Official Languages Committee on March 7th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Welcome to this meeting of the Standing Committee on Official Languages.

Let me say right at the outset that we must conclude the committee's work at 5:30, because someone else will need the room at that time.

Our agenda today is divided into two parts: first we will hear representatives of the Treasury Board Secretariat, and afterwards we will host representatives from the translation bureau.

May I welcome Ms. Sally Thornton, Assistant Deputy Minister, Governance Planning and Policy Sector, Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer.

I also welcome Mr. Marc Tremblay, Executive Director, Official Languages Centre of Excellence, Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer.

Lady, gentleman, welcome.

Let's get to work right away. You have the floor.

[Sally Thornton, Assistant Deputy Minister, Governance Planning and Policy Sector, Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat]

Thank you.

I think you have all received the slides.

Mr. Chair, thank you for the opportunity to be here today. We are pleased to be here.

As you know, our minister, the President of the Treasury Board, is responsible for some parts of the Official Languages Act. These are reflected in his mandate letter commitments, which have been made public.

Diversity is our strength, and we have a strong commitment to promoting official languages—both in the workplace and in the services that we provide to Canadians—not just from coast to coast to coast, but also overseas.

By way of opening remarks, we would propose an overview of the role of the Treasury Board Secretariat in the context of the Official Languages Act, touching on the legislative framework and key language provisions of legal instruments, as well as the data and the outcomes.

I would like to invite Marc Tremblay to walk us through the deck, and then we would be pleased to take questions.

[Marc Tremblay, Executive Director, Official Languages Centre of Excellence, Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat]

I invite you to go directly to slide 2 of our short presentation, which gives you an overview of the legislative framework governing official languages. The Treasury Board Secretariat has certain responsibilities regarding this legislative framework which gives life to the programs.

Let's move on to slide 3.

As you know, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms gives equal status to English and French in all institutions of the Government of Canada. This is, among other things, the cornerstone of federal employees' right to work in English or in French.

The charter also gives members of the public the right to receive services from their government in English and French depending on the location and nature of the office, and where there is a significant demand for the services. The charter rights are further developed and entrenched in the Official Languages Act.

Slide 4 presents part IV of the Official Languages Act, one of the three parts of this act that are the responsibility of Treasury Board and the President of the Treasury Board. This part of the act sets out federal institutions' obligations related to providing communications and services to the public in both official languages.

As of March 31, 2014, there were, across Canada and overseas, 11,469 federal offices; more than 5,000 of these were post offices and Service Canada local offices located throughout the country. This includes Air Canada routes, telephone lines and websites. Of these 11,469 federal offices, 3,931 were bilingual and 7,538 were unilingual, still as of March 31, 2014. This means that 1,371 offices offered unilingual French services, while 6,167 offices offered services in English only. As of March 31, 2014, 34.3% of federal offices were required to offer bilingual services to the public and communicate with it in both languages.

Based on the reports that federal institutions submit to the Treasury Board Secretariat to show that they are complying with the requirements of the act, a strong majority of institutions indicated that in offices designated bilingual for services to the public, oral and written communications are in the official language of the public's choice.

As noted in the 2013-2014 “Annual Report on Official Languages”, we continue to work with institutions to update linguistic designations based on the 2011 Census. This exercise will continue into 2016-2017.

That was a very brief overview of part IV.

Let us now move on to slide 5, which discusses part V of the Official Languages Act, the language of work.

This part of the act makes English and French the two languages or work in federal institutions. The act gives employees in designated bilingual regions the right to use their official language of choice; to be supervised, to receive personal and central services, and to have access to work instruments in the official language of their choice. In unilingual regions, the language of the majority is generally the language of work.

May I direct your attention to a few key indicators which show that federal institutions have created work environments that allow them to meet their obligations to the public and to their employees.

The first indicator is the proportion of bilingual positions in the core public administration, which has steadily increased from almost 25% in 1978 to over 43% in 2014. The second indicator points in the same direction: the proportion of employees in bilingual positions who meet the language requirements of their position has steadily increased, from 69.7% in 1978 to 95.6% in 2014.

I will now go on to slide 6, on part VI of the Official Languages Act, which speaks to the participation of English and French-speaking Canadians in federal institutions.

Anglophones and francophones are well represented across federal institutions subject to the act.

According to the 2011 Census, 23.2% of Canada's population is francophone. As of March 31, 2014, francophone representation in federal institutions was 26.5%, and 33% of executives in the core public administration were francophone.

I am coming to the end of my presentation.

Slide 7 sets out the responsibilities the Official Languages Act gives to Treasury Board and the President of the Treasury Board with regard to developing policies and regulations and tabling reports pursuant to parts IV, V and VI of the act.

The last slide presents a pie chart that provides a brief guide to the committee on understanding the numerous responsibilities of the various federal institutions with respect to official languages.

[Sally Thornton]

We continue to encourage institutions and public servants to participate in building the public service of tomorrow by affirming the importance of our two official languages at every opportunity.

This completes our opening remarks.

We would be pleased to take questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you very much for your presentation.

We will immediately begin the first round of questions with Ms. Boucher.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Good afternoon.

Thank you for this fine presentation. It is always a pleasure to sit on this committee.

Social media are becoming increasingly prevalent in our environment, both here and in federal institutions. I would like to know what mechanisms you have put in place to comply with your language obligations. Have you put such mechanisms in place? Everyone is on Twitter and Facebook, and we need a structure.

[Marc Tremblay]

Overall Treasury Board official language policies state that all federal institution communications must meet the same requirements, and communications in social media are subject to the same rules.

In addition, policies on communications and the various guides on the use of social media contain more specific instructions to guide federal institutions and public servants who must or who wish to communicate through social media.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

So, our communications are subject to the same rules, even if social media are a new phenomenon.

[Marc Tremblay]

That is correct.

What most federal institutions do regarding the Twitter feed is that they have two accounts, one in French and one in English, that simultaneously broadcast tweets in both official languages.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

And do you ensure that the tweets say the same thing in both French and English? Sometimes, the translated comments do not necessarily mean the same thing.

[Marc Tremblay]

The institutions are required to ensure that their communications are of equal quality, whatever means are used.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Very well.

Thank you, Mr. Tremblay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

You have two minutes, John.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

I'd like to ask some questions on the use of French in the public service.

When I worked at the Treasury Board Secretariat, everyone was officially bilingual, but people generally spoke English. Is there an issue with public service culture that explains why English is used more often than French? How can we measure the use of both official languages in the public service?

[Marc Tremblay]

Mr. Chair, once again, in this regard we need first of all to talk about the current situation. A very large proportion of the employees in bilingual positions meet the language requirements of their position, according to Public Service Commission tests. This is a noteworthy improvement over the situation which prevailed 10 or 15 years ago.

Being able to speak both official languages does not necessarily mean that you always use them. However, various methods are constantly being used to encourage the use of both languages and to remind employees that this is their right.

Good practices have been put in place in our institutions. For our part, we ensure that employees are made aware of them. This can be done simply through the use of posters reminding employees that they have the right, at meetings, to use the official language of their choice, or by using other similar methods.

[Sally Thornton]

If I may add, every three years we have a public service employee survey and we engage our employees on a range of issues, including a set of questions with regard to the use of official languages such as, “Am I free to use the official language of my choice in meetings or in written materials?” Generally speaking, the response rates to the use of official languages are high, but there is a difference in the response rates between anglophones and francophones. Generally speaking, the response rates from francophones are less satisfied; they're still high, but they don't have the same feeling of ease about using the language of their choice in meetings or in written materials.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Just honing up a little bit, there's the bilingual bonus. It's my understanding that it's been fairly stagnant for a number of years. Is there any discussion being held on either increasing it or potentially doing away with it if it's no longer effectively achieving the purpose it was set out to do?

[Sally Thornton]

As you know, the bilingual bonus payment is governed by the directive, and the National Joint Council is responsible for the directive. It's an integral part of collective agreements, so subject to negotiations. What I would say is that since we've had the bonus in play, since 1977, at that time 69.7% of employees met their language requirements. Today it's 95%.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Have any translation bureau positions been eliminated over the past years?

What kinds of positions were eliminated, and how many?

Will more positions be eliminated in the near future?

What are the reasons for eliminating these positions? Has eliminating these positions affected the quality of the translation bureau's services?

How has eliminating these positions affected the ability of federal institutions to meet their linguistic obligations?

[Marc Tremblay]

Mr. Chair, several of these questions could be put to our colleagues from the translation bureau, who will be appearing during the second hour.

Some questions involve compliance or quality assurance. Without saying that we play a role in quality assurance, I would say that Treasury Board policies demand compliance on the part of institutions. They require that the institutions offer the public a product of equal quality, simultaneously in both official languages, when bilingualism is required. That is what must be done, whatever the method that is used.

For its part, the Treasury Board Secretariat is responsible for monitoring execution. Consequently we ask the institutions to ensure that they continuously meet the requirements of the policies and that they respect the equal status of French and English when they communicate with the public, in particular.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

And how do you monitor that quality?

[Marc Tremblay]

Every year institutions receive a questionnaire in which we ask them a series of questions on the various requirements of the Treasury Board policies. Indeed, according to Treasury Board requirements, the deputy minister must constantly monitor his or her organization's compliance and report on it when the Secretariat asks him to do so. Ultimately, the annual report of the President of the Treasury Board sets out the performance of the institutions with regard to their obligations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

So this is based on the deputy minister's report.

[Marc Tremblay]

It is based on the deputy minister's report, which is submitted to the Treasury Board Secretariat.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mauril.

Linda, you have the floor.