Official Languages Committee on Nov. 4th, 2010

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Thank you very much.

I will give the remainder of my time to my colleague Richard Nadeau.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you.

There is the matter of third parties. The vast majority of departments, federal agencies and crown corporations have difficulty understanding their official language responsibilities. Just imagine what will happen when their responsibilities are transferred to third parties.

Have you already looked into this issue, or do you plan to? Heaven knows just how many third parties do business with the government. I will give you a very recent example. I have just come back from Newfoundland and Labrador where last weekend I attended the annual general meeting of the Fédération des francophones de Terre-Neuve et du Labrador. If we are talking about third parties, at the Ottawa airport, the McDonald-Cartier airport, I could lodge a complaint every 15 minutes just going from one company to another.

Will you do an in-depth analysis of this situation and come back to us on the matter so that we can put the heat on the federal government again to consider official languages when it transfers responsibilities?

[Graham Fraser]

In fact, one of the aspects that we will be taking a close look at is the whole issue of the traveling public and third parties and companies that are tenants in airports. When we audited the Stanfield International Airport in Halifax, one of the things we learned is that the airport authorities themselves have not grasped their responsibilities under the Official Languages Act. This is a matter that I raised with the Treasury Board, in that the Treasury Board is often slow to communicate with airports once they have exceeded the threshold of 1 million passengers per year, that is to say when an airport in Canada receives 1 million passengers per year. Once that happens, these airports have linguistic obligations. However, they have to understand that these obligations have to be communicated. Otherwise, it is understandable that the people in an airport such as the Saskatoon airport, the John G. Diefenbaker International Airport in Saskatoon, are having problems. They must understand that they now have linguistic obligations. The authorities also have to tell passengers what their linguistic rights are.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you very much.

[Graham Fraser]

So this is something that we will be taking a closer look at.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you very much.

We are now starting our fifth and final round, with three-minute interventions this time.

Mrs. Zarac, you will begin again.

[Lise Zarac, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to go back to the issue of complaints. I agree with you that a number of factors can have an impact on this issue. An employee who complains about the same thing every year will finally stop complaining if the matter is not resolved. However, the complaint still reflects the situation.

When you do your audits, when you receive complaints, I would assume that you forward them to the appropriate services and institutions. Have the people who receive these complaints from you established a process to deal with where the complaints come from and how to resolve them? In other words, have they established a system that enables us to analyze complaints of that kind, determine which corrective steps are required, take measurable steps, implement solutions and then measure results? Has that been done? If you want to rectify a problem, a process like that needs to be in place.

[Graham Fraser]

I will ask Ms. Charlebois to explain in greater detail the entire process that we currently follow when a complaint is filed with us.

[Lise Zarac, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Thank you.

[Ghislaine Charlebois]

As you know, we have implemented a new way of dealing with complaints called the facilitated resolution process. If the complainant agrees to use this process and the institution agrees to try and find a solution to the problem, we adopt this process. Normally, we try to speak directly to the people involved in the problem.

In addition, instead of going solely through the official languages coordinators within the institutions, we try to deal with the managers responsible for the units where the problems are occurring. In cases where we decide on an official investigation, a notice of intent is sent directly to the deputy minister by the commissioner. The process is somewhat more official.

As regards the reduction in the number of complaints, it is perhaps important to point out that, in many institutions, the official languages champions are increasingly engaged and active. Resolutions are adopted informally within those institutions. That may partially explain the reduction in complaints. It is positive, though we cannot confirm it. We have requested that the champions sit on executive committees. So they participate directly in decision-making at a high level, which surely yields results.

[Lise Zarac, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

If I understand correctly, you deal with a certain percentage of complaints directly.

[Ghislaine Charlebois]

What do you mean?

[Lise Zarac, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

I mean that you come up with a solution to these complaints. Is that the case?

[Ghislaine Charlebois]

Actually, we work with the institution to find a solution that satisfies the complainant.

[Lise Zarac, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

What do you do if the situation happens again?

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

I am sorry, but your time is up. Thank you very much.

Mr. Nadeau, you have the floor.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Senator Chaput's Bill S-220 is currently before the Senate. Its mandatory remedial nature is being talked about because of the pressures to assimilate faced by communities, especially in predominantly minority communities, demographically and linguistically, in the provinces in question.

A study entitled "Vision d'avenir" was conducted by the Fédération de la jeunesse canadienne-française and led by Roger Bernard, who is unfortunately no longer with us today. If I remember correctly, that was in 1990. In keeping with the objective of the exercise, the study traced the ethnolinguistic reality of francophone communities at the time. Since then, unfortunately, our communities have continued to be adversely affected by assimilation.

Mr. Commissioner, under your mandate, can you examine studies of that kind that suggest potential solutions and remedies? That would probably require additional funds or efforts, although they are very few and far between in many places in the federal government. That way, the wording of the act regarding the vitality—and not the assimilation—of minority linguistic communities would have some meaning.

Can you delve into that aspect? Earlier on, we talked about third parties. I think that is another aspect that affects minority communities more.

[Graham Fraser]

I believe that Senator Chaput's bill is a very important initiative. It specifically deals with the difficulties arising from a purely mathematical approach to service delivery in minority official language communities.

I will ask Mrs. Tremblay to elaborate on this for you.

[Johane Tremblay]

In recent years, the commissioner's office has conducted three studies on the vitality of communities. It did so in close cooperation with various communities in the regions. We looked at indicators of vitality, but by encouraging communities to establish their own priorities, in other words what could contribute to their vitality. That is another way of looking at questions similar to the ones that were studied in 1990.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Nadeau.

Mr. Godin, go ahead.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

With all due respect, Mr. Commissioner, I believe that you are aware that, on October 20, I sent a letter to the Minister of National Defence and I cc'ed your office. In that letter, I asked the Department of National Defence to preserve the General Jean V. Allard Memorial Library at the Saint Jean Garrison and its 85,000 documents. Eighty-five thousand documents, and they want to close the library. A senior public affairs officer at National Defence said that the library was useless.

Do you think it is useless for an organization of 3,000 people, like that one, to have a library?

[Graham Fraser]

First of all, I am a big fan of libraries and bookstores as well. I must start by saying that we have received several complaints, so I must limit my comments.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

That was my next question. Does my letter, and the copy that I sent to you, constitute a complaint?

[Graham Fraser]

We treated it like a complaint, and we received others as well. You are not the only one to be worried. I hope that I am not breaking the rules by saying this. I was concerned by the closure of the Royal Military College of Saint-Jean in 1995, and I was happy that the government decided to turn it into a local CEGEP campus. I was told that it was just the start of a process to strengthen that approach. So it makes me wonder.

I will refrain from making any further comments, since we are investigating the decision. I thank the member for his letter, which we are indeed treating as a complaint.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

I want to share something with you, Mr. Commissioner. When the previous government transferred staff from the Royal Military College of Saint-Jean to Kingston, everyone was disappointed with the decision, the francophone community was disappointed. When the college reopened, we said to ourselves that the government was doing a good job, and since it likes to boast about doing a good job, we congratulated it.

Now, is the only library in Canada to close its doors one belonging to a French institution?