Mr. Caron, page 27 of the report refers to writing. It states that, at all 16 of the organizations that the commissioner examined closely—and that includes yours—employees' ability to write in the official language of their choice left much to be desired. They were unable to get a good mark in that area. That really troubles me.
I am the member for the constituency of Gatineau; Mr. Bélanger is a member in the Ottawa region. Many francophones live there. We're talking here about 138,000 Government of Canada employees. Obviously a number of them are at your organization. These people are entitled to work in their language. However, people who are very supportive and respectful of their language, French, have stopped writing for their supervisors in French because people look at them funny. In addition, their supervisors send their work for translation and it occasionally comes back to the person who originally wrote it in French, to see whether the translation has been well done. The two versions regularly are slightly different, and in some instances the subtleties of certain aspects have disappeared.
Are you aware of the fact that these francophones write in English most of the time to avoid problems with their bosses?
Are your employees encouraged and invited to write in the official language of their choice? We agree that it's always French that suffers in these situations.