Official Languages committee  Canadian Heritage and the Official Languages Secretariat are charged with the horizontal coordination and management of the road map, with the 14 or so partners involved. It's not the centre as part of the Treasury Board Secretariat that handles those functions. They've set out t

Official Languages committee  So we come back to our basic starting premise that individual departments are responsible—the deputy heads are responsible for the spending that occurs in their department. There is an audit and evaluation policy for the Government of Canada at large, so programs are subject to a

Official Languages committee  It's a fairly technical issue. I'd be glad to answer the question. Yes, numbers are provided. I think the first thing to ask, when we look back 40 years, is what progress has been achieved over that period of time. It was one of the fundamental goals of the Official Languages Ac

Official Languages committee  I might just add one point of interest. We do have the Sri Lankan delegation coming to Ottawa this week. They're meeting the Commissioner of Official Languages, our colleagues at Canadian Heritage, the Public Service Commission, and ourselves. They're very interested in the suc

Official Languages committee  Yes, of course. When we look at the reports that are submitted to us, we see that a management committee or inter-sectoral committee on official languages is a best practice. It raises the profile of official languages and makes it possible to establish plans to address certain a

Official Languages committee  I can speak to that. A basic distinction has to be drawn between the obligation to serve the public in both official languages where those offices are established and the regions that are designated bilingual for language-of-work purposes. The two do not always coincide. In the

Official Languages committee  Yes. We see that the Treasury Board, the Office of the Chief Officer, has identified a subject that we believe is important and that shows that we have asked that question and honestly reported the results obtained, which already demonstrates the usefulness of our annual report,

Official Languages committee  In the philosophy of human resource management in the public service, that is not our perception of the role we have. Our role is that of a leader that must make the departments, institutions, deputy ministers and official languages champions accountable. They have been informed

Official Languages committee  There may be emerging themes. We ensure that all are covered over three years. For example, at the time of the Vancouver Olympic Games, the selection of departments reflected the situation. We targeted to a greater degree institutions that had key roles to play in those events.

Official Languages committee  Generally, when we identify areas requiring attention in an annual report, such as that of 2010-2011, the first finding is that it is a horizontal issue. That means that we find this is a challenge that applies to a number of institutions. Our attention is horizontal as well. We

Official Languages committee  The training sessions that we offer are mainly based on an examination of that Treasury Board submissions guide. I am not convinced that we will be able to provide you with any other information because it is done orally. We give the analysts a more specific context.

Official Languages committee  We could send you those figures, but there has essentially been a gradual decline due to the refocusing of programs, cancellations or the fact that projects terminated. When funding disappeared, the figures changed.

Official Languages committee  Yes.

Official Languages committee  They mainly involve individual advice to institutions. We had portfolio specialists. The model was somewhat similar to what we have already heard, that is to say that the official languages officer in a department phoned the centres of excellence to get an answer to all his quest

Official Languages committee  Indeed. Now we provide horizontal information, and the official language officers are able to advise the deputy minister in their department.