Official Languages Committee on Dec. 14th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to this 38th meeting of the Standing Committee on Official Languages. Most of our members managed to get here this morning despite the particularly harsh winter conditions. Winter is here.

However, the weather did not prevent the Deputy Minister from Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Neil Yeates, from arriving on time. Welcome, Mr. Yeates. He is accompanied by Les Linklater, Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic and Program Policy, and champion for official languages. We have had the pleasure of having him with us in the past. With them is Claudette Deschênes, Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations.

Is this your first visit to this committee, Ms. Deschênes?

[Claudette Deschênes, Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

It is my first time at this committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Welcome.

Without further ado, I invite you to make your opening statement. We will then move on to questions from the members.

Mr. Yeates.

[Neil Yeates, Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for inviting me and my colleagues to speak with you today.

Mr. Chair, CIC strives to reach beyond its Official Languages Act obligations to ensure that both official languages groups feel respected across Canada. This applies to official languages groups within our department's workplace, as well as the broader public.

While CIC received an overall score of "C" in the commissioner's 2010 Annual Report, the department is committed to improving our rating, and work is under way to address the issues that require further attention.

For example, we have already addressed the commissioner's concerns regarding the six complaints we received about the lack of spoken French at citizenship ceremonies. And I am pleased to report to the committee today that all six of these complaints have been resolved.

CIC recognizes, however, that there are areas where we still need to improve.

I would like to focus now on the commissioner's concerns regarding part IV of the act, which deals with service delivery, and what we are doing to address them.

While CIC obtained an excellent result of 100% for providing an active offer of service in both official languages over the telephone, I wish to address what we believe are perhaps some inaccurate observations made regarding our level of service in French.

The commissioner's office found that CIC's automated telephone service asks anglophones to continue waiting, whereas francophones are told that services are not available at the moment and should call back later. The commissioner therefore concluded that francophones could obtain services in French from our national call centre only 29% of the time.

Mr. Chair, this is not possible. In fact, CIC's automated system is unable to distinguish the language of the caller, and it will only accept a certain number of calls at any one time. Once the system has reached that limit, it will inform all callers to call back later, regardless of their chosen language.

When the system has reached its limit, the caller receives the following automated message:

Toutes nos lignes sont présentement occupées. Il nous est impossible d'acheminer votre appel à un agent du télécentre. Notez que les journées les moins occupées sont le jeudi et le vendredi. Votre appel sera maintenant réacheminé vers notre service téléphonique interactif.

We then repeat the message in English:

All our lines are currently busy. Your call cannot be transferred to a Call Centre agent. Note that our least busy days are Thursday and Friday. Your call will now be transferred to our interactive phone service.

Differences in access would only occur due to the time at which the call was made or due to the number of other callers waiting in the queue. As a result, we believe that these requests for French service cited in the commissioner's report occurred during very high-volume periods at the call centre. We will be following up with the commissioner's office regarding this issue and the observations they have made.

I would also note that all of our call centre agents are appointed to their positions in the regions at the imperative CBC level, and they are ready to serve the public in the language of their choice. Since CIC's system cannot differentiate between the language of the callers waiting in the queue, and since our agents are not assigned to respond in a particular language, every agent is able to provide services in the chosen language of the caller.

Regarding our service to the public in person, the commissioner found that CIC staff provided an active offer in 56% of the cases when an applicant visited a CIC office in person.

I would like to note that this rating varied regionally, and I will work with senior management to ensure our services are offered in both official languages at our offices across the country.

Moreover, CIC is currently examining strategies to improve the ability of all of our employees to serve the public in both official languages. CIC also promotes the use of both languages in the workplace. For example, CIC holds an annual official languages campaign to remind employees of their Official Languages Act responsibilities.

Finally, I also wish to note that CIC received an A for its implementation of parts VI and VII of the act. It was for ensuring the participation of both language groups in our institution and for our efforts to help strengthen linguistic duality in Canadian society.

CIC is committed to support francophone minority communities through immigration. As you know, Mr. Chair, the work we do in this area requires working with many partners. That is why, in 2002, the department created the CIC - Francophone Minority Communities Steering Committee.

The committee brings together federal departments and agencies, provinces and territories, and community representatives to foster immigration to francophone minority communities.

In September 2006, the committee launched the strategic plan to foster immigration to francophone minority communities. A key goal of this plan is to increase the number of French-speaking immigrants settling outside of Quebec to 4.4% by 2023, with a mid-term target of 1.8% by 2013, to match the percentage of Canadians outside Quebec whose mother tongue is French, based on the 2001 census.

This timeline reflects the challenges of recruiting French-speaking immigrants to settle outside of Quebec.

Given these challenges, CIC has intensified promotional programs to encourage potential immigrants and students to come to francophone minority communities in Canada and to inform them of the services available.

An example of this is Destination Canada, our major promotional and recruitment event held in November in Paris and Brussels, which attracted over 2,500 people.

In closing, I wish to reiterate that CIC is committed to ensuring our obligations are fulfilled under the Official Languages Act, and we will work to improve our results in the commissioner's 2012 report card.

We would be happy to respond to your questions now.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Yeates.

We will start the first round with Mr. Bélanger.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, Mr. Yeates, Ms. Deschênes and Mr. Linklater. You are aware of the committee report the Chair tabled in the House last week?

[Les Linklater, Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic and Program Policy, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

Yes.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Have you read it? Have you taken note of it?

[Neil Yeates]

I can start off, Chair.

Yes, we have taken an initial look at it. We've looked at the recommendations. Quite a number of them apply to CIC. We'll be looking at those quite carefully as we build our own plans going into next year and the following years.

We think there are a number of very relevant recommendations made there, and we need to think through the implications of those for us.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

We can expect a very thorough and complete response, then.

[Neil Yeates]

We will certainly do our best. We'll be tabling a response, I believe, in March, when it's due. But yes, we take it very seriously, certainly, and we'll do as good a job as we can.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

How did you reach the 1.8%?

[Neil Yeates]

It's a challenge. As members probably know, we're working quite hard with minority community organizations and provinces and territories, in terms of both specific recruitment activities and settlement and integration services, because part of the challenge is keeping people in communities. Even if they settle there originally, we worry about secondary migration. So we need to focus quite hard on efforts to integrate people once they arrive.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Can you give me a sense of the consultations your department held with the communities to reach that target?

[Neil Yeates]

Sure.

I'll ask Les to speak to that, because Les is chairing that process.

[Les Linklater]

As you know, we have set up a steering committee with the francophone and Acadian communities across the country. Every year at least, at a very high level, we set our priorities for the coming year with all the community representatives. We have set a number of priorities with the communities. The 4.4% and 1.8% targets for French-speaking immigrants are in our work plan.

We feel that the key tool is the Destination Canada event that takes place every year in Europe. It involves the provinces, the territories—

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Linklater, why is it that the FCFA, the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada, which is the umbrella organization representing francophone communities, says it was not consulted on this 1.8% target?

[Les Linklater]

We are working with the FCFA. Obviously, if our strategic plan changes, we have to discuss those changes with the representatives of the federation. In my opinion, the department has a very good relationship with the FCFA. I met yesterday with Mr. Arnal to discuss the next steps for 2011 in terms of our work with the federation. I believe that even if we had communication problems, the door would still be open to having a very frank dialogue and raising questions.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Can you help me understand how your personal objectives are set as deputy minister--by whom and how?

[Neil Yeates]

In general, Chair, I provide suggestions to the clerk in terms of what I think need to be objectives every year, based in part on what the minister is asked to do. And that feeds into a process with the clerk. The clerk provides any additional feedback or input that he or she thinks is relevant, and then that's used for annual performance review purposes.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

I presume those are not publicly available documents.

[Neil Yeates]

No.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Okay, but you are allowed to talk about them.

Do official languages figure in these personal objectives?

[Neil Yeates]

Yes, they do, in the broad sense that part of our obligation to the clerk is to advance the agenda of public service renewal, which includes a whole series of actions and work, including official languages.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

And in establishing those, do you have methods of measuring the success or the levels of results achieved?