Official Languages Committee on Oct. 25th, 2011

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I, too, would like to welcome you and all the members of your team to the committee today, Mr. Fraser. I also want to take this opportunity to thank you for your insights on this subject.

I clearly do not have the depth of knowledge of the person opposite me, since my political career is only just starting. However, I would like to know whether the number of complaints has increased, decreased or remained stable during the first five years of your mandate.

[Graham Fraser]

It's fairly stable. It ranges from 800 to 1 000 complaints per year.

There are peaks on occasion when people mobilize around a specific issue. Last year, for example, there was an increase. We received a total of 1 400 or 1 500 complaints, 800 of which dealt with the closing of a radio station in Windsor.

This year we received more than 500 complaints about Air Canada regarding the language of work.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

That gives me a good overall picture of the situation, which is what I was seeking.

When I arrived here, I put my hand on the bible—let's call it the book of basics for new MPs. To my great surprise, the minister's guide—which I have yet to receive—does not seem to contain specific instructions with respect to how official languages should be administered within a department. I would be interested in hearing your views on that. Should that guide not provide guidelines with respect to official languages?

[Graham Fraser]

I must admit that I am not familiar with this guide. You are far more in the know than I when it comes to guides for MPs and ministers. I am a little surprised. There is one thing I might add, however. One of the characteristics of the Act is the exemption it provides for Parliament and parliamentarians. That may be the reason why, unlike you, I am not familiar with these guides.

My colleagues may be more familiar with them than I.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

That's fine.

I would like to spend a few minutes talking about the Roadmap for Canada's Linguistic Duality 2008-13, because we will be carrying out a pretty thorough analysis of it in the coming weeks. I seem to have noted certain problems with the methodology used to assess the Roadmap in the different departments. I would be interested in hearing your comments with regarding the importance of making the mid-term report public, which we do not seem to have yet.

Have you requested the mid-term report? If not, do you intend to do so?

[Graham Fraser]

No, not specifically. However, I do think it's very important.

The document which preceded the Roadmap, which was the 2003-08 Action Plan for Official Languages, did include a mid-term report setting out progress made in certain areas and the lack of progress in others. It made it easier for my predecessor to analyze successes and failures in implementing this action plan.

When I read the transcript of the questions you put to officials from Canadian Heritage last week, I believe I understood that no decision had yet been made as to whether or not this mid-term analysis would be made public.

I would just like to use this forum to say that I believe it is important for that report to be made public.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

We know that the government in Ottawa is a two-tier institution. Just as the Roadmap is being assessed, I imagine the bureaucracy is gearing up to develop the next roadmap.

In your opinion, should the next roadmap address all federal institutions, as opposed to 14 or 15 carefully selected ones?

[Graham Fraser]

We have not yet done any analysis that would allow me to say yes or no. That is one of the questions we will be looking at when we do our own analysis. Once we are further advanced in analyzing the situation, we will be in a position to share our comments with the committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Fraser. Thank you, Mr. Aubin.

Mr. Menegakis, please.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Good morning. Thank you for coming and thank you for your presentation.

I was very pleased to see in your report that you summarize your recommendations in four very succinct and very clear recommendations.

I have a couple of questions regarding the “Honourable Mentions” in chapter 3 of your report. I also sit on the citizenship and immigration committee and note that you gave an honourable mention to Citizen and Immigration Canada for “Engaging Official Language Communities”. You listed it as an example of “community involvement” and “active participation”. Could you elaborate on that for us, please?

[Graham Fraser]

Yes. I've been particularly impressed by what has happened in Manitoba, where the Department of Citizenship and Immigration has been working closely with the provincial government and also with the Société franco-manitobaine in working to recruit, attract, welcome, and support francophone immigrants to Manitoba.

It is a model for a number of reasons, partly because there has been an inclusion of members of the community in the Destination Canada job fairs in Paris and Brussels, and partly because there has been this close collaboration among the federal government, the provincial government and the community.

Also, there is the degree of closeness with which a group called Accueil Francophone, which is part of the Société franco-manitobaine, has been able to literally welcome francophone immigrants and refugees at the airport, place them in temporary housing, register their children in French school from the moment they arrive, and accompany them through this organization, Accueil Francophone, for the first three years.

First of all, there has been a real coming to understand that welcoming a Belgian chef who wants to open a restaurant in Saint Boniface, on the one hand, and welcoming a family that has spent five years in a refugee camp on the border of Congo and Rwanda, on the other hand, are two very different challenges and there are different problems in which the families have a whole series of different adaptation challenges. They have been able to marshal the resources and the individuals with the experience to know what those challenges are and to follow those families closely and provide them with the moral support they need to make their adjustment.

Every chance I get, I talk about that particular example of I think a successful collaboration among a federal department, a provincial government, and key people at every level who have been working together to make this happen

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you very much.

I have two questions on the report cards that you issued. I'll ask them at the same time.

What criteria did you use this year to select the 13 federal institutions to be evaluated and to establish the ratings that appear in your 2010-11 annual report? Also, in your opinion, what are the main reasons why we are seeing considerably better results this year, as reflected in your report?

[Graham Fraser]

I am going to respond briefly and then ask Ms. Charlebois to provide more detail.

We selected the institutions based on Part VII of the Act, which is the theme of this year's annual report. We tried to choose institutions which have a special relationship with official language minority communities.

[Ghislaine Charlebois, Assistant Commissioner, Compliance Assurance Branch, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages]

That's exactly right. We expected the results to be favorable with respect to Part VII, because of the institutions that had been selected. The results were quite positive, although some institutions did not fare as well as others. We realized that these institutions were having their performance appraised for the first time. They were coming to understand their obligations for the first time, which allowed us to begin a dialogue with them.

On the other hand, we noted that the results were somewhat less positive for certain institutions. For example, in order to evaluate management of the official languages program, we looked at the action plan, the accountability framework and the policies in place. Overall, those items are not particularly positive.

The same applies to the active offer of services in person and service to the public. We noted that it is always the same problem for the majority of institutions, even those that were appraised this year.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Ms. Charlebois.

Ms. Michaud, please.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

First of all, thank you very much for being here, and welcome to you and your team.

Very quickly, here's my first question. The NDP has recently learned that the costs incurred by a department to fulfill its obligations under the Official Languages Act may be covered through its operating budget and do not have to be reported separately. This is very, very serious, because there is no way to determine whether the public funds are being used responsibly or not. What are you going to do to have this situation corrected?

[Graham Fraser]

I'm not certain. I'd have to know more about your concerns that flow from this, because there are certain costs that become simply a matter of doing business. For example, if a language level is established as an essential qualification for a particular job, then it becomes difficult to sort out what the cost is of people acquiring that language level—

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

That question arises out of an answer from Transport Canada. That department did not report on official languages in the last Public Accounts of Canada. It says that departmental spending comes under its operating budget and that it is not accounted for separately.

So, if that is the way it works at Transport Canada, I imagine the same may apply to other federal institutions. That is somewhat troubling in terms of our ability to audit the information subsequently. That is the kind of situation we're talking about now.

[Graham Fraser]

That is something that we have not yet looked at. I have noted your comments.

There is perhaps one point to be made in connection with your concern. In the past, language training came under a budget that was separate from the departmental operating budget. The advantage was that the School of the Public Service had a budget for language training. A department could send someone there for an almost unlimited period of time to receive language training. That resulted in some abuse.

At this time, those responsibilities have now been transferred to the departments. They are entrusted to managers and included in their training budget. Therefore, when someone requires training with respect to contracts, ethics or another type of training provided to public servants, those courses are paid for out of the language training budget.

The advantage of the current situation is that language training can be tailored to meet the specific needs of each employee. The problem, as you point out, is to determine the exact cost of language training. It can also mean that the manager may feel there is a more pressing need to give employees training on contracts, to the detriment of language training, which can wait until another time.

But I have noted your concern and we will look at this issue.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Perhaps you could get back to us on that at future meetings.

In your report, you say that to offer services of equal quality in both official languages, a federal institution must be able to measure and predict the relative demand for all the services it provides. However, as you know, the long form census questionnaire was eliminated before the 2011 census. This has already raised a lot of questions, but I'm wondering how you think this could affect federal institutions' ability to predict the demand for services in the minority language. Do you think the communities could be penalized as a result of this?

[Graham Fraser]

This decision greatly concerned me because, in my opinion, we still run the risk of losing all kinds of information about official language minority communities. It breaks the continuity in relation to the information that was available in the past. Furthermore, this decision was made without prior consultation with the communities and without assessing its potentially prejudicial effects.

I would like to come back briefly to one of my concerns, which is budget constraints. I am very aware of the unanticipated negative effects of decisions made for a particular reason. I am thinking, in particular, of the decision to abolish the Royal Military College in Saint-Jean in 1995. That was done for purely budgetary reasons, but it has had long-term effects that are still being felt.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Ms. Michaud and Mr. Fraser.

Mr. Lauzon, please.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to welcome Mr. Fraser and his team to the committee.

Mr. Fraser, I recall that five years ago, when you were appointed Commissioner, we talked about how you saw the future of official languages. I imagine that you are very proud of the progress that has been made by our country with respect to official languages. I remember your first report, which goes back about four years. It was not very positive. I believe we have made a lot of progress since, as a country. I want to commend you in that regard, because it's thanks to your encouragement and suggestions that our government has achieved that progress. We are proud of that.

Are you able to explain to what that progress can be attributed?

[Graham Fraser]

When there was progress, it was because a minister or deputy minister showed leadership by ensuring that all departmental employees understood that this is an important value for the organization. Where there have been failures, it has been because of a lack of leadership.

I also note that there can sometimes be inconsistency. That is why one of my recommendations is that the government state in no uncertain terms that it is committed to the development of official language minority communities, and to the promotion of English and French.

The following remark does not only concern this government. Indeed, from one government to the next, there has been a tendency to invest in official language minority communities without the majority being aware of that. It was done on the sly. In the communities, people are obviously familiar with the Roadmap or the Action Plan that preceded it. At the same time, the majority communities are unaware of those efforts and that commitment. I think the country is ready to see the government state its commitment to this in stronger terms than in the past.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

One way of demonstrating our determination to improve things is to invest more money. In recent years, we have invested more money in official languages. Did you note any differences following those new investments?