Evidence of meeting #49 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 report.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:15 a.m.
NDP
Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON
Can you commit to including official languages in the public accounts of Canada and in the report on plans and priorities next year?
9:20 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
I can check to see whether there is a place where we can report on that kind of work. We could definitely look into that question.
9:20 a.m.
NDP
Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON
How do you explain why the "Reports and Publications" section of your website includes no documents on official languages?
9:20 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
I can't explain that. Our action plan could definitely be there. We could check.
9:20 a.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Human Resources and Corporate Services, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
I believe our report may be in the human resources part of the website. I can check, but I think that's where we've posted that report.
9:20 a.m.
NDP
Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON
The minister of fisheries and oceans has delegated official language responsibilities to you. Has she given you any specific instructions to follow, and if so, which ones?
9:20 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Pardon me, but I don't understand the question.
9:20 a.m.
NDP
Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON
The minister of fisheries and oceans has delegated official language responsibilities to you. Has she given you any specific instructions to follow, and if so, which ones?
9:20 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
The minister expects us to provide services to clients in the language of their choice in order to give them good service. She also expects me to do my job in an equitable manner with regard to all employees.
That's really an important issue for the minister. It's a matter of client service, whether we're referring to employees or clients in the fishing communities.
9:20 a.m.
NDP
Claude Gravelle NDP Nickel Belt, ON
Earlier you said that 94% of your supervisors were bilingual. What percentage of your front-line employees are bilingual?
9:20 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Mr. Chairman, I can send you all that information. It depends on the communities. As you know better than I, I believe that, when it comes to client service and service to the public, we should always provide an active offer in both languages. So offer is very important. However, in the regions designated non-bilingual, we don't expect our employees to be bilingual because the communities in which they work are not bilingual communities. So it depends on the region and the work sector.
We can send you all the information on that subject. In all our offices across Canada, we have the necessary information to determine whether an office has been designated bilingual and, if so, what the percentage of bilingual people working there is.
9:20 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
We have six regions for the department and five regions for the Canadian Coast Guard. Two departmental regions are designated bilingual, and I think that's true of the Canadian Coast Guard as well. That's based on the directives that determine whether a region should be bilingual.
As I said earlier, the Gulf Region, which includes part of New Brunswick, is designated bilingual. I can tell you that the regional director general himself is bilingual and that his employees are as well. It's very important for us, when we attend a meeting with the fishermen in that region, to ensure that our work is well done in both official languages. That's also the case in the National Capital Region because it's here that we work with all the people from across Canada.
9:20 a.m.
NDP
The Vice-Chair NDP Yvon Godin
Thank you.
Deputy Minister, I believe there was a question that you did not answer. One of the questions was whether the minister has given you any instructions. In response, you discussed the minister's expectations. The question is clear: has the minister directly given you any instructions?
9:20 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Yes. They're not written instructions, but they are given in the discussions in which the minister clearly asks me to ensure that that is done. So they're a kind of instruction.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
Sylvie Boucher Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
During your presentation, you said that, over the past five years of evaluation by the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages, your department's performance has risen from "poor" to "fair" and to "good". So you've made a transition and changes in order to achieve a higher rating.
In the report, it seems to me the news is not as good in certain areas. In equitable participation, your department received a "poor" rating. You say on that subject that it is attributable to the fact that the anglophone population of Quebec represents only 2.6% of the department's workforce.
What current evaluation criteria pose a problem and prevent you from improving your equitable participation rating?
9:25 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
I believe Ms. Huard or Mr. Bloom could provide a better answer.
The criteria are based on Quebec's general population and on the percentage of anglophones in Quebec. Our regional office should therefore have the same percentage of anglophones at the office. However, our main office is located in Quebec City, where the percentage is completely different. I believe the percentage in Quebec is around 20%.
9:25 a.m.
A voice
It's 13.5%.
9:25 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
It's 13.5% for Quebec as a whole, whereas it's approximately 2% in Quebec City. So we hire most of our employees from a somewhat smaller pool. It's always a major problem for us to be able to reflect a percentage that would include Montreal, where we have no office or clients.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Sylvie Boucher Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Your office is located in the national capital of Quebec City, but can you draw on the anglophone population pool of the Montreal region even though you don't have an office in Montreal? Is that possible or impossible? Perhaps you're not allowed to do so. Are you confined to hiring only anglophones who come from the Quebec City region?
9:25 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
No, we aren't confined to that. We say that of course as a description of the situation, not as an excuse. So we'll continue to make every possible effort to succeed. Nothing prevents us from proceeding in that manner, although we have to be honest and say that it will always be a major difficulty.
That said, that's a difficulty in the kind of work we do, in the fisheries field. I don't know; I can't say. Apart from the percentages, it's hard to know exactly what other problem we'll have in that regard. However, we will obviously continue to make efforts with the universities. There are a lot of universities in Montreal, where graduates are probably bilingual, although I don't know whether they state that their first language is English. That might be another question to consider.
In short, we will definitely continue to make efforts because this is a fundamental problem.