Evidence of meeting #48 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 languages.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Monique Guay Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
Ms. Biggs, I will give you the floor if you want to add something.
President, Canadian International Development Agency
About the action plan?
President, Canadian International Development Agency
Well, as Diane has said, we had two official languages action plans, and we've integrated them. We would be interested in hearing how you think we could strengthen it.
The official languages advisory committee put a lot of work into this. We've taken it to our management board. We think it addresses all the key weaknesses that have been identified and that we identified among ourselves, but we would be very open to your advice on how to make it stronger.
Monique Guay Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
I saw in your action plan that you intend to produce quarterly reports.
Vice-President and Champion of Official Languages, Multilateral and Global Programs Branch, Canadian International Development Agency
The quarterly reports deal with certain issues. The one you read, I believe, deals with complaints and things of that nature. We are thinking about producing a report twice a year to update the situation, but some issues will be dealt with more often.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Steven Blaney
Thank you very much, Ms. Guay.
We will now go to the representative from the New Democratic Party, Mr. Gravelle.
NDP
Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for joining us today.
I'd like to go back to a question asked by Ms. Guay. You said that 66% of your employees felt free to use their first language. That means that 34% of them did not feel free to do so.
I worked in an English environment where using your first language—which for me was French—was intimidating. Is that the case for those 34% of your employees?
Vice-President and Champion of Official Languages, Multilateral and Global Programs Branch, Canadian International Development Agency
I don't know if they feel intimidated. When we saw those percentages, we spoke to our union representatives to see what employees were thinking. That isn't what they felt. But the international community is largely English-speaking, and many documents produced by other countries, such as the United Kingdom, are in English only. In circumstances like that, employees find it difficult to perfect their second language.
In this regard, we are trying to look at how we can work with other donors to ensure that the documents are available. Things happen very quickly, and people sometimes find that communicating their interests takes longer. So we conducted a survey of the agency's committees to see how people functioned in terms of official languages, if the documents were really distributed in time in both official languages and how meetings were chaired. We established some directives for the chairs of all the committees to clearly establish that employees were entitled to speak the language of their choice and we encouraged them to do so. We also have employees who want to work in both languages. It goes without saying that that is also allowed.
NDP
Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON
When you receive documents from unilingual countries, do you get them translated?
Vice-President and Champion of Official Languages, Multilateral and Global Programs Branch, Canadian International Development Agency
No. Normally we don't translate documents coming from other countries, but we do use documents from the World Bank and the United Nations which are available in both official languages. The documents produced by CIDA that are summaries of other documents are naturally translated into the other official language.
NDP
Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON
Since there are two official languages in Canada, can you ask other countries to provide their documents in both official languages?
Vice-President and Champion of Official Languages, Multilateral and Global Programs Branch, Canadian International Development Agency
For us, it is a policy and we respect it. But I don't think we have the right to require it of other countries. We could not, for example, require France to provide us with its documents in English.
NDP
Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON
How can you explain that, in the most recent public accounts, your minister did not consider official languages at all?
Vice-President and Champion of Official Languages, Multilateral and Global Programs Branch, Canadian International Development Agency
Pardon? I did not understand the question.
NDP
Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON
How do you explain that in the most recent public accounts, your minister did not consider official languages at all?
Vice-President and Champion of Official Languages, Multilateral and Global Programs Branch, Canadian International Development Agency
I don't know. I cannot answer you. I apologize.
NDP
Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON
How do you explain the fact that your departmental performance report does not consider official languages?
President, Canadian International Development Agency
We do take official languages into account in our performance assessment. We do.
Vice-President and Champion of Official Languages, Multilateral and Global Programs Branch, Canadian International Development Agency
I believe that what you're asking is whether we included that in our departmental performance report. No, I do not believe that was done.
Vice-President and Champion of Official Languages, Multilateral and Global Programs Branch, Canadian International Development Agency
CIDA has many activities and does not account for everything. From my understanding, that is something the committee is suggesting and recommending that we take into account.