Official Languages Committee on Feb. 2nd, 2017

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

We are resuming the session.

In summary, during the in camera portion of the meeting, we discussed a notice of motion introduced by our Vice-Chair John Nater. The purpose of the motion is to request that the Prime Minister issue a written response to the Committee within 30 calendar days explaining and justifying his use of the majority language in a minority language context.

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

I think I have to move the motion first before you can rule it out, so I've moved the motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Okay.

You have moved the motion.

I don't intend to go over the entire discussion that we already had. In short, I had to decide whether Mr. Nater's motion was in order. After consulting the regulations, I came to the conclusion that the motion was not in order.

The Commissioner of Official Languages has received complaints. I assume that he will determine whether they are in order or not. Of course, the committee can always receive the reports from the Commissioner of Official Languages, invite him to appear, and so on. As a result, in my view, this motion is not in order. We agreed to repeat those arguments publicly. There you go, now it's done.

We will suspend the meeting for a few minutes to allow the witnesses to settle in.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

We are resuming the meeting.

I would first like to welcome Mr. Trottier and Mr. Quell from the Treasury Board Secretariat. They will be giving a presentation this morning.

You have 10 minutes for the presentation, after which we will go around the table for questions and comments.

Mr. Trottier, the floor is yours.

[Carl Trottier, Assistant Deputy Minister, Governance, Planning and Policy Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat]

Mr. Chair, members of the committee, thank you.

I am pleased to be here with you today to contribute to the important role this committee has in achieving the objectives of the Official Languages Act.

Since September 2016, I have been responsible for the Governance, Planning and Policy Sector within the Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer, which is part of the Treasury Board Secretariat. The Official Languages Centre of Excellence is part of my sector. That is why I'm here to answer your questions.

It is an honour for me to lead the activities of the Secretariat and to be able to contribute to the continuous improvement of the results of the Government of Canada, particularly with respect to the provision of bilingual services and communications to the public, as well as with respect to the use of our two official languages in the workplace.

As you probably know, on November 17, the President of the Treasury Board announced a review of the Official Languages Regulations in an effort to modernize and adapt them to current realities.

I'm accompanied today by Carsten Quell, the director of policy and legislation with the Official Languages Centre of Excellence.

On November 29, 2016, I appeared before the Standing Committee on Official Languages, along with officials of Canadian Heritage, in support of the committee's study on accountability measures for official languages.

As I explained during this appearance, the Treasury Board Secretariat plays a role in supporting the implementation of parts IV, V and VI of the Official Languages Act.

Our activities can be grouped under three main themes: policy, support and evaluation.

First, we support the Treasury Board in developing and recommending policies on official languages. These clarify for all interested parties—public servants, parliamentarians and the Canadian public in general—the Treasury Board's expectations with regard to official languages.

Second, we play a supporting role and advise federal institutions and their deputy heads who are primarily responsible for the implementation of the Act and related policies. That is an important point to emphasize today.

Finally, we support the mission of the Treasury Board for assessing the overall state of the official languages program in federal institutions. The information we collect from federal institutions for this purpose is used in the preparation of an annual report that the President of the Treasury Board tables in Parliament. This report plays several roles.

On the one hand, the report serves to identify issues that deserve special attention because their implementation remains a challenge. In itself, this may indicate that it is necessary to amend the policies in order to clarify or improve them; or it may indicate that the implementation of a specific requirement poses greater challenges and requires the Secretariat to focus its efforts on awareness, guidance and advice to improve the implementation of these specific requirements.

The report is also an important part of the oversight mechanism created by the Parliament of Canada to ensure compliance with the objectives of the Official Languages Act. The report and its production allow a deputy head to take note of the performance of the organization—it allows them to take steps to assess and report on performance, and to take any corrective action required.

The annual report also aims to provide parliamentarians and the two committees, which have been established in accordance with the Act, the information necessary to play their role.

The annual report shows that federal institutions have made progress over the years, notably in the proportion of bilingual positions and in the proportion of incumbents of bilingual positions who meet the language requirements of their positions.

The report prepared by institutions is a self-assessment, as are indeed most measures of accountability submitted to Treasury Board Secretariat by federal institutions. This does not mean that the reports are not evidence-based. The reports submitted by institutions are based on several sources of information, and the transparency around them strongly encourages the rigorous analysis of the state of implementation.

In addition, this tool is not the only source that supports the report tabled in Parliament, as we also use the result of evaluations and audits, statistical data from human resource systems, as well as the results of the public service employee survey, just to name a few.

We understand that this honourable committee has questions about the annual report and the supporting reviews. During my November appearance, we undertook to provide the committee with further information to assist it in its role. We are here today to continue to do so.

I would like to add that we will, with enthusiasm and determination, come back to this committee as often as required to best respond to your questions to the best of our abilities, with the objective of supporting the valuable work this committee does. That being said, the committee sought a list of problematic institutions, which we unfortunately don't have. I'd like to explain why, but I'd also like to explain what we do collect and the benefits derived.

Modern management principles for public institutions lead us to strive for continuous improvement by supporting those primarily responsible for the implementation of Treasury Board requirements to better achieve their work. That is why the Secretariat, under the guidance received by the Treasury Board, reviews the general state of implementation to identify issues that pose challenges for many federal institutions and to direct its attention to provide assistance, advice and support to all institutions.

The Secretariat aims for continuous improvement in all federal institutions while allowing each deputy head to establish the means necessary in their organization, in the context of their own realities and in accordance with their accountabilities.

Given that the Treasury Board's mandate is to oversee the general implementation of policies, but not to interfere with everyday deputy heads' own oversight responsibilities, the President of Treasury Board reports on overall results and does not rank the institutions. However, the institutions' reviews are made available to the parliamentary committees and to the Commissioner of Official Languages. This transparency ensures that reporting is taken seriously by deputy heads and allows for appropriate accountabilities to be exercised.

Those accountabilities do involve the Treasury Board Secretariat, but clearly Parliament intended that the commissioner and Parliament play a significant role in supporting the act's objectives. To assist the committee in understanding both the overall and individual results, we provided the committee with the information we received from reporting institutions for the 2014-15 reviews on official languages. The tables we produced present the responses received from each reporting institution on every question. This is the data we rely on to assist the president in reporting on the overall status of the official languages program. The annual report analyzes and presents these results in a transparent and open manner with the aim of encouraging compliance with and respect for the act.

Finally, before inviting you to ask any questions you may have, I want to reiterate how important the work of this committee is to us and to Canadians in general, and I wish to assure you that I will be at your disposal as long as you need me to be here, and for as many hearings as you need me to be here for, so we can answer your questions fully.

Now I will gladly answer your questions, and if I'm challenged on some, I'm going to ask Mr. Quell to give me a hand with that. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you very much, Mr. Trottier.

We will start right away with the questions and comments.

You may start, Mr. Nater.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My thanks to the witnesses.

I'd like to challenge you a little bit. We asked for some information on which departments were problematic, and perhaps “problematic” is the wrong terminology. How about opportunities for improvement?

We see the results here. We see one example here from the annual report, that there are three departments that almost never greet the public in the official languages over the telephone. I see that as perhaps not problematic, but as an opportunity for improvement.

Could you provide us with the names of certain departments where you see great opportunities for improvement in greeting the public in the official languages or better complying with their official language requirements?

[Carl Trottier]

Thank you very much for that question. That question is in fact very different from the one that was initially asked. As you can see, this is thick. We'll have to go through this and come back to you.

Each department, in reality, has its strengths and weaknesses. That's just the reality of how it is. Some departments are doing very well when it comes to meetings. When they hold their meetings, they're very rigorous and they've developed some techniques from being rigorous in regard to their meetings. Other departments have more challenges and have ups and downs with regard to that. However, when we look at them overall, we see that they're actually quite healthy when it comes to the overall application of the official languages. You will find some where you see a lot of “no” boxes checked off, but they'll have a whole lot of “yes” boxes checked beside the other ones. The information you're asking for is actually quite a big volume, because all of these departments have some elements they they can work on.

What we push and strive for is to make sure there's continual improvement in all instances. When we notice things, we then reach out to departments to find out how we can help. We try to identify a horizontal issue and we bring working groups together to be learn lessons and best practices, and it actually works.

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

That leads to my next question, about the idea and concept of continual improvement. In the annual report for 2014-15, figure 20 refers to the percentage of institutions that carried out activities or reviews throughout the year. Only 69% of them do that throughout the year; 31% do not. What efforts is Treasury Board currently undertaking to encourage the remaining 31% to undertake continuous evaluation throughout the year, and not just at one point in a year when the self-assessment is undertaken?

[Carl Trottier]

I missed the beginning of your sentence. Are you referring to the action plans?

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

No, I'm talking about the institutions that carry out activities throughout the year to measure the availability and quality of services offered in both official languages. In the annual report, figure 20 shows that only 69% of departments undertake activities throughout the year to review. So what's being done by TBS to encourage that 31%? What tools are available to undertake that throughout the year?

[Carsten Quell, Director, Policy and Legislation, Treasury Board Secretariat]

The approach that Treasury Board Secretariat takes is to make this information available to departments, to the commissioner, and to the committee. By making information available, we take the first step so that institutions can look at each other and get inspired by each other's practices.

The fact that some carry out activities that others don't is something that can be discussed at the champions network; each federal institution has a champion. It's the availability of the information in and of itself that creates the beginning of the dialogue that will then help institutions to compare themselves to each another and look at best practices and ways to improve.

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

Self-assessment and how it is undertaken has been on my mind since the last meeting. I've been reading through the information you provided. I very much appreciate it. In very few examples are requests for actual evidence being submitted. I know that when I was undertaking MAF assessments, we had a portal—this was back in 2009—and evidence by way of justification was submitted through the portal.

A lot of these questions are simply yes or no. I'm wondering what evidence might be provided to TBS. Second, what evidence is used internally in each department to assess some of these questions? They are awfully subjective in a lot of ways. What is considered a bilingual meeting? Is welcoming participants in English and French at the beginning considered a bilingual meeting?

What is considered a meeting in that sense? I attended a lot of meetings when I was in the public service. What is a meeting? Is it me and my supervisor? Is a third person needed for it to be considered a meeting? What types of criteria are there to provide the evidence both for the self-assessment and when it's also passed on to TBS to endorse the assessments provided?

[Carl Trottier]

The self-assessment is just one piece of information that's used. The information captured in the self-assessment is often corroborated by other pieces of information, such as the statistics we collect and the survey of the employees.

The survey of the employees is an excellent tool, by the way, because it gives you the real read of how the language is being used in the public service. We get tremendous pieces of information through that. We have other sections of information that come to us that corroborate how it is.

Your other question, or at least the other sense of your question, is how do we know they're doing things well in a meeting? Again, the responsibility for implementing it falls on the deputy head. We as advisers provide advice to the departments with regard to how they should be doing it. For example, a meeting is successful when everybody in the room feels they can have exchanges in the language of their choice, and it's not just saying “hi” at the beginning of the meeting. So, that's a best practice.

The trick is how you implement it in a way that it can be repeated systematically throughout the department. That's where departments sometimes strive and have to work hard at trying to get that. They'll put—

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you very much, Mr. Trottier.

[Carl Trottier]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you very much, John.

I will now give the floor to Ms. Lapointe.

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

Thank you.

Gentlemen, thank you for joining us this morning. It is much appreciated.

It was interesting to hear you talk about whether people could use the language of their choice in meetings. Could you convince me? Do you have any figures for that? In your meetings, do you feel comfortable speaking in French or do you speak mainly in English?

[Carl Trottier]

I, for one, feel comfortable speaking in both languages. I speak English very well and I'm not too bad in French. So I'm comfortable. I'm also comfortable letting the people around me speak in the language of their choice. That is my personal experience, and it does not always reflect the experience of all the departments.

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

No, but that's fine.

[Carl Trottier]

However, the departments provide information. They let us know whether they have given employees the option of using both languages in meetings. We have answers or data on that.

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

At the beginning of your presentation, you said that you are in charge of the Governance, Planning and Policy Sector and that the Official Languages Centre of Excellence is part of your sector. Then, you said that the report and its production makes it possible to take note of the performance of organizations.

Over five years, have you noticed a significant improvement as a result of the measures you have taken? Do you have an example showing that the report allowed you to make improvements?

[Carl Trottier]

It is difficult to provide a specific example when we are constantly working on making improvements.

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

Is there a positive trend?

[Carl Trottier]

Yes.