Official Languages Committee on Feb. 1st, 2011

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

On your website, there is a corporate business plan which sets out your operational goals and objectives for the next fiscal year, identifies the strategies that will allow you to achieve them and provides for the necessary resources. There is also the annual report, with an assessment of the agency's main activities and financial results for the previous fiscal year.

Now, the Commissioner has made his rounds, and I want to commend him for that. I recently heard a senator make comments to the effect that the Commissioner should not be using taxpayers' money to promote official languages. Personally, I believe that is his mandate, that he was appointed for that purpose, and that he is doing a good job by identifying weaknesses in the different plans and reports.

Could you talk about official languages as addressed in your corporate business plan and annual report?

[Christine Desloges]

In our annual report both last year and this year, we deal with official languages. I can assure you that in our upcoming business plan, there will be a significant emphasis on official languages.

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

That's great.

You talked about your 34 offices scattered across the country, but you did not talk about Canada Post. Canada Post now has certain responsibilities towards Passport Canada. Do you audit the service provided by Canada Post with respect to official languages? If not, do you intend to do so? Have you received any complaints?

[Christine Desloges]

We have entered into an agreement with Canada Post and Service Canada for delivery of our services in 200 service points across Canada. Our memoranda of understanding include a clause on official languages in both cases.

In the case of Service Canada, there is also a complaint management process. If clients complain, there is a well-established process to be followed. I can tell you that we have not received any complaints with respect to Canada Post in the last two years.

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

I don't understand how you could not have received any complaints. It may be because people complain directly to Canada Post, because I know that people are complaining about bilingual service at Canada Post. That agency does receive complaints. Now that it also offers passport service, there must be complaints coming in. Does Passport Canada carry out any follow-up in that regard, to ensure that the terms of the agreement with respect to official languages are being met?

[Christine Desloges]

That is part of our action plan and will be part of our activities in the coming year.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Godin.

That completes the first part of our meeting. We will suspend the sitting for a few minutes so that these witnesses can leave and our new witnesses have a chance to settle in.

Thank you for being with us today. I also want to thank you for your work. My office makes frequent use of your services.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Good morning to you all. I think we will get started immediately, since time is a precious commodity.

We move now to the second part of our meeting. I would like to welcome officials from the Department of Public Works and Government Services, PWGSC. We will be hearing today from the Deputy Minister and Deputy Receiver General for Canada, Mr. François Guimont. Welcome to the committee, Mr. Guimont. With him today are the Assistant Deputy Minister, Ms. Diane Lorenzato, the Chief Executive Officer of the Translation Bureau, Ms. Francine Kennedy, and Mr. Marc Olivier, Manager of the Linguistic Services Division at the Translation Bureau. You will be making both an oral and visual presentation.

Without any further ado, I invite you to make your presentation.

[Royal Galipeau, Conservative, Ottawa—Orléans, ON]

Mr. Chairman, I received the English version of this presentation, but not the French.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

We will be sure you have the presentation in the language of your choice, Mr. Galipeau.

[Royal Galipeau, Conservative, Ottawa—Orléans, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

All right, that's fine.

We can begin then.

[François Guimont, Deputy Minister, Deputy Receiver General for Canada, Department of Public Works and Government Services]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to be with you today as Deputy Minister of Public Works and Government Services, and to have this opportunity to convey my pride in our progress in meeting our official languages goals, and to describe our continuing efforts to improve our performance.

I am here today with Diane Lorenzato, Assistant Deputy Minister of Human Resources, and Francine Kennedy, Chief Executive Officer of the Translation Bureau.

First of all I want to say how pleased we were to have sustained a good overall score in the Commissioner's most recent report. We acknowledge, however, that there are areas where we still have work to do.

We put a heavy emphasis on getting the fundamentals right at Public Works and Government Services. This means focusing on our key functions and having the tools to do them well on a daily basis, whether it's acquisition, real property, compensation, linguistic services, or our many other services. I want to assure the members present that we absolutely regard official languages as fundamental to our work.

We believe in continuous improvement, and our success is due to leadership, engagement, the right policies, and a clear set of deliverables with defined actions and timeframes attached.

Quite simply, official languages are part and parcel of governance. I know that's a substantial claim to make, but consider the following.

We have an official languages governance committee. Members of the official languages governance committee also act as a network of departmental official languages ambassadors. Our strategic plan for 2011-2014 will continue to advance the tremendous momentum achieved under the 2008-2010 plan.

Official languages are part of discussions at my management committee table and part of the departmental dashboard. The dashboard is a key instrument to track performance indicators and progress related to various initiatives led by Public Works and Government Services.

In addition to the ambassadors from the governance committee, Public Works has dedicated two champions to official languages at the assistant deputy minister level. Consistent with our ambitious dual focus on promoting official languages, both within the department and externally to the general public, one champion works to enhance bilingual services delivery and one to promote linguistic duality and the vitality of official languages minority communities.

The department also has a policy on official languages comprised of guidelines on four aspects of our approach: the use of official languages for communications with and services to the public; language of work; official languages for human resources management; and promotion of linguistic duality, support to official languages minority communities, and the preparation of Treasury Board submissions.

As indicated by our good overall grade in the Commissioner's report, we have undertaken a number of effective initiatives to promote the use of both official languages in service delivery and as an attribute of the workplace.

We acknowledge, however, that more work is required to achieve equitable participation of Anglophone Quebeckers. We are committed to achieving this through the following approaches.

We have recently begun to use networks established by an organization that speaks for the Anglophone community to promote employment opportunities in the region. We hope to promote job opportunities within other networks of organizations representing the Anglophone community.

We hope to better target professional association job fairs and those organized by Anglophone colleges and universities, in partnership with the Public Service Commission.

We are maximizing our use of the Post-secondary Coop/Internship Program to recruit students in Anglophone universities, followed by our student bridging mechanism.

We have started to promote job opportunities in Anglophone newspapers and employment websites, such as Workopolis.

We are making maximum use of the Youth Employment Services special project to support Anglophone youth from different regions of Quebec who are interested in moving to Montreal.

We'll also be making maximum use of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada programs, such as Canada Summer Jobs, Skills Link and Youth Awareness, in order to promote career possibilities within PWGSC to Quebec Anglophones.

Finally, we are promoting PWGSC as an employer through 23 Community Learning Centres, which are an initiative of the Quebec English-speaking community.

We support second-language acquisition and retention via an agreement with the Canada School of Public Service to provide language training to employees within the National Capital Region. This agreement is supported by the departmental language training policy, and helps us to build a bilingual organizational culture.

The department has been celebrating Linguistic Duality Week since 2007. We are very proud to have been the first federal department to organize an event of this magnitude, and to have led the way on this public service initiative.

As part of our action plan, PWGSC disseminates an electronic newsletter called Dialogue, which is devoted to official languages issues. Launched in 2007, Dialogue covers contemporary official languages issues, while providing staff with games and exercises to engage their interest in and improve their mastery of their second language.

The Translation Bureau is heavily involved in the promotion of linguistic duality through the Language Portal of Canada, launched in 2009. The Portal is a forum where all Canadians, including provinces and territories, share thoughts, ideas and best practices in both official languages.

Another Translation Bureau initiative, the Canadian Language Sector Enhancement Program, supports the training of a skilled linguistic workforce. To encourage students to adopt careers in translation and interpretation, the program provides post-secondary scholarships in these disciplines. The program also helps post-secondary institutions to attract, retain and graduate students in these subjects. Assistance is also provided to the language industry, in the areas of promotion, training, innovation and language technologies.

The department is determined to keep improving its services in both official languages, including the active offer. To that end, we have developed and distributed a kit to help employees recognize their roles and responsibilities and to make the active offer part of our work culture.

We are very proud of the A we earned for the development of official languages in minority communities and promotion of linguistic duality through the 2007 creation of the Public Works and Government Services Official Languages Minority Community Secretariat and the work of our office of small and medium-sized enterprises, targeting official languages minority communities throughout Canada, including Quebec's English-speaking minority. I trust you will agree that this reflects a significant commitment of energy and resources in support of our official languages goal. We hold Canada's linguistic duality as a central organizational value and work tirelessly to make it part of the culture of the department.

Thank you for your attention. My colleague will now give you a short presentation on the Language Portal of Canada, after which I look forward to taking your questions.

[Marc Olivier, Manager, Translation Bureau, Linguistic Services Division, Department of Public Works and Government Services]

Good morning. It's my pleasure to introduce you to the Portail linguistique du Canada and its English equivalent, the Language Portal of Canada.

The objectives of the portal are to disseminate and promote language products developed in Canada, to share and enhance Canadian linguistic expertise and to help Canadians communicate in the country's two official languages.

The English equivalent of the language portal is called the Language Portal of Canada. The two sites are not absolutely identical, given the fact that linguistic needs and resources differ from one language to the next.

Let's start in English with the section called “Headlines”, where the users can read every week different and interesting articles. As an example, this week we had an article called “Canadian students shine”. You'll be happy to learn that out of half a million teens tested in over 70 countries, Canadians ranked sixth in reading. If you want to know more about the articles, you click on the link.

On the French side, there are also five or six headlines every week. For example, there is an interesting head line this week on the history of the French-speaking coast of Newfoundland, told using a needlework tapestry. It's quite interesting, if you're interested in knowing more about the subject. Once again, you click on the link for more information.

Because the portal is a Canada-wide project, we currently benefit from the cooperation of ten or so organizations that help to enrich the portal's content, particularly the Canadian Association of Immersion Teachers.

If you check under “From Our Contributors”, you'll find “Cultural Immersion”, an article signed by a member of the Canadian Association of Immersion Teachers. If I switch to French, I'll also get the article but in French this time.

I am back at the home page now. Under the section “Discover”, you will find more than 1,500 hyperlink that take you to different interesting sites that have to do with languages in Canada. They are divided into seven categories, including “Language Professions”. Someone wanting to secure more information or register for a course in terminology or translation can find the necessary information there.

Another quick way of finding useful links is to use the map of Canada. For example, if I click on the Province of New Brunswick, I immediately see a list of helpful resources if I live in that province, or if I'm interested in what is going on there with respect to languages.

The same list exists in English also.

Coming back to the home page, I will now show you Termium Plus, the second-largest terminology bank in the world, with over four million terms in English and French and 200,000 terms in Spanish.

So, if I type “changement climatique”

and I want to know how to say “changement climatique” in English, I just click on French to English and there I will find the English equivalent of “changement climatique”, which is “climatic change” or “climate change”. You also have the Spanish equivalent.

If you go right down under Termium Plus, you'll find 15 writing tools, some in English, some in French.

For example, on the French side, there is a very popular tool called ConjugArt, which is the equivalent of the French Bescherelle. It gives you the conjugation of almost 8,000 verbs in French. I can give you an example. If I type “courir”, I automatically get the conjugation of the verb in every tense.

I'll come back to the portal.

Every week, we also have the tip of the week. Is the expression “widow of the late” redundant? Should we say only “widow” or “widow of the late”? You click on the articles and you'll find out if you're supposed to say “the late” or just “widow”. I would only say “widow”.

Now I'm back at the webpage of the French site.

We also have the “Flash Quiz”. Every day there is a different question. Today the question is: “The library reminds us to keep quiet”. You can choose a), b), or c). You say c)? Congratulations, that's the right answer.

We can also try to answer the question in English.

Flash quiz: Montgomery's sequel to Anne of Green Gables was called?

[An hon. member]

Anne of Avonlea.

[Marc Olivier]

You guys are really good.

That's an example of one of the games. There are 100 or more other games under the heading “Quizzes”. There are all kinds of them and they deal with Canadian expressions, grammar and syntax. There are also 50 or more games on the French side.

So, that is what the Language Portal of Canada is all about. If you are interested in obtaining more information, you can take the guided tour of the portal, which allows you to access video clips that introduce the different sections of the portal.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you very much, Mr. Olivier.

I am glad to know that I can go to your site and have the lesson I missed on past participles.

We are going to move now to Ms. Zarac.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good morning and congratulations on your website. It is really great. It would be so much easier to be able to manage everything that way. With the right translation, you really can switch back and forth from one language to the other.

You received good grades from the Commissioner of Official Languages. We just met with officials from an agency who were telling us that they would like to set up a network of official languages champions. Since you present yourselves as leaders, I was wondering if you have already done something similar—in other words, engaged in discussions with officials from other departments to exchange best practices.

[François Guimont]

That's interesting. I was saying in my opening comments that in my department, we put a heavy emphasis on getting the fundamentals right, as they say in English. And here, we really are talking about the core business of the department. With the management team, I want us to be the best just about everywhere. And, if possible, although that is not always the case, I would like it to be everywhere.

In terms of official languages, we are very satisfied. It reflects the efforts we have made. Very often, when I'm talking to my managers, I ask how we compare to the other departments in terms of our financial position or the way we manage official languages, for example. I tend to ask people to check out what is being done in the other departments, to retain the best practices and to import them into our own.

I have to admit that we did not do that in a proactive manner. On the other hand, I'm certain that we established contacts, in terms of proactively spreading the good news; I'm not really involved in that side of things. It's not as though we had actually set up a network, but we certainly would never refuse to help people.

I will ask Ms. Lorenzato to add her own comments.

[Diane Lorenzato, Assistant Deputy Minister, Human Resources Branch, Department of Public Works and Government Services]

In fact, we are part of two networks: the Network of Official Languages Champions—Ms. Kennedy is our ambassador—and the program management network. So, in terms of human resources, people working in official languages meet on a regular basis, via e-mail or actual meetings, to discuss best practices.

We also have the Human Resources Council, which serves to promote best practices. Often we put departmental best practices up on the GCPEDIA site so that other departments that may be having trouble can take advantage of them. So, that network is in place and it's simply a matter of getting involved and participating actively to benefit from the work that others are doing.

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

Thank you.

For active offer, you have a good rating. When it comes to in-person active offer, however, your score is not so good. And you are not the only ones. Looking at all the different departments and agencies that were observed, that is where there is some weakness.

I have just found out that the rules for determining the percentage of bilingual staff are set by the Treasury Board.

First of all, what is your target? Do you really achieve it? Secondly, if you do, do these targets really reflect actual needs?

[Diane Lorenzato]

I will start with position identification. I'd like to explain how Public Works went about this. We reviewed 14,000 positions in the department over the course of the last year, to determine in which positions employees are in contact with the public and what the appropriate level of bilingualism is for these positions. We have now completed that exercise. Certain positions have been revised upwards, while others have been revised downwards. Our objective is for all positions where employees are in contact with the public to be bilingual. And that exercise has now been completed.

We then looked at the bilingualism level of the current incumbents of those positions. We determined that, at this time, the people on the front line providing service do have the required level.

One exercise that is needed involves changing the culture, so that it becomes natural, in terms of active offer, to greet people in both languages. For telephone service, I believe we received a rating of 80%. So, it's natural to greet people with: “Bonjour, hello, good morning”. However, in person, even though we have visual signs, such as one stating that we provide services in both languages, employees often tend to only answer in their own language. So we have developed a kit to equip our employees with written texts, scripts, and so on, to help them develop that reflex and thereby change the culture.

Now we have only just distributed our kit. And we have just received our rating, which is 50%. This is one of the areas where we will really be trying to work with employees over the next few months to develop their spontaneity in terms of addressing a client in both languages.

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

So, to answer my other question, you do not rely on the targets set by Treasury Board.

[Diane Lorenzato]

No.

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

You base yourselves on your own survey.