Our basis is the Official Languages Act; the provisions and regulations we need are set out in section 32. A regulation under section 32 of the act describes the situations and the circumstances in which the service must be provided in one language or both.
The regulation states that there must be a bilingual service at places where the demand is substantial. There are actually some quite accurate ways to determine the places where the demand is substantial. This is what we base ourselves on when we decide whether a local office is unilingual or bilingual. This is why we have 136 offices in Canada and five outreach sites that are bilingual. The Official Languages Act defines the extent of the demand there must be.
Earlier, I was going to say that, even in a unilingual site, the first thing that the person at the counter will say to someone who arrives to get service in the other language, will be where the nearest bilingual office is to be found. Otherwise, a telephone service will be provided so that the client can be served in their own language.