Evidence of meeting #4 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 use.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Dan Vandal Liberal Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB
Do you also have a hand in evaluating departments' official languages performance?
4:05 p.m.
Executive Director, Official Languages Centre of Excellence, Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
Within the secretariat, our unit is wholly responsible for overseeing the implementation of parts IV, V, and VI of the act.
4:05 p.m.
Executive Director, Official Languages Centre of Excellence, Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
It's $3.4 million.
4:05 p.m.
Executive Director, Official Languages Centre of Excellence, Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
Yes, for 2015-16.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Dan Vandal Liberal Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB
Has your budget gone up or down over the last six to eight years?
4:05 p.m.
Executive Director, Official Languages Centre of Excellence, Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
Off the top of my head, I would say that the budget has been $3.4 million since 2013-14.
4:05 p.m.
Executive Director, Official Languages Centre of Excellence, Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
I'm not saying it went down. I'm simply saying that's the number I can give you today. If you'd like us to go back further and check previous years' expenditures, we would have to provide you with that information at a later time.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Dan Vandal Liberal Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB
Could we get a list of your total budgets for each of the past six years?
4:05 p.m.
Executive Director, Official Languages Centre of Excellence, Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
Yes, okay.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Dan Vandal Liberal Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB
Very good.
Now I'd like to know what your strategy is for the next six years to deal with the challenges faced by the departments?
4:05 p.m.
Executive Director, Official Languages Centre of Excellence, Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
We underwent an internal evaluation at the end of the last cycle, and it was recommended that we adopt a multi-year plan. So we have such a plan, and it calls for us, as a centre of excellence, to carry out our mission on a number of levels. First and foremost, we are a policy centre. We develop policy instruments for Treasury Board. We provide guidance to institutions. We organize events. We measure performance.
Our plan addresses each of those activities. Ultimately, what we are trying to do through the plan is use these methods to ensure that institutions are meeting their obligations fully. So we adopt policies that clearly set out institutions' obligations, we provide guidance, and we ensure oversight.
4:05 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Governance Planning and Policy Sector, Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
I can answer your previous question about the budget.
In 2009-10, the budget for the official languages centre was $2.777 million. It's been fairly constant. In 2013-14 it went to $2.4 million.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
4:05 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Governance Planning and Policy Sector, Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
Yes.
March 7th, 2016 / 4:05 p.m.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. My apologies for being late. I hope you'll forgive me.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
Mr. Tremblay, I'm going to start with you.
You are clearly a leader given the job you do at Treasury Board. It takes a certain amount of leadership to be in your position. I commend you for that.
A few moments ago, you spoke of the leadership throughout the entire department and across all departments. You talked about the importance of implementing the roadmap and all the elements set out in the act. Since you are someone who understands the need to demonstrate leadership personally, how would you rate your department's leadership as well as that of every other department right now?
By all accounts, I would say it's applied on somewhat of a sliding scale. As you mentioned, some departments have had great results, and others, not so much. I think that's always been more or less the case.
First of all, where do you stand on the level of leadership currently being demonstrated? Second of all, how can those same leaders ensure that best practices are shared between departments?
4:10 p.m.
Executive Director, Official Languages Centre of Excellence, Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
Thank you for your question.
I would begin by saying that the assistant deputy minister committee on official languages meets regularly. The officials from the Department of Canadian Heritage may have talked about that when they were here. Headed by the department's deputy minister, the committee brings together the key players from all federal institutions, a dozen or so assistant deputy ministers. It ensures the necessary horizontal coordination in order to provide momentum and leadership for the official languages program. So it's an important committee.
I'd also like to talk about the official languages champions, who form a meaningful network spanning the 200 or so federal institutions. If you'd like to take a break from discussing translation bureau matters, you can discuss the network with translation bureau CEO and chair of the Council of the Network of Official Languages Champions, who will be appearing after us. The champions play a crucial role in implementing policy requirements and Official Languages Act obligations within each of their organizations. They are highly motivated. It is usually thanks to the official languages champions that we can ensure tangible improvements are made in all organizations, once best practices and key issues have been identified.
The last thing I would mention is the key leadership competencies profile. It's quite a technical tool. The key leadership competencies developed by our Treasury Board Secretariat colleagues take into account the importance of linguistic duality, which depends precisely on leadership. In our view, a leader in the federal public service is someone who promotes and supports these values, and makes sure to integrate them into each of their responsibilities.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Would you say that some leaders in some departments have weaknesses or, at the very least, demonstrate less leadership than others in other departments? After all, some are doing better than others when it comes to compliance with the act and the use of official languages.
On the topic of best practices, I'd like to turn the clock back a few years. I was on this committee from 2009 to 2011, and we had the opportunity to talk to the champions about these issues.
Let's compare the situation in 2009, or 2010, with the situation today, in 2016. Would you say the level of leadership and the use of official languages in each department have improved or stayed the same? How would you assess the situation over the past six years?
4:10 p.m.
Executive Director, Official Languages Centre of Excellence, Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
“Assess” is a technical word, but I think Treasury Board policies provide an important indicator. During the 2012 policy review, the role of champions was entrenched, policy-wise.
I'm going to give you my personal view. Since that milestone, champions have had a more visible role and profile within their organizations. They are more engaged, when it comes to exercising their role. How do we assess that? We assess it on the basis of their actions. Champions have a comprehensive action plan. They are more involved than ever, for example, in terms of proposing detailed projects to the clerk as regards blueprint 2020 implementation. We're seeing new-found enthusiasm.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
