Evidence of meeting #39 for Official Languages in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was bilingual.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Executive Director, Office of the Executive Director, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
No, the Canada Border Services Agency detains those people. Here's an example that's in the news at the moment. The 492 people who came by boat to the west coast are all presently housed in correctional centres in British Columbia. In this case, given the number of people, we decided together with those in charge of the provincial centres to set up hearing rooms on the premises of the provincial facilities in order to review the detentions.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
So you are the ones conducting the hearings, not third parties.
Executive Director, Office of the Executive Director, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
Yes, we are the ones.
Executive Director, Office of the Executive Director, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
We do it 48 hours after detention, then seven days later, and again every 30 days.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
In the last 12 months, have there been complaints made to the Commissioner of Official Languages?
Director General, Human Resources and Professional Development Branch, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
Yes, we had two. One of them was resolved. As to the other one, we provided the Commissioner of Official Languages with the information, and we are waiting for an answer.
Director General, Human Resources and Professional Development Branch, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
I can tell you that from 2008 to 2010, we had nine complaints in total. We can compare this with the public service as a whole, where, for the same period of time, there were 600 to 700 complaints per year. An average of three complaints per year out of 600 is less than 1%.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
I had another topic, but perhaps I may not have time to get into it. You provided us with statistics on the number of bilingual commissioners. The Privy Council and cabinet are responsible for the appointments, aren't they?
Executive Director, Office of the Executive Director, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
Not necessarily. At the Refugee Protection Division and the Immigration Appeal Division, they are appointed by the Governor in Council. At the Immigration Division, they are public servants. The figures I gave you cover all three groups.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Okay.
How do you ensure that language needs are taken into account when you have to fill positions?
Executive Director, Office of the Executive Director, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
When positions have to be filled in a region, the chair communicates with the minister and specifies what our needs are in terms of language or in terms of gender equality. We tell the minister what our needs are. Then it is up to the Governor in Council to make the appointments.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Steven Blaney
Thank you, Mr. Bélanger.
We continue with Mr. St-Cyr.
Welcome to the committee, Mr. St-Cyr.
Bloc
Thierry St-Cyr Bloc Jeanne-Le Ber, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
You will agree that I had the opportunity to meet with people from the IRB on many occasions at the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.
I am a bit surprised to hear you say that things are actually going very well and that there are no problems with the use of official languages. Personally, I will focus mainly on the use of French in Montreal. A number of articles in the media have criticized the situation. There are a number of cases and instances of recourse where lawyers had to appeal to the Federal Court, which did not agree with them. You are right to say that the Federal Court has not ruled in favour of French in Montreal. Honestly, there's nothing to be proud of in winning this legal war against the use of French in Montreal.
Your theoretical speech notwithstanding, in practice and in reality, that's not what is happening and that is not what we see on the ground. For example, you are saying that, from the outset, people can freely choose the language of proceedings they want to use. Yet, in Montreal, I had the opportunity to talk to people who went through this process and they told me that they were never asked in which language they wanted to proceed. For example, if a person does not speak French, almost automatically, the official checks the "English" box without asking for the person’s opinion.
You are also telling us that it is possible to ask for the language of proceedings to be changed. There was a well-known case. It is probably the one you were referring to when you talked about the Federal Court. The claimant made the request to change the language of proceedings before the investigation actually began, and they refused to translate the documents. So that did not happen when the documents were submitted, but when the documents were produced. And in Montreal, most of the documents are produced in English first. In fact, there is no practical way for someone to have the documents translated in French in time for their hearing, if they were produced in English first. Is that not so?
Executive Director, Office of the Executive Director, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
I will ask my senior general counsel to give you an answer because legal issues are involved.
Sylvia Cox-Duquette Senior General Counsel, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
Just to be clear, I think you are talking about Mr. Bolanos Blanco's case that went to the Federal Court. You are right, there was a change in the language of proceedings. The commissioner granted the change in the language of proceedings.
Senior General Counsel, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
Yes, yes.
You are right, he refused the request of Mr. Bolanos Blanco's lawyer to translate once again all the documents that had already been presented, when the hearing was conducted in English. Just to draw your attention to the legal issue at stake, I should add that neither the charter nor the Official Languages Act deals with documentary evidence, as everyone here knows.
Having said that, the board has rules that require the minister to submit the documentary evidence in the language of proceedings chosen by the subject. However, when there is a change in the language of proceedings and the documents have already been submitted in one of the official languages, it is not required and it is not an obligation—and the Federal Court agreed with us—to translate again...
Bloc
Thierry St-Cyr Bloc Jeanne-Le Ber, QC
I will interrupt you because I am well aware of that.
Since we are talking about the Bolanos case, I want you to know that the request was made before the hearings even started, right at the beginning of the process. It was impossible to request a change in the language of proceedings, since Mr. Bolanos was never asked what his language preference was. Right at the beginning of the process, the request was made to change the language of proceedings, and they said it was too late. If it's already too late to make the request at the beginning, when is it a good time to request a change? Before a lawyer is even involved in the case?
Senior General Counsel, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
I believe the Federal Court had a different perspective. If you take a look at the Bolanos Blanco case, you will see that the court was of the opinion that Mr. Bolanos Blanco did indicate his language of choice and it wasn't the Canada Border Services Agency that chose the language or anything like that. Precisely...
Bloc
Thierry St-Cyr Bloc Jeanne-Le Ber, QC
Those are not Mr. Bolanos' claims. I don't want to dwell too much on these legal details. You won the legal war. I am not questioning that. I'm questioning the relevance of paying lawyers instead of just proceeding in French in Montreal, the way they probably proceed in English in Toronto. There is no reason why, when someone speaks neither English nor French, we should pick a language over another for them. If the decision is to start in English and, before the actual hearing, a lawyer asks that the evidence be translated into French, I think it is legitimate to proceed... This is the spirit of the official languages. You can win in the Federal Court, that's not surprising at all under our federal system. But I don't think that's the idea behind it.
Executive Director, Office of the Executive Director, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
The language issue is dealt with. You have the excerpts that were given to the clerk.
All our three divisions have rules that actually address the issue of the language of choice. They clearly indicate that it is up to the subject to choose the language of communication and inform the board as soon as possible. This is included in the personal information form used by the Refugee Protection Division.
I must admit there was some confusion in the Blanco case. We also gave the clerk a copy of a memo that was distributed to all the employees and decision makers of the board. That happened to fall on June 24, 2009. We did not choose that day deliberately.
The memo gave very clear instructions to everyone at the board on how they must handle a request to change the language of communication, whether before the hearing or during the hearing.
We agree there was some confusion.
Bloc
Thierry St-Cyr Bloc Jeanne-Le Ber, QC
All right.
Based on the new instructions, when is the evidence considered to be tabled? Is it when the documents are produced or when they are submitted for the hearing?
If it is when the agency writes them, the change in procedure is worthless because the agency has already written them in English anyway. They are told that it's too bad, that the documents are already in English and that they can request a change in procedure, but there will be no translation. When a lawyer makes a request before the proceedings even begin, that seems to be as soon as possible to me.
We have still had cases in court recently where bilingual files were submitted. The language of proceedings is either French or English. It cannot be both.
Clearly, there is the reverse process where the rules are adapted to the reality that people at the agency work mainly in English.