Advancing Principled Positions to Navigate Exceptionally Troublesome Times
I succeeded Marlene Jennings in this role on the heels of an event that stands out as a milestone in our continuing effort to defend our community’s constitutional language rights and access to services: the protest rally against Bill 96 held in May 2022.
This was an extraordinary and encouraging expression of intense community opposition to that pernicious law. This action provided us with renewed impetus. It reassured us that we were taking the steps required and moving in the right direction.
We have not let up since.
The most important QCGN work during the past year has been our continued and unflagging fight against alarming and worrisome elements of legislation at both the federal and provincial levels – Quebec’s Bill 96, which amends the Charter of the French Language and introduces the pre-emptive use of the Notwithstanding Clause, and that bill’s incorporation into Bill C-13, the revised federal Official Languages Act. Both those exercises have proven uphill climbs. Both have yet to produce the kind of results we seek.
We have continued to express our opposition to Bill 96, while clearly and forcefully making the point that the English-speaking community of Quebec (and by extension, the QCGN) stands four square in favour of measures to protect and promote French in Canada, including Quebec – without trampling on our rights and freedoms. The QCGN has also continued to make progress with a renewal process that has fine-tuned the course for our organization during what will undoubtedly prove challenging years ahead.
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This comprehensive process has helped the QCGN stay on course in our commitment to adapt to the needs of our community.
The Board of Directors guided the work with our members and our stakeholders to bring our renewal journey to fruition. Together, we developed a governance model that ensures a voice for more English-speaking Quebecers; enshrines our community’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion; and secures representation from all corners of Quebec.
We envisage an organization that is more open and inclusive, with a sharper focus on advocacy through community development and mobilization. This approach, I believe, will allow the QCGN to more forcefully advocate for the needs and priorities of English-speaking Quebecers while nourishing the vitality of our communities throughout our province.
We have proceeded in our advocacy in a reasonable, positive, constructive fashion, offering clear and powerful arguments to political leaders, in the media, and during back-channel communications.
And we have recorded some measures of success along the way.
Last fall, we reached out to the newly re-elected Quebec government and urged it to appoint a minister responsible for relations with the English-speaking community. Two weeks later, the government did just that. It named fluently bilingual Finance Minister Eric Girard to the additional post of Minister Responsible for Relations with English-speaking Quebecers. In return, he has reached out to the community, and we look forward to establishing a process of regularly sharing our views with him.
The QCGN has also made clear to both the Quebec and federal governments where our community stands on language policy: Polling we commissioned showed 81 per cent of Quebecers believe the federal government should be doing more to support and protect the rights of English-speaking Quebecers. We will continue to serve as active proponents of this on a regular basis.
The results proved we have been accurate in our assessment of the community’s positions. The vast majority of respondents, 87 per cent, said the federal government should do more to support and protect their rights. More than two-thirds, 69 per cent, said much more should be done.
Did these results move any needles in Ottawa or Quebec City? It is impossible to know for sure. But, this spring, we welcomed $31.5 million of additional funding in the provincial budget to assist the English-speaking community in Quebec.
In April 2023, we were heartened by the new opportunities that emerged with the federal government’s five-year Action Plan for Official Languages, which included a new $1.4 billion of allocations through to 2028. Now, we must ensure that a fair proportion of these actually find their way to our community.
We have deliberately chosen to take the high road in a climate that has been decidedly hostile toward us, indeed a climate often quite overtly antagonistic to our very identity as a linguistic minority. The funding is certainly welcome; what we also need are policies that match it.
We believe maintaining a strong, principled position will prevail in the end.
I would like to thank my fellow Board directors and our member organizations for their support and commitment through these tumultuous times. And, of course, all this could not have been accomplished without the leadership of our dedicated Director General, Sylvia Martin-Laforge, and our team of talented, professional staff. Deeply committed to our community, they have enabled the QCGN to keep moving forward to best serve our members and our community.
They will be essential to our efforts as the struggles continue.
President
DIRECTOR GENERAL’S MESSAGE
QCGN Poised to Tackle Daunting Challenges Ahead
Two words describe the past year: pivotal and hectic.
Major events included our massive May 2022 rally opposing Bill 96; federal and provincial committee presentations; relevant and informative community forums; advocacy efforts for inclusion of our priorities in the new federal Action Plan on Official Languages; consultations and presentations on two provincial budgets; and multi-pronged QCGN communications campaigns surrounding Bills 96 and C-13.
It feels like we barely had a moment to breathe.
And, looking down the road, there are more bumps ahead.
In addition to public activity, we accomplished much behind the scenes that will:
- better position us to promote our community and its engagement;
- allow us to advocate more completely and forcefully for community needs;
- help us reach out more broadly to develop our diversity; and
- smooth the path to expand and broaden QCGN membership.
Two elements are key: our continuing effort to renew the organization, supported by our Board of Directors; and our new Strategic Plan – both the road map for where we need to go and the vehicle to get us there.
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The Strategic Plan will do more than help us realize our mission and vision. Along the way, like the GPS in our cellphone, it will help us navigate the policy potholes and political speed bumps created by governments that don’t fully understand or respect our needs, our rights, our freedoms, and our aspirations. This evergreen approach should guide us through the next five years and perhaps beyond. We must adapt to changing needs while ensuring we remain a dependable fulcrum for our community, as well as a focal point, a leader, and a voice.
In brief, our three strategic pillars:
ADVOCACY AND REPRESENTATION: We serve as a non-partisan advocate for the rights of the English-speaking community at all levels.
COMMUNITY VITALITY: We work to enhance the vitality and resilience of the English-speaking communities across Quebec by strengthening essential networks and developing new ones.
ORGANIZATIONAL LEADERSHIP: We frame our approach to operate with exemplary standards while maintaining a value-based culture.
As we transform words into actions, we will report annually on how those pillars and underlying key initiatives have led us to achieve successive goals.
We begin with an exceptionally solid foundation. The QCGN is one of the few community sector organizations serving English-speaking Quebec equipped with adequate resources to maintain a dedicated and high-performing policy and research capacity. With our longtime language rights and freedoms lately under steady attack, this capability provides an essential underpinning for our community and our future. It enables and encourages collective participation. It fosters the development of pragmatic, evidence-based public policy – proposals designed to help sustain and support the vitality of our linguistic minority and to make our voices heard and heeded by all levels of government.
For instance, the QCGN’s Access to Justice in English project focused on four key areas essential for maintaining the vitality of English-speaking Quebec. The goal was not simply to examine deep-rooted issues – the barriers that hinder access to services for English speakers – but to propose remedies. We must ensure ALL Quebecers receive equitable access to health, justice, and other services.
Daily political and media turbulence, an almost constant succession of roadblocks and detours, too often combine to rob us of time required to address the operational demands of renewal. To cover all the bases, we strive to remain flexible and to be positioned at all times to be able to pivot on a dime.
Strong and visible community-based support is essential. We must ensure our members are aware of, understand, and embrace not only what our organization and our members do, but why we do it. Successful advocacy is built on messages delivered, heard, and acted upon.
Our Working Together for a More Vital Community, the 2022-2027 Community Development Plan for English-speaking Quebec, developed by the Community Vitality Roundtables through our Community Forums, provided a useful road map for successful community advocacy grounded in community engagement. This proved a winning combination, as thousands of Quebecers hit the streets that stunning May morning to protest Bill 96. This high level of community concern and support proved equally visible in legislative arenas – both at the National Assembly and on Parliament Hill as we brought forward the questions, fears, confusion, and uncertainties raised across the English-speaking community.
Thousands of citizen signatures in open letters to both the Quebec Premier and the federal Minister of Justice expressed overwhelming unity in opposition to the harshening of Quebec’s Charter of the French Language and its inclusion in the overhaul of the Official Languages Act.
We spoke out and we acted – with our pens, with our keyboards, with our voices, and with our feet!
English-speaking Quebecers are girding for turbulent times ahead. The renewal of the QCGN, our comprehensive Strategic Plan, and our consistent efforts to engage with community and political stakeholders have positioned us, as an organization, to meet daunting challenges head on.
2022-2023 BOARD OF DIRECTORS
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Eva Ludvig – President
Kevin Shaar – Vice-President
Matt Aronson – Secretary
Marlene Jennings – Treasurer
DIRECTORS
Alix Adrien
Eleni Bakopanos
Sandra K. de la Ronde
Anna Farrow
Joan Fraser
DIRECTORS
Valerie Gordon-Williams
Matthew Harrington
Maureen Kiely
Katherine Korakakis
Eric Maldoff
OUR STRATEGIC PLAN
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QCGN Renews and Strengthens Relationship with Community
In the spring of 2022, QCGN’s Board of Directors established a transition committee to accelerate the renewal of our organization. Building on a solid foundation, we carried through with our renewal initiative amid the ebbs and flows of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our member organizations, institutions, and businesses were especially challenged, forced to deal with reduced revenues and staff cuts often coupled with an increased demand for services. A variety of consultations across our Community of Communities illuminated our collective path forward to full renewal. This experience continues to prove both enlightening and encouraging.
Working together with members, stakeholders, and management we completed a concerted overhaul that gathered both force and consensus. In May 2022, QCGN’s members voted to approve significant elements of our renewal, notably by adopting amended By-laws of the Corporation. Over the balance of 2022 and into 2023, the QCGN continued to introduce important changes to our governance and operations. These included the: adoption of new policies; implementation of a new strategic plan; adjustments to our governance and election processes; and, for the first time, introduction of individual memberships.
The need for organizational changes was expressed in unmistakeable ways. The results are clear. We have now implemented necessary steps to: properly pursue our organizational renewal; ensure a framework that, going forward, encourages, enhances, and validates continuous community engagement and priority setting; reinforce the essential link between advocacy and community development; engage in more active listening and ongoing dialogue to sustain and nourish a more grassroots approach to advocacy; and strongly and more directly link our policy-development work with community needs and priorities.
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In May 2022, our Special Members Meeting approved a thorough update of our bylaws. Our memberships simultaneously and unanimously endorsed our foundational cornerstones: Vision, mission, values, principle, and strategic pillars. Meanwhile our governance structure has been modernized to make it more transparent, open, democratic and, above all, more inclusive. As a result, a succession of community groups reconfirmed and consolidated their commitment to the QCGN and our collective work on behalf of English-speaking Quebecers.
On Oct. 13, our Annual General Meeting equipped us with a strengthened advocacy mandate, providing fresh impetus for our efforts to combat provincial and federal legislation which erodes the rights of Quebec’s English-speaking minority communities. As 2023 began, individual members started to join under that new category as we opened the door and invited them in – via the bylaw change that introduced individual memberships as one core element to further broaden and diversify our membership base.
Fortified with a clear sense of our collective concerns, our needs, and our aspirations, the QCGN is moving forward to rely on a more committed membership and deliver a more compelling community voice. We sincerely hope the many more individuals and groups with which we share common cause will signal that we are on the right path and choose to come aboard in the coming months and years. Thus we strongly encourage any organizations and individuals that share our vision, mission, and values to roll up their sleeves and join in.
Creating Change Through Advocacy and Collective Action
Our work in Community Development took a major step forward, as we put into place the pieces of our Renewal Process. QCGN members approved Strategic Pillars that ensure a direct link between advocacy and community development. We also developed a Community Engagement and Advocacy model which illustrates, in our approach, the foundational importance of a strong community – one that fosters engagement and strengthens community rights via advocacy.
The QCGN has always acted on the basis that advocacy and community development are intimately linked and must work in harmony to ensure successful outcomes for the communities we serve. The United Nations defines community development as: “a process where community members come together to take collective action and generate solutions to common problems. It promotes participative democracy, sustainable development, rights, economic opportunity, equality, and social justice, through the organization, education and empowerment of people within their communities, whether these be of locality, identity or interest, in urban and rural settings.”
One of the measures by which to gauge our success at renewing the QCGN and reconnecting with our roots is the way our Community Forums proved crucial in building a refreshed and refocused community development plan for English-speaking Quebec. Spearheaded by the Community Vitality Roundtables, the result was: Working Together for a More Vital Community, the 2022-2027 Community Development Plan for English-speaking Quebec. Owned by the community and overseen by four roundtables: Data; Funding; Representation; and Organizational and Network Health, the community development plan provides a framework for collective action to be undertaken by the community sector of English-speaking Quebec. Through coordinated, strategic action, the community asserts collective control over resources allocated to ensure its continued development and vitality. This five-year plan validates more than two years of sustained consultation for which the QCGN provided backbone support through resources, administrative support, and leadership. Our overriding goal is to achieve together what we cannot accomplish on our own.
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The Community Development Plan was released at a critical time for Quebec’s English-speaking community. The Government of Canada’s current Action Plan for Official Languages ends this year. Throughout the spring and summer, the federal Minister of Official Languages Ginette Petitpas Taylor held consultations to evaluate the current action plan and to develop orientations for the next one. The QCGN mobilized community stakeholders to fully represent community interests throughout the consultation process. We were on hand in Montreal and Sherbrooke for the Minister’s consultations in July as well as at the Summit for Official Languages, held in Ottawa Aug. 30. With the collaboration of the Community Roundtables, the QCGN mobilized 18 organizations to produce a collective report. The group called for investments of more than $230 million in programs, policy, and funding to support the vitality of Quebec’s English-speaking community. It placed a particular focus on three priority areas: Access to Services; Economic Prosperity; and Identity and Renewal in the next Official Languages Strategy. More broadly, the report urged the Government of Canada to commit to acting as a champion of our Official Language Minority Community, and to support its capacity in the understanding, protection, and promotion of our community’s rights. This was submitted to the Minister for Official Languages Sept. 30, 2022.
During the 2022-2023 fiscal year, the Community Vitality Roundtables held 23 meetings. A total of 42 community stakeholders took part. The QCGN, in collaboration with the Roundtables, also hosted two successful community forums: the Looking Ahead to a More Vital Community Forum in September 2022, with 45 stakeholders in attendance, and the Sharing Strategies for a More Vital Community Forum in March 2023, with 59 stakeholders attending.
The important link between community development and advocacy was further put into practice as our members worked together to lobby for more support from the provincial government during the Quebec government’s pre-budget consultations, in January. QCGN and key stakeholders travelled to Quebec City to lobby Finance Minister Eric Girard, who also serves as Minister Responsible for Relations with English-Speaking Quebecers. A survey of our most pressing concerns received 38 responses, a strong indication that an inclusive, community driven process lends more weight and credibility to advocacy efforts on behalf of English-speaking Quebecers.
On the membership engagement front, we are increasing our on-the-ground presence to connect with our members and English-speaking Quebecers from multiple sectors and multiple regions. We participated in a variety of member organizations’ events. These included the Morrin Centre’s annual literary festival in November in Quebec City; DESTA Black Youth Network ’s fundraising dinner in February; and the launch of Gay and Grey’s podcast that same month. Additionally, in mid-January, our Director of Community Engagement and Strategic Alliances participated in a coffee chat hosted by the Regional Association of West Quebecers.
Bill 96 and New Official Languages Act Impose Double Whammy
The past year proved, unfortunately, a watershed for language and other human rights for Quebecers. Minorities like the English-speaking Community of Quebec were particularly impacted. We felt under attack at both the provincial and federal levels.
On the Quebec front, Bill 96 received assent, significantly amending the Charter of the French Language , which now operates notwithstanding critical protections within the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. During National Assembly committee hearings, QCGN distributed detailed reports of daily proceedings — paying special attention to specific questions, fears, confusion, and uncertainties raised across the English-speaking community.
Based on thorough study and analysis of the bill, we provided our members, community leaders, individual English-speaking Quebecers and community stakeholders with authoritative insight into the likely range of impact and consequences. We organized evidence-based webinars and presentations. We covered additional ground in our Policy Matters blog. We developed a ‘Before and After’ table to summarize the new rules and fresh restrictions. We created an ‘Entry into Force’ table to pinpoint timings for specific provisions to take effect. We continue to monitor legal contestations of Bill 96.
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Developments on the federal front proved equally stark and disturbing. Bill C-13 An Act for the Substantive Equality of Canada’s Official Languages was the subject of extensive study by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Official Languages, and a pre-study by the Senate Standing Committee on Official Languages. C-13 marks a radical reversal of Canada’s longstanding approach to equality for our two official languages. The QCGN prepared well researched, expert, persuasive arguments contesting this approach and delivered them to, among others, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Official Languages (LANG) and the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages (OLLO). In an open letter to the Attorney General of Canada, ultimately signed by nearly 3,500 concerned citizens, English-speaking Quebec expressed an overwhelming unity in opposition to proposals to include Quebec’s Charter of the French Language into the quasi-constitutional Official Languages Act.
Bill C-13 goes beyond explicit support by the Government of Canada for Quebec’s pre-emptive use of the notwithstanding clause for Bill 96. It also carries the potential to sway future judicial interpretation of the constitutional language rights of English-speaking Quebecers in ways the QCGN predicts will prove profoundly harmful and damaging to our federal language rights.
For the Oct. 3 Quebec general election, our invitations for individual Town Hall appearances were accepted by Liberal Party Leader Dominique Anglade; Conservative Party Leader Éric Duhaime; Canadian Party of Quebec Leader Colin Standish; and Bloc Montréal Leader Balarama Holness. After a brief discussion of their platforms, each leader responded to questions centred on: Rights and Access to Justice; Education; Health and Social Services; and the Vitality of Quebec’s English-speaking community. These online events brought in thousands of views on QCGN-TV, our YouTube channel.
Our legal research and communications teams developed questions for leaders of all parties on justice, health, education, community vitality, and economic prosperity. We built an online electoral platform for English-speaking Quebec, developed in consultation with organizations representing English-speaking Quebecers across various regions and sectors. This was twinned with social media campaigns and a Question of the Week featured on the QCGN’s homepage.
Fresh census results released by Statistics Canada proved positive for our community. However, their interpretation was used to feed fears over what is often portrayed as the decline of the French language in Quebec. The data itself is objective. But how it is presented, used, and interpreted is an exercise fraught with subjectivity and political messaging. We remain concerned the data will be used by the Quebec government as a further excuse to impose additional restrictions. The percentage of Quebec residents whose first official language is English rose to 13 per cent in 2021, from 12 per cent in 2016. For the first time, our community exceeds 1.3 million individuals. Much of this growth was accounted for by newcomers – fellow English-speaking Quebecers who won’t ever be classified as “historic” under the new Bill 96 regimen.
The QCGN believes the growth of Quebec’s English-speaking community should be celebrated. We are not a threat to Quebec. We conduct our policy, research, and government relations activities as an ally of the French language — we support it, we learn it, we use it, we procreate into it.
Just because we advocate for our identity and our rights to be protected as well as respected does not turn us into a threat. We continue our work guided by that spirit.
Access to Justice in English Project Documents Barriers and Proposes Solutions
The Access to Justice in English project at the QCGN produced and disseminated four in-depth reports during 2022-2023. Each focused on a specific core sector essential for maintaining the vitality of English-speaking Quebec.
The goal was not simply to examine deep-seated problems – the array of shortcomings and barriers which hinder access to government services for the English-speaking community.
The project also proposed specific remedies to help overcome these impediments. Our goal was to ensure that English-speaking Quebecers receive equitable access to important health, justice, and other services – and thus are able to fully exercise their individual and collective rights.
This work was funded by Justice Canada.
The four sectors:
- Federal Correctional Services in English in Quebec, on which our work began in 2021-2022;
- Senior Care Services in English in Quebec;
- Online Government Services in English in Quebec; and
- Access to Courts and Justice in English in Quebec.
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Each report provides a thorough legal analysis; a system navigation analysis from the perspective of the citizen; a legal review conducted by outside counsel; results of professionally prepared and conducted polling; and a recommendations package to address the specific gaps identified in services for the English-speaking community of Quebec.
The project’s website was expanded during the year. We also began to migrate the content to the QCGN’s main website. This site links to all Access to Justice in English project reports. In addition, it provides comprehensive information about citizens’ rights and community resources across key sectors: criminal justice; family and youth; education; employment and labour; housing; immigration; and discrimination.
At the 2022 Annual Meeting of the Advisory Committee on Access to Justice, held in June 2022, team members presented particularly troubling survey results: nearly half of English-speaking Quebecers reported difficulty in accessing provincial government services in English. An overwhelming majority of respondents, 96 per cent, agreed that “in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is more important than ever for all Quebecers to have easy access to public services online.” During the pandemic, Quebecers rapidly pivoted to rely to a much greater extent on the internet to obtain goods and services. We took heed of the unique set of circumstances – and thus, as an issue for project research, elected to examine the level of access to online provincial government services in English.
In a preliminary poll on online government services, almost two thirds of respondents – 60 per cent – rated their ease of access at a paltry 0 to 4, out of a maximum score of 10. A follow-up survey indicated that English-speaking Quebecers often struggle to access information they need on Quebec government websites. Those rating their experience largely identified three issues: Less information is available in English than in French (84 per cent); some client portals are available in French only (79 per cent); and forms and documents are often unavailable in English (77 per cent).
Often, some form of action taken by individuals to access needed information or services still falls short: 43 per cent of those who took further steps reported they were still unable to access the provincial services they need online.
The Quebec government has in recent years gradually migrated its information posted on various ministerial websites to a central platform, Quebec.ca. Most, though not all, of that content is available in English as well as French.
This one-two combination of barriers – difficulty in access and a substantial lack of awareness about bilingual alternatives – has led many in the community to express skepticism regarding prospects for improving the situation. Nine of every 10 poll respondents disagreed with the statement “I am confident that the Quebec government will work to improve the availability of its online services in English for those who need it.”
These results provided clear evidence of specific service gaps that exist in English in Quebec. They also underscore the importance of rectifying them. We believe our research has taken the necessary middle step to document these challenges on a systemic basis in such a way that they can be more effectively and more immediately addressed and resolved.
Enhancing Vitality Through the Community Innovation Fund
The QCGN established the Community Innovation Fund (CIF) in 2016. This approach puts social innovation into direct action. CIF projects use short-term training initiatives to tackle critical needs and gaps in services. This directly benefits vulnerable young people and seniors, among the most marginalized members of minority English-speaking communities across Quebec.
With funding from Employment and Social Development Canada renewed in 2018, we are completing CIF 2.0, the second cycle. During the past three years, we partnered with 10 community organizations to tangibly enhance the prospects and skill sets of more than 3,400 vulnerable English-speaking youths and seniors, in our urban centres and in our regions.
Each such individual faces unique challenges. Each has diverse needs. Each must overcome significant barriers to access appropriate services, often to establish gainful employment. Language barriers make innovative solutions even more essential. Our partners help participants find jobs, fight isolation, or learn new skills. They provide support and confidence building through employability programs, internships, and job training. Projects are structured to enable and encourage participants to develop online digital dexterity while enhancing their literacy levels and French-language skills.
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The QCGN once again embraced the opportunity to serve these partners both as an intermediary and as a champion. This aligns with the core CIF goal to foster strength and resiliency among grassroots community groups. Their projects empower them to drive their own development while maximizing positive community impact.
Each CIF 2.0 partner has experienced significant growth. For the first time, some were able to access core funding. Others reached new audiences and clientele. Others developed their governance models, launched new strategic plans, or were similarly enabled to mature.
With the CIF community of practice approach, partners benefit from mutual support and practice-sharing. We tackle common concerns, interests, and goals, sharing ideas and best methods. Connecting and communicating, partners develop their skill sets as a group. The CIF manager helps cultivate partnerships needed for long-term success, along with training and other support to assist each group to become more self-reliant and sustainable. Workshops cover grant administration and fundraising; creation of successful boards of directors; evaluation techniques used by funders; hiring and retention of talent; marketing on a shoestring budget; and taking full advantage of technology.
CIF 2.0 projects were selected only a few months into the COVID-19 pandemic. This forced all to adapt programs to the new normal. Our partners — and community leaders on our advisory and project-selection committees — rose to also surmount these unprecedented circumstances.
We sincerely thank the Government of Canada’s Social Development Partnerships Program – Children and Families Component, part of the Action Plan for Official Languages 2018-2023: Investing in our Future.
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The Quebec Community Groups Network acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada and the Action Plan for Official Languages – 2018-2023: Investing in Our Future through the departments of Canadian Heritage, Employment and Social Development Canada, and Justice Canada.