Official Languages Committee on Feb. 17th, 2011

[Diane Jacovella]

Are you talking about performance bonuses?

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

Yes. I am talking about performance bonuses. Did performance bonuses go down this year?

[Sheila Tenasco-Banerjee]

It is in the departmental envelope. Everything is evaluated for each sector, for each executive.

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

What I'm trying to get is whether there is a link made between this kind of evaluation and the

English term for "performance bonus" and

bonuses that your executives get?

[Margaret Biggs]

This would be taken into account in the performance review of all executives, because it is carried in their performance contract.

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

Okay, so this was evaluated for last year. Are you telling me that the bonuses last year were less than the year before?

[Margaret Biggs]

No. I'm sorry; I'm not saying that. I'm not trying to be difficult. I'm not sure....

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

I'm trying to find out, since the Official Languages Act of Canada is a quasi-constitutional law that has been in effect since 1969, and since you have a terrible report card from the official languages commissioner, whether or not that had an impact on the bonuses paid to the executives of CIDA. That's a fairly straightforward question.

[Margaret Biggs]

This report came out a few months ago, and this would be taken into account in next year's report. When you go through the notes and the ratings, as I just did, you'll notice that where CIDA did not do well was in some areas that are very difficult for an agency that is focused internationally, particularly with respect to really having only six full-time employees across the country. As well, we do not have regional offices, so we have a challenge in terms of how we would improve our performance in that area.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Bélanger.

We will move on to Ms. Guay.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning everyone.

I am looking at your performance report card by the Commissioner of Official Languages. It is very disappointing. In fact, we have heard from several institutions, and some have had very good performance reports. I see three Ds, two Cs and one E. I would have preferred to see at least some Bs and perhaps an A in all of that. This is worrisome.

I also quickly familiarized myself with the action plan you will implement. I received it last evening. I see some interesting things in it. You will hand out an award, but in my view, that is not necessarily what is going to help advance both official languages within CIDA.

Ms. Biggs, in your opening statement, you said your only low score in this section was for active offer by staff, at 62%. That is nowhere near 100%. You also said that only 66% of those employees felt that they could use their official language of choice as the language of work. That is very worrisome. That means that francophones cannot feel free to speak their own language. You have 2,000 employees in Canada and between 600 and 800 abroad. That is a lot of people.

One thing is very important to me. You also stated that you ensured that phone messages, on answering machines, were in both official languages. The act has been around for 40 years, and that should have been done a long time ago, a very long time ago. I would like to hear your comments, and for you to elaborate somewhat on your action plan which I find somewhat weak. You really need to implement a more robust action plan. To the champion, I hope that we are going to see some movement, because with ratings like that, you have a lot of work to do.

[Diane Jacovella]

I fully agree with you. When we received our ratings, we were very disappointed. I think it's like anything else. The first assessment has helped us to identify shortcomings.

However, we are happy to note that some figures are very positive. We want to maintain them. The purpose of our action plan is to enable us to keep the good ratings. We received some ratings of 90% and we want to keep them.

We noted that people didn't have the right reflexes in terms of the active offer. In that regard, people sometimes thought that doing half of their message in French and the other half in English was sufficient. We have done that for years.

This year, in addition to doing an investigation to see if the follow-up is being done, we are going to provide very intensive training. We have also added training to the initiation courses at CIDA so that it is very clear from the outset and that people do not take that for granted. We must remind people that it is the law, and remind them of their obligations and rights.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

So you provide training courses.

[Diane Jacovella]

CIDA provides training courses, as a way of welcoming new employees to CIDA. We talk about official languages generally at those courses, but we will reinforce the rights and obligations side.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

It is an obligation.

[Diane Jacovella]

Yes, it is. We will talk about obligations as managers and as employees. We will talk about employees' rights, to ensure that people know what they are entitled to ask and require from their managers.

As regards the active visual offer, our percentage was good, but we have begun follow-up to ensure that it is done all the time. We have created different systems to ensure that nothing disappears. When we use little cards, they disappear. In the action plan, we are trying to do what the commissioner asked for, in other words, to go beyond obligations. We are not simply doing something because we are obliged to do so. We do it to acknowledge the importance of official languages and because we come out ahead if we promote that. That is more or less what we are trying to do.

If you have any suggestions to strengthen our action plan, I would be very interested in hearing them.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

We will surely have some once we have finished meeting with all of the groups.

I'd like to know how much money you earmark annually for official languages. Do you have a specific budget for training?

[Sheila Tenasco-Banerjee]

It is approximately $450,000. About $300,000 is allocated for mandatory training.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Is it $450,000 or $300,000?

[Sheila Tenasco-Banerjee]

The figures are $300,000 for mandatory training and $150,000 for training that employees can ask for as part of their learning plan.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

But it is not mandatory.

[Sheila Tenasco-Banerjee]

That's right. The employee chooses to maintain his or her language proficiency. It is more for training and professional development.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

What do you plan to do so that employees are more inclined to learn both official languages?

[Sheila Tenasco-Banerjee]

Ninety-two percent of employees are bilingual. Ninety percent of our positions are designated bilingual. There are people on language training because it is a statutory obligation.