Official Languages Committee on May 9th, 2013

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

How do you determine whether a file has been closed?

If the person can't get service in French, what's going to change all of a sudden that the person will be able to get service in French? I'm assuming it's English Canada.

[Graham Fraser]

There is a particular process that the branch goes through to determine that a file is completed.

Ghislaine, do you want to explain it in more detail?

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Go ahead, Madame Charlebois, and then we're going to go to Monsieur Trottier.

[Ghislaine Charlebois]

Well, the role of the commissioner is to determine if the complaint is founded or not, and then he can make recommendations. That's usually how the process is finalized.

We also have what we call the facilitated resolution process, where we will not determine if the complaint is founded, but we will try to find a solution to the satisfaction of the complainant. We work with the federal institution. If they commit to resolve the situation or put some measures in place, and we're satisfied, we can close the file at that time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Trottier, go ahead.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for joining us today.

I have a question about the estimates. Two major activities are involved—the protection of language rights and the promotion of linguistic duality—in addition to internal services. Does the protection consist of investigations, while the promotion consists of audits and studies?

[Graham Fraser]

Audits are part of the protection component. Complaint investigations, which come under audits, are also part of protection, as are our legal division's activities.

Promotion activities include communications, statements, policies, visits, trips I make to official language minority communities, publications and studies.

So studies are part of promotion, while audits are part of protection.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Promotion is an important aspect of your work. I assume that you receive and respond to requests to attend conferences in language communities across the country.

[Graham Fraser]

Yes, I make about 50 appearances a year.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

How are decisions related to studies made? How do you establish priorities among the numerous options?

[Graham Fraser]

It is part of the discussions we hold regularly. Mr. Giguère and his team suggest priorities for studies, and we discuss them at our executive committee.

Mr. Giguère, could you go into more detail on that?

[Sylvain Giguère, Assistant Commissioner, Policy and Communications Branch, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages]

In fact, we appeal to everyone internally and even externally, for study proposals. We can collect about 20 or 30 ideas for very interesting studies. We filter these ideas, which is in fact a framework for the studies. After that, there may be about 10 left. Obviously, since we do not have the capacity to do 10 or so studies in one or two years, the executive committee has to choose two or three studies per year.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Are the studies sometimes chosen based on the number of complaints you receive?

[Graham Fraser]

Not necessarily. It is often part of our discussions on our strategic planning and priorities that we are going to establish for a three-year strategic plan.

Based on our consultations with the community, we will sometimes make a decision or defer it. For example, at some point, we might have had the idea to do a study on a certain aspect that affected the anglophone community in Quebec. Based on what we heard, that community did not think it was appropriate at that time, whereas the anglophone community is now more open to us doing a study on the problem of seniors within that community.

Therefore, if a study affects the communities, we hold consultations. We do not want to impose anything that does not meet the community's needs.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Do you think you have the resources you need to undertake studies that fall under your mandate?

[Graham Fraser]

There are always strategic choices to be made. We would always like to do more. Given the current budget constraints, I think we are still managing to do relevant work on research and studies.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

I have a question about your offices. In addition to the office in the National Capital Region, you have five regional offices: one in Montreal, one in Toronto, one in Moncton, one in Winnipeg and one in Edmonton. What do these regional offices do? How many employees are there in those offices?

[Graham Fraser]

There are about 25 employees in the offices across Canada. They work mostly on promotion.

The role of the offices in the regions has evolved. My predecessor raised a problem with investigators in the regions investigating complaints. It was a fairness issue, in the sense that the investigators were living in the communities and were investigating federal institutions. There was a perception of bias for the community. So, my predecessor decided that people should not conduct investigations in their own regions.

Therefore, we made some changes to our ombudsman role. We are in the process of focusing the role of people in the regions on promotion. It is true that we may wonder why these investigators are in the regions when they are not conducting investigations in the regions. However, I should say that the contribution of these people is enormous. We did not change our minds overnight that these people should no longer work. There are people who contribute enormously, even though they are in the regions.

It is a transition toward using these offices for promotion with federal institutions and the community.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Trottier.

Mr. Chisu.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much, Commissioner, for your presentation. It was excellent.

I have a couple of small questions. First, in your presentation you said that the Office of the Commissioner “has a budget of $23.9 million to support it in its mandate for 2013-14. This amount includes $15.1 million in salaries, or 72% of the main budget.” When you go through the programs, $6.5 million is for protection of language rights, $6.7 million for promotion of linguistic duality, and internal services is another $6.7 million. That is not adding up to $23 million; it's much more.

I understand that you are speaking about the programs, but you are making this statement on the salaries of $15.1 million, or 72%. Can you explain this difference?

[Graham Fraser]

Yes. The salaries are not separate from the activities to the extent that if the bulk of the expense an analyst incurs doing an investigation is that analyst's salary, and similarly for somebody who is working on a study or doing parliamentary relations....

We do not have program costs in the same way that a department has program costs. We don't operate programs. We don't fund programs in the community. The bulk of our expenses are salary costs of people responding to complaints and people doing their work.

Nancy, do you want to elaborate on what the other 30% is?

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

You have 72%, which is $15.1 million for salaries, only the salaries. What about the other 28%?

[Nancy Premdas, Assistant Commissioner, Corporate Management Branch, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages]

The other percentage is used to run the programs and run the office.

For example, the next-biggest investment for the office in terms of its budget is in professional services. We use those professional services for internal services purposes, whether we need to do a threat and risk analysis for the office or we need to develop new policies to comply with Treasury Board requirements, for example.

But it's also to run the office: paper, staplers, photocopiers, that kind of material. As well, there are aspects such as travel and hospitality related to conferences, or when we have meetings.

That's what the other percentage covers.

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

Okay.

When you established the three programs—protection of language rights, promotion of linguistic duality, and internal services—you made them basically each 30%.

Can you explain a little bit more about internal services, and about what you mean by internal services? I understand the program for the protection of language rights. It's a very important issue. The promotion of linguistic duality is also very important.

But internal services, is it the expenses of your offices?