Evidence of meeting #18 for Official Languages in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was languages.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
Vic Toews Conservative Provencher, MB
I'm also led to believe that Manitoba French is not the same as Quebec French, and that causes some issues.
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
Vic Toews Conservative Provencher, MB
I'm certainly willing to listen to any recommendations you have in that respect. I think there has to be some standardization of language if people are going to communicate in that language across the country, and therefore the public service has a role to play in that. I'm not an expert in linguistics, but there have to be certain standards.
9:55 a.m.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
I understand, but if you take somebody out of Lamèque and they have to come to work here in Ottawa, maybe you could question it, but a person in Lamèque who gives a letter to a person in Lamèque, I don't think he has to learn the French of France to be able to give the letter to the person in Lamèque. That's what you have to look at--or even the anglophone.
If you have somebody working in a Canada Post office for 20 years, and he was good for 20 years, but that person applies for a new job, and they say, no, your bilingualism is not good enough--it was good for 20 years, but the way we have your test, we're going to fail you because the test comes from Ottawa--I think it's something to look at.
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
Vic Toews Conservative Provencher, MB
I think it's an interesting observation that for certain local conditions there should perhaps be some flexibility in how the language--
10 a.m.
Conservative
Vic Toews Conservative Provencher, MB
I'm not familiar with why that would change, but I'll certainly have my officials look into that. If there's something that can be done to ensure it can be accommodated without sacrificing the principle of linguistic duality in official languages here, I would certainly encourage the responsible stakeholders to take a look at it.
10 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Lise Zarac
Thank you, Mr. Godin.
As you have mentioned that you need to go at 10 o'clock, I would like at this moment to thank you for being here. As you can see, the committee had lots of concerns following the visit of the Commissioner of Official Languages. He also mentioned his concerns, so it was very important for our committee to have you. I want to thank you.
10 a.m.
Conservative
Vic Toews Conservative Provencher, MB
Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to be here, and I enjoyed it very much.
10 a.m.
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
10:05 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Lise Zarac
We will resume our work.
We will now welcome Ms. Louise Racine, Acting Director General, Official Languages. Good morning, Ms. Racine. Thank you for joining us.
We will now begin our third round. If the committee is in agreement, I would like to ask a question. If you want me to change seats, I can do so. May I ask a question? Would you agree, to than Ms. Glover?
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB
Yes, providing that you do not launch into an attack like the others did.
10:05 a.m.
Liberal
10:05 a.m.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
Madam Chair, I would like to make a point of order.
Earlier, it was said that the opposition should respect the minister. I did not understand Ms. Glover's comment. Could she explain what she meant?
10:05 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Lise Zarac
That is not a point of order, Mr. Godin.
I would like to continue our meeting in a respectful fashion without making any attacks. The witnesses are here and we would like them to give us answers. I would invite everyone to cooperate and to ask their questions.
I would like to read a passage from the Official Language Commissioner's report:
While the Prime Minister and the Minister for Official Languages repeated their commitment to linguistic duality several times, the government has, in fact, directly undermined the Action Plan over the past year. By eliminating the Official Languages Innovation Fund, a key component of the Action Plan, the government has adversely affected the Plan's objectives. This Fund, as mentioned previously, financed projects aimed at improving the quality of services offered by the public service.
How do we ensure the quality of services provided by the public service by cancelling two of the three initiatives of the action plan, leaving only one initiative in place?
10:05 a.m.
Chief Human Resources Officer, Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
Madam Chair, when implementing projects, programs and initiatives, we often take advantage of best practices and re-allocate the funding in order to focus on those components deemed to be the most significant.
For example, in order to support official language communities in a minority situation, we have, in the Roadmap, put quite a lot of emphasis on health, education, access to economic development, etc. With respect to the activities in the public service, the departments were able to benefit from the innovation initiative, take the best practices and apply them to their own organization, in accordance with their own requirements and mandate. We were able to learn some very good lessons from this initiative, and the government chose to focus on components that were given more priority in the Roadmap.
10:05 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Lise Zarac
We are anticipating a decrease in the number of bilingual candidates graduating from Canadian universities. How are you going to be able to staff bilingual positions without providing language training at the start of the individual's career?
10:05 a.m.
Chief Human Resources Officer, Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
The departments are working on this issue in several ways. We are currently working with Canadian universities to again increase awareness of our recruiting needs and job opportunities in the federal public service.
We have university champions, deputy ministers who are responsible for interacting directly with the universities throughout the country. For example, the Public Service School set up a pilot project to work directly with certain universities and to strengthen the use of its tools to prepare graduates hoping to be hired in these positions.
Furthermore, as the minister stated, we are actively participating in job and career fairs held in Canadian universities. The organizations are also responsible for providing language training.
We, the federal institutions, have the reports produced by the organizations and which must also indicate the amounts of money spent on language training. So we can total the amounts spent, which is quite a lot of money. As far as the core public administration is concerned, I believe about 52 to $53 million is spent per year.
10:10 a.m.
Liberal
10:10 a.m.
Chief Human Resources Officer, Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
To my knowledge, the Canada School of Public Service pilot project will be carried out over four or five years. It is one of the initiatives indicated in the Roadmap.
10:10 a.m.
Liberal
10:10 a.m.
Chief Human Resources Officer, Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
I am referring to the Roadmap.
10:10 a.m.
Conservative
Royal Galipeau Conservative Ottawa—Orléans, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I have been involved in advocating for the rights of official languages in a minority situation for more than 40 years. I was there when the Official Languages Act was established. I have observed the work of this committee throughout all this time.
About 10 years ago, I was part of the staff who assisted the committee chair. I never witnessed the partisanship and fanaticism that I've seen here this morning.
I must tell you that 40 years ago, things were very difficult, because people objected to the very concept of official languages. They did this in a very disgraceful manner. Right now, we have reached a point where we need to get things back on track, and we can do this better using honey as opposed to vinegar.
As for the issue that concerns me this morning—