Official Languages Committee on May 8th, 2014

[Graham Fraser]

In terms of the cost of court-related activities, it's not easy to anticipate how many times we will have to go before the courts or how much a case will cost. Supporting a court case is less costly than initiating legal action. It costs more when we are the ones leading the charge. We always perform a strategic assessment to figure out the point at which we will have to intervene and the level. That includes such considerations as whether we have to wait for the Supreme Court to consider a matter or whether we have to go before the Federal Court. We assess all of that. We have to estimate what those costs will be every year.

[Lise St-Denis, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Let's discuss the census rules.

How do the new census rules affect our ability to more effectively identify francophone communities, in other words, determine the number of people in them and ascertain their economic situations?

[Graham Fraser]

If I may, I'd like to wait until the second half of the meeting to answer questions on the economic impact on communities. A colleague of mine who has examined the issue in greater detail will be appearing in the second hour.

I know it's harder to obtain accurate data on some small communities. But I'm not in a position to say exactly what the consequences will be. We don't yet have that information.

[Lise St-Denis, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Does the commissioner's office believe that the federal government bears a historical responsibility for the disappearance of French in some of the country's communities, in light of all the anti-French legislation that has been passed? Does the assessment take that reality into account?

[Graham Fraser]

Yes, and by the way, that is the underlying reason for the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism being set up in the 1960s. The Official Languages Act is somewhat the main recommendation made by the commission. In addition, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms clearly established language rights, and in a series of rulings, the Supreme Court made the need to repair the damage done by a century's worth of harmful legislation perfectly clear.

The act, charter and Supreme Court decisions all reflect a desire to repair the damage. After French was dropped as a language of instruction in schools, policies, the charter and Supreme Court decisions paved the way for the return of French-language schools to each province, as well as school boards.

Personally, I am convinced that, since 1982, the creation of important institutions like schools and school boards has had an undeniable effect on the vitality of the communities. And federal support for programs has contributed to the emergence of other community institutions, such as French-speaking jurist associations in nearly every province. Some provinces, like Prince Edward Island, unfortunately don't have one. Nevertheless, all of those things attest to the recognition that correcting the detrimental effects of history is imperative.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you.

Ms. Bateman, you have the floor.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all of our witnesses, and a special welcome to Madame Lagacé.

This is her first time appearing before the committee, I believe.

at least while I've been here.

I have some very specific questions, just because I want to understand how these documents work. Thanks to our wonderful analyst Lucie Lecomte, we have great little tables that have been provided to us with the three key pillars: linguistic rights protection, linguistic duality promotion, and then, of course, internal services.

I'm just referencing your report on plans and priorities, and I see in the back—maybe you can help me with this—the analysis of the full-time equivalents relative to each of those three pillars. It occurs to me you're in the business of providing a very important professional service not only to Parliament but to Canada. Professional services are always human-intensive, and you have the 63, 59, and 48 full-time equivalents in that order. You have the highest cost for internal services with the lowest number of FTEs, and that doesn't usually make sense, because you guys are always in the business of providing professional services. I'd just like to understand that if I could. What accounts for that difference?

[Graham Fraser]

Let me give you a partial answer, and I'll ask Madame Lagacé to provide more of the details.

There are certain elements in internal service costs that I think are a bit deceptive. For example, all of the costs of my office, including my travel costs, are defined as part of internal services. Similarly, there are—

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

You don't travel worth.... It's $2 million more than.... You're basically talking about $21 million, so you would think if it were even, it would be $7 million, $7 million, and $7 million. It's $6 million, $6 million, and $8 million, and that's just ballpark with rounding. I'm just curious: you can't travel that much.

[Graham Fraser]

There are other elements. For example, costs that might, with a different accounting system, be allocated to each branch are covered by internal services. So all of the telephone costs, some of the rental costs of our regional offices—

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

But, Mr. Fraser, you just said they would be allocated to each department.

[Graham Fraser]

But they are not now. Now all of those costs are included as internal services.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Oh, so you have all of them included. Okay.

[Graham Fraser]

I'll ask Madame Lagacé to give you a more detailed explanation than that one.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

I'm just curious, because, you know, usually the human cost is the most expensive component in providing anything like this. It's just such a material difference, it kind of makes me....

Once an auditor, always an auditor, right?

[Colette Lagacé]

Under current Treasury Board rules, we have to include the office. Ever since the 2012 budget, we have had to include the reallocation of costs. We did our best and we funded an IM/IT project. That accounts for some $2.9 million and is included in the $7.4 million, which puts the real cost of internal services at $4.5 million currently. And that is equivalent to roughly 24% of the office's total budget.

As an agent of Parliament, we contacted the people at Treasury Board to tell them about our concerns. They are paying attention. We are going to make a greater effort to ensure that, the next time we bring the numbers to you, we will be applying new rules devised with our Treasury Board colleagues. For the time being, however, we are following Treasury Board's rules, but the numbers we're being given aren't entirely accurate.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thank you.

Now for my second question.

On this one, I don't understand why this would be the case. In the analysis that we have from Lucie Lecomte from the Library of Parliament—it's pulled from the main estimates, and it's pulled from your documentation, Commissioner—it shows the full-time equivalents by fiscal year, and it's quite precise. It starts in 2008 and goes to 2012-13, and it has 159 full-time equivalents. Yet in the report on plans and priorities, if you add them up, it actually works out to 170. In fact, you have it summarized that if you add them up in the part II, the analysis of programs by strategic outcome, it's 170, and you also have that summarized further on page 9, actually, of the report on plans and priorities.

So I'm just curious; you're reporting there are 11 full-time...now obviously maybe you're not filling everything, but that's again a material difference. What does that relate to?

[Graham Fraser]

Let me take a stab at this, and then Madame Lagacé can correct me or amplify what I have to say.

As I understand it, we have an authorization for full-time equivalents of 177. We are now at about 170. One of the problems is that it becomes such a rolling number, and one of the challenges in matching our forecasting to the final results is that it always takes longer to fill positions than is predicted. So at any given time there are a certain number of vacant positions. When we did an A-base review, there was a recommendation that we create some additional positions to deal with the backlog. We initially attempted to do this with what's called determinate positions, meaning people would not have a guarantee of a permanent, full-time job in the public service. It proved to be very difficult to attract people for these. We have now made the decision to make some of those positions permanent so that we have a better chance of actually filling those positions. But it's a—

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

How did that decision fit with your A-base review decision, or discussions, which clearly said, and recommended to you and your executive, to hire part time so you aren't...I don't want to say saddled with a burden in perpetuity, but that's basically what your decision would have been? I mean, they were recommending—

[Graham Fraser]

It always becomes a question of how to match the needs that we have in the organization with the money that we have available. There are sometimes quite detailed conversations about it.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Did you have another review process to change from the determination that was done in your A-base review?

[Graham Fraser]

We completed the recommendations of the A-base review process. There is a continuing process of internal audits that take place from the recommendations of the audit and evaluation committee, who look very carefully at our operations.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

What is your process for integrating the continual improvement potential of internal audit processes into the reality of managing the operation?

[Graham Fraser]

How did we do that?

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

What is your process? How do you do that?