We are well aware of the idea of strengthening the public service's bilingual capacity, and we would like to see tangible results. However, we still find ourselves in situations where a certain number of senior officials, such as deputy ministers, take more than the two years allotted to reach an acceptable level of bilingualism for a position they already hold. I could even go further by talking about the duties that must be carried out by Canadian ambassadors, which to my knowledge, are often being carried out by unilingual anglophones. And yet, these people are supposed to represent Quebec and Canada equally. They are unable to speak the language of the Quebec nation. These things are of a great concern to me. I feel that there is a deficiency.
We received a document from Ms. Marie-France Kenny, from Saskatchewan, who is running for the presidency of the FCFA, la Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne. This ties into what I am talking about. Allow me to quote the following:
The new supervisor is indeed given four hours per week of language training. A supervisor would need at least five years and tens of thousands of dollars before reaching the necessary level, and during all this time, he or she is addressed in English.
She is talking about francophones. She continues by saying:
This is a sort of assimilation. He or she can only ask himself, why learn French when my staff is going to speak to me in English?
Doesn't this situation prove that a public servant is not free to express him or herself, and work in the language of his or her choice within the public service? We allow for a certain degree of leeway, by exempting senior state officials, deputy ministers, and others. If I want to be a doctor, I have to graduate from medicine. If I want to be a senior official, and I live in Canada, I should be bilingual. Otherwise, I will not get the job.
What is your response to this situation? Don't you think that there is still a flagrant lack of willpower within the public service that results in francophones being forced to speak English when they work in an environment that should allow them to speak French?