Official Languages Committee on Feb. 9th, 2011

[Shannon Gullberg]

Correct.

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

Do you also follow up on complaints?

[Shannon Gullberg]

Correct.

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

Can you also table a report about a particular complaint?

[Shannon Gullberg]

You could. You certainly could file a special report. I did that because the one area, when I did a bit of an historical overview of files, not just the files I dealt with.... Because I really didn't receive that many complaints.

But if you were to look historically at the kinds of comments you'd hear if you were doing a presentation, health care was huge—

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

Yes.

[Shannon Gullberg]

—so I did a special report on health care.

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

And those are all accessible through the government website?

[Shannon Gullberg]

They are.

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

Thank you.

What's the budget of the commissioner's office?

[Sarah Jerome]

It's about $240,000.

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

And the staff?

[Sarah Jerome]

Well, there's me, as the languages commissioner, and there's my legal adviser, Shannon, who is part-time. I also have an admin assistant in Inuvik, who is part-time, and another admin assistant here in Yellowknife when and as needed.

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

There's an area that intrigues me a bit, and I want to see if I can understand it. Is there a category of public service employees or positions that are deemed bilingual?

[Shannon Gullberg]

Yes, there are certain positions where you would have to be bilingual. There's a competency test if you wanted—

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

In that case, which of the languages are we talking about?

[Shannon Gullberg]

It would depend. For example, if you were looking for a job at Stanton Territorial Hospital, there are interpreters or translators there. You would have to—

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

Here's what I'm trying to understand. Are there bilingual positions that are English and French, or English and an aboriginal language, or are there trilingual positions?

[Shannon Gullberg]

I don't know if there are any trilingual positions, but there are certainly bilingual positions. There's also a bilingual bonus that—

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

English and French?

[Shannon Gullberg]

English and French, for staff--

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

Would you know if this is something the commissioner has had to look at in terms of determining or helping to determine or reviewing the number of bilingual positions that are in the territorial public service?

[Shannon Gullberg]

Sorry, can you say that again?

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

There are, I'm told, 4,700 public servants in the Northwest Territories. Would you have stats on how many of those are deemed to be bilingual positions?

[Shannon Gullberg]

That could be obtained.