Official Languages Committee on Oct. 28th, 2014

[Graham Fraser]

Planning is very important. Indeed, it is important to not realize that you need hosts on the very evening before an event. You have to ensure that services can be offered, and that the signage, ads, fliers and athletes' biographies have been planned, and that you have established a rapport with the minority community. This was done unofficially in Sherbrooke. In Prince George, the organizers established an official partnership with the local francophone community. They also made sure that they had a sufficient number of bilingual volunteers.

The Sport Canada recommendation was that 10% of volunteers be bilingual. In Prince George, the organizers set that figure at 22%; 22% of volunteers needed to be sufficiently bilingual to offer services. They also established links with the Prince George French-language high school, as well as with immersion schools. Finally, they planned things so that the school holiday coincided with the Winter Games.

All of that shows that the linguistic planning principles were integrated into the planning of the games.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

You have just raised an important point, i.e. seeking the assistance of educational institutions. For the Sherbrooke games, for instance, it was easier to recruit bilingual volunteers from the University of Sherbrooke rather than looking for them in the population as a whole. In your opinion, is it an advantage to be able to look for people in our educational institutions?

[Graham Fraser]

Indeed it is.

In fact, one of my former colleagues in the office, who now works for another department, was made aware of the importance of official languages 10 or 15 years ago while he was working as a volunteer for the Canada Games in Winnipeg. It is important to offer service, and it is just as important to demonstrate to students the importance of doing so in both official languages. We can also hope that this will promote the rapport between francophiles and francophones, as well as between immersion schools and French-language schools.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Do you have any advice to give young Canadians who have spent a lot of time learning both official languages, and who, after two or three years on the labour market, unfortunately find themselves in a situation where they lose their French skills because they have fewer opportunities to hear or practise that language? That is true also for English.

What can they do to keep up their language skills? Would you advise that they take a few hours a week to listen to programs in French, or to spend time with friends who speak the other language? Unfortunately, you can lose the results of 10 years' training relatively quickly.

Do you have any advice to give to those young people?

[Graham Fraser]

I hope that in preparing for the 2017 celebrations, the government is considering increasing the number of exchanges, grants and learning or travel opportunities, work or study opportunities in communities where the other official language is the majority language. Those who, for one reason or another, cannot take advantage of such opportunities are nevertheless quite fortunate in that they have access to radio and television in both official languages everywhere in Canada.

Last week, I took the opportunity to attend a training session for provincially-appointed judges in New Brunswick. One of the chief justices from an anglophone province told me that she always listens to radio in French in her car so as to maintain the level of French she acquired in her training courses as a judge.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Fraser.

Mr. St-Denis, you have the floor.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

My questions will be about work.

Given the massive job cuts in the public service, and the loss of jobs in many government agencies where bilingualism is promoted, do you not think that measures to further bilingualism in our country are becoming cosmetic, if not superfluous? The facts are that in the federal public service, jobs are being cut, and there is no requirement that French be spoken in the workplace. What is your opinion on that?

[Graham Fraser]

There are two issues: language of work and hiring.

A whole generation of public servants will be retiring, so we are continuing to hire, even if the total number of positions has decreased. It is extremely important that the federal departments, which make up the largest employer in Canada, send a clear message to universities: the federal government needs bilingual employees, and universities need to provide students with learning opportunities.

Language of work is always a challenge. I admit that I was extremely disappointed that during last week's crisis, the warning message from the Government Operations Centre was entirely in English. I was shocked. It is during crises that we see to what extent the systems operate. In my opinion, this was a dismal failure of the system.

In addition, this institution announced a few months ago that announcements would no longer be made in both official languages because of a lack of resources. We admonished the institution, and its position changed. However, in a crisis situation, this was a failure. I was very concerned by the reflex that was shown under fire, so to speak.

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

It's good to promote bilingualism during celebrations, and it is important to do so, but shouldn't the commissioner push things a little further in terms of requirements within our institution? Here, at least half the people don't speak French. However, the government says that it promotes bilingualism. In reality, this isn't being done. There is a lack of willingness. I don't know where this requirement could come from, but it seems to me that it should come from your office, Mr. Fraser. We don't require people to answer us in French. As you said so well, many people answer only in English.

[Graham Fraser]

I remain convinced that the evaluation of language capacity and the training of public servants are difficult and complex problems.

The government de-centralized this responsibility by delegating it to the departments. The departments passed this responsibility on to the managers, who must ensure that language training is part of each employee's training. I'm not against that in principle, but there are always opportunities to put off this language training.

I continue to be convinced as well that, despite all the efforts for professional and fair evaluations, some people who pass the tests are not able to communicate, while others are, even though they fail the test. Aligning the abilities to communicate and the evaluation of these language skills is always a challenge. If French was not used in the government, all of this would become an artificial phenomenon.

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

I'm going to change the subject and ask a quick question about the complaints you receive.

Outside of the National Capital Region, you receive very few complaints from Canadians. Can this low percentage be attributed to the public's misunderstanding of your role?

[Graham Fraser]

We are currently looking into the phenomenon of complaints and this decreasing trend over time. Although there were more complaints this year than last year, there has been a decline over time.

Is it because, as you say, people are not familiar with the role of the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages? Is it because people are disillusioned and think that filing a complaint doesn't do anything? Is it because services in some areas have improved? Is it because there has been a decrease in the number of in-person contacts between public servants and Canadians?

You can now apply for a passport online. There are other contacts where there are fewer of these interpersonal interactions. Nevertheless, some of them are still necessary: at borders, in airports, in security checkpoints, and others.

Even at airports, you can automatically get a ticket from a machine and not have contact with an agent. This is one element, I believe, but we have no conclusions.

There is also the generation issue. We analyze the satisfaction rates of our complainants with regard to our institutions. We are seeing that the average age of complainants is fairly old. We sometimes ask other ombudspersons whether young people tend to file fewer complaints to all the ombudspersons than older individuals.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Thank you, Chair.

Commissioner Fraser, it's good to see you and your team here this morning. Thank you so much for coming.

Could you just relate the incident with respect to the security notice last week? I wasn't aware of that. You said the alert went out. What alert was that and where did it go?

[Graham Fraser]

This was an alert that went out from the government operations centre warning that there was an armed shooter at loose and that there was a lockdown for federal employees and government buildings in a defined area in downtown Ottawa and that people should stay away from the windows and stay in their offices until they heard otherwise. This was later followed by messages that came from Treasury Board Secretariat that were in both languages, but the initial emergency announcement was in English only.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

That announcement would have gone to federal employees in the area.

[Graham Fraser]

That's certainly my understanding.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Yes.

[Graham Fraser]

I think it was government-wide.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Yes, I think your—

[Graham Fraser]

I mean, I got to tell you, frankly—

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

—point's taken.

[Graham Fraser]

I didn't quite believe it. My first reaction when I saw the e-mail was to.... I was out of town, in New Brunswick, at the time and I immediately e-mailed my colleagues saying, is this really true, did they really put out this message in English only? It was then confirmed that it was the case.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Well, no, and your point's very well taken and I know there will be a review of some of the measures that took place. You might also be aware the RCMP, for example, use a different radio frequency than Hill security, which is another example of a failure to communicate. But your point is very well received that the notice should have gone out in both official languages to all employees in the area. I wasn't aware of that, so—

[Graham Fraser]

It particularly struck me because a few months ago we had received an announcement from the government that because of a reduction in their resources, henceforth they were not going to be able to put out the announcements in both languages. We immediately got in touch with them and said “Excuse me, what if there is a violent incident and you need to warn people? Are you suggesting that it is only anglophones that are going to be threatened by somebody if there is an immediate threat?” They reconsidered this and changed their position, but they did not clearly take the measures necessary to change the capacity to be able to respond in an emergency situation.