Thank you.

Mr. Chair and honourable members of the committee, good morning.

Before I begin, I'd like to acknowledge that we are on land that is part of the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe nation, an Ottawa Valley aboriginal people.

Since I took office in 2018, I've said repeatedly that education is a community's most powerful tool for ensuring the vitality of its language and culture. A strong education continuum is essential for official language minority communities, or OLMCs, in Canada.

Their vitality depends on the opportunity to learn the official language of the minority, from early childhood to adulthood. Minority learning institutions create spaces where speakers can thrive in the minority language, and immersion programs allow people to learn French while standardizing its use in a public place, which is to say, the classroom. Furthermore, I'd like to point out that on October 9, I published a report entitled, “A shared future: A closer look at our official language minority communities.” It highlights several challenges faced by OLMCs, including the learning continuum.

At the very root of the continuum challenge is the question of funding. Many learning sectors are suffering from a chronic lack of long-term funding, especially those that serve OLMCs. This situation makes it difficult to ensure the right to minority language education, which is protected by section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Furthermore, the post-secondary sector needs stable and sufficient government funding to ensure that it can function effectively and that the infrastructure is in place to meet the needs of OLMCs.

The “Action Plan for Official Languages 2023-2028” is an important means of providing core funding and project funding to these sectors. It should serve to better meet the needs identified by OLMC stakeholders. However, despite the action plan's increase in funding, I've noted that some of the recommendations I made in the last year of the previous action plan, 2018-2023, have not been implemented, including the recommendation to ensure rapid deployment of initiatives as soon as the next plan was launched.

In addition to stable funding, another way of ensuring a seamless continuum is greater co-operation between the Government of Canada and the provinces and territories. We need to continue to emphasize the importance of including language clauses in federal-provincial-territorial agreements—clauses that contain specific, transparent and accountability mechanisms that will produce tangible, measurable and lasting results. I also encourage the federal government to clarify how, through the regulations it is developing, it will honour its commitment under part VII of the Official Languages Act to ensure that “members of English and French [OLMCs have opportunities] to pursue quality learning in their own language throughout their lives”.

In my opinion, educational experiences should be equivalent across the country, both in the linguistic majority's schools and those of the linguistic minority. This includes recognition of the linguistic minority's right to manage their schools. I insist that governments recognize this need.

For a variety of reasons, we find that children stop studying in the minority language at various stages of the continuum. It would be important to better identify the timing and causes of this enrolment loss, using evidence-based data. That data would allow governments and stakeholders to target their recruitment and retention efforts more effectively.

This past September, I attended the CARE conference in Montreal, and one of its goals is to strengthen the vital link between the education committee and the English-speaking communities. I encourage the latter to continue their efforts to engage with the provincial government and advocate for their rights. English-speaking communities in Quebec are committed to protecting and promoting the French language. In fact, the public French immersion programs they've established have consistently proven their worth in advancing the equality of both of Canada's official languages. This is reflected in the high rate of bilingualism among English-speaking Quebeckers.

In closing, I hope that these elements will help you reflect on the learning continuum, which is crucial to the vitality of official language minority communities.

I will be pleased to answer your questions in the language of your choice.

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