ADVOCATING TOGETHER FOR OUR COMMUNITY
2018-2019 Annual Report
Parkinson Quebec
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
An engaged community is the foundation of success
Community engagement provides the lifeblood required to nourish any successful advocacy organization. Our goal is to empower member and stakeholder groups, fostering progress for all English-speaking Quebecers. Working together with a shared understanding of our communities – encompassing all our strengths, challenges, needs and priorities – we can act effectively to protect and advance our rights as a minority.
The QCGN’s mission is to advocate for policies and programs that solidify the institutional, political and service infrastructures which support English- speaking Quebec. This fortifies the capacity of our Network and community organizations to work effectively to build vitality for our community.
Continue reading Geoffrey’s message
The Official Languages Act provides a crucial framework that supports and protects the linguistic interests of English-speaking Quebecers as a community. As we celebrate its 50th year, we look forward to this pivotal
legislation being modernized. The new Act must embrace the equality of status of both English and French while taking into account the different realities and needs of both official language minority communities.
In carrying out our work with provincial and federal politicians and stakeholders, we solidified our alliances with Francophone partners outside Quebec. We joined with our sister communities to denounce decisions by newly elected populist provincial Conservative governments to our immediate west and east that threatened and slashed minority-language services. We understand all too well how an injury to one linguistic minority can bring repercussions to all. We have grown much closer to l’Assemblée de la francophonie de l’Ontario (AFO), la Société de l’Acadie du Nouveau-Brunswick, as well as the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne (FCFA). We also applied for funding to intervene in the appeal of the B.C. court’s May 2018 Gascon decision, which undermined the federal government’s duty to support the development and vitality of official language minority communities across the country.
To make a real and lasting difference for our community, our members and leaders must be fully engaged as we chart a course through this increasingly complicated and sometimes hostile political environment.
DIRECTOR GENERAL’S MESSAGE
Advocacy is integral to community development
Community engagement provides the lifeblood required to nourish any successful advocacy organization. Our goal is to empower member and stakeholder groups, fostering progress for all English-speaking Quebecers. Working together with a shared understanding of our communities – encompassing all our strengths, challenges, needs and priorities – we can act effectively to protect and advance our rights as a minority.
The QCGN’s mission is to advocate for policies and programs that solidify the institutional, political and service infrastructures which support English- speaking Quebec. This fortifies the capacity of our Network and community organizations to work effectively to build vitality for our community.
Continue reading Sylvia’s message
Historically, QCGN has gathered and voiced community priorities for action. The new Action Plan for Official Languages 2018–2023: Investing in Our Future – Ottawa’s multi-million-dollar investment strategy to support official language minority communities – included a $5million injection over five years for Quebec’s English- speaking communities. These new monies, for which we advocated, will prove essential to help our community organizations implement sustainable measures to enhance the vitality of Quebec’s English-speaking minority communities across our various sectors and regions.
After years of relying almost entirely on federal support, the government of Quebec has been stepping up to support its English-speaking minority. With funding from the Liberal’s last budget, the new Secretariat for Relations with English-speaking Quebecers granted almost $8 million to organizations that provide services to English-speaking communities. In late March 2019, the initial Coalition Avenir Québec budget increased funding for the Secretariat from $3 million to $5.5 million for the next fiscal year.
With such fresh resources, QCGN and our members face a welcome but rather unfamiliar dilemma – managing growth. Our challenge is to ensure our community has a greater say in federal and provincial policies that determine how public funds are distributed to meet a complex matrix of community needs and objectives. At the same time, we must effectively manage this growth to benefit all sectors and regions, especially communities that have been underserved.
We will not be able to complete this important work without active input from our Network and community. The benchmark we have set is to make certain that government policies and programs are strongly linked to our shared priorities. These new resources must be strategically deployed to maximize growth and impact for English-speaking Quebecers.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS 2018-2019
From left to right: Clarence Bayne, Eva Ludvig, Christopher Neal, Mary-Ellen Beaulieu, Geoffrey Chambers, Stella Kennedy, Eric Maldoff, Elise Moser and Chad Bean. Missing from photo: Gerald Cutting, Linton Garner, Maureen Kiely, Joe Rabinovitch and Sharleen Sullivan.
Geoffrey Chambers,
President
Gerald Cutting,
Vice-President
Eva Ludvig,
Secretary
Joe Rabinovitch,
Treasurer
Christopher Neal
Chad Bean
Mary-Ellen Beaulieu
Stella Briand-Kennedy
Maureen Kiely
Dr. Clarence Bayne
Linton Garner
Eric Maldoff
Elise Moser
Sharleen Sullivan
NURTURING SUCCESS THROUGH INNOVATION
Almost 2,000 vulnerable youth, newcomers and seniors in English- speaking communities across Quebec welcomed a helping hand to find jobs, fight isolation, or learn new skills under the Community Innovation Fund. Flowing through the QCGN, $1 million of federal funding from the Social Partnership Initiative in Official Language Minority Communities – part of the Roadmap for Canada’s Official Languages 2013-2018: Education, Immigration, Communities – was invested in English-speaking Quebec.
We placed social innovation into action, with 10 outstanding projects. Each initiative has proven truly transformative in supporting members of our linguistic minority to find gainful employment and through this build community vitality. The federal funding also leveraged more than 290 new partnerships that generated some $650,000 of non-government funding and $670,000 of in-kind donations. A tremendous result. But that really is only a small part of the story. The many lives permanently changed for the better provide the most empowering measure of the Fund’s success.
Our year on the Federal front was packed with action, with a particular focus on the modernization of the Official Languages Act. The Act serves as the sole language-rights legislation to protect the interests of English-speaking Quebecers as a community. It frames such quasi-constitutional backstops as the right to access federal services in English and representation in the federal public service, while ensuring much-needed financial underpinning for the community’s institutions and networks. To ensure this modernization will better serve the interests of English-speaking Quebec and advance official languages in the years to come, we provided testimony to the House and Senate Standing Committees on Official Languages and consulted with the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages and the Minister responsible for Official Languages. We worked alongside our Francophone counterparts to ensure both linguistic minority communities would obtain a cohesive and desired outcome.
Some of our past work also come to fruition. In the fall, Official Languages Minister Mélanie Joly and Treasury Board President Scott Brison announced new Official Languages Regulations. These will help ensure and improve the delivery of services to Canadians in the official language of their choice. The regulations had last been updated in 1991; the QCGN was pleased that the consultation process during this review culminated in greater access and inclusion for our community.
We hosted Members of Parliament and Senators at our annual Parliament Hill event in November. This invariably provides a crucial forum for QCGN Board and Network members, as well as stakeholders, to raise and discuss our community’s needs and concerns with federal representatives from the main parties including most members of the House Official Languages Committee. We zeroed in the review and modernization of the Official Languages Act and the implementation of Canada’s Action Plan for Official Languages.
In addition to connecting and consulting with three dozen departments over the year, we met with various political parties to ensure English-speaking Quebec will not be forgotten during the fall 2019 federal election.
Our work with the province this year spanned two governments – the Liberals under Philippe Couillard and the Coalition Avenir Québec under François Legault. During our interactions with both, we stressed that English-speaking Quebecers must have an equal opportunity to fully participate in and contribute to the social, cultural, economic, and political life of Quebec.
Working with members and stakeholders in the spring and summer, QCGN developed a comprehensive electoral platform for the October 2018 election. It centred on issues specific to English- speaking Quebecers as members of a minority community including employment and economic security issues confronting our community and the virtual absence of English-speaking Quebecers in the provincial civil service. The platform provides an ambitious blueprint to move our Quebec government relations strategy forward.
The campaign provided English-speaking Quebecers with a victory – the first-ever televised leaders’ debate in English. Following the election, the Coalition Avenir Québec government honoured its pledge to maintain the Secretariat for Relations with English- speaking Quebecers. However, the QCGN and other community leaders have been unsuccessful in getting it to fully adhere to its mandate. Our longstanding request to be properly consulted on substantive issues that have real consequences for English-speaking Quebecers remains largely unanswered. While QCGN had meetings with the Premier and the Minister of Justice, Canadian Relations and the Canadian Francophonie, we continue to pursue constructive meetings with other key ministers and ministry officials.
Prior to the election, our community gained a strong voice on access to health and social services with the enactment of a long-awaited regulation that ensures our community has meaningful involvement in the creation of provincial and regional access committees. Our right to health and social services in our own language depends on the creation of proper access plans that spell out the services we can access. However, getting these committees and access plans in place has been an ongoing challenge. We will persist until this finally happens.
Another top concern is education. Early in 2019, QCGN joined with education sector members and stakeholders to halt plans to abolish our school boards with the creation Alliance for the Promotion of Public English-language Education in Quebec (APPELE-Québec). Our community has the constitutional right to control and manage our schools through democratically elected school boards. We maintain that Quebec must consult with our community prior to altering the character of our English-language institutions. This is a core issue for our community.
We cherish the opportunity to recognize and honour the lasting imprints of remarkable community leaders, with our Community Awards.
For our 10th edition of Sheila and Victor Goldbloom Distinguished Community Service Award, we celebrated Olga Melikoff and Murielle Parkes. More than a half-century ago, in partnership with the late Valerie Neale, they recognized that Quebec was changing and that English-language public education also needed to change to provide our next generations any chance of remaining and thriving in this province. This trio started a parent group on Montreal’s South Shore which gave birth to French Immersion. Their innovation blossomed, first across Quebec and then throughout the rest of Canada. These three helped forge linguistic duality into a defining characteristic of our nation.
We paid similar tribute to the vital, less public work of John Rae. Over many decades, he and his wife Phyllis have given tirelessly of their time, energy, experience, business acumen and financial support. Their broad philanthropy has quietly served to nurture and sustain hundreds of community organizations and individuals.
We recognized Hayley Campbell with the fourth Young Quebecers Leading the Way Award. This community dynamo’s record of accomplishment already encompasses active involvement and leadership in groups including Quebec 4-H, the Pontiac County Women’s Institute, the Shawville Fair and the Projet communautaire de Pierrefonds.
Inevitably, the march of time also brings us major losses. We grieve this year for three past Community Award winners claimed by death: Kevin Tierney, Robina Goodwin and Earl De La Perralle.
QCGN IN THE NEWS
175
News Reports
(+ 32%)
133
2016-2017
84
2015-2016
119
2014-2015
1,488
Press Releases
(+ 14.85%)
1,264
2017-2018
1,077
2016-2017
836
2015-2016
1,827
Interview Requests
(+ 18.25%)
1,588
2017-2018
1,339
2016-2017
1,127
2015-2016
1,264
Likes on Facebook
(+ 14.85%)
1,264
2017-18
1,077
2016-17
836
2015-16
QCGN.ca
(April 1, 2018 to March 21, 2019)
21,262
Number of unique visitors
1,953.66
Average Monthly Visitors