Evidence of meeting #143 for Official Languages in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was directive.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:15 p.m.
Associate Deputy Minister, Real Property Services Branch, Public Services and Procurement Canada
Do you mean for me to explain the decision?
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Sylvie Boucher Conservative Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île dOrléans—Charlevoix, QC
Yes, I'm asking you please to explain the Supreme Court decision to refresh the memories of committee members.
12:15 p.m.
Associate Deputy Minister, Real Property Services Branch, Public Services and Procurement Canada
To my level of knowledge, that decision was focused on whether or not the site conditions for Rose-des-vents were equivalent to the site conditions for English-language schools and whether the elementary school and the board were given equal access to high-quality properties. It was decided that efforts should be made by the province and others to make sure that they are provided schools that are equivalent to English-language counterparts.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Sylvie Boucher Conservative Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île dOrléans—Charlevoix, QC
Thank you very much.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
May 7th, 2019 / 12:15 p.m.
Liberal
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Denis Paradis
I'm following the order indicated here. Ms. Lambropoulos will have her turn.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
René Arseneault Liberal Madawaska—Restigouche, NB
All right.
Thank you for your answer, Mr. Mills. I also remember that discussion in the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages, and it surprised me somewhat, but you had just taken up your duties at the time, if my memory serves me.
Ms. Sultan, you work at Treasury Board Secretariat. You heard the questions from committee members on both sides of the table.
Directives come first from TBS. Under the Official Languages Act, what do you think would be an unambiguously positive measure that is clear and specific and inevitably produces results?
12:15 p.m.
Senior Director, Real Property and Materiel Policy Division, Acquired Services and Assets Sector, Office of the Comptroller General, Treasury Board Secretariat
Thank you for that question.
As we said, in 2015, we made a change so that the OLMCs were expressly mentioned in the directives. We also intend to make a few changes to the Policy Suite Reset Series.
That means that right now we are reviewing our current suite of policies and looking at consulting widely with various stakeholders—these committees included—to look at changes that could potentially be made to the directive to make it better.
To be succinct, what we are considering as part of our future directive is to specifically require notification of official language minority communities of potential disposals of surplus property. Right now the way that it works is that we, as you're probably aware, notify other federal departments, Crowns, provinces and municipalities. The expectation is that official language minority communities advance their interests through the provinces. As part of our new proposed directive, we recommended that, rather than have OLMCs working through provinces, they would be directly notified on a priority basis.
12:20 p.m.
Senior Director, Real Property and Materiel Policy Division, Acquired Services and Assets Sector, Office of the Comptroller General, Treasury Board Secretariat
That can happen in two ways. Yes, by the department, but there's a specific distinction that I'll note. Yes, by the department, by the custodian of the property.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
René Arseneault Liberal Madawaska—Restigouche, NB
Very good. I like what I just heard.
The initiative would come from the department. So the idea isn't to delegate the task of doing it to the provinces,which the provinces don't always do.
Since we're basking in a spirit of openness and sincerity regarding the department's duty, I'll ask the following question.
Do you have a tool for determining where these communities are and what organizations might benefit from these properties? Do you currently have any way of knowing that? How can we prepare for it?
12:20 p.m.
Senior Director, Real Property and Materiel Policy Division, Acquired Services and Assets Sector, Office of the Comptroller General, Treasury Board Secretariat
That's a very interesting question.
We currently have no tool with which to do that. This is a process. We're sending out emails in an attempt to determine what parties might want to become owners. The idea is to send emails to all potentially interested parties.
It would be wonderful to have some sort of tool where we could centrally post properties that were potentially becoming available so that it would be universally available to anybody who wanted to see it, as opposed to our needing to identify the parties and then send them the information. It would be a different way of ensuring open access to the information.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Denis Paradis
Thank you, Mr. Arseneault.
Now we will go to Mr. Choquette for four minutes.
12:20 p.m.
NDP
François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Déry, Thank you for being here and congratulations on your appointment. This is the first time I've had the opportunity to tell you that in public. You mentioned you've been the new CEO of the translation bureau for about two years.
You've seen the mistakes that have been reported in the postings of Public Services and Procurement Canada, for example.
Did the translation bureau make those mistakes?
12:20 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Translation Bureau, Department of Public Works and Government Services
I can tell you that the translation bureau works with all the departments that ask it to work with them.
12:20 p.m.
NDP
12:20 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Translation Bureau, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Public Services and Procurement Canada is our client. We work closely with that department.
Public Services isn't the only organization that can post notices to the Buyandsell website. It's open to many departments. So it's not necessarily monitored.
We work very closely with Public Services and Procurement Canada to review all titles and to ensure that translations are good. We've implemented something in the past three months, but it concerns the postings of Public Services and Procurement Canada.
12:20 p.m.
NDP
François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC
So I imagine you'll find a strategy with Public Services and Procurement Canada to prevent this from reoccurring.
12:20 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Translation Bureau, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Yes, we're working with the department to ensure that translations posted to the website by Public Services and Procurement Canada are of high quality.
12:20 p.m.
NDP
François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC
That's perfect.
As you know, we conducted an extensive study on the translation bureau at the start of our mandate. As a result, we now have a high-quality senior executive at the bureau. You mentioned that the mission is no longer just to provide services at the lowest possible price but to offer quality as well. That's very important, and we're very pleased about it. We congratulate you.
In the report, we discussed the idea of considering the possibility of offering the translation bureau's services to all government departments and agencies to ensure optimum quality.
Are you currently in talks or communication with Treasury Board on that?
12:25 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Translation Bureau, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Yes, we're working on the bureau's status. The bureau is currently an optional service provider, and I'd say that the advent of neural translation has altered the landscape in the past two years.
It has led us to re-examine and consider what would be the best way to ensure the highest quality in federal documents and federal government communications with Canadians.
We're working with Canadian Heritage on a pilot project. All the documents prepared by Canadian Heritage are first translated by a neural translation machine, an AI machine, and then reviewed by a professional. We consider that very important.
12:25 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Translation Bureau, Department of Public Works and Government Services
We want to draw on the work we're doing with Canadian Heritage to make a proposal and say how we might use new technologies to achieve better translation, at lower cost and more quickly, to serve the federal government as a whole.
Whether the bureau's services are mandatory or optional, the decision isn't up to us. It's up to the federal government and the ministers. However, we're preparing to say how we'll integrate those technologies and how we'll be able to provide better service to the federal government, whether it be Parliament or the federal departments.