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.
Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
We have approximately 10,500.
Bloc
Monique Guay Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
How many of that number are bilingual? You can tell me approximately if you don't know the exact figure.
Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
I'm trying to do the addition.
Bloc
Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
I have all the information and I could send it to you.
Bloc
Monique Guay Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
It would be good to have that information. The other departments have given it to us.
Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Yes, I can absolutely give you that information based on the regions.
Bloc
Monique Guay Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
How many of those 10,500 are bilingual employees?
Let's suppose you make an offer of service because you need employees and you're in a designated anglophone region, if a francophone wants to work for you, will you nevertheless accept that person?
Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
That depends on the position. If the position is designated unilingual English because the person mainly has to work with anglophones, that person must then be able to work in English.
Bloc
Monique Guay Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
If he or she has all the skills to occupy that position, do you offer that person training? Are you ready to do that?
Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
There are very strict rules about hiring someone who is unable to work in the language necessary to do the work. It's the same in Quebec. If an anglophone applied for a position, would we give it to that person? You have to conduct the analysis on a case-by-case basis.
Conservative
Jacques Gourde Conservative Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC
Thank you for being here this morning. This is very interesting.
In the commissioner's reports over the past five years, your performance has risen from "poor" to "fair" and then to "good". For everyone's benefit, I would like you to say what the initial finding was and what the first actions that had to be taken at the department were to improve the situation and to obtain a better rating.
Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
That depends. As we said, our ratings are based on five sectors. For each of them, we had to look at what could be done to improve the situation.
Offer of service was really a big problem for us. As you said, we started from scratch. So we clearly had a problem and we made a major effort in that regard. As I said earlier, we will continue to work especially on means and language of work. Our employees absolutely have to be comfortable working in their language of choice.
So we have to get well organized. Every year, we take different sectors and do the necessary work not only to improve the rating, which is really an indicator of the state of affairs, but also to be sure, as we previously said, that we are offering services to clients in their language of choice and that employees can work in their language of choice.
Conservative
Jacques Gourde Conservative Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC
You even said there was still work to do, and that's good. However, when you finally receive a good rating, it becomes even harder to improve it. What actions will you take over the coming year?
Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
It's especially in the area of active offer that we've made significant improvements. Since there is employee turnover, that is to say that since some employees arrive and others leave, it's absolutely necessary to remain watchful and not to stop trying on the ground that we've received a good rating. We have to put the emphasis on needs. We need a lot of time and work to get a good rating, but it's very easy to lose it.
Conservative
Jacques Gourde Conservative Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC
Your employee pools are located in the Atlantic region and in the Pacific region as well as in the north. Could you tell me where your 10,000 employees are located? There are no doubt some in Ottawa as well.
Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
In fact, 85% of our employees are located outside the National Capital. That is to say that 15% are here. Some are spread out up and down the west coast. We have offices everywhere in what we call the Centre and Arctic region, which includes Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Ontario and the high north, that is Nunavut and the Northwest Territories. We have offices across Quebec, particularly on the Lower North Shore and the Upper North Shore, as well as the Magdalen Islands and Quebec City, where the headquarters is located. We have an office in Moncton, other small offices in Prince Edward Island and other locations in New Brunswick. We have a central office in Dartmouth and other offices elsewhere in New Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador.
There are also Canadian Coast Guard offices, which are often located in the same places. The coast guard has five administrative regions. In the Maritime region, the work of what we call the Gulf is done from the Halifax office.
Conservative
Jacques Gourde Conservative Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC
You say there are recruitment problems at the Quebec City office in order to serve the anglophone clientele, but is it also difficult to recruit francophones in the western region of the country?
Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
No, it's not the same thing at all. This problem is really specific to Quebec.
Conservative
Jacques Gourde Conservative Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC
It's in fact a francophone majority population pool, 97% or 98%. Are the people you recruit bilingual or unilingual francophones?
Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
The figures we have indicate that this isn't really a problem on the west coast. I couldn't tell you exactly why. We have to determine why it's this difficult in the Quebec region.
Marc Grégoire Commissioner, Canadian Coast Guard, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
With your permission, I'll add a few comments.
The problem of anglophone representation in Quebec dates back a very long time. I spent a number of years working in Quebec, particularly at Transport Canada in Montreal. We tried to increase anglophone participation, but the means were very limited. All the departments combined their efforts and turned to the anglophone community to increase anglophone representation.
The fact is that the legislation on hiring does not include measures to promote the hiring of anglophones in Quebec. However, that's not the case for visible minorities or other groups covered by employment equity rules. This is an additional challenge. Why aren't anglophones inclined to work in the federal public service in Quebec? That remains a major mystery for me. The problem doesn't just affect Quebec City. However, francophone representation in British Columbia is very low. So it's not difficult to deal with that situation. The situation in Quebec is still a problem for all departments, I believe.
