Official Languages Committee on March 7th, 2016

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Tremblay, I'd like to pick up on my colleague Mr. Vandal's earlier question about budgets. You said your budget was $3.4 million. Is that correct? Did I hear you correctly that that amount funded 23 positions?

[Marc Tremblay]

Yes, you heard correctly. It funds 23 positions.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

How do you spend that $3.4 million representing 23 positions?

[Marc Tremblay]

Are you asking how we spend the $3.4 million?

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

No. You're saying that's the cost of 23 positions. I'd like you to explain that to us.

[Marc Tremblay]

A federal organization's budget covers the cost of office space, employee benefits, computer equipment, office supplies such as pens and paper, as well as wages. Our $3.4-million budget allows us to hire employees at different levels. The members of my team range from AS-1 analysts all the way up to executives, including my position, and the levels of pay vary as well. The $3.4-million budget is broken down as follows: approximately $2.4 million is spent on wages, and goods and services, and about $1 million is spent on other costs such as benefits, pensions, and office space.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you.

Now I'm going to come back to the topic of champions. Earlier you talked about a more visible profile. What does that mean to you? Could you define that for us? Does it mean the person is treated better or has more benefits?

[Marc Tremblay]

In 2012, Treasury Board's official languages policy stipulated, for the first time, that deputy ministers had to designate champions to support them in implementing the requirements of the act. Every deputy minister is advised of their official languages responsibilities, which include appointing an official languages champion. And that person can now perform their role more fully than in the past.

Previously, institutions were simply asked to have a champion. It's something we asked of them, but they didn't have to have one. It wasn't a policy requirement.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

I'm not so sure that there's still a benefit to having a champion. I'm not convinced. Earlier, I gathered that a champion demonstrated leadership and advised others of best practices. Let's say you've designated a champion in your organization, what advantage does that person offer? Is it sharing their expertise to benefit others?

[Marc Tremblay]

The champion advocates for better compliance with the Official Languages Act and related policies. As a member of the senior management team, the champion is at the table when the deputy minister and senior managers are discussing and deciding matters. The champion is therefore in a position to point out, when appropriate, the potential impact on official languages of proposals under consideration. The champion helps the deputy minister make better decisions by highlighting the official languages component and the need for alternatives.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you, Ms. Lapointe.

Mr. Samson, it's your turn.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Given your description of a champion, I would say that Nova Scotia is home to many of them.

My question pertains to practices on the ground.

Say an employee who wants to improve their second-language skills goes to talk to their supervisor. It could be a francophone wanting to learn English or an anglophone wanting to learn French. What suggestions or supports would the supervisor give the employee? The employee may not even speak the second language, which is all the more problematic. What is available to help that person?

[Marc Tremblay]

Mr. Chair, that's a pretty broad question.

Since our policy review and the introduction of new systems at the request of official languages champions, our performance management regime has included official languages considerations. They help to stimulate discussion between supervisors and employees about language training requirements, in particular. Under the policy, this discussion should happen twice a year but, at the very least, once a year. That's already embedded in the systems. Supervisors have no choice but to address the issue and consider training requirements.

As regards the training methods available, I would say they are countless. The Canada School of Public Service makes a host of online training tools available to employees, as well as the general public. Federal public servants and members of the public have access to training tools to help them learn a variety of languages.

Employees can take advantage of a number of other measures, such as assignments in primarily French-speaking units, or vice versa, to improve their second-language skills. Lunch-and-learn presentations on work-related topics are another language-learning opportunity, where all participants agree to use the specified language, either English or French.

In order to practice their second-language skills, some employees wear little signs that say, “Help me practice speaking French or English” or “Don't switch”. There's a culture among public servants of speaking to someone in their first language as soon as they notice that the person is speaking their second language or has a slight accent.

Many such tips and tools corresponding to best practices are available. Champions have compiled several dozen such practices. Every department and organization adopts a certain number of them, trying new formulas every year and introducing novel approaches on a rotating basis. The idea is to use slightly different techniques to encourage employees to continue their second-language learning.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you.

Mr. Nater, you may go ahead.

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

I need one of those buttons that says, “I'm learning, don't switch languages, please“. I'll have to follow up.

I want to follow up on the Commissioner of Official Languages report and the number of complaints that were received in relation to language of service. Could you provide me with an understanding of the geographic breakdown, or even a departmental breakdown of where those complaints may have originated and what types of departments or geographic areas those came from?

[Marc Tremblay]

The commissioner's report has historically tracked on a regional basis where most of the complaints occur. I'll say it's not much of a surprise that they occur where there are more francophones, though Quebec is not entirely immune from similar types of complaints.

We have more complaints in the national capital region, more complaints in New Brunswick, and so on.

I think it's important to put all of this in context. The number of complaints is small when considered against the millions of interactions between Canadians and their federal institutions. That's not to say that every one of those complaints is not in itself important, and that they're not indicators of work to be done.

Institutions that receive a complaint get to manage that complaint, take an action plan, and follow up on the recommendations of the commissioner. My sense is that every one of these institutions takes every one of those complaints and recommendations seriously and does what's required to follow up.

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

Do we know which institutions seem to have received the most complaints? I'm sure it's in the commissioner's report, which I don't have handy.

[Marc Tremblay]

Again, the commissioner's report is one indicator of performance, not the only indicator of performance. The commissioner himself, over the last couple of years, has decided to move away from the list of institutions for reasons that we would have to ask the commissioner about.

That said, there has been a history of certain concentrations in institutions that have a large footprint of service, for example. Those institutions, like Canada Post, Air Canada, and Service Canada, which have a large service footprint and are involved in hundreds of thousands of transactions with Canadians, get a somewhat higher proportion of the complaints.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you, Mr. Nater.

Mr. Choquette, the floor is yours.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to ask you a question I didn't have time to ask earlier.

If I'm not mistaken, you work with the Treasury Board Secretariat's centre of excellence for evaluation. Questions about that have come up in the past. The importance of working with the centre is an issue that was raised. Obviously, building cooperation matters.

Could you elaborate on how your relationship with the centre has changed over the years?

[Marc Tremblay]

I've had meetings with my counterpart who heads the centre of excellence for evaluation. We also worked with the centre as part of a meeting with representatives of the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada, or FCFA, who had concerns regarding the evaluation centre's policies.

We are in regular contact. We sit alongside one another at the Treasury Board Secretariat's central policy table. We have many methods and issues in common. As far as other policies are concerned, there are no differences when it comes to official languages, whether it involves developing policies, supporting institutions, providing advice, or ensuring oversight. So we're often at the same table discussing the same issues. And, naturally, we provide the centre with any official languages advice it needs.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

So, together, you met with the people from the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada.

What did the FCFA suggest to both of you?

[Marc Tremblay]

Seeing as you will soon be meeting with FCFA representatives, you can ask them about it as well. But I think the FCFA wanted to know whether the relevant evaluation policy instruments would expressly mention the need to take official languages into account.

I wouldn't want to speak for my colleagues, but as a matter of general practice, when developing policies, we try to avoid repetition to make sure Treasury Board directives are clear. With that in mind, if the main instrument is sufficient in that respect, we won't repeat the official languages requirements in every single Treasury Board policy.

Basically, the centre of excellence for evaluation explained the overall approach to policy development and indicated that it might be possible to provide deputy ministers with examples, as far as guidance and advice, and supporting documentation were concerned. We actually explain to all deputy ministers how the client services directorate can measure the capacity to provide those services in both official languages.

That's the approach that was discussed at that time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you very much, Mr. Choquette.

Thank you kindly, Mr. Tremblay and Ms. Thornton, for your presentation.

My hats off to you.

We are now going to break for a minute or two, just long enough to bring in our next witnesses.