For Concrete Solutions in Early Childhood Services in French Appearance by Marie-Pierre Lavoie, President of the Fédération des parents francophones de Colombie-Britannique Before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Official Languages Wednesday 28 February 2018 Vancouver, British Columbia
Mr. Chairman, Dear Members of Parliament,
On behalf of the Fédération des parents francophones de Colombie-Britannique (FPFCB), thank you for coming to us to examine the issue of access to early childhood services in French. It is a real pleasure for me to be here today to talk to you about a subject so dear to my heart.
The FPFCB has been working on the education file since its creation in 1979. It represents the parents of some 20 000 children who are entitled to primary and secondary education in French here, in British Columbia. Our federation encompasses 47 parent associations: 32 associations of parents active in the schools of the Conseil scolaire francophone de la Colombie-Britannique (CSF) and 15 associations of parents managing preschool centres – daycares or nursery schools – offering French programming.
The mission of the FPFCB is to bring together, represent, support and equip parents in their role as first educators and to promote their commitment to and participation in the creation of a vibrant and exemplary Francophone community. The FPFCB accomplishes this mission by supporting parents and informing them of the choices available to them and the behaviours they can adopt to foster the
Page 1 of 8 development of their child’s French language abilities and francophone identity. It also works with and informs volunteer parent groups working in French-language schools, and parents who establish or run preschool centres.
We are a key player in the development of French-language education in the province, and a privileged partner of the CSF. Our organization is also co-plaintiff, with the CSF and parents, in the current litigation against the provincial government.
From its earliest years, the FPFCB called for the concrete legal guarantees required to make a quality French-language education system available throughout British Columbia, and actively participated in the establishment of such a system. This long-term work led in 1996 to the establishment of the CSF, which is responsible for managing the province’s French-language education system from kindergarten to grade 12. Since the outset, enrolment in our schools has increased annually. We are particularly proud of the nearly 6 000 students currently attending CSF schools. This success is due to the concerted efforts of parents, the community and school administrators, as well as the administrators of preschool centres, which are for the most part housed within French-language schools. The vast majority of French- language daycares and nursery schools in British Columbia are administered by not-for-profit organizations (mostly parents’ associations), which operate on the basis of parents’ user fees.
For more than 20 years, the early childhood sector has proven to be an essential component of French-language education. Access to such education in British Columbia obviously involves a network of schools providing French first-language education to eligible children and to those whose parents would like them to be enrolled. But education in French must be understood in its broad sense: it starts at an early age, with daycare (infants, toddlers and preschoolers) and nursery school, and continues to the postsecondary level. The entire continuum of education in the minority language should enjoy constitutional guarantees.
French-language daycares and nursery schools, with their educational program focused on acquiring oral skills in French, are excellent francization agents for our children, preparing them to enter French-language schools. These programs strongly influence children’s sense of belonging to their community and help with their identity building. Early childhood education is a direct gateway to
Page 2 of 8 kindergarten. Nursery school and daycare services are essential for our communities because they support parents in their role of transmitting the French language and culture to their children.
These findings no longer appear to be in dispute. Indeed, experts in child development,1 sociolinguists,2 the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages of Canada,3 the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages,4 and your committee have all officially and publicly acknowledged, in numerous reports and studies, that access to early childhood services in French is fundamental for the development and vitality of our minority francophone communities, particularly because they help transfer the language and culture to new generations.
Your committee recognized this importance in 2012 in its report entitled After the Roadmap: Towards Improved Programs and Service Delivery,5 and the members present today recognized it again in December 2016 in their report Toward a New Action Plan for Official Languages and Building New Momentum for Immigration in Francophone Minority Communities.”6 Meanwhile, the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages stresses the importance of early childhood services for the development of our communities, and has been making recommendations on this front to successive federal governments since 2005!7
And yet the problems in the area of early childhood remain unchanged.
For example, in terms of infrastructure, demand continues to far exceed the supply of French-language daycare services. Even if we only use the Statistics Canada data, which systematically underreport rights-holders under section 23 of the Charter, the province has about 4 000 children aged 4 and under for whom French is the first language learned. However, there are only 450 places in daycares and nursery schools providing French first-language services. This corresponds to about 113 places per cohort of children. To put things in perspective, this year more than 650 students are attending kindergarten at CSF schools! This means that about 500 students who are in kindergarten at a CSF school this year did not have access to a francophone daycare centre. Clearly, they had to attend an English- language daycare ... At a minimum, British Columbia would need four times 650 additional child care spaces (i.e., a total of 2 600 spaces), assuming that children
Page 3 of 8 spend the first year of life at home with one of their parents. I say minimum because, as you know, the data collected by Statistics Canada do not provide us with an accurate number of rights-holders under section 23 of the Charter.8 How can we plan the provision of early childhood services if we do not even know how many children there are under the age of five? I would like to digress for just a second here to recommend that your committee invite Statistics Canada back to testify about its progress on this file
In terms of human resources, the impacts of the shortage of early childhood educators right across the province are felt most keenly by our communities, whose vitality depends on access to early childhood services in French. Collège Éducacentre is a key partner in training this workforce, but it is insufficient on its own to train the number of French-language early childhood educators that British Columbia needs.
These problems, which are known to the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Department of Families, Children and Social Development,9 all stem from the inadequate financial support accorded to early childhood services, and have harmful consequences for the (low) rate of French transmission to the children of French-speaking parents. The 2011 Census data indicate that this transmission rate in British Columbia is 24% for children aged 0 to 4, which is one of the lowest rates in the country! This means that in families where one parent speaks French, assimilation affects three out of four children before they begin kindergarten. We need structuring solutions to reverse this trend, in addition to an updated report on the situation.
The FPFCB is taking advantage of its appearance today to release its new study on French-language early childhood daycare centres in British Columbia, attached as Appendix A to our presentation. This study describes the main issues associated with access to early childhood services in French and presents the specific needs of British Columbia in this area. You will find on pages X and Y a table comparing the staff and capacity of French-language preschool centres in British Columbia, as well as a table on the known numbers of children aged 0 to 4 who are eligible to attend a CSF school. But more than that, the study being unveiled today proposes a concrete solution to increase access to early childhood services in French, namely
Page 4 of 8 the creation of a department of British Columbia French-language early childhood services within the FPFCB.
The FPFCB invites your committee to do likewise by recommending concrete and structuring solutions to the problems of access to early childhood services in French.
Although the current government has expressed some openness to early childhood10 (which is warmly welcomed by the FPFCB!) the fact remains that the impermanent nature of the federal structure in support of minority-language education and French-language early childhood services, as well as the absence of concrete obligations in this regard, leaves French-language minority communities in a perpetual state of uncertainty.
I will give you two examples.
First, despite federal government promises of financial support for early childhood in the next Action Plan for Official Languages, the fact remains that the current legislative framework allowed for early childhood to be almost completely ignored in the 2013–2018 Roadmap. Legally, there is nothing to stop a future government from doing the same thing.
Second, despite recognition in the Multilateral Early Learning and Child Care Framework of “the unique needs of French and English linguistic minority communities” (Multilateral Framework, Appendix B), the FPFCB is concerned that the lack of transparency and consultation and the absence of effective accountability mechanisms resulting from implementation of the Protocol for Agreements for Minority-Language Education and Second-Language Instruction (the Protocol), which were highlighted by your committee in its December 2016 report as being gaps in this financial support framework, will be repeated under the Multilateral Framework. Worse still, there is nothing to stop a future government from abandoning this language clause, or the Multilateral Framework in its entirety.
The FPFCB is therefore of the opinion that the most important contribution the federal government can make to our communities in the field of early childhood
Page 5 of 8 would be to establish and frame concrete government obligations. We are not asking you to try to stop weather or amend the Constitution: we are asking you to recommend that the government modernize the Official Languages Act so that it guarantees concrete and lasting protections for early childhood services.
For example, a new, modernized Official Languages Act should stipulate, in black and white, that the federal government must make early childhood development a separate focus when adopting multi-year plans for official languages, just as it does for education, health and immigration.
An Official Languages Act that treats early childhood with the seriousness it deserves should stipulate that the Protocol must include an early childhood component. After all, the Protocol is the instrument through which the federal government financially supports education in the official language of the minority.
The Official Languages Act should also enshrine into law some of the recent advances in early childhood under the Multilateral Framework, and ensure that federal-provincial agreements under this framework include language clauses that require governments to take into account the reality and distinct needs of early childhood education in minority situations.
The FPFCB also agrees with the CSF’s recommendation to the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages in the context of that committee’s study on the modernization of the Official Languages Act that a modernized version of the Act also contain a section expressly setting out the obligation of Statistics Canada to enumerate rights-holders under section 23 of the Charter (see the CSF brief minus attachments at Appendix C).
Ladies and gentlemen, the challenges are many in terms of early childhood in French in British Columbia. For francophone parents, the fact of living west of the Rockies should not be synonymous with the linguistic assimilation of their children. Remember that in the 19th century, when British Columbia joined Canada, French was the European language most spoken in this province. Perhaps you are unaware that Kelowna was known as Anse-au-Sable, or that the first hospital in Victoria was a francophone hospital! (See Appendix D for
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Professor Kenny’s expert report prepared in the context of the suit brought by the FPFCB and the CSF against the Government of British Columbia.) The linguistic duality of this country should extend from coast to coast and be part of everyday life, starting from birth.
Your committee can take concrete action to improve access to early childhood services in French by recommending the modernization of the Official Languages Act to ensure that it stipulates and frames financial support for minority French- language early childhood education and the potential role of the federal government in this regard. Your committee could show leadership and undertake a study to provide the government with a first draft of the wording of a new Official Languages Act.
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1 Mariette Chartier, Joanne Dumaine and Edmée Sabourin, “Vivre en français pendant la petite enfance et apprendre à l’école française, y a-t-il un lien ?” (2011) 23: 1-2 Cahiers franco-canadiens de l’Ouest 3. 2 Rodrigue Landry, Petite enfance et autonomie culturelle. Là où le nombre le justifie…V, Moncton, Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities, 2010; Réal Allard, “Les enfants des CLOSM du Canada et les langues officielles du pays,” in Rodrigue Landry, Ed., La vie dans une langue officielle minoritaire au Canada, Québec City, Presses de l’Université Laval, 2014. 3 Canada, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages, Early Childhood: Fostering the Vitality of Francophone Minority Communities, Ottawa, Public Services and Procurement, 2016. 4 Senate, Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages, Horizon 2018: Towards Stronger Support of French-Language Learning in British Columbia¸ (May 2017) (Chair: the Honourable Claudette Tardif). 5 House of Commons, Standing Committee on Official Languages, After the Roadmap: Toward Better Programs and Service Delivery, (November 2012) (Chair: the Honourable Michael Chong). 6 House of Commons, Standing Committee on Official Languages, Toward a New Action Plan for Official Languages and Building New Momentum for Immigration in Francophone Minority Communities, (December 2016) (Chair: the Honourable Denis Paradis). 7 Senate, Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages, French-Language Education in a Minority Setting: A Continuum from Early Childhood to the Postsecondary Level, (June 2005) (Chair: the Honourable Eymard G. Corbin). 8 House of Commons, Standing Committee on Official Languages, The Enumeration of Rights-Holders under Section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: Toward a Census that Supports the Charter, (May 2017) (Chair: the Honourable Denis Paradis). 9 Government Response to the Sixth Report of the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages, signed by the Honourable Josée Verner, Minister of International Cooperation and Minister for La Francophonie and Official Languages, the Honourable Diane Finley, Minister of Human Resources and Social Development and the Honourable Beverly Oda, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Status of Women (November 2006); Government Response to the Fourth Report of the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages, signed by the Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, the Honourable Ahmed Hussen, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, the Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of Canadian Heritage and the Honourable Carla Qualtrough, Minister of Public Services and Procurement (2017). 10 Government Response to the Fourth Report of the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages, supra.
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