The number of complaints fluctuates from year to year. For a number of years, they were decreasing. Since 2012, they have been increasing. It is always difficult to explain these trends.
This year we have seen an increase in two sectors in particular, including services to the public. As you said, it seems that Canadians have complained more often about not receiving services in their preferred language. So there were more complaints of that type.
There has also been a big increase, as I said, in complaints involving the linguistic profile of positions in the public service. It seems that public servants are more aware of their obligations, which is not a bad thing in itself, and that might also explain the increase in complaints about services to the public. Are Canadians more aware of their rights and are they increasingly demanding that those rights be respected, leading to an increase in the number of complaints?
As to our efforts to reduce the number of complaints, I think all the Commissioner's activities that are part of his role of influencing federal institutions are having an effect. All the presentations given by our staff, all the tools we develop, all the reports we write—whether investigation reports that include recommendations, audit reports or others—are all tools specifically intended to improve the performance of federal institutions. These various methods are expected to have a positive effect in reducing the number of complaints.