Mr. Chair, members of the committee, I am delighted to appear before you today, on behalf of the Commission nationale des parents francophones, to discuss Bill C‑13.

We are very glad that the new Official Languages Act will finally be passed soon. The reform of the Official Languages Act is of the utmost importance to francophone minority communities.

We are also very glad to see that Bill C‑13 recognizes the importance of the education continuum and that early childhood programming will finally be seen as an integral part of learning in minority language communities.

From the outset, I want to make clear that we fully support the five amendments the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne, or FCFA, proposed to ensure that the bill lives up to the expectations of all Canadians.

I want to take this opportunity to draw your attention to one of the FCFA's proposed amendments, one that would make a significant difference to the development of our communities. I am referring to the addition of strong, robust language clauses to the funding transfer agreements with the provinces and territories. I want to underscore the importance of those language clauses, but above all, I want you to know how critical it is that those language clauses go hand in hand with clear and firm commitments.

Here's why.

As you know, the federal government signed the first early learning and child care agreements with all the provinces and territories in 2017. Those agreements contained language clauses, but the clauses were very vague and ill-defined, resulting in significant differences from one province to another.

For instance, Manitoba, in its action plan to implement the bilateral agreement, committed to allocating 14.5% of child care spaces in the province to the francophone community. As of now, Manitoba's French-speaking community can say with certainty that it received the funding and that the government kept its promise to provide the number of spaces it said it would.

Conversely, even though every bilateral agreement contained a clause requiring the provincial or territorial government to address the needs of francophones in minority communities, the members of those communities received absolutely nothing when the province or territory failed to firmly commit to implementing the language clause. That was the case in British Columbia, Alberta and the Northwest Territories.

Worse still, between 2017 and 2021, British Columbia's francophones were never consulted. No one from the ministry responsible for early learning ever met with the francophone community to find out what its needs were.

In 2021, the federal government signed a second round of new agreements on early learning and child care with the provincial and territorial governments. This time, the language clauses were a bit more defined. Still missing, however, are firm commitments from the provinces and territories as well as specific targets. That lack of commitment worries us.

Here are two examples to illustrate just how worried we are.

First, the Government of Nova Scotia announced in 2021 that it wanted to use the federal funding to merge the administration of all of the province's francophone and anglophone child care services, giving the responsibility to a single agency. That agency is already in place and it operates exclusively in English. Rejecting the administration of their child care services by an English-language authority, francophones rallied successfully to make the government reverse course, at least for the time being. Decisions are still coming, so we remain concerned.

Second, the Government of Ontario recently announced that it would fund child care services as long as workers earned less than $19 an hour. As a result, francophones will not receive any funding under the program, given that French-language child care centres have worked hard in recent years to retain French-speaking educators, who all earn slightly above $19 an hour. That means that funding will benefit anglophone child care centres, most of which operate for profit, not francophone centres.

Lastly, I want to leave you with this important message. Bill C‑13 must be passed as quickly as possible. In the months ahead, the government will release its official languages action plan, and that plan needs to be supported by a new Official Languages Act, one that has been passed by the House of Commons and the Senate.

Thank you.