Thank you, Mr. Chair, Honourable Members of Parliament.
It is my pleasure to be here today to answer your questions regarding the Commissioner of Official Languages' Report Card on the application of the Official Languages Act at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.
I understand that you have already heard from Susan Gregson, the Assistant Deputy Minister of Human Resources as well as from Christine Desloges, the Chief Executive Officer of Passport Canada. I also believe you have received a series of documents on the work being carried out by our department in the area of official languages.
In November 2010, for the first time, the department was the subject of a report card. We recognize that the overall rating of E is very poor and that we're one of three institutions to have received this rating. We're concerned, and we are already taking concrete steps to improve those areas requiring attention. You have my commitment that we are taking this seriously.
Our first step was to invite Graham Fraser, the commissioner, to present to our executive committee to discuss the report card results. That meeting took place on December 20, 2010.
I'd like to now address each of the five measures that made up the overall report card result and explain what corrective action we're taking.
First, we received an A for Part VI of the Official Languages Act - Participation of English-speaking and French-speaking Canadians. We presently have a francophone workforce that exceeds the rate of the Canadian population.
The reality is that 36% of our workforce is francophone, while the Canadian francophone population is 25%. I believe this feature, combined with the importance DFAIT personnel accord to actively representing our linguistic duality abroad, is a strong foundation on which to build our corrective action on official languages.
For the measure concerning overall management of the official languages program, we received a D. Although we were recognized for our good overall management of the official languages program in areas such as policy development, employee awareness, and complaint resolution, we lacked mechanisms to promote understanding of part IV, communication with and services to the public, and part VII, the minority language communities. Our action plan was considered to have ill-defined objectives and unclear monitoring mechanisms.
To rectify this, we're finalizing the development of a comprehensive new official languages action plan for 2011 and onwards. The plan is an important part of our corporate planning and is in keeping with our report on plans and priorities for 2011-12, which commits to an active promotion of the use of official languages in the workplace. The plan includes the implementation of strategies and monitoring mechanisms to improve the management of the official languages program and to increase the visibility of official languages in the department. It will be brought for review and approval at the executive council in May, following ongoing consultations within our headquarters, regional offices, missions abroad, and key partners with respect to part VII of the act, the official language minority communities. I'd be pleased to forward a copy to the committee once it's completed.
To ensure a broad and coherent planning and implementation process, we have accelerated the work of our Network of Official Languages Coordinators which represents HQ, regions and all our missions abroad, that is over 150 offices. The network holds quarterly meetings, chaired by our Official Languages Champion.The action plan will take further steps in response to the concerns voiced by some members of this committee with respect to the active offer of service in both official languages by our missions abroad.
This relates to the third measure evaluated by the Commissioner: Service to the Public (Part IV)(3), for which we received a C. The Commissioner acknowledged that the service we provided by e-mail was available 100% of the time in the official language of choice and that visual active offer was present 97% of the time. The Commissioner found, however, that service in the language of the minority was available 92% of the time.
However, we recognize there's work to be done to improve active offer of service in person and by phone. This was only done 56% of the time and 69% of the time respectively.
To address this, and with regard to the specific cases raised by members of this committee, we wrote to all our heads of mission and asked them to provide us with measures they have implemented to ensure bilingual service to the public. Missions responded with several positive proactive measures to ensure linguistic duality in services offered by all relevant sections of our mission. An example is the immigration section, which I take it was the subject of some discussion here.
Allow me to make reference to a few of the good practices they noted, such as maintaining a roster of bilingual staff available to provide services in both languages, conducting surveys on the quality of consular services offered to the public, reminding employees of the importance of offering an active offer of service in both languages, and ensuring that locally engaged employees receive training to maintain a level of bilingualism.
I'd like to note that since we have more than 5,000 locally engaged staff in our workforce, some considerable effort is required to ensure an active offer of bilingual service is systematically given in certain locations.
I have also asked that the assessment of official languages which is part of every mission inspection be the subject of a distinct section of the report, which as you know, is made public. From now on, the inspection on official languages will be more detailed and will cover the services offered by our partner departments, such as Immigration Canada. We will also intensify periodic, unannounced, independent verification, particularly in the wake of complaints, to ensure that remedial action is sustained. I have also put this issue on the agenda of the next meeting of the deputy ministers committee on representation abroad to ensure a solid interdepartmental partnership in the delivery of bilingual services abroad.
Finally, we have reviewed our approach to the training of heads of mission to ensure additional time and material is made available to them to review our obligations with respect to official languages. I will underline the leadership role our heads of mission are called upon to play in this area when I address them this spring. A session was also held on March 8 with the managers of our regional offices across Canada on this issue.
We believe strongly that every Canadian should be able to be served in their first language in our offices abroad and at home. We'll continue to provide awareness sessions on service to the public to all our staff; to provide missions with a glossary of basic bilingual terms and phrases; to regularly remind all employees, especially replacements for receptionists, about the tools at their disposal and the importance of locating a French-speaking employee should a visitor require service in French; to increase the signage that indicates we offer bilingual services; to conduct regular verification of active offer of service; and to meet with all staff to discuss the importance of providing an active offer of bilingual services at all times.
We received an E for Language of Work, Part V of the Official Languages Act. This is due to the fact that according to the 2008 Public Service Employee Survey, only 57% of our francophone employees felt free to write in the language of their choice and only 67% felt free to interact with their supervisors in their language of choice. To address this, we have just received fresh recommendations from a senior level committee which was struck to look at language of work issues.
The recommendations are now being implemented. They deal with issues of leadership, performance management, awareness, support, and tools for employees. As a result, we're providing more awareness sessions on language of work; we just gave one on February 22, and it was well attended. Of course senior management committees are routinely conducted in a bilingual format, and senior management has proactively encouraged all employees to write their briefing notes and other documents in the language of their choice.
We have invited Monique Collette, who has led a comprehensive study on how to create and promote a truly bilingual workforce, to address our departmental employees next Monday. She follows Graham Fraser, who addressed all DFAIT managers in late 2009.
Our Official Language Champion has created a web page to provide a one-stop point of service for a range of tools and best practices on official languages.
We received an E on development of official language minority communities and promotion of linguistic duality.
Having read the commissioner's report card on part VII, I have given thought to DFAIT's approach to supporting official language minority communities. It seems to me that our actions are concentrated in three main areas: first, in projecting Canada's values abroad, we play a critical role in ensuring that our country's linguistic duality acknowledges the presence and importance of official language minority communities as an essential component of the Canadian fabric; second, in attracting students to Canada, we take into consideration the needs and interests of official language minority communities; third, we recognize official language minority communities as important interlocutors and partners in advancing Canadian interests and values abroad, both with respect to key programs such as La Francophonie as well as in shaping Canada's foreign and trade policy and programs as a whole.
To further this effort, I will be inviting representatives of the official languages minority communities to an annual dialogue to provide them with a more formal and holistic opportunity to review and comment on all of our programs and policies, as well as to provide the department, including myself, with an opportunity to listen to the needs and challenges of these communities.
We will also continue to educate and increase the awareness of managers and employees on Part VII of the Official Languages Act by continuing to provide awareness sessions.
We are reviewing our tools and procedures to better assess the impact of programming decisions on OLMCs. This will take some time and effort.
In closing, I would like to say that we are well aware that there is still work to be done, and we would like to assure the committee that we will pursue initiatives already under way and will continue to evaluate how we can improve all aspects of the Official Languages Act at our department.
I will now be happy to answer your questions, if I can.
