Official Languages Committee on May 6th, 2008

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

So the public servant—

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Godin.

[Maria Barrados]

The managers are the ones who are responsible.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you very much, Mr. Godin.

We'll now turn to Michael Chong on the government side.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for appearing in front of our committee.

How many public servants have passed the tests and now have exemptions?

[Maria Barrados]

We gave you a handout that gave the numbers from April 2003 to 2007. We broke that down for the EX classification--the executive level--and the non-executive level. You see the numbers for the test taken in English and the test taken in French. The exemptions for the executives over that period of time are 51 for the test taken in English and 42 for the test taken in French. For the non-executives you have 5,967 tests taken in English and 1,625 tests taken in French.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

So how many public servants are exempt?

[Maria Barrados]

I'm not sure I can tell you that. Do we know that, Henry?

[Henry Edwards]

We would be able to find it out. I do not have it here.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

What percentage of the entire public service would that represent?

[Maria Barrados]

Well, you can see that these numbers are pretty small, but this is a four-year period of time.

You first have to have the analysis of how many are required to be bilingual, and the requirements to be bilingual are running at around--I'm going to get in trouble with these numbers--35% to 40%, depending on where you are. Then not everybody of that proportion has to do CBC, so the number goes down. Then, of that proportion, you have a very small number who are exempted. It's a very small number, but we can calculate an exact number for the committee.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

It would be useful to know both how many people are exempt and what percentage that represents of the overall employment in the public service.

I have another question. In this four-year survey there are approximately 19,000 people who were tested; of those tested, approximately 8,000 or so were exempted, so you have 11,000 people who were tested. It seems to me a low number, because my understanding is that you have to be tested every five years; in other words, we're testing about 2,500 or 3,000 people a year who are not exempted....

[Maria Barrados]

We'll have to come back with the exact numbers. We run about 20,000 to 25,000 tests in each one, so it's 75,000 tests a year. We do a lot of tests.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

What's this sheet we have here, then, that only has--

[Maria Barrados]

Well, this sheet talks only about level C--

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Oh, it's level C. I understand.

[Maria Barrados]

--and only about C level exemptions. The numbers of tests we do....

Of course, you can take it more than once, so if you don't pass, you can do it again.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Sure.

One of the things that jumped out at me when I looked at the results for the level C tests or higher is that the pass rate is quite low for the C level or higher. For EX positions, only 6% of all those who take the tests actually get their exemptions. These are executive level positions. I assume these are university graduates, if not people with secondary degrees, and only 6% or 7% of the entire crop of people who were tested actually received their exemptions--in other words, they're fluent enough in both official languages that they don't need to be tested again. It seems to me to be an awfully low number for the calibre and educational backgrounds of those at the EX level.

What have you done as an organization, and what have your peer organizations done, to talk to universities producing these graduates to ensure they are producing graduates who meet the requirements of the public service, especially at the EX level?

[Maria Barrados]

I'll just comment on the numbers.

When you look at the EX positions, really the francophones are much more likely to get the exemption than the anglophones, so what this is really saying is that at the executive level it's the anglophones who don't have--

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Yes, agreed; I look at the pass rate for anglophones and it's 3%. In other words, only three out of a hundred people who are in the executive level of government actually pass the proficiency test to be exempt in the second language. These are people with a lot of educational background--with a minimum of, I would assume, a bachelor's degree--and yet only three in a hundred can pass one of the basic tests in the Government of Canada.

Again, what has your organization done over the years, and what have your colleagues in other organizations done, to liaise with universities to tell them they're not producing the graduates we need for executive level positions in the Government of Canada?

[Maria Barrados]

The good news is that it's better when you look at the non-executive ranks. This is an opportunity for new people coming in.

We have been quite active, actually, with the official languages action plan. I'll get Mr. Lemaire to talk a little bit more about that plan and about some of the things we've gone. We have done a lot of outreach. We have established a lot of networks. We have done a lot of work providing information about what is required. The C level is determined to be the level that is sufficient to function. We're not asking for the exemption. The exemption means being very fluent. But we've explained what the levels are and have had a lot of outreach and contact with the universities.

Do you want to add to that, Donald?

[Donald Lemaire]

We did a lot of demystification of what the levels of bilingualism mean, because when we were in some regions, they thought that you had to speak perfect French or English in the other regions to be considered bilingual. So we did a video with examples to show people what the A, B, and C levels mean. That was quite useful, because then it kind of brought more reality to what they are.

We are doing other work. You asked about other agencies. At the school--the Canada School of Public Service--they have a DM champion, a deputy minister champion, for the universities. We had a meeting and we discussed this issue with about 20 universities: what do they do to highlight to their students that to work for the federal government it is important to be bilingual? We had a discussion also with Simon Fraser University. They have put in place a program so that those who graduate from immersion have a place to go to university to pursue it. We're going there to do presentations for their students. They have an agreement with Laval.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you.

I have just one final point—just a point, not a question—for the committee.

I want to thank the witnesses for their answers and for coming here today.

This is just a point for the committee. We're looking at approximately 42 plus 1,625. So there are approximately 1,700 people who have an exemption. Now, that's out of approximately 18,000 people who actually receive the C level. I think you mentioned earlier that it was closer to 75,000. If you take 1,700 people who received an exemption out of a total of 75,000 tested, you're looking at an exemption rate of probably 2% or so, which is quite low.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Exactly.

Thank you, Mr. Chong.

[Maria Barrados]

Mr. Chairman, could I add a clarification?

Remember, the requirement is C, so an executive is required to have a C, and that is a sufficient level to function. The exemption just says, okay, you've done so well that you don't have to be tested again.