Official Languages Committee on Feb. 2nd, 2017

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Is that okay, Mr. Trottier?

[Carl Trottier]

As I mentioned—

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Basically, he is asking you for an assessment.

[Carl Trottier]

We do not have that assessment. We don't have the parameters that would allow us to say which department is better than another. We feel terrible but that is not part of our mandate. Our mandate is global. We are expected to do a global evaluation regarding official languages.

[René Arseneault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Mr. Trottier, there is no evaluation; what your organization is providing to us is not an evaluation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Mr. Arseneault, I think that Mr. Trottier has just given his reply.

We will hold this discussion internally, and we will get back to this point. We will put the question directly to Treasury Board later.

We will go on to our next speaker.

Mr. Généreux, you have the floor.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank the witnesses for being here with us today.

Mr. Trottier, is a questionnaire distributed to all of the departments in order that people may assess themselves?

[Carsten Quell]

Are you talking about the questionnaire we send to the institutions?

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

I am talking about the questionnaire. I imagine it does not only contain a question on whether one is bilingual or not.

[Carsten Quell]

In fact, there are five series of questions. It is included in the documents.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Is that what we saw earlier? Fine, I will analyze that.

Following Mr. Arseneault's intervention, I would like to put the following question to you. If you were in our shoes, what questions would you ask? Since you are with the Secretariat of the Treasury Board, you are responsible for enforcing the act. I am sure you know this, and there are grounds to support what I am saying. If you were in our shoes, what would you change, or what would you ask people to change?

[Carl Trottier]

I always feel a little uncomfortable when I'm asked for my opinion.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Indeed, your opinion is what I am after.

[Carl Trottier]

I come here to help you and to provide all of the data I have. I don't like to invent anything and I don't want to.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

I'm not asking you to invent anything at all.

[Carl Trottier]

I want to give you what we have. However, my opinion is not a part of those facts.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

I think that your opinion is a part of the facts, Mr. Trottier. You work for that organization.

[Carl Trottier]

I'm going to answer your question somewhat differently.

Currently, we are working within a framework under which we were asked to create a policy. We developed one and we reviewed it in 2012. We made changes to ensure that it was in proper form and that it would advance the interests of official languages in Canada. We were also asked to do an annual evaluation. Consequently, we must ask a lot of questions of the departments and deputy heads so that we know what is going on.

How can we ensure that the self-assessment is accurate? By making it transparent and ensuring that it is distributed to everyone. In that way, the deputy heads will want to provide a true picture.

I was also asked to go and see some deputy heads to tell them that they had some serious systemic issues and that we wanted to work with them to help them to resolve these issues.

So, if you ask, I would say that I am comfortable with what we achieved within that framework.

However, someone asked earlier if making recommendations to someone else was a part of our mandate. The answer is no, it is not up to us to do that.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

I will put the question another way.

You say that you work within a framework that applies to all of the organization. If you could change that framework and if you could improve it, what improvements would you make to it?

[Carl Trottier]

I'm going to reply by making an offer to the committee. Rather than talking to you about what I think, I would like to offer you a technical briefing to present an overview of our program and to explain everything we do.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

That sounds fine to me.

[Carl Trottier]

It would last more than an hour and I apologize for that, but I think it would be beneficial. I really do want to work with this committee, to support it and provide it with what it needs to do its work on official languages.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

If you had to rank official languages on a priority scale from 1 to 10 at Treasury Board, where would you situate official languages?

I'll go back to what Mr. Samson was saying earlier. As a private citizen I worked in private enterprise. In that environment we regularly analyze components that are put in place in order to ensure that our systems function, provide results and generate profits. It is that simple. That is how it works in the private sector.

In government, we provide services to a clientele that is the whole of the Canadian population.

Regarding the priority of French and official languages, what is the position of Treasury Board? How do you assess yourselves in that regard? Are you at 2, at the bottom of the scale? Does anyone care a hoot about official languages?

There are people I have known here in Ottawa for many years. They are public servants who work in certain departments. Let's examine a very concrete situation involving official languages that happens in offices and departments. When meetings are held, if there is a single person around the table who speaks only English and does not understand French, all of the francophones speak English. This happens over and over again in Ottawa, and has for many years.

We are talking about self-assessments. I think that everyone here has roundly denounced this method. How can we change a system if we are told, when this evaluation is done, that everything is going well, that there is no problem, when in reality meetings are held in English only?

There is a real difference between applying the act and the assessment that people make of it, and what really happens during staff meetings.

[Carl Trottier]

I'm going to answer your question because—

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Before letting you answer, Mr. Trottier, I'm simply going to thank Mr. Généreux.

I have to leave. I'm going to ask Mr. Nater to chair the meeting in my stead.

I want to thank you for that offer of co-operation with the committee. I think that will be helpful.

You may now reply.

Thank you very much.