LANG Committee Report

L. Research on the Official Language Minority Communities

1. Funding research to ensure better management

In its mid-term report on the Roadmap, the Government of Canada reiterated its commitment to investing efficiently in official languages:

As the Government is confronted with challenging economic times, in the final year of the Roadmap, efforts will be made to maximize the use of public investments in the pursuit of the best possible results for Canadians.[295]

To achieve that objective, the Government of Canada must acknowledge that investments in research on the OLMC lead to successful outcomes. The conclusive data generated by professional research are essential to the design and implementation of structural projects that make maximum use of resources and meet the OLMC’ needs and aspirations. Without research, the success of those programs will be compromised:

As we don’t have conclusive data, we’re forced to go into the field to try to identify needs in a hit or miss manner.

Without research, there’s quite a bit of, I would say, playing around before you hit on a model that’s going to make a difference.[296]

2. OLMC’s research capability

According to the BCRC, the ability of OLMC organizations, institutions and networks to conduct research is limited by a lack of funding:

…the Roadmap needs to recognize the value of community research….We can do our own research. But we need the resources. One of the major caveats is that we don’t fund research. It’s very difficult, particularly with isolated unknown communities, to find the information, other than anecdotal, to really deal with what the issues are out there.[297]

The Société de l’Acadie du Nouveau-Brunswick is facing the same problem:

The only problem is that, since 2001, that is in the past 10 years, the core funding for the Société de l’Acadie du Nouveau-Brunswick has remained the same. Furthermore, considering inflation, which averages 2.2% annually, we’ve wound up with 30% less revenue. Consequently, our organization does not even have a research officer or communications officer….However, it is not normal for an organization of people such as ours not to have a communications officer or a research officer.[298]

The situation is paradoxical. The research capabilities of the organizations, institutions and networks in the OLMC are reduced, but then the funding agencies require the OLMC to support the funding applications they submit with conclusive data and statistics:

…when we submit funding applications, we are asked for statistics….So it is becoming more difficult to support our requests with statistics.[299]

Support for research in the OLMC has obviously declined sharply in recent years:

The CIHR [Canada Institutes of Health Research], however, recently abandoned its research program for the OLMC. The SSHRC [Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada] also had a similar program in place that they also abandoned a few years ago….In part, these programs were a way of addressing the barriers facing researchers in minority communities.[300]

Those decisions were made despite the recommendations in the Commissioner of Official Languages of Canada’s study The Role of Canadian Federal Research Funding Agencies in the Promotion of Official Languages (2008).[301] The Commissioner recommended that the federal government provide funding to minority postsecondary institutions to support research on official language issues and promote the dissemination of conclusive results from that research.

The Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities and the Official Languages and Bilingualism Institute (OLBI) of the University of Ottawa believe that the government has a role to play in promoting and supporting professional research on official languages and the OLMC:

When a program concerns minority communities, agencies send the message that it is legitimate to conduct research on the communities. We do not have to convince anybody. We take it for granted that the people evaluating us have understood that it is important to conduct research. They properly evaluate the projects that are submitted. This is really a way of lowering the barriers that were noted by the study of the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages on research. This is one way of lowering the barriers that minority researchers face.[302]

Canada needs to attract young researchers to the field of official languages. The University of Ottawa is considering a summer research training program led by a team of distinguished Canadian researchers. The program would be made a training and research priority of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.[303]

The Committee believes it is important to develop research programs that target the OLMC.[304] It is also pleased to learn that Concordia University’s School of Extended Learning, the Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities and the Department of Canadian Heritage have cooperated in establishing the Quebec English-Speaking Communities Research Network (QUESCREN).

The Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities agrees with the Commissioner of Official Languages of Canada that federal institutions must support efforts to conduct research on official languages and the OLMC. They must also become aware of the fact that multi-year funding is particularly important in university research. As QUESCREN representatives explained, it is normal for a university research project to last five years. Ad hoc funding therefore does not enable researchers to get involved in those kinds of projects. It is also difficult for them to plan long-term projects.[305]

Federal institutions can also ensure better research coordination among community, government and academic sectors: “...this issue was discussed at the Symposium organized by the federal government on the official languages research that was held in 2008.”[306] QUESCREN believes that a more structured relationship with the federal government, particularly for the coordination of research with the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, would be beneficial.[307]

Research is one of the key factors in ensuring healthy management of the funding granted to official languages programs and to OLMC organizations, institutions and networks. As a country that respects minority language rights, Canada has a duty to contribute to the body of studies on the two linguistic communities and on Canada’s linguistic duality and to share them with the world.

In view of the above, the Committee recommends:

Recommendation 31

That the Government of Canada, in its future horizontal initiative for official languages, fund research on issues related to official languages. This financial support must focus on three areas: funding research and communicating findings; strengthening the research capacity of organizations and institutions in official language minority communities; and coordinating the three sectors for official language research — universities, communities and government.

3. Statistics Canada: A partner in the Government of Canada’s future horizontal initiative for official languages?

Statistics Canada is not an official partner of the 2008-2013 Roadmap. However, throughout the Roadmap’s implementation, participating federal institutions and the communities relied on Statistics Canada for data and products in order to gain a clearer understanding of the trends transforming Canada’s linguistic landscape and, consequently, to implement winning initiatives:

Since the start of the Roadmap, Statistics Canada has found innovative ways to meet the needs of Canadians for language statistics. Many of our partners told us of their needs for information on such varied topics as access to health care in their language of choice, immigration into a minority environment, French immersion programs, literacy and adult skills or economic development, to name a few.[308]

All Roadmap partners have benefited from Statistics Canada’s considerable expertise. Accordingly, the Committee recommends:

Recommendation 32

That the Government of Canada ask Statistics Canada to use innovative measures to meet the need for language statistics and to support statistical research on official language minority communities.

4. Toward a new Survey on the Vitality of Official-Language Minorities (2011 Census data)

In 2006, in accordance with the 2003-2008 Action Plan for Official Languages, Statistics Canada conducted the Survey on the Vitality of Official-Language Minorities with the cooperation and contribution of 10 federal departments and agencies.
That survey made it possible to produce, among other things, 11 theme portraits.

The 2011 Census data will be released in October 2012. It will be important for Statistics Canada to carry out a second survey on the vitality of official language minorities in order to conduct comparative analyses to help measure progress with respect to the official languages and OLMC developments over the past 10 years, covering the implementation period of the Action Plan for Official Languages 2003-2008 and the 2008-2013 Roadmap. Accordingly, the Committee recommends:

Recommendation 33

That the Government of Canada fund a survey to be conducted by Statistics Canada on the vitality of the official language minority communities and official language developments in Canada, using 2011 Census data in particular.