Hon. Lucie Moncion: Honourable senators, I rise today at second reading of Bill C-35, An Act respecting early learning and child care in Canada. I welcome the arrival of this bill in the Senate because it delivers an essential blueprint for society that will allow Canadian parents, especially Canadian mothers, to access the labour market. For many mothers, accessing the labour market depends in large part on access to affordable child care.

[English]

The purpose of my speech is to shed light on the issues of equity in access to child care services for children belonging to official language minority communities. The enactment of this law is an opportunity to give ourselves the means to achieve our ambitions so that these children have access to early learning and child care services of equivalent quality to those of the English‑speaking majority.

For francophone parents, access to French-language child care services is a question of language survival in the context of the steady decline in the demographic weight of francophones in Canada. For these parents, the transmission of the language — from early childhood onward — enables their children to enter the French-language education continuum. Serving as a vehicle for linguistic and cultural transmission, early childhood education and child care services contribute to the survival and vitality of official language minority communities from generation to generation.

[Translation]

Protecting linguistic vitality through early childhood education is also a matter of rights for these communities.

Access to child care services in the language of the minority is key to the implementation of section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees the right to minority language education.

To give francophone children an equal chance at success, they must have access to educational services in French, beginning in early childhood. The early childhood learning environment prepares children for school by giving them the language skills that are essential to their scholastic and academic success.

The other side of the coin is assimilation. Before they even begin to speak, children who don’t have access to child care services in their language are faced with significant pressure to assimilate that could compromise their chances of living in French.

Practically speaking, if these children end up in anglophone child care facilities because they don’t have access to French services, their parents could end up sending them to an English school because they are worried that their child doesn’t have the language skills they need to succeed in a minority language school. That’s one of the factors that might explain why we are seeing the demographic weight of francophones in Canada dropping little by little.

Indeed, access to French-language education throughout the education continuum is a monumental challenge for many francophone parents in predominantly English-speaking provinces and territories.

In a 2016 report entitled Early Childhood: Fostering the Vitality of Francophone Minority Communities, the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages highlights some of the important issues facing francophone parents. The report states the following:

Programs and services for young children have been developed with various systems of governance, funding streams and training for staff. As a result, families face a highly fragmented early childhood landscape of unconnected options, diverse eligibility criteria and payment requirements.

These comments from the commissioner suggest that the needs of francophone minority communities must be at the forefront in the development of a national system of early childhood learning and child care.

The legislative framework for this system should clearly include a commitment from the federal government to ensure solid core funding for these communities.

Let me give you a few figures to illustrate the disparities that currently exist in some provinces.

[English]

According to Statistics Canada’s 2021 census data, we have 141,635 children aged zero to four who are French-speaking rights holders under section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. These children have a constitutional right to instruction in their language from early childhood. However, according to the Commission nationale des parents francophones, it’s estimated that only 20% of these children are served in French, as there are about 29,000 of these children in French‑language preschool daycare — it’s a difference of more than 110,000.

In New Brunswick, for example, 1,900 daycare spaces were announced — only 300 of these are reserved for francophones. This figure represents barely 16% of the population, whereas New Brunswick’s French-speaking population is around 30%. In Alberta, out of the 1,500 new spaces announced, only 19 are reserved for francophones — representing 0.013% of spaces for francophones, who account for 2% of Alberta’s population.

This is a trend observed across Canada, from province to province and territory to territory. According to data from Ontario’s Early Years and Child Care Annual Report 2022, there would be a shortfall of 36,567 French-language spaces to meet the needs of mother tongue French-speaking children in the province — not counting children whose first official language is French, but whose mother tongue is not French.

I propose to give you an overview of the bill as it relates to official language minority communities. It’s worth noting that the first version of the bill tabled in the House of Commons makes no mention of official language minority communities or official languages. This touches Quebec as much as it touches everywhere else in Canada. Needless to say, I was disappointed that the official language minority communities must constantly remain vigilant so as not to be forgotten by governments, whether provincial, territorial or federal.

[Translation]

Is that due to a lack of knowledge or an oversight of children’s language rights on the part of Employment and Social Development Canada, or a lack of collaboration between different departments, including Canadian Heritage?

I have in-depth knowledge of the modernization of the Official Languages Act, and I know that oversights like this one are, unfortunately, all too common within the government. We have to do better and expect better if official language minority communities are to be taken into account in legislation right from the start, when appropriate.

The bill was passed by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills Development, Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities on May 2, 2023.

Thankfully, amendments made by the committee of the other place greatly improved the bill in that regard. These amendments reassured communities, but concerns still remain. The Commission nationale des parents francophones, or CNPF, and the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada, or FCFA, who speak for francophone parents in Canada, expressed their concerns about the legislation as it was passed in the other place, especially regarding the omission of official language minority communities, or OLMCs, in section 8.

Three amendments passed by the committee added mentions of OLMCs in the bill.

Clause 7 sets out the objectives of federal investments in the area of early learning and child care. An amendment was made to this clause by adding the words, “. . . and of children from English and French linguistic minority communities, that respect and value the diversity . . . .”

The second amendment adopted by the committee adds a paragraph to clause 7 that sets out the government’s commitments. The new clause specifies that:

Federal investments in respect of early learning and child care programs and services subject to an agreement entered into with a province must be guided by the commitments set out in the Official Languages Act

The third amendment amends clause 11, which has to do with the appointment of members of the National Advisory Council on Early Learning and Child Care. The amendment specifies that official language minority communities must be represented on the council. Indigenous peoples were also added to this clause in the same amendment. It is rather strange that this was omitted.

This clearly shows the importance of a strong, unambiguous legislative text.

The government already has many obligations under Part VII of the Official Languages Act when spending money on early childhood education. Despite the lack of investments, the envelopes related to this act are usually given to the Department of Canadian Heritage.

As I said earlier, the first version of the bill did not include official language minority communities. OLMCs have fallen through the cracks at the Department of Employment and Social Development. That’s why it’s important to be cautious in drafting legislation to govern how the department manages its funds.

That makes me wonder if the text of the bill, with the amendments by the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills Development, Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, is sufficient to ensure implementation consistent with the language rights of OLMCs under section 23 of the Charter and with the government’s obligations under Part VII of the Official Languages Act.

Even though most of the bilateral agreements between the federal government and provincial and territorial governments include provisions designed to meet the needs of OLMCs, they’re vague and don’t include specific targets.

Official language minority communities know these agreements are fragile and temporary. These bilateral agreements are based on legislation that should be muscular and unambiguous.

These are the lessons we learned during our study of Bill C-13 to amend the Official Languages Act.

As far as implementing the act goes, the omission of OLMCs in certain sections can have an impact on programs rolled out by the government through the public service, policies resulting from the bill and the negotiation and implementation of future agreements with provinces and territories.

In terms of statutory interpretation, when considering a bill, legislators must also examine the interconnection between the actual text of the bill and how the courts may interpret it in the future. Statutory interpretation requires judges to take into account a series of weighted factors in order to determine the true or best meaning of an act’s wording.

With the judicialization of language conflicts in Canada, legislators have to take this exercise seriously and make the wording as clear as possible and as close as possible to its true intention. We have to take a close look at the impacts of omitting to mention OLMCs, notably in clause 8, which codifies the commitment to maintaining long-term funding for early learning and child care programs and services.

Bill C-35 could be improved to better consider the needs of OLMCs. I hope that my colleagues on the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology will study this bill from the perspective of including official language minority communities, and francophones in particular.

I support sending this bill to committee as soon as possible.

Thank you for your attention.