Official Languages Committee on March 26th, 2013

[Marie-France Kenny]

Do you want to tackle that one first?

[Stephen Thompson]

It's a creative level of vagueness.

I think big ideas are often legislated in vague terms. The Constitution Act, 1982 was not specific in a number of things. That's why we have the Supreme Court. It's why the law develops and it's why the law is flexible. Flexibility is something that certainly characterizes the Canadian discussion.

The principle that the bill represents, that parliamentarians have a right to work in English and French, and that English and French have equality in their use in this institution, is what we support. That supports linguistic duality. The QCGN is behind that. Anything that expands upon that is a good thing. Anything that is retrograde from that is a bad thing. It's a pretty simple position.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

I see.

[Marie-France Kenny]

I agree completely with what my colleague has just said. The idea is to ensure, in a bilingual country like ours, that representation in Parliament is increasingly bilingual. The scope must not be narrowed, but rather, broadened. If to achieve that we have to maintain this creative vagueness, well then, so be it. The idea is to ensure that we meet the needs better and better. As I said before, I am happy about that.

Government follows government, term after term, and generally, parliamentarians do not agree on broad principles. But in this case, I was literally jumping for joy in my living room when I found out that they agreed on the principles of this bill.

In fact, I must congratulate you on that.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

We are all going to accept the congratulations. Thank you very much.

Concerning the chairs of the CRTC and CBC, is it conceivable that they not be bilingual? Do we really need a law? You are going to answer yes because there is an unfortunate precedent with the Auditor General. That is probably what is going to shape your reply, but I would like to hear from both of you, Mr. Thompson and Ms. Kenny.

[Marie-France Kenny]

I am to appear soon before the CRTC. I want to be understood by the chair of the CRTC. The chair of the CRTC, who explains decisions to Canadians, must do so in both languages. By the same token, if the president of our national English- and French-language broadcaster could not communicate in both official languages, to me that would be absurd. I would not want him to speak only French, either. I expect him or her not to be a unilingual English-speaker, to be able to communicate orally in both languages, and to make himself understood by Canadian citizens.

The appointment of the last Auditor General is absurd. It seemed self-evident to me that they were going to appoint a bilingual person. In saying that, I do not wish to detract in any way from Mr. Ferguson's other competencies.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

Mr. Thompson or Mr. Shea.

[James Shea]

Well, I think the principle of that is very clear with our position, that senior positions be bilingual. Personally, I think Radio-Canada/CBC is truly Canada, so I would like to find a reason why it would not be a bilingual position.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Mr. Chisu, you have the floor.

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

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

I would like to ask you a question about Bill C-419. What, in your opinion, is the necessity of introducing this bill? It should be something natural in our country. We are a bilingual country. Why do we need additional bills when we have these rights in the Constitution and so on?

Maybe you could tell me why, in your opinion, this bill needed to be introduced, and it is a good one; I'm not telling you that it's not a good one.

[Marie-France Kenny]

I'll answer that one in English. I'm a translator, but as my colleague said, as good as translators are, it never does justice to the person or the emotion.

I would like to believe that it's not necessary. I would. I sincerely would. Until we had the nomination of a unilingual general...a vérificateur général—

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

You are talking about the Auditor General.

[Marie-France Kenny]

I'm a translator, but I couldn't figure out that word.

For me, it just made common sense that the person would be bilingual. So what is the risk, then, in terms of trying to find the next person, and then creating an interim...? We have that risk. It happened. I'm still without an auditor general who can speak to me in my language during a French interview on Radio-Canada. I'm still without that a year and a half later.

For me, it just makes common sense, I agree; but we ran into this. It happened.

If it's not in a law, what's my guarantee that it won't happen again for another key position, and another one? Governments change and things happen. As good as all our intentions are here, what's to say that it won't happen again 10 years down the road?

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

I'm bilingual, not in French and English, but in different languages, and I know what it means. You will never, ever be perfectly proficient in the two languages. I can tell you that my mother tongue is a different language, and I'm not proficient in my mother tongue.

Do people in our country have the opportunity to improve their language skills? Take the vérificateur général; can he improve his skills? If he doesn't perform in a language at a certain level, you should say, “Thank you very much and goodbye. Unfortunately, your services are not required anymore.”

Should we give him the chance to learn to speak the other language?

[Marie-France Kenny]

We're not asking for perfection. I'm fluent in four languages, including English and French, and I think my English is pretty good, although I couldn't say “auditor” two minutes ago.

We're not asking for perfection. I want to be able to understand, I want to be able to be understood. That's all we're asking.

There is a difference between starting from scratch and trying to build. I was in charge of language training for a federal crown corporation. It doesn't take a year. When you have a key position within government, your learning curve is very high and very steep without the language, so imagine adding a language.

You can't learn a language in one year. It's hard to do even full time so imagine when it's only a fraction of your time. I think these are unrealistic expectations. I think we put very high demands on Mr. Ferguson by putting him in that position, and I don't think it was fair to him or to the Canadian population.

[Stephen Thompson]

I think we called for something a little stronger. I think linguistic duality is a core value, or it is not.

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Absolutely.

[Stephen Thompson]

If it is a core value then it is a job requirement to be able to speak in both of Canada's official languages without the aid of an interpreter to do your job. That's it.

It's not about getting along; it's not about being able to say “hello”; it's not about being able to communicate at a basic oral level at a cocktail party. For people at the positions listed in the bill, it's the ability to listen, to read, to understand the academic work that's coming out in your field of specialization in both official languages from all the Canadian universities and beyond. It's to be able to be a leader in your field at those levels, and you can't do that unless you have a fairly integral grasp of the other official language.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you.

Mr. O'Toole.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Thank you, Madame Kenny. Your response to some of the questions and your presentation raised a new question.

The federal civil service does language assessments in the development of its leaders. We talked earlier about scores in proficiency levels whether it's A, B, C, and in the past they were numeric. Should that not be hard-baked right into this law?

Instead of a reference to someone who can understand without the assistance of an interpreter, which is currently in the bill, should we not bake in the federal government's own proficiency standards to assess the level required for the 10 positions?

[Marie-France Kenny]

I'll speak from experience as a person responsible for official languages and language training in a crown corporation that is not subjected to the CBC levels. We had our own rating level.

What's important here is whether you can perform your job in both official languages. If I were hiring an IT person, my interview with this person would be strictly IT based. I would pretend I was a caller calling to get information from the help desk. I needed help with something. If the person couldn't answer in both official languages, then they were not at the proficiency level that we wanted. We want advanced level, not expert, which is equivalent, I believe, to the C level within the public service.

We're not asking for somebody....You know, I make mistakes when I speak English. I still do interviews in English, and people still understand me. It's the ability to be understood and to understand. I still say “air” instead of “hair”, but people understand when I speak, and that's what we're asking. That, I believe, requires the C proficiency level.

Should it be built in? If you think it's necessary, but at the very minimum we should say that they should be advanced in their own field of expertise. If we're looking for an auditor general, they should be able to explain processes and whatever in both official languages.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Many candidates I would imagine for the 10 positions.... As Mr. Trottier specified, some of the positions are not technically officers of Parliament, but many of those people would be coming from within the civil service. Some might already have a language profile, but any candidate would be required to meet the CCC profile.

Would your group find that to be an acceptable measure within the bill for the 10 positions?

[Marie-France Kenny]

If they are at the C level, I think that's totally acceptable. That's what we're looking for, somebody who can converse in their field of expertise in both official languages, somebody who can understand in both official languages in their field of expertise at the C level, advanced.

[Stephen Thompson]

Our position on that would be to ask what benefit it would be to get managerial in an act of Parliament. What you're trying to do here is operationalize a value, which is linguistic duality. By putting a specific limit on it, what you're in effect saying is that you're limiting the value. We're saying that this is a core Canadian value, but only this much. I'm not sure how useful that is. The language now used in the bill, which speaks of being able to function without an interpreter, is broad enough that it gives you some flexibility in implementation. If you want to get managerial and specific, maybe that would be a question of implementation and regulation. I'm not sure it's best placed in the legislation itself.