Evidence of meeting #39 for Official Languages in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was bilingual.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:30 a.m.
Bloc
Thierry St-Cyr Bloc Jeanne-Le Ber, QC
In other words, there is no deadline. The problem is not that the lawyer noticed five or ten minutes later that the document was in English.
9:30 a.m.
Executive Director, Office of the Executive Director, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
The objection must always be raised as soon as possible. If you are telling me that the objection was made five minutes later, it seems to me that it should be acceptable. Five months later is not.
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Steven Blaney
Thank you, Mr. St-Cyr.
Mr. Coakeley, you sent information and provided some statistics. Could you please send everything to our clerk? Not necessarily this morning, but later? The committee would like to make them available to committee members.
9:30 a.m.
Executive Director, Office of the Executive Director, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
Of course.
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to welcome all of our guests.
I want to change gears and talk about the IRB's human resources, the hiring situation.
Recently the IRB lost a legal bid to shut down some investigations into about a dozen appointments to its permanent staff. I'm sure you're aware of that situation.
9:35 a.m.
Executive Director, Office of the Executive Director, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
I am aware of the situation, yes.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
According to the Public Service Commission, the candidate was offered a conditional appointment with the requirement that they had to meet the official language requirement, I assume. This is probably a bilingual non-imperative position, maybe, or a bilingual imperative position but the person had to meet the language standards. Then, when the candidate failed to meet this level, after their second language test, the individual was appointed. In this case, merit was obviously not met.
How do you explain that?
9:35 a.m.
Executive Director, Office of the Executive Director, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
I'm not aware of the specifics. As you may be aware, the Public Service Commission conducted an audit on the IRB and they had a number of files where they had some concerns.
9:35 a.m.
Executive Director, Office of the Executive Director, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
In terms of ones where there were language concerns, I'm aware of the specifics of one instance—it happened here in the national capital region—where we hired an individual from another federal organization, but not an organization that's part of the core public service. The individual was rated bilingual at that institution and was offered a job at the IRB on the basis that he or she—I'm not sure if it was a man or woman, quite frankly—met the language requirements.
Then it became apparent that the language test they had passed at the other institution was not valid for public service purposes, that the only valid test is one administered by the Public Service Commission. The individual failed the Public Service Commission test, but by that point had quit his or her job at the other federal institution. The manager did downgrade the language requirements in order to allow the individual to take the job with the board.
That should not have happened. It happened before any of the four of us were at the Immigration and Refugee Board, but it should not have happened. I think what motivated the manager in that circumstance was the personal situation of the individual who had quit a job in good faith and then was caught by a requirement that we should have been aware of at the time, but had been....
Now, that individual is no longer with us, and the position has been filled with somebody who does meet the original language requirements.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
What has been put in place so that doesn't happen again?
9:35 a.m.
Executive Director, Office of the Executive Director, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
I'll let our DG of HR talk about that.
9:35 a.m.
Director General, Human Resources and Professional Development Branch, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
The PSC audit raised a number of points where we took the leadership in establishing policies, procedures, and tools for our HR advisers and managers, so that for every staffing action this would not occur again. We also do a quality assurance before an appointment is made to ensure that everything is compliant.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
Wouldn't it just be common sense that, if a person was going to a bilingual position, you'd test them in both official languages?
9:35 a.m.
Executive Director, Office of the Executive Director, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
A second-language evaluation in the public service is good for five years, I believe.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
9:35 a.m.
Executive Director, Office of the Executive Director, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
Yes, unless exempt.
This was the problem in this particular case. The individual had language exam results, but they were not Public Service Commission language results. They were from the other federal employer. There was confusion--there shouldn't have been, because the HR community should know this--around whether or not those results were valid.
But yes, within the public service it's quite clear: if you have a valid language result, you can be appointed. If you do not, then you need to have a valid language test before you can be appointed.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
Could someone on the panel here assure me that never, in future, will someone who doesn't meet the language qualifications be appointed to any position in the IRB? Can you make that commitment?
9:35 a.m.
Executive Director, Office of the Executive Director, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
I can commit to you that we have procedures in place that include, at the moment, 100% verification by an independent individual within the HR group who has not been involved in the staffing profile to that point. We currently have 100% checking of everything, of every single staffing action that we're doing.
But we're all human, so I don't think I would ever use the word “never” in that context.
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Conservative
9:35 a.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
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Executive Director, Office of the Executive Director, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
No.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
In one external non-advertised process, one of the essential qualifications was for the candidate to be bilingual. However, after language testing—you actually did the testing there—the employee failed to meet the essential requirement of the position and the manager downgraded the position.
Can somebody explain that?