Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, honourable members of Parliament, it is my pleasure to be here today to speak to you about how we are addressing the concerns raised and to describe the steps that we are taking to improve service in both official languages at our missions abroad.
Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada is committed to promoting Canada's linguistic duality, communicating with and serving the public in Canada and abroad in both official languages and to creating and maintaining a work environment conducive to the effective use of English and French so that our staff feel comfortable using the language of their choice.
We recognize bilingualism as an important component in Canada's international relations and would like to take this opportunity to assure this committee that the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade is devoting great efforts to promoting linguistic duality. As the face of Canada abroad, DFAIT takes these issues regarding service in French at some of our missions seriously.
Allow me to first take the opportunity to tell you about some of the positive practices we've had in place for many years to ensure provision of bilingual service.
We ensure that Canadians are served worldwide at any hour of the day, 24 hours a day and seven days a week, by providing visitors to our missions with contact information for the Consular Operations Centre, which is staffed by fully bilingual employees.
Our public servant heads of mission are bilingual, and we operate on the principle that no Canadian employee is assigned abroad without first meeting the required level of bilingualism or taking the necessary training.
Prior to being posted, all heads of mission receive awareness training on their official language responsibilities. This includes a specific section in their head of mission manual on their responsibilities as heads of mission in ensuring the delivery of services in both of our official languages. Once at the mission, the heads of mission take steps to raise awareness regarding the importance of linguistic duality by regularly communicating to all staff on the need to ensure that an active offer of bilingual services is made at all times. This responsibility is part of their annual performance management agreement.
All of our locally engaged staff are instructed to provide active offer of service in both official languages to all visitors to our missions. Every effort is made to recruit locally engaged staff who speak both English and French. However, in some countries it is a challenge to recruit locally engaged staff who are fluently bilingual in both official languages. Locally engaged staff who are not fluently bilingual are instructed to always refer visitors to a Canada-based employee or to a locally engaged employee who is able to provide bilingual service.
The department also regularly conducts audits which include a review of the provision of bilingual services at missions. Questions asked during an audit are, for example, explain the mission’s capacity to serve the public in both official languages. They are asked whether they have an official languages coordinator, if training is available for Canada-based and locally engaged staff, whether reception services, signage and phone messages are offered in both languages. If an audit reveals deficiencies, the head of mission will rectify the situation.
Canada-based staff and locally engaged staff have access to online official language courses via Campusdirect at the Canada School of Public Service. These courses are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and many missions offer official language training to their locally engaged staff. I'd be happy to give you some examples of that later on.
The department also offers a specialized course to locally engaged staff receptionists, our front line of interaction with the public. This course is designed to sensitize them to Canada's linguistic duality. The program is called “Introduction to Canadian Society and Culture”, and it includes a session on bilingualism in Canada and the requirement to make an active offer of service. All groups that come to Ottawa have the opportunity to spend two weeks in our National Capital Region's bilingual environment.
Last fall, the department held a leadership conference that brought together 350 senior officials from headquarters. Our heads of mission also joined by phone. On that occasion, we were pleased to welcome the Commissioner of Official Languages, who gave a speech on the critical role played by our department in the promotion of Canada’s linguistic duality in the world. He effectively sensitized our executive cadre on the pivotal role they each have to fulfill that commitment. He will return to address our executive committee next month, on December 20.
Last February, DFAIT made numerous efforts to ensure that Canada showed an exemplary level of bilingualism in its activities at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. For example, all promotional products related to the 2010 Reasons to Do Business program were in both official languages. We have already started to focus on ensuring linguistic duality during the Pan American and Parapan Games which will take place in the Toronto region in July and August of 2015. We will do our part to ensure that Canada demonstrates an exemplary level of bilingualism. Our staff, promotional products, signage, key messages and speeches will be bilingual.
I'd now like to address the issues regarding service in French at some of our missions that were raised during Mr. Graham Fraser's presentation to the standing committee on November 4, 2010, and I'd like to thank you for bringing those issues to our attention.
We communicated immediately with the missions identified and asked them to look into the situation. We have discovered, and it's been brought to my attention, that at one mission, in London, a document was returned to a client in the wrong official language. In another, during the absence of the consul and vice-consul for meetings and consular emergencies, an active offer of service may not have been offered by locally engaged staff. This was in Kampala. Elsewhere, visitors might not have been served in French in Bogotá and Santo Domingo.
Again, thank you for bringing those cases to our attention.
We have responded by directing these missions to implement corrective measures immediately to ensure that this does not happen again. As a preventive measure, all missions will be asked to provide employees who deal with the public with a glossary of basic French terms and phrases. Management will be asked to regularly remind all employees, especially replacements for reception, about the tools at their disposal and the importance of locating a French-speaking employee should a visitor require service in French. And we will increase the signage that indicates that we offer bilingual services.
To reinforce these measures, we will ask managers to conduct a regular verification of active offer of service and to meet with all staff to discuss the importance of providing an active offer of bilingual service at all times. They will review procedures with staff to ensure that all employees understand the steps to be followed. Supervisors will be responsible for monitoring the situation regularly and for reinforcing the procedures during staff meetings.
I'd also like to take this opportunity to address the recent report card that the department received from the Commissioner of Official Languages. As you know, our department was one of the 16 institutions that received a report card this year.
We're taking this feedback very seriously indeed. We've been reviewing the results and will continue to work in close collaboration with the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages to take the necessary remedial action.
Noted areas of strength were the overall management of the official languages program; awareness sessions for all staff at all levels; an integrated system for monitoring, including official language performance at missions; and promotion of linguistic duality by celebrating
the Journée internationale de la Francophonie.
We are also a member of the Implementation Committee of Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s 2006-2011 Strategic Plan to foster immigration to francophone minority communities.
Through the Speakers Program, DFAIT officials made several outreach efforts to be in contact with the official language minority communities in order to promote our mandate, priorities, programs and services.
To address the areas requiring improvement, we are finalizing a three-year Results-Based Action Plan 2010-2013, related to the official language minority communities, that is to say Part VII of the Official Languages Act. We have also struck a senior-level committee to look at issues related to francophone employees, such as promotion, language of work and so on.
My colleague Roxanne Dubé is here with me today. She is our official languages champion and co-chair of the committee I just referred to.
We have also established a network of official languages coordinators representing headquarters, regions and all our missions abroad and we hold quarterly meetings which are chaired by the official languages champion, Roxanne Dubé.
In closing, I would like to say that we are well aware that there is still work to be done. We would like to assure the committee that we will pursue initiatives already underway and continue to evaluate how we can improve and raise awareness at our missions abroad.
We are prepared to answer your questions. Thank you very much.
