Standing Committee on Official Languages

Comité permanent des langues officielles

For immediate release

Ottawa, May 08, 2018 -

Today the Honourable Denis Paradis, Chair of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Official Languages, tabled the report Growing Up in French in Western Canada: A Review of Federal Support for Early Childhood Education.

In February 2018, the Committee travelled to Vancouver, Edmonton and Winnipeg as part of a study on the availability of early childhood services in French. The community stakeholders, representatives of post-secondary institutions, educators and parents who appeared before the Committee all called for greater support from provincial/territorial governments and the Government of Canada so that francophone children aged 0 to 5 can, from an earlier age, develop a sense of language security and attachment to the francophone community.

The Committee’s report makes six recommendations. They are aimed at improving the federal-provincial/territorial agreements to ensure that official language minority communities receive services of equal quality to those enjoyed by the majority and, more broadly, strengthening the implementation of the principle of substantive equality by all federal institutions.

The Committee also recommends that the Official Languages Act be amended to establish and specify an increased role for the federal government in the area of minority language education, including early childhood education.

In the first part of the report, the Committee addresses the many needs of francophone communities: new daycare spaces; new daycare centres; improvements to existing facilities; availability of specialized children’s services in French; support for French-language post-secondary institutions that train educators and conduct research in this area; promotion of the educator profession to improve the recruitment and retention of qualified daycare professionals; and support for community organizations serving parents who choose to educate their children in French starting in early childhood.

In the second part, the Committee examines the main instruments available to the Government of Canada for investing in early childhood education: the Multilateral Early Learning and Child Care Framework and the Protocol for Agreements for Minority-Language Education and Second-Language Instruction.

Lastly, the Committee wishes to meet with the provincial and territorial ministers responsible for the Francophonie for an open, frank and collaborative discussion of the issues that matter to the francophone communities of their respective provinces, including early childhood education.

The New Democratic Party has tabled a complementary report.

The report can be consulted on the Committee’s webpage on the Parliament of Canada website at http://www.parl.gc.ca/LANG-e. Anyone unable to access an electronic copy of the report can obtain a paper copy by contacting the Committee clerk.

The House of Commons Standing Committee on Official Languages is composed of 11 MPs. The Chair is the Honourable Denis Paradis (Brome—Missisquoi) and the Vice-chairs are Alupa Clarke (Beauport—Limoilou) and François Choquette (Drummond). The other members are René Arseneault (Madawaska—Restigouche), Sylvie Boucher (Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix), Sean Casey (Charlottetown), Bernard Généreux (Montmagny—L’Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup), Linda Lapointe (Rivière-des-Mille-Îles), Paul Lefebvre (Sudbury), Darrell Samson (Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook) and Dan Vandal (Saint-Boniface—Saint-Vital).