Good morning.

My thanks to the committee for inviting our council to provide information about our province and our community.

The Conseil économique du Nouveau-Brunswick speaks for the francophone business community in New Brunswick. We have about 1000 members from all regions, in all sectors and of all sizes. We advocate for the interests of francophone companies in New Brunswick, recognizing their uniqueness and the challenges they face. The reason why the francophone business community needs its own voice is precisely the subject of your study: it is unique and it has unique challenges. We are there to remind various arms of government of that.

We also head the RDÉE Nouveau-Brunswick.

Francophone companies in New Brunswick are two and three generations old. In New Brunswick, francophone companies that have survived for three generations are old companies. We have no dynasties, no equivalents of the McCains or the Irvings in the anglophone community who can give back to the community through institutions supporting young entrepreneurs and leaders.

Our francophone entrepreneurs work mostly in traditional economies. Before becoming entrepreneurs, we had jobs in companies belonging to anglophone interests, if we were lucky enough to have jobs at all. Our entrepreneurs worked in sectors like fishing, agriculture and forestry. Today, our scope is broader, but we still began in those sectors and a large part of our population continues to work in them.

Our companies are required to change because of the knowledge economy and globalization. Today, everything is done differently. That requires a greater change for those in traditional occupations, which used to require less education. Today, it can be said that those people need to be as educated as those working in more technological areas.

Our institutions are relatively young. Compared to the University of New Brunswick, for example, which is the one of the oldest universities in North America, the French-language university, l’Université de Moncton, is only 50 years old in its present form. That had consequences. My parents studied using books written in English. Until not so long ago, higher education was seen to be the preserve of the elite. The francophone population did not have full access to it.

Our political power and our financial power are quite young. We are fortunate in New Brunswick in that our francophone population is concentrated. This allows us to elect francophones. However, up until 20 years ago, those elected representatives operated in an anglophone world. If I can give an analogy, it was like a woman pushing her way into an old boys club: we may have had our elected representatives, but the positions and the departments with the most influence and the most spending power were still controlled by anglophones. In the last 20 years, we have seen many more francophone ministers responsible for portfolios like finance, economic development and transportation. Twenty years ago, that was quite rare. Departments run by francophones were more likely to be social than economic in mandate. Basically, policy was more likely to be set by anglophones, who did not always understand our realities.

The francophone community is largely rural. In New Brunswick, most francophones live in rural areas while most anglophones live in urban areas. That poses challenges for our businesses and our people, because there is less infrastructure. High-speed Internet, for example, came last to the north of the province, where most francophones live. They still do not have natural gas. Limited access highways are much less common in the north of the province than in the south. Access to labour and to services is more difficult. Specialized services are more limited in the north of the province. These are additional challenges that our companies have to face, challenges that translate into higher costs. To an extent, our companies lag behind those in major centres.

The level of education of rural francophones Is lower than that of francophones in the major urban centres. In addition, 20% of francophones 15 years of age and older have no diploma, whereas that figure among anglophones is 16%.

In literacy, the gap is even wider. Seventy percent of Francophones do not reach Level 3 literacy, the level needed for post-secondary education in college or university. For anglophones, that figure is 51%.

Rural areas are seeing a greater exodus. It is certainly true that the exodus is not as great today as it was 50 or 100 years ago, nor is it always greater than in urban areas. However, urban areas succeed in attracting people whereas our rural areas attract fewer people. As a result, the population is decreasing. Given that more francophones live in rural areas, this is a challenge that affects our population more than the anglophone population.

Let us talk about education levels in the urban areas of New Brunswick, meaning Moncton, Fredericton and Saint John. The city of Moncton has most francophones. Our graduation rates are higher than for anglophones. So in urban areas, we are achieving a lot of success.

The same goes for incomes. In urban areas, incomes for francophones are higher than for anglophones. However, given that most of our population lives in rural areas, when you consider the provincial average, our salaries are lower, just like our education levels. Let me give you an example of that reality. Francophones in Fredericton earn on average $8,000 more than anglophones, but, given the small number of francophones who live in urban areas, the effect is not felt provincially.

This creates inequalities in the development of francophone communities. Often, programs that are constructed equally across the country and even across the province do not meet the real challenges with which the francophone community of New Brunswick is faced. We have our own unique challenges. So the programs have to be flexible and sensitive to those challenges and that uniqueness.

The RDÉE Nouveau-Brunswick is an example. Its initiatives are sensitive to the needs of the community. They are established according to those needs. That means that a program may exist for the minority francophone community although it does not exist for the anglophone community.

Thank you.

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