No.
Evidence of meeting #8 for Official Languages in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was languages.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #8 for Official Languages in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was languages.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:15 a.m.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Can you tell me how many are evaluated on their annual performance?
9:20 a.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages
I am not, personally, in a position to tell you that. I don't know whether my—
9:20 a.m.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Does someone know whether the Treasury Board evaluates them?
9:20 a.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages
I am not in a position to answer you at this time.
9:20 a.m.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Commissioner, my real question is, should the government follow or accept your recommendation and propose an amendment to the Official Languages Act that would give the Treasury Board the authority to take action with respect to Part VII of the Act or see to its implementation, whether you feel that the Treasury Board's current resources and practices would be adequate to implement Part VII of the Official Languages Act?
9:20 a.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages
An analysis of the required resources would clearly be needed to ensure that this authority could be exercised efficiently and successfully.
9:20 a.m.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
I realize that I may be venturing into possibly inappropriate territory, and if that's the case, I apologize.
Do you think it would be advisable for the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages to indicate what kind of resources would be helpful or necessary to implement Part VII of the Act, as part of this amendment that you are suggesting?
9:20 a.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages
Let's just say that, for the time being, I am not in a position to attach a cost to that obligation. We are not generally in the habit of being as specific as that. We make recommendations and we then audit the results of an action plan, for example, or a change that has been made.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Michael Chong
Thank you, Mr. Fraser. Thank you, Mr. Bélanger.
Mr. Galipeau, please.
October 25th, 2011 / 9:20 a.m.
Conservative
Royal Galipeau Conservative Ottawa—Orléans, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Fraser, it's a pleasure to welcome you here once again.
You will not be surprised to hear that I have been reading the reports issued by the Commissioner of Official Languages for more than 40 years now. Most of the time, they recount horror stories. But people who like that kind of reading will be quite disappointed this time around.
Did the government encourage you to select specific departments, knowing that they would receive a good rating?
9:20 a.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages
No, not at all. We selected these institutions based on the fact that we were focussing on Part VII. Every year, we choose a theme for the annual report and decide which institutions should be subject to a performance evaluation based on that theme. This year we decided to look closely at Part VII of the Act. As is clear in the report, the results turned out to be quite satisfactory. I think that can be explained by the nature of these institutions and the fact that they have fairly direct contact with the communities. As a result, they are more likely to consider the needs of these communities.
On the other hand, the evaluation does not consider the fact that, according to several institutions, Part VII does not apply to them because they have no direct contact with community organizations, particularly when it comes to providing funding. We therefore decided to focus on institutions with a specific vocation in relation to the communities, knowing that this would not necessarily explain to institutions in as dramatic a fashion that they do, indeed, have obligations, even though they claim otherwise.
Yet certain institutions were still surprised to discover that we expected them to consult certain communities before taking actions that could have a negative impact on them.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Royal Galipeau Conservative Ottawa—Orléans, ON
Mr. Chairman, I am not sure whether it would be more appropriate to address this question to Ms. Tremblay.
A number of states apply official language laws. In Canada, at least one province does. I'm thinking in particular of countries such as Belgium, Switzerland and Ukraine. I have always been interested in the incentive side of things, as opposed to coercion. Perhaps the time has come to look at this, given that, for once, the report of the Commissioner of Official Languages is not full of horror stories.
I'd like to know whether you have looked at that aspect of the issue in relation to legislation passed by other countries. How effective are coercive measures as compared to incentives? What recommendations can you make to Canadian parliamentarians in that regard?
9:25 a.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages
Ireland is the only country to administer legislation that corresponds almost exactly to our Official Languages Act. Their law is modelled on ours to a certain extent. They have an Official Languages Commissioner who plays the same role—in other words, receive complaints, carry out investigations and, in this case, encourage the use of the Irish language. In contrast, Switzerland and Belgium take a much more territorial approach than we do. It's coercive, in a way. If you move from one side of the street to the other and, in so doing, you cross a language barrier, you no longer have language rights and your children are not allowed to attend a minority school, for example.
The approach reflected in our Act is based somewhat what has been done in Finland. That country has unilingual and bilingual regions, and a central government whose obligation is to provide two language communities with services in both languages. On the other hand, there is no commissioner per se who reports to Parliament; there is an official within the Department of Justice whose job, to a certain extent, involves receiving complaints and comments.
With respect to your question about approaches based on incentives as opposed to coercion, I believe a mix of the two is appropriate. First of all, the Act is clear enough when it comes to laying out the obligations of institutions, but in order to be truly successful, linguistic duality must be seen as something to be valued, and not just as a series of obligations that can be perceived as a burden.
To respond to that perception, we assessed our own ombudsman role with a view to implementing a facilitated resolution process. In any case, all of this requires a full range of tools. I noted that the best way to apply the new facilitated resolution approach was to clearly convey the message that if the Act was not complied with, more serious steps could be taken. In those cases, we initiate legal proceedings against certain institutions; but when institutions show good will and the desire to improve, we are prepared to cooperate with them. The Act provides me with a range of tools and I try to make use of all of them.
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Michael Chong
Thank you, Mr. Fraser.
Thank you, Mr. Galipeau.
Mr. Lauzon, please.
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
John Weston Conservative West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome, Mr. Fraser. It's a pleasure to have you with us again.
In last year's report, eight federal institutions received a failing grade, whereas this year's report includes no failing grades. Other than Canadian Heritage, which received the best rating, seven federal institutions received a good rating, 12 received a fair rating and only two received a poor rating.
My esteemed colleague, Mr. Godin, wanted rules to be introduced for Supreme Court justices. In my opinion, it's in the value associated with this, as you just mentioned, that we have been most successful.
With this marked improvement in the performance of federal institutions over the course of a year, why are you still insisting that the government produce regulations? Why would we want more regulations?
We've made a lot of progress, particularly in terms of the value of this. If there are too many regulations in place, some people will just reject this and decide that, instead of being about the two official languages, it is the government trying to force them to do something.
What do you think?
9:30 a.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages
I don't think a direct connection can be made between the poor performance we sometimes noted last year and the fairly satisfactory performance we saw this year. These are different institutions which were selected for different reasons.
We will be meeting with these same institutions again. Institutions complained about the fact that, in the past, we would release our report in May and, if it included poor ratings, we would meet with people at the same time to tell them how they could improve. We would then send observers in July to take another look. We were told that there was not enough time to bring in the necessary changes and see improvements.
We felt that this complaint was warranted. So, unless there were special reasons to do so, we agreed not to go back and see the same institution the following year. As a result, an institution will have at least two years to try and make improvements. So, one cannot conclude that these are the same institutions discussed in the previous report which are showing improvement and contributing to the progress that has been made.
In terms of regulations, I believe the Treasury Board should have the authority to provide direction. That can mean making regulations, but that is not necessarily the approach that will be taken. At the present time, the Treasury Board does not have the authority to tell an institution what it has to do to be more successful. That is a capacity, an authority and a power it does have in relation to other parts of the Act. So, that is a hole in the current Part VII of the Act, and we are recommending that it be filled.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
John Weston Conservative West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC
To paraphrase Prime Minister Mackenzie King, regulation if necessary, but not necessarily regulation.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
John Weston Conservative West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC
Have you noted greater respect for the French language in Western Canada as a result of greater knowledge of the language?
You just said that values are very important. We talked about the increased popularity of bilingual schools in British Columbia, such as the one where my children studied. Studying in French is really in fashion these days in British Columbia, and that is not as the result of regulation.
Do you not think that too much regulation could be counterproductive?
9:35 a.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages
I don't think so.
Let's look at the progress that has been made in terms of seeing linguistic duality as something valuable. If we compare the current attitude with the one that prevailed when the Official Languages Act was implemented some 42 years ago now, it is clear that there has been enormous progress.
The Official Languages Act was extremely unpopular 40 years ago. Today, however, from one survey to the next, we can see that support for linguistic duality as a Canadian value is very strong all across the country.
I recently looked at the results of one survey showing that a tiny minority of Canadians—fewer than 5%—felt that we should speak only one language. Similarly, fewer than 5% of people believe that everyone should be forced to speak two languages. Between those two extremes, the vast majority support the principles of linguistic duality and official bilingualism.
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
