Official Languages Committee on Oct. 28th, 2014

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Given its nature and the fact it receives complaints, the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages is called on to consider what could be done to improve the situation. Certainly, there are departments that have been very successful. Their way of doing things could be used as an example. Why do these departments succeed perhaps better than the others? How do they do that? Examples can often be motivating.

There were two teachers at the little school I attended. One always tended to criticize the students who had difficulty. I heard a discussion between the two teachers where one stated that you had to praise the students who did well and ask them to explain to the class why they had done well while others were having difficulty. The difference often lay in the work, involvement and all of that.

Might that inspire a new perspective and way of thinking? Perhaps you could give examples of successes in your reports. For example, you could mention that these departments obtained better results than the others for this or that reason.

[Graham Fraser]

We have dedicated almost an entire annual report on success stories. In this annual report, we have presented performance report cards for seven institutions, and identified Statistics Canada and VIA Rail as examples of exemplary institutions. I think that the success of these two institutions can be attributed to the leadership, planning and a long-term commitment to that institution. At Statistics Canada, Ivan Fellegi, who has been the chief statistician for many years, has always been deeply committed to official bilingualism within his institution, and his legacy continues with Statistics Canada's exemplary behaviour.

The same is true for VIA Rail. At the very beginning of my mandate, after the Official Languages Act was amended, the CEO of VIA Rail realized that, under Part VII of the act, there would now be an obligation of contributing to the vitality of official language minority communities. He looked at VIA Rail's role and found that no official language minority community was receiving any particular treatment from VIA Rail. He then contacted the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne to let them know that he had this new responsibility, but that he had no specific clientele in an official language minority community and that he would like the Fédération's opinion on what he could do to meet this obligation. The FCFA suggested that VIA Rail sponsor its Canadian francophonie summit.

So there is an example of the CEO of a company who took the initiative to approach the community to discuss his new responsibilities. We dedicated almost an entire annual report to recognizing the success of institutions like the National Arts Centre, the Canadian Museum of Civilization and others. In all these cases, the same factors emerged: commitment, leadership and planning that was apparent in staff training, in the way the organization functions where both official languages become a reflex. It isn't even considered anymore; they are just used. We have seen this in one success after another.

As I sometimes tell public servants, failures are obvious and success stories are invisible. You can work very hard at achieving exemplary behaviour without anyone noticing because it becomes natural. However, it's the failures that we notice and that get pointed out.

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

Mr. Commissioner, what you just said is true. In fact, out of 100 cases, if there is a single failure, the 99 successes are forgotten.

A lot of effort is made, but often that effort is not rewarded. We only hear about failures in the media, and that's unfortunate. The entire population and all the institutions make an effort to promote bilingualism, but we never hear about the success stories.

Over time, when people never hear about the successes resulting from the efforts made, they make less of an effort. That is something worth thinking about.

[Graham Fraser]

Every time our assessment of an institution is positive, when I meet someone from that institution, they tell me that it was greatly appreciated. For example, I met someone from VIA Rail who told me just how much our evaluation of their performance was appreciated.

As for the media. I was a reporter long enough to know that bad news often has a greater impact than good news. The official languages issue is no exception. That is human nature, and that is the nature of the media.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Nicholls.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Commissioner, you note in your report cards that outside of the national capital region, English-speaking Quebeckers are still not fairly represented within the federal institutions' workforce.

What explains this persistent problem, and in light of this review, will you intervene with the institutions that received Ds or Es in your report card?

[Graham Fraser]

We always do follow-ups on the evaluations that we do, and it's one of those constant themes, which I am not the first Commissioner of Official Languages to observe. I don't have a full explanation as to why there's an under-representation of anglophones in federal institutions. It's partly a reflection of the.... No, I won't speculate.

I know that some federal institutions have told me that they have worked at it and found it hard to attract people, to which I ask whether they have done job fairs at McGill, at Concordia, and at Bishop's universities, to try to hire people.

There has been a greater effort on the part of a number of federal institutions to do that, but I can't speculate. I don't have an explanation.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

In your annual report last year, you recommended several measures to the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages and to the President of Treasury Board to better manage the roadmap.

Have Treasury Board and Canadian Heritage responded to that recommendation?

Have they committed to implementing it?

[Graham Fraser]

I did discuss this recommendation several times, fairly intensely, with the minister last year. I would say that we are continuing to have productive discussions with senior officials from Canadian Heritage.

I recently put the question to the people in the office who follow the roadmap closely. There were two complaints, I believe, but they were closed because between the filing of the the complaint and the start of the investigation, the matter was resolved, which put an end to the delay.

There was another case of a five-year program that expired. We heard about some concerns, and we share them with Canadian Heritage, but there are some snags here and there. Since this is a horizontal exercise involving 15 institutions and 30 initiatives, we are following this closely. As for complaints, we cannot launch an investigation based on rumours. An official complaint must be made before we investigate. The complaints that we have received have been abandoned because the problem at the root of the complaint was resolved.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

I have one last quick question.

When will we have access to your follow-up report on the recommendation made in last year's annual report?

[Graham Fraser]

It might be in the annual report.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Do you mean next year's annual report?

[Graham Fraser]

I hope so.

I would like to mention that the timeline is going to be a little different next year. My team and I realized that since the election is scheduled for next fall, we will have to change our production schedule and appear before the committee with an annual report in the spring. I don't know if that will give us enough time to do the necessary follow-up. In general, we have a two-year timeline for recommendations. With a shortened schedule, I can't guarantee it, but we will certainly follow-up as closely as possible.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you.

Mr. Williamson, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Following up on what Monsieur Gourde was saying, could you talk a little bit about some of the departments where you haven't seen great success, or good success, or solid success, from the federal government with respect to improvements over the years?

[Graham Fraser]

One example that really confirmed to me the importance of executive leadership was when I first became commissioner. The evaluation that had been done of the Department of Public Works gave it a rating of “poor”. The minister at the time was shocked at this, and there was a change of senior executives in the department. The next evaluation that was done was “fair”, and then the evaluation that followed that was “good”. It was because, first, the minister and then successive deputies since have taken the issue seriously and taken the measures necessary to ensure that they lived up to their responsibilities.

The other example that always impresses me is the National Arts Centre. When you go to the National Arts Centre wicket to buy a ticket, you are greeted with active offer, with somebody saying hello, bonjour. When you go to a concert, the person who takes your ticket greets you in both languages. Usually, even the parking attendant downstairs will greet you in both languages.

What I think this is testament to is that the use of both languages became understood as a value of the organization and something that people were expected to do. It shaped their hiring process and their training process. In the same way that certain private sector organizations say, “This is how we greet customers”, this became very much a part of the culture of the organization. When the use of both languages is part of the culture of the organization, it becomes ingrained.

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

It really is a question, then, of leadership and prioritizing—

[Graham Fraser]

That's right.

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

—the bilingual focus, or the bilingual nature of it.

[Graham Fraser]

That's right. And once that's done, I suspect that it simply becomes second nature, that they probably don't even talk about it any more. It's just the way they do business.

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

Yes, I think you're absolutely right about that.

Changing gears, I'm curious to know, in your day-to-day operations or your operations in general, how much overlap, coordination, or just discussion do you have with your counterparts in New Brunswick and in Ontario?

[Graham Fraser]

It's not systematic. We have worked together on a number of initiatives. We have signed protocol agreements separately with Ontario and New Brunswick, so if somebody files a complaint with one of us that should go to the other, it gets transferred automatically. We don't say to a complainant, you're wrong, that's in provincial jurisdiction. We have taken on the responsibility of ensuring that any complaint goes to the right office.

We had ongoing discussions among the three of us about the study we're doing on immigration. Katherine d’Entremont, my colleague in New Brunswick, felt that the nature of New Brunswick's situation was sufficiently different from the communities outside Quebec and the rest of the country that she was in an urgent situation. New Brunswick has 32% francophones, 12% francophone immigration, and she is arguing quite vigorously with the provincial government that they've got to go from 12% to as close to 30% as they can. Citizenship and Immigration Canada has announced that they are moving the target from 4% to 5% for immigration. That's not a useful conversation for New Brunswick to embark on. It was not from a lack of desire to collaborate that she decided not to be engaged in this particular study. I saw her last week when I was at this judges training program for provincially appointed judges in Caraquet and Shippagan, and we made a joint presentation on our roles to the judges in this training program.

I similarly have periodic conversations with François Boileau in Ontario. It's not as though we have monthly meetings or anything of that kind, but when issues come up if I'm visiting the province I try to make sure that I'm in touch with them. If they're coming to Ottawa they get in touch with me, our staffs are in contact.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Ms. St-Denis, you have the floor.

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

I would like to address the issue of accountability, which we haven't yet discussed.

Your report indicates that Citizenship and Immigration Canada asked British Columbia to be more specific in their report.

Let's talk about the notion of precision in accountability. Shouldn't we insist that all departments be clearer and that they verify the quality of services provided in each region, rather than just having a general report that makes no distinction between the regions? Is work being done on this?

[Graham Fraser]

The issue of accountability is a tricky one for us because we don't have jurisdiction to investigate or make observations about service delivery or use of funds by the provinces.

At an MP's request, we audited an accountability process. All we were able to do was look at the mechanisms in the federal departments. That doesn't necessarily mean that the system reveals everything that is going on, since the federal-provincial borders are sometimes a bit impenetrable.