:
Thank you, Chairman Blaney. Ladies and gentlemen,
mesdames et monsieurs,
[Translation]
—I would like to inform you, if you have a copy of the statement in French—
An honourable member: They have the English version.
Mr. Robert Donnelly: We made some changes to the French version of the statement. We will be sending the official version today or tomorrow morning. The English version includes all of the changes that we have made over the past two days.
[English]
The Quebec Community Groups Network is obviously pleased to have this opportunity to address the Standing Committee on Official Languages again. We are especially pleased that the committee has been so generous with its time this morning, with a fabulous turnout. This is the first time the network has been provided the opportunity to participate by itself in the committee’s business, and we look forward to evolving our mutual understanding and relationship.
The QCGN would also like to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Pierre Lemieux, Mr. Richard Nadeau, Mr. Yvon Godin, and his wife, Madame Lyna Mainville, for helping the network celebrate the launch of its 15th anniversary in Gatineau just two weeks ago.
As you know, the Quebec Community Groups Network is a not-for-profit organization that brings together 32 Quebec-based organizations that support the English-speaking communities of Quebec. English-speaking Quebeckers are one of the two national linguistic minorities recognized in Canada. English-speaking Quebeckers are the largest linguistic minority within a linguistic minority in the country, about 994,000 compared to the 997,000 francophones in the rest of Canada.
These English-speaking Quebeckers possess strong relationships and ties with both Quebec's francophone majority and Canada's English-speaking majority. The challenges they face to preserve and promote their linguistic space and character, while being supportive of other linguistic minorities and majorities, allows them to understand the need for innovative approaches to sustain and to improve official languages policy in Canada.
People sometimes still say that the English-speaking communities of Quebec are the “best-treated” linguistic minority in Canada. Allow me to offer a few statistics that might contradict this.
Quebec's official language minority retention rate was 69% in 1971, dropping to nearly 50% in 2001. That poses a significant leadership succession problem that has led to an increasing absence of community member leadership of important organizations.
Canadians living in Quebec whose first official language spoken is English are the most bilingual in the country--66% in 2001--but many youth in particular feel disenfranchised from their home province. Anglophones, who constitute 8.2% of the population of Quebec, represent only 0.8% of the province’s civil service. In fact, in a 2007 report by the Greater Montreal Community Development Initiative, GMCDI, it was reported that anglophones have a chronically low level of representation in the public service industry in the greater Montreal region. Of the 65,000 people employed in such positions in 2001, anglophones accounted for only 9%, despite the fact that they represent 25% of the labour force. Our young people, 85% of whom are bilingual, are much more likely to be unemployed than their francophone peers. Our seniors, the least likely to have second language skills, maybe just over 30%, are experiencing a severe shortage of assisted living and long-term care facilities in their own first language.
We feel it important to stress the diversity of our communities in terms of ethnic origin, place of birth, religion, and visible minority status. This diversity is most clearly realized in the greater Montreal region, where more than three-quarters of Canada's English minority reside.
Finally, there is an evolving sense of identification within the communities, from English to English-speaking to communities that speak English, reflecting more toward inclusiveness and recognition of generational, ethnic, linguistic, socio-economic, and even artistic diversity.
The preamble of the Official Languages Act, 1985, speaks of two official language communities in Canada, one French and the other English. The QCGN is considered by many federal departments as the official representative of the English linguistic minority communities and it's specifically defined as the “official interlocutor” by the Department of Canadian Heritage.
In terms of structure and representation, some parallels can be drawn between the QCGN and the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne, the FCFA, the national representatives of the francophone linguistic minority communities. The FCFA, for example, counts as members the 12 francophone provincial and territorial organizations, including the L'Assemblée de la francophonie de l'Ontario, or AFO, and the 10 francophone national sectoral organizations, such as the Fédération de la jeunesse canadienne-française, or FJCF, and the Fédération des associations de juristes d'expression française de common law, FCFA. The latter ensures “political representation, promotion and development support” for the francophone linguistic minority communities.
The QCGN, on the other hand, works in two spheres. One, it interacts with the Government of Canada at the national level on policy and strategic matters; and two, it interacts with the Government of Canada at the regional level and the Government of Quebec on service and program delivery and regional policy. Obviously we are talking about two different spheres, the national sphere and the regional sphere. The regional sphere includes the regional PCH, but also Quebec. We'd be happy to talk about that later in the question period, if you so choose.
This is a complex environment in which we work daily with numerous stakeholders and sometimes with competing agendas. The success of the English-speaking community is very dependent on the influence we can bring to bear on policy, programs, and initiatives.
In 2008 the QCGN presented a submission to Bernard Lord in the context of the Government of Canada's consultation on linguistic duality and official languages, in which we proposed that the Department of Canadian Heritage re-evaluate its approach to treating the QCGN and, by extension, English-speaking Quebeckers as a regional minority when the latter are one of Canada's two national official language minority communities. We recognize that we are not here today to discuss this point at length, but we'd like to have the opportunity to come back at another time to talk about this matter specifically.
The title for today's business, “Impacts of the Delays in Providing Funding to Beneficiary Organizations from the Department of Canadian Heritage”, was found by some of our members, to be honest, to have perhaps a negative connotation. When you start with the impacts and delays, it's hard to think of it always in a positive sense. But as Mr. Blaney reminded us when we were here about four months ago, we had a clear sense by the end of that meeting of what delays and impacts were on the table. As a result, we may have experienced hesitation from some, including some of our member organizations, when we were collecting data on the question. Organizations large and small can sometimes become a little reticent when asked to comment on the performance of their principal and sometimes only source of funding.
From the outset, we must emphasize how pleased and proud the QCGN and its members are to work with the men and women of the Department of Canadian Heritage. We continue to deeply appreciate the hard work the department does to help Canada’s English linguistic communities. It is also our contention, however, that funding delays are a result of apolitical or non-political systemic design. These rational problems can be worked on in a spirit of multi-partisanship, with one clear goal in mind: the vitality of Canada’s linguistic minority communities.
To gather information to present to you today, the QCGN surveyed its members—as I understand the FCFA did, and came to tell you about it last week—and received 21 responses, with a participation rate of 65%. Just remember that not all 32 of our member organizations are funded by the Department of Canadian Heritage.
The following information is derived from that survey. Of the 86% of the respondents who received the 25% advance on core funding from Canadian Heritage in the 2009-10 fiscal year, 80% received the advance in May 2009, one month late; 10% received it in June 2009, two months late; and 10% had not yet received any funding by July. This is the famous advance funding that one would normally hope to see coming in the first week of April. As a result, respondents reported the effects of financial stress; for example, reliance on credit and difficulty paying bills. This stress, however, is very personal. It is difficult not to feel frustrated when reading one response: “I used my personal Visa for expenses while waiting for funding.”
It was also difficult to read how delays directly damaged important community priorities. The Quebec Anglophone Heritage Network reported:
On account of the dire cash-flow situation caused by the delayed advance payment, the Quebec Anglophone Heritage Network (QAHN) had no choice but to refuse offers from the Young Canada Works (YCW) program that would have allowed QAHN to hire two students this summer. This will be the first summer in four years that QAHN has not participated in the YCW program.
As of the end of July, no members had received approval of their 2009-10 applications and they had therefore not signed contribution agreements. As a result, respondents did not receive their second payments. Organizations reported severe financial stress, reliance on credit, and non-payment to creditors. Programs were suspended, salaries were not paid, people were laid off, or hours were reduced. At least one executive director was using a personal credit card to cover expenses. Partners and creditors were openly resentful and distrustful. One respondent said that staff were currently working without pay.
On project funding, one out of six respondents still reported their project was unapproved at the time of our survey, meaning last week. Here is one organization's story.
We have submitted many 10- to 12-month projects that were supposed to take place between April or June 2009 to March 2010. We are almost in August, four months after the beginning of the fiscal year and nine months after we submitted some of these projects, and we still haven't got any answer. In addition to that, they are doing second and third calls for projects when they still haven't given us answers about the first call for projects, which is total nonsense.
To know whether you should apply for a second one, you obviously have to know if your first one was approved or not.
The general question asking for comments about the impact of late funding generated messages of frustration. One respondent's response is worth repeating in its entirety:
The impact of late funding:
(1) It causes partners to raise questions about the integrity and reliability of our organization, and jeopardizes our ability to carry out our action plan and achieve our objectives.
(2) It creates economic hardship for our staff members and builds up resentment, fear and demoralization. This impedes productivity.
(3) It concerns our board of directors and executive director - far too much time and energy are spent on twisting and turning to deal with the shortage of funds, detracting from efforts to achieve results.
(4) It results in poor stewardship of public funds. It is difficult to spend wisely when decisions must be made and actions carried out in a short timeframe. We're on a 6-month cycle of famine and feast. This surely cannot be results-based management.
(5) It reflects very badly on the Government of Canada. This kind of management gives the strong impression that what the government says and what it does are two different things. Does the government really mean to invest in the vitality of its official-language minorities? Or does it just want to sound as if it is important? Judging by its actions, I would say that, frankly, it doesn't give a damn. If it did, the elected officials would put into place an effective public service and let it do its work.
These are strong points. It would be unfair to say that this is the message we got from everyone, but many organizations felt this strongly about the problems being caused.
As I approach my last page, you are probably asking about the answers and suggestions. We do have a few things to put on the table.
The QCGN supports the aim of the government action plan to reform the administration of grants and contribution programs, and it notes that Canadian Heritage is one of six vanguard departments. The network has noticed with pleasure a reduced administration and reporting burden and looks forward to the full development of the Canadian heritage department's action plan, which will include service standards.
Service standards that are arrived at in conjunction with the networks and other key stakeholders will go a long way in alleviating the frustration and pain experienced by members. These standards will allow organizations to effectively business plan and will provide service and program deliverers a clearer picture of when they will receive funding and who will be able to account if they do not. The accountability is rightly placed at the level of deputy minister, as far as we can see.
Effective risk management is also a key component of the government's action plan. Stable, well-governed institutions with long-standing relationships with the government need not, indeed might I say should not, be subjected to the same application rigour for annual core funding as a more inexperienced or first-time entity. Both, however, of course must be subject to the same audit and accountability regime, but an organization that for fifteen years has been getting pretty well the same funding with very little ups and downs, has always been doing its regular reporting all the time, still has to begin every year like it's all new again and it is being looked at as if it's all new again.
The QCGN wishes to reiterate that some members expressed satisfaction with their funding. Moreover, we believe that delays are neither politically motivated nor attributable to a lack of effort or professionalism by the public servants of the Department of Canadian Heritage. Government is a complicated business, we understand, with billions of dollars entering and leaving thousands of programs for the benefit of Canadians. The systems that carry out this monumental task must be designated to be effective and accountable, especially when they have a reputation to show it. The QCGN and its members are cognizant of this reality and are confident that the Government of Canada is committed to removing the structural impediments that cause funding delays.
Thank you very much. We look forward to trying to answer whatever questions you may have.
:
Good morning.
Bonjour. Thank you for the invitation this morning. It's a pleasure to be here.
I have a few comments to add to Mr. Donnelly's report.
Canadian Parents for French, as you know, is an organization that has been around since 1977 and since 2004 in Quebec. We have a mission of supporting French as a second language activity in the minority communities in Quebec. We have developed a number of initiatives and projects over the years. For example, there are school exchanges between English and French schools, and our public speaking contest, the Concours d'art oratoire, is very popular with the anglophone community. With a committee we organize French for the Future, a day of culture in French for the anglophone community in the Montreal area, and we have several other projects.
Structurally, we think there are some specific improvements that can be made in the funding mechanisms for minority community groups. We have an obligation to spend all of our money by March 31, within the fiscal year, which we obviously do our best to do under the circumstances. However, that means that by the time we receive our next instalment of funding--which this year was May 15--there's no money in the bank. What that means for us is that we went without salary for the month of May, for example. As Robert suggested, it does have an personal impact.
It seems to me that there's something wrong with that picture, particularly when you have community groups that have a history, have been around for many years, with consistent reporting and so on. It seems to me that it should be somewhat automatic to say, for those kind of groups, these guys have a history with us. So the suggestion that we need to improve our way of dealing with community groups is well received on our part as well.
There are too many steps in order to get a report approved right now. It goes to your agent, it comes back with questions, it goes up the ladder, it comes back with questions, and so on. Those steps can take weeks and weeks before we receive final approval of our report. Then it goes to finance and we get more questions. All of those questions are legitimate, and we're not suggesting that we shouldn't answer them or that we should not be accountable. We should be, and we appreciate that, but there's a significant time lapse involved in that process. In the meantime, we run out of money.
For example, the 25% that we received this year is long gone. It means that, as suggested earlier, we've lost some credibility with our landlord; we've lost credibility with partners who are waiting for our activities to begin, but they can't begin because we haven't received the funding for them. I'm getting weekly phone calls asking when we're starting, because others need to schedule their fall activity and they have to decide if they're going to work with CPF or not. I can't answer them, unfortunately, until we actually have the funds in the bank to proceed. So it's definitely a credibility issue for us.
We made a request for project funding for a 12-month project. Now that the approval has come through, we haven't received the funding yet. When we get the funding, we have to spend it in what is left of this fiscal year. So the amount that we requested for perhaps a 10-month project now becomes money that has to be spent in five months. All of the organization that has to take place in order to spend that funding by March 31, in order to account for it, is compressed into this time span. Those are issues for organizations such as ours because we are small organizations. In Quebec we have one and a half staff, so we have to do a lot of work in order to accomplish those projects.
Also, in prior years we were used to receiving 50% of our funding in the April to May period. When we only received 25% this year, it was obviously a cause for hardship. It seems to me that you're going to have to go back to the point where we get that 50% up front, which would allow you to carry on your activity. We're expected to report on 50% of our activity at the end of September. We do an interim report. We have to report that with only 25% of our funding we didn't achieve 50% of our objectives. Clearly, that's something that can reflect negatively on us as an organization. If it's performance indicators that we're attempting to meet, we can't achieve that 50% of performance indicators with 25% of our funding.
On the other issue about lack of funding expenses for our line of credit—we have a small line of credit with the bank—those expenses aren't covered in any agreements we have anyone. Those expenses come out of operational costs.
Also, our board limits its capacity to meet—because governance is an issue for our organizations—and not having the funding for our board to meet face to face is a limitation on our organization.
Thank you.
The Regional Association of West Quebecers is situated in Gatineau-Aylmer. It's an organization that supports the English-speaking community, providing information and helping to find services in English. I have been with this association for just over a year as the executive director. Much of what is taking place is a new experience for me. It has in some cases been financially challenging.
The Association of West Quebecers, in supporting the English-speaking community, provides what we call a hub of information for this minority community in Quebec, particularly in our region. We do this through our website, which has been enhanced considerably since I arrived a year ago, and also through a quarterly newsletter and biweekly electronic bulletins. These go out to all our members within the whole of the Outaouais. They are also available to the public. By these means, people can find out about activities taking place in the sphere of culture, heritage, education, and opportunities for youth. We also present activities and opportunities originating in the city of Gatineau itself.
We receive our core funding from Canadian Heritage. The relationship we have with Canadian Heritage and its representatives has been immensely positive. I am fairly new to this whole program, and they've been very helpful, very informative, and have had great patience in explaining to me what's required, why it's required, and when it's required. This we appreciate tremendously.
We occasionally run into difficulties. Usually it's in the same areas as Lawrence dePoe indicated. We are a small organization. We are only two people. We are in the position of trying to take on new projects to serve the community, while keeping on top of our reporting responsibilities, ensuring that we do what we say we're going to do and sending in proposals for our core funding for the following year. To balance all that makes for a challenge in time and effectiveness. For me, the executive director, the months of September, October, and November are very much taken up in reporting and applying for funding for next year's core funding program. Because of this, we don't always have the opportunity to look further afield and seek out funding for other projects.
This year we found ourselves in two crunch situations: one at the beginning of our fiscal year, which is the first of April, and another at present, at the beginning of the second six-month period. These are the times when we generally receive our funding. If they are delayed, we have to hold off on projects. Some people might have to dip into their pockets to help us out.
Being a not-for-profit organization, we aren't able to receive a line of credit; we have tried that. The best we've been able to do is receive a credit card from our bank, and the total amount on the credit card is $5,000. That doesn't take us very far between funding cheques, if they are delayed.
What that does for us also is help us to be very creative and think of ways in which we can do things differently in the future so that we have a bit of a cushion and we're not operating in this panic stress mode as we come to the end of one particular funding amount.
One thing that's arisen for us, and the reason we're not able to receive a line of credit, is that we need to provide the bank with collateral. As a not-for-profit organization, we don't have financial collateral. We don't own a building; we rent space.
Again, that puts us in a position of thinking of other avenues to be able to satisfy the bank, or to do something on our own and set up some sort of collateral each year by showing ingenuity and being effective and efficient in what we do. In order to do that, we need to acquire other funds. I don't mean other funds from government groups; we need to do a fundraising campaign on our own. Again, it requires more time and more people power, individual power, to do that.
We also had a problem with bills not paid, which meant our creditors too were sitting there. We're looking less than competent because we're not able to pay our bills, and we lose some credibility.
The only reason we did not at this time find ourselves in exactly the same position as CPF did is that we had a small amount of funding for another project we applied for. That funding came in. While it's reported separately, it does go into the same bank account. It's only because of this that we managed to navigate through the funding issues. To be absolutely precise, if our cheque had been one day later, we would have been in a position where we were not able to cover paycheques for staff.
Again, these are some of the situations we find ourselves in. At the same time, I would like to be very clear that we have been very well supported by Canadian Heritage and the consultants with whom we work. This seems to be a situation that certainly is beyond their individual control.
Thank you very much for appearing in front of our committee today.
I empathize with your challenges. I actually understand your challenges. Twelve years ago, I was one of a group of three people who, without any money or resources, much like many of the groups that you and your umbrella organizations represent, started a not-for-profit now called the Historica-Dominion Institute. At the time, we literally had no resources. I remember borrowing somebody's computer. I think in our first year we received a grant of about $60,000. We were on a complete shoestring budget. I empathize with the challenges your organizations face. We faced the same challenges.
While it may not be applicable in your case, what we quickly discovered was that we needed to diversify our funding sources. Also, cashflow management was one of the huge issues. As was mentioned by Madame Stronach, we couldn't get credit in our first couple of years. We had no line of credit, no credit cards, no nothing, for the very reasons you've outlined. It was difficult to get credit and to manage that cashflow.
It wasn't until we were established for about four years or so that we managed to negotiate a line of credit with the bank. That was one thing that happened. The other thing that happened was that we sought two other sources of funding. One was from the corporate and private sector. It was difficult, there's no doubt about it. It's difficult to secure that funding.
But we used those contributions to manage cashflow. The private sector doesn't have the same onerous kinds of contribution agreements as the Government of Canada does, because it's not public money, so we used the private sector funding that we received as a way to help smooth out that spikiness in the cashflow.
The other thing we did, which we were not as successful in doing--but you may find better opportunities--was to go to our membership as a not-for-profit to seek their support in a greater way.
Those are just some suggestions.
I think one of the challenges the government faces in this regard with your problem is that Treasury Board sets out and approves terms and conditions for every single program across the Government of Canada. In light of the last number of years, those terms and conditions are very strict, and the public service follows them by the book, for obvious reasons. I don't think this is unique to this program. I don't think it's unique to Canadian Heritage. I think it's a government-wide issue. I don't think there are any games being played with respect to how the money gets approved.
I think it's good that you're highlighting this as a problem. Perhaps solutions can be found.
I know that one of the things the government has tried to do through its program funding, through contributions to your member organizations, is that for those programs that are ongoing and for those organizations that are considered low-risk, they've advanced cash at the start of the fiscal year before the application has been formally approved. It's a way to get you through the first quarter, the first three months. It doesn't help if you don't get that 75%, the rest, until September, but at least there are three months of funding upfront. Then there are two months where you presently have to figure out how to manage that cashflow.
Those are just some ideas I had.
Another idea I had is that the umbrella group might be able to facilitate a line of credit for some of your member organizations. That's just an idea.
Whatever helpful suggestions you have for the government, I think we're open to considering.
Welcome back to those of you who have been here before. It's nice to see you again.
I want to concentrate on what Mr. Donnelly has said repeatedly, and that's the word “frustration”. I can assure you that each and every one of us here, regardless of party or ideology, believes that it is frustrating, and we empathize with that. As a new member of Parliament—and I've been here almost a year now—I'm seeing frustration too. I am quite surprised at the way things progress or don't progress within this large organization and Parliament itself.
I was very hopeful when we began to look at this that we would be able to spend a lot of time trying to come up with answers to alleviate this problem. Unfortunately, we haven't met with the people who are going to be able to change that as of yet. We hope to do that at some of our next meetings.
I think some of the things are recurrent, and I must emphasize that we've heard this for years and years and years. I was part of many non-profit organizations in a minority community that expressed frustration for 10 to 15 years. I'm very saddened to see that we haven't made too much progress, but I want to emphasize that I believe that some band-aid solutions have gone on for many years and that we need to fix them. Although it's wonderful to see you again, I want to get down to the meat and potatoes. I want to make sure that the messages we've heard for years and years, which you've repeated today, are correct. So please indulge me.
You've said that they're recurrent or repeated year after year and that you don't believe it's political. Although our parties here try to make it political, I appreciate that you've said you don't believe it is political and you don't believe the public service is trying to sit by and not do the work. So thank you for those comments.
You've also said that the report and application process is time-consuming. So we are specifically going to ask how we streamline that. I'm hearing that correctly from you again today.
Also, the delays in confirming whether or not your program is going to be approved hinder your ability to get credit. Again, we're heard that.
And there's your point that the delay in receiving your cheque after confirmation affects your credibility with people like your landlord, as Mr. dePoe and other stakeholders said. Moreover, the interest payments aren't covered.
And once you receive your confirmation and then your cheque, your spending time is reduced. That makes it a challenge to make the March deadline before you have to pay it back. We're heard that.
I've also heard that you think some of the suggestions are good, such as the multi-year agreements. That's great.
I've heard the suggestions you've made as well, Mr. Donnelly, in your report, and I appreciate them. Thank you very much.
But what I don't want to see is anyone leaving this arena and disregarding what you've said very clearly, that we have to work together and that it's not a political problem, but in the system. So I would hope that you will follow what we are going to do with the people who are going to be intricately involved in making the decisions to change this; and if you have further suggestions, please feel free to contact us at any point. I'm pleased to hear that you feel you have the ability to contact Canadian Heritage and that you have great relationships with them. We hope that continues.
I'm hoping we will have some witnesses at the next meeting. I'm also hoping that if we need more time, we will be allotted that time, because what's ultimately very, very important is getting down to figuring out how we can become more efficient.
I believe things like the sponsorship scandal and the Gomery inquiry recommendations led us to have to be more accountable, more transparent, and gave us this machine. But we have to find a way to be more effective, so thank you for bringing your suggestions.
I am not going to ask any further questions, because as I've said, I've heard this for more than 15 years. I just want to get to the bottom of it, and that's why I'm anxious to speak with the people who are in the system, to make sure we get this right so we can help you. So please bear with us. We're all in this together, and we all want to help you.