencies to go a step further to move us towards substantive equality.
I think the regulations should have such concrete measures. They will serve as a guide. At a minimum, the regulations should be binding. They will be used as a reference, and as such, it would be important to define concepts, such as substantive equality. What does “substantive equality” mean? These concepts are used frequently and should therefore be defined, to make them clear for the public servants and other people who will use the regulations. Substantive equality has been the subject of examination, but including it in the regulations — there are aspects in Part VII that may be used — would bring the concept into focus and provide a reference.
The Chair: Thank you. I would like to follow up on the discussion regarding evidence-based findings and research, before we go to the second round. I liked your presentations, and I followed closely. I understand.
Mr. Forgues, you spoke about an outside perspective. We can also talk about how the government will take positive measures. We can talk about how to measure progress towards substantive equality. This requires evidence-based findings, but also a mechanism that you mentioned a few times.
Can you elaborate on what this looks like within your own networks? From what I understood, you said that, with additional resources, the networks could do the work.
Mr. Forgues has said that every federal institution should advance in one way or another. Do you mean every federal institution, or should the federal government assign this responsibility to one individual? In some cases, it would just be the institutions, but in others, could federal institutions work with networks like yours, to advance issues and, most importantly, rely on evidence-based findings and research?
I’m not sure whether my question is clear, but there are several components when we speak about evidence-based findings and why they are needed.
Mr. Forgues: We would have to see about the mechanisms to be established within institutions. A central mechanism could definitely play a leading role or act as a reference within the departments and agencies that must comply with Part VII.
If we take the example of research institutions, such as CIHR, SSHRC and NSERC . . . . If we take the other institutions, I think the stakeholders need references and guidance to ensure that everything is as clear as possible.
During the review of the Official Languages Act, I often heard that what was needed wasn’t necessarily new rights; it was better implementation of existing legislation. We now have a new act with a lot of positive things, but it really needs . . . . The regulations provide the opportunity to think about implementation. Based on the regulations, what tools will the relevant stakeholders and institutions have to move communities towards substantive equality?
I got a bit off topic, but yes, we need a centralized structure within Treasury Board that provides other institutions and agencies operating in very different settings with many references and tools. Realities in departments vary widely. Departments also need in-house expertise. They should have in‑house mechanisms to provide advice on the consultation process. For example, who needs to be consulted, and how should the consultation take place to develop certain structuring measures?
I see a centralized format, but with a presence in the institutions. We need to see how far this model can go.
[English]
Ms. O’Donnell: Yes, I have something to add. I certainly support what Éric Forgues has just said.
In preparing for today’s meeting, I looked at some old meeting notes, and I was reminded that, in 2024, there were consultation sessions on something called, “The Implementation of the New Centre for Strengthening Part VII of the Official Languages Act.”
To support Éric Forgues’ point that he just made, if that centre — which I have not heard more about — for strengthening Part VII has, indeed, been implemented, or if it is still being discussed, that might be an ideal place to provide the type of expertise that Mr. Forgues has rightly pointed out would be needed to support — on the government side — how to consult and how to produce materials.
In terms of what researchers can do, yes, we definitely would need, as a group, more resources. I wanted to point out something that I mentioned in my brief. A colleague and I surveyed, literally, all the research being done on English‑speaking Quebec. At the time, we looked at — at a very top level — over 14,000 research publications related to English‑speaking Quebec. Our goal was not to get into the content but to just see what has been produced and where the gaps were. It was very flagrant that one of the substantial gaps was research on the Official Languages Act.
In Quebec, when people are going to write about a language law, they are going to write about Bill 101, generally speaking, which is the provincial law that had substantial impacts on English-speaking communities. It made French the official language of the province of Quebec.
I found that very telling that the Official Languages Act is, actually, relatively less known in the research community, and that reality would need to be addressed and supported by any new resources encouraging more research on Part VII.
Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Cormier: Thank you for your suggestions, proposals and recommendations, which have all echoed the remarks made by other witnesses who have appeared before us, including concerns about consistency in the interpretation and implementation of the Part VII regulations across the various departments.
You talked about that a few times, Ms. O’Donnell. Nevertheless, Treasury Board is responsible for coordinating and implementing the Official Languages Act and these regulations for Part VII. We’re starting to wonder about that, because we have heard witnesses speak about the ability of Treasury Board and its minister to properly equip departments to ensure that the regulations are implemented.
Many witnesses recommended that a statement of purpose be added to the regulations. In your opinion . . . . Personally, I would speak about the principle of interpretation. Indeed, the biggest concern that has emerged from the evidence we’ve heard is that the act introduces worthwhile improvements, but that the regulations seem far weaker than the act. Should the regulations include an interpretation principle, to help the departments understand and consider the concept of substantive equality, for example, the concept of consistency — that’s probably not the right word — in tools, instruments and interpretation methods?
In your opinion, if there were such an interpretation principle or a statement of purpose, what would you include to ensure that we don’t end up with a very skewed system, depending on each department’s understanding?
What are your thoughts on that, Ms. O’Donnell and Mr. Forgues?
[English]
Ms. O’Donnell: That’s a question that I have not reflected on, and I appreciate the spirit of it. I’ll put this very simply. What I was trying to address and what the briefs and the surrounding documentation I looked at in preparation for my brief indicated was that ultimately the concern is that the Official Languages Act, as implemented through these regulations, end up being more about compliance than real effects experienced by minority communities. So I am not sure, Senator Cormier, if what I’m saying is in alignment with what you are suggesting, but certainly a general principle that I think would be very helpful, clearly stated, in the regulations would be that that the goal in the regulations and in the implementation is to move from planning and directives to real effects that improve, in my case, my concern, minority community vitality. That is the bottom line. That is what Part VII, at least our concern, is all about.
The Chair: Thank you.
[Translation]
Mr. Forgues: When it comes to the standard of interpretation, I think the principle of substantive equality should be applied. It’s already in the Official Languages Act. It’s about advancing substantive equality.
I’m a sociologist, so I’m going to borrow a concept from another sociologist, Joseph Yvon Thériault, who has a lot to say about “creating society.” We’re dealing with communities intent on “creating society.” This means providing a social environment where members can thrive in the language of their choice, in the minority language, in all aspects and facets of society and in all areas, from birth to the rocking chair — to borrow an expression I heard during consultation — meaning from cradle to grave.
That’s a long horizon: Some communities live with unequal language realities and dynamics from coast to coast. We’re creating communities, and we can only do that under Part VII of the Official Languages Act.
The other parts of the act pertain to services and the language of work. That’s how we can turn the vision of “creating society” in minority communities into reality. I think that the purpose of the regulations should be to advance substantive equality, in other words, equality. We want to create a society with the necessary conditions to thrive in the minority language, just like in the majority linguistic community, in all aspects of social life.
Senator Cormier: Thank you, Mr. Forgues.
Senator Gerba: Today, we’re talking about the draft regulations and how to achieve the objective of advancing substantive equality.
If you listened to the previous panel, you may have understood, like I did, that the goal may be impossible, or nearly impossible, to achieve in Quebec.
Let me elaborate. Federal institutions focus on achieving the objectives of substantive equality, but there are two objectives here: subsection 41(1), which refers to enhancing the vitality of English communities in Quebec; and subsection 41(2), which refers to the protection of French in Quebec.
You may not be the ones to help us identify a solution, but how do you see the achievement of substantive equality? Quebec manages official languages and receives funding, but we have heard about the lack of transparency and accountability when it comes to certain communities, while the government also wants to protect the French language.
As researchers, what’s your view of this situation and what solutions would you recommend to approach this issue within the federal government?
Mr. Forgues: Recognizing French as a minority language across the country has been added to the new Official Languages Act. It would seem that there’s an implicit contradiction between both sections, as if they’re in opposition. I think that needs to be given consideration, because all the impacts of recognizing that French is in a minority situation across Canada, including Quebec, have not been measured. We’re used to only considering French outside Quebec and seeing English-speaking communities in Quebec as being in a minority situation, so this is new.
I think we need to consider the role the Canadian government can play in the Quebec context with respect to the French language, bearing in mind that the Government of Quebec is in charge of language planning in Quebec. Negotiations and talks should take place between the governments and with civil society stakeholders, if need be. I don’t think the issue has been fully considered.
Is there a contradiction? That’s another issue. I think there are discussions to be had in relation to some of the rights that anglophone communities have reportedly lost under the new language regime in Quebec.
We can look at it this way: Can the two communities, the English and French linguistic communities, thrive together in Quebec, or does one community’s vitality come at the expense of the other’s? That is more or less the question.
I love the explanation that one physicist gave about the expansion of the universe. He compared the expansion to a muffin rising in the oven. Everything is expanding.
We can look at communities’ vitality through that lens. We can look at the vitality of the French language in Quebec and the vitality of the English language in Quebec at the same time.
It’s about keeping that model in mind when considering ways to enhance the vitality of the two linguistic communities in Quebec. I don’t think one necessarily has to come at the expense of the other.
Ms. O’Donnell: Thank you very much for that question. I love it. That’s really one of our main concerns at QUESCREN, and I’m happy to talk about it today. This is a complex issue, because the reality is very complex. There are two language regimes — there’s a third one if we add the Indigenous Languages Act, which we’re not discussing today — but both official languages and their regimes have a dynamic relationship in Quebec.
To answer your question, I would say, first, we have to acknowledge that the concern expressed by English-speaking communities in Quebec has more to do with the vitality of our communities, not the language. We’re not worried that English is going to disappear, because English is the dominant language in North America. We need to recognize that the mechanisms, programs and so forth should take that fact into consideration. That’s already the case, but it may need to be strengthened.
Second, this complexity exists within English-speaking communities. Most English speakers are now bilingual, so there’s no conflict between English and French in real life, and most anglophones, especially the ones I work with, like speaking French and are partners in protecting the French language and enhancing its vitality. There’s no conflict. There’s a saying in English that there is no zero-sum game.
That said, we also have to recognize that many anglophones have complex identities. My own son once asked me:
[English]
“Am I an anglophone?”
[Translation]
It’s not obvious. I may be speaking from personal experience, but the reality on the ground is very complex. There’s no easy solution, but nevertheless, this complexity should be taken into consideration. Viewing anglophones and English speakers as partners when it comes to these matters would really help.
Senator Gerba: Thank you.
The Chair: We’re coming to the end, and I’d like to ask a final question. The two of you have spoken about the development and vitality of communities. Other witnesses have told us about adopting a francophone lens. Mr. Forgues, you spoke about a francophone lens in the regulations, policies and programs. Can you speak to what a francophone lens in the regulations, programs or policies would look like?
Mr. Forgues: The concept comes from a tool developed by researchers, including Linda Cardinal, and other colleagues. It’s a language-based tool. Resources are available and could be used to develop customized tools for institutions to apply the grid to their programs, in order to understand how some of their decisions impact minority communities.
It can be a bit technical, but resources are available. They have been applied to some cases and could inform the development of policies and programs.
I would refer you to Linda Cardinal’s work on language-based analysis and similar research. That’s what we mean by language lens. There are no doubt similar tools that have been developed internally within departments.
The Chair: Thank you.
[English]
Ms. O’Donnell: Just on the question of “la lentille de langue,” I know UNESCO and the United Nations are very strong on what they call audits, to ensure gender equity and so on. While I was just listening, I see there is documentation on a notion of language audits in the same vein, so there is certainly some expertise available to the Canadian government should it seek it.
Otherwise, I will just say thank you for the opportunity. We would be very interested in following up were there any other questions. Thank you.
[Translation]
The Chair: On behalf of my colleagues, I would like to thank you for your remarks, insights and recommendations. We have had a very productive discussion here this evening.
(The committee continued in camera.)