Official Languages Committee on March 25th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Welcome to meeting number 23 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Official Languages.

The committee is meeting on its study of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the government’s ability to deliver information in both official languages.

This is the last meeting on this study.

To ensure an orderly meeting, I would like to outline a few rules to follow.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind all participants to this meeting that screenshots or taking photos of your screen is not permitted, as the Speaker of the House has determined.

Members and witnesses may speak in the official language of their choice. Interpretation services are available for this meeting. You have the choice at the bottom of your screen of either the floor, English or French.

I remind everyone that all comments should be addressed through the chair.

Please speak slowly and clearly.

Unless there are exceptional circumstances, the use of headsets with a boom microphone is mandatory for everyone participating remotely.

Should any challenges arise, please advise the Chair or the clerk. We need to ensure that all members are able to participate fully.

Since no one is in the room, I can now welcome our witnesses. First of all, they have my thanks for accepting our invitation.

You will have seven and a half minutes in which to give your presentations. May I ask you to glance at me from time to time, because I will signal to you when you have a minute left. I will use my red card to tell you that your time is up.

My dear members, given that we will have two opening statements of seven and a half minutes each, and given our start time, the final five-minute round of questions will not be possible. If you wish to share your time with others, please feel free to do so.

It is my great pleasure to welcome the officials from the Canada Border Services Agency. We have with us Denis Vinette, Vice-President, Travellers Branch, and Louise Youdale, Vice-President, Human Resources Branch.

From Ombudsman Ontario, we have with us Kelly Burke, French Language Services Commissioner of Ontario, and Carl Bouchard, Director of Operations, French Language Services Unit.

We will start with the Canada Border Services Agency.

Mr. Vinette, the floor is yours.

[Denis Vinette, Vice-President, Travellers Branch, Canada Border Services Agency]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Members of the committee, good afternoon. I am pleased to be with you today.

I am Denis Vinette, Vice-President of Travellers Branch. I am responsible, amongst other things, for the Agency’s Border Services Officers. I am here with Louise Youdale, Vice-President of the Human Resources Branch at the Canada Border Services Agency, who oversees the Official Language programme of the Agency.

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to share with you all that has been done by our Agency to provide services and information in both official languages, despite the ongoing pandemic and in respect of Canada’s Official Languages Act.

The CBSA takes its Official Languages obligations seriously—whether dealing with external clients or with its own employees. The most frequent ways we interact with the public are: in person at a point of entry, by telephone on our Border Information Service Line, and with visits to our website and on our social media channels.

As you all know, the pandemic required the Agency to implement a number of public health measures at the border, in a dynamic environment. It was, and still is, an evolving situation. However, I assure you that we have not compromised on providing services in both official languages. In fact, not only have we continued to embrace linguistic duality during the pandemic, but we have prioritized it to ensure that essential public health measures were well understood by Canadians and travellers alike.

The CBSA is committed to offering travellers services of equal quality in the official language of their choice at all ports of entry designated as bilingual. At our ports of entry, services, signage and information material are provided according to the Official Languages rules for that region and where there is a significant demand from the official language minority communities.

Should a situation arise where a language barrier exists, the CBSA officer handling the situation will either switch languages, ask another officer who speaks the language to engage, or contact an interpreter. In fact, in a 2020 public opinion research study by Ipsos, 98 percent of respondents who had interactions with a border services officer said it took place in the official language of their choice.

The CBSA considers that it has consistently provided service of equal quality when travellers arrive at a bilingual port of entry. Every traveller is greeted in the official language of their choice. Every traveller is served by an officer with the required language skills. Every traveller receives all documentation in the official language of their choice.

The CBSA's shift scheduling system includes the ability to identify the linguistic profile of employees in order to prioritize the scheduling of bilingual officers at a port of entry when required. The technology in use at ports of entry is available in both official languages. Our primary inspection kiosk can be used by travellers in either English or French.

People seeking information from the CBSA are also welcome to contact us by phone. Our business information service line provides information on CBSA programs, services and initiatives. There's an automated telephone service that provides recorded information in both French and English. In addition, live agents are available during business hours to answer questions in either official language.

Even before the pandemic started, visits to our websites were trending up to become the main way that information is shared with the public. Our statistics tell us that we had more than a million visits to our web pages between June and December 2020. We ensure that all information is available in both official languages at the same time and that the linguistic quality of our text is of the highest standards.

In fact, all content produced for our social media, our websites and applications is always available in both of Canada's official languages from the moment it is made public. During the pandemic, signage at our ports of entry has been bilingual from the start. All brochures shared with the travelling public have also been available in both official languages from the onset of the pandemic.

I know I have focused so far on the services we provide to our clients, but rest assured that our internal practices are equally as important. All internal correspondence to our employees is available in both English and French. Our intranet, messages and bulletins are available in both languages—again, at the same time.

That said, we can always improve our external and internal practices, and more can be done in support of Canada's official languages.

We know the concerns of the Commissioner of Official Languages with regard to the CBSA in his 2019 audit report. The commissioner mentioned recruitment, mechanisms to assess bilingual service delivery, and challenges in building and maintaining relationships with official-language minority communities.

To respond, the CBSA has developed a comprehensive action plan to increase bilingual capacity. By September 2021, tools and reference documents will be developed for managers, and workshops will be provided on bilingual meetings. By February 2022, we will have updated our active-offer training and relaunched it online so that CBSA officers can proactively offer quality service to the public in both official languages. We also expect to establish a national advisory committee for official languages composed of regional and branch ambassadors.

Finally, I want to assure you that all allegations or complaints regarding official languages are always taken very seriously and are thoroughly investigated and acted upon accordingly.

In closing, let me assure you again that the Canada Border Services Agency is fully committed to the Official Languages Act.

We would be happy to provide more details and answer the committee's questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you so much, Mr. Denis Vinette. It was right on time.

Now I would like to invite Madam Burke.

You are the French Language Services Commissioner of Ontario. Let me invite you to give your presentation. You have seven and a half minutes.

Please go ahead.

[Kelly Burke, French Language Services Commissionner of Ontario, Ombudsman Ontario]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

I am accompanied by Carl Bouchard, my Director of Operations in the Ombudsman's Office.

My sincere thanks for this invitation to share with you my experience as French Language Services Commissioner of Ontario, with reference to my monitoring of the French language services that the Government of Ontario has provided since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

Ontario is the economic heart of the country and has the largest francophone population of any province in Canada outside Quebec. The province therefore plays an essential role in Canada's Francophonie and in our Canadian identity. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced us to re-examine our work methods, our operational structures and our personal lives. Now that vaccination has begun, questions arise. How are language rights to be guaranteed in a completely changing world?

Regardless of the changes that may occur, official languages must remain a priority. The changes must strengthen and improve the delivery of services in both official languages. Most provinces and territories have laws or policies dealing with the official languages and, often, with French-language services. Their experience varies but their concerns are often similar. So I thank you for your interest in Ontario’s experience as you continue your deliberations.

On December 10, 2020, the Office of the Ombudsman published the 2019-2020 report of the French Language Services Commissioner of Ontario. I issued eight recommendations as a result of the cases we dealt with. Here is what I would like you to take from my comments today: for the delivery of services in French as an official language to be successful, governments must make the language a priority, by strategically planning in advance, by evaluating the results of their strategies, and by learning from their experiences, in order not to do the minimum, but to achieve excellence.

In a conversation I had with the Premier of Ontario in April 2020, we both agreed that francophones in Ontario have the rights to receive communications in French equivalent to those provided in English, and that it is even more appropriate in this time of crisis. Good intentions aside, however, the need is also for effective strategies. So today, I bring you solutions.

Seventy-three per cent of the cases we dealt with in preparing our annual report dealt with written, in person and online communications. This is a trend that continues to this day and that is apparent elsewhere in the country. Let me give you some examples of the cases we dealt with in Ontario.

We received many complaints about the Premier of Ontario’s daily press briefings. When the crisis began, they were wholly in English. I heard complainants tell us that their elderly Franco-Ontarian parents, who do not know English well, had to find their information about COVID-19 in Quebec or at federal level. Of course, the instructions to the public from the neighbouring province and from the federal government were not the same as those being sent to Ontarians by their own provincial government. Confusion arose as a result. Our response helped to have simultaneous interpretation provided for the press briefings. I have recommended to the government that the practice become permanent.

We received a number of complaints about the government’s websites that went online during the pandemic, either because they were first launched in English, with the French version following after a significant delay, sometimes of several days, or because the sites were only partially translated.

We received many complaints about the government plans that were developed during the pandemic, such as the one entitled Keeping Ontarians Safe: Preparing for Future Waves of COVID-19. It was published in English first and in French 24 hours later.

We also received complaints about local public health units, over which the government has little authority and to which the French Language Services Act does not apply.

Those who contacted us were concerned. Some were afraid for their safety or the safety of their loved ones. A number considered that the lack of services in French showed the government's lack of respect to francophones.

These examples, these and many other accounts, have led me to make the following observation: it is essential to plan the delivery of services in both official languages from the outset and in a strategic manner.

This means that recruitment and the professional environment must be conducive to attracting bilingual professionals into key positions and to keeping them in the organization. The capacity for translation and simultaneous interpretation must also be strengthened in order to provide the accommodation that is often both necessary and justifiable. Finally, the legislation must be consistent in allowing for the uninterrupted delivery of services, particularly when the health of Canadians is at stake.

In addition, my recommendation to the Government of Ontario is to ensure that each department submit a French language services plan to the Executive Council by April 1, 2022, that those plans be made public, and that annual updates be made available to the public.

Governments must work together and assist each other in finding solutions and in ensuring that both official languages truly enjoy the same status.

This is even more critical in emergency situations, when the minority language unfortunately tends to become a second priority.

Thank you for your attention this afternoon. I am available to answer your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much, Ms. Burke.

This is very interesting. Both two groups of witnesses ended their testimony right on time.

We will now move to the time set aside for questions. The four members who come next will have six minutes each in which to talk to you. I will start with the vice chair, Mr. Blaney.

Mr. Blaney, the floor is yours for the next six minutes.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I am going to try to share my time with my colleague Mr. Godin, if he is ready to take over.

First, I want to welcome our two groups of witnesses.

Mr. Vinette, as the virus got in by crossing the border, unfortunately, you were on the front line.

You said that you had reacted to the comments of the Commissioner of Official Languages. It must be said that he mentioned receiving many complaints about the Canada Border Services Agency. In the course of our studies, we have seen how important it is to be served in one's own language, especially in an emergency situation with the pandemic.

You began to explain how you were in the process of making improvements within the agency. You even mentioned September as a deadline.

Could you tell us what steps you are presently taking to respond to the recommendations from the Commissioner of Official Languages?

[Denis Vinette]

With pleasure. I will ask my colleague from the Human Resources Branch to add to my comments, if necessary.

One of our major concerns for a number of years has been to make sure that we have measures, policies and practices in place for our officers, in order to ensure that service is always offered and is available at all times. That obligation has no exceptions.

We must therefore make sure that we have an internal action plan that responds, not only to the commissioner's observations, but also to our own internal observations, in two aspects. First, we must always be in a position of having the staff we need to provide service to the public. Then, internally, we have to make sure that we uphold the rights of our employees everywhere in the country, in Quebec or elsewhere, in all regions, that we have guiding service principles, and that they are able to provide bilingual service to Canadians at all times.

Our action plan has several themes. I will ask my colleague Ms. Youdale to take over and talk about them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

The floor is yours, Ms. Youdale.

[Louise Youdale, Vice-President, Human Resources Branch, Canada Border Services Agency]

Thank you.

As Denis mentioned, there are various facets to our annual plan and, really, they're really grounded in, first, strategic planning and governance, as well as training and development and general people management. As I talk about our themes, I'll try to make reference to the findings that we learned as a result of the report by the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages.

First, one of the key actions is that we have made the responsibility for establishing an appropriate culture that gives due attention to both official languages in the workplace a mandatory commitment in performance agreements of our leaders within the organization.

Secondly, we have looked at the actual designation of positions, and we've ensured that, when opportunities present themselves, we are continuously reviewing the bilingual designation of positions and elevating them where there are opportunities. Here I'd like to make reference to one of the findings of the report where the commissioner was satisfied with the work that we had done to increase the number of superintendents, and as a result we partially met the recommendation. It was partial because the commissioner was disappointed that we had increased the gap in terms of the number of employees who did not meet the linguistic profile. We are happy to report that we further elevated the number of bilingual superintendent positions, which are now at 214, and 99.1% of the incumbents meet the linguistic profile of their positions.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

There are 214 superintendents. What percentage is that of the total number of superintendents that you have?

[Louise Youdale]

That would be 31.2%.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Burke, my sister lives in Ontario. She often listens to the news from Radio-Canada or the press briefings by Mr. Legault in order to find out what to do during the pandemic. You mentioned that in your comments.

Have corrections been made?

[Kelly Burke]

A few weeks after the crisis began, our office, community members, and the speaker of the legislature, intervened on the matter. On the YouTube channel, press briefings are now broadcast in both official languages, which has greatly helped to meet the needs of the province's francophones. Because of our response, Premier Ford has recognized the importance of communicating in both languages in an equivalent manner.

The situation has been corrected in large part in terms of the press briefings. We are still busy improving the service and it continues to be provided.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Thank you very much.

Madam Commissioner, we have realized that official languages are particularly important in a crisis situation. It is not just a social or cultural issue, it's a matter of safety.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Blaney.

Mr. Duguid, the floor is yours for the next six minutes.

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank both of our delegations for coming to see us today on this important topic.

My questions are for our friends from the CBSA. First, let me just thank you for all your hard work, as Mr. Blaney said, on the front lines. We know that the pandemic has been challenging for all of us. We've had to be flexible. Public measures have been changing rapidly, as you know, and undoubtedly will change again, particularly as we ease our way out of this pandemic.

I'm very interested in some of the additional measures that you put in place during the pandemic when some of these measures were introduced by the federal government, particularly the closing of the border, just in terms of staff complements and beefing up the complement of bilingual officers. This won't be the last pandemic we have, by the way. I'm certainly told by public health officials that more are on their way.

As a bit of a corollary to that question, my understanding is that there is a shortage of bilingual officers. Can you give me a little more detail about your plan, targets and dates by which you will fulfill the conditions of your plan?

[Denis Vinette]

Certainly, Mr. Chair. That's an excellent question.

In my 29 years—and this is all I've done, as I started as an officer on the front lines and have been with the organization ever since—I've never seen the type of escalation of border measures that we have in the last 12 months. In order to be successful in responding to both the pandemic and the government directions, we established within the CBSA a few task forces. I'm responsible for the CBSA's COVID border task force, which has been implementing the measures right from the get-go. One of the immediate measures in establishing that task force, which is a subgroup of experts, was bringing in some dedicated translation services so that as we needed to develop bulletins, procedures and work with our regions, we had the ability in our own in-house translation services as things came into effect—and oftentimes decisions were made and orders in council signed late in the day that required implementation one minute after midnight—to have the products ready to go.

From a communications perspective, we've also established an internal task force and a strategic policy task force. The three task forces work together. Our strategic policy task force encompasses our communications directorate. Again, we ensured that we had dedicated translation services so that as we started our information campaigns, including on our social media and web pages, we were able to do so in both official languages. Certainly we did that successfully.

Maybe I'll pass it over to my colleague, but I would thank the chair for the recognition of our men and women on the front lines and the work they've been doing and what we've asked of them. It has not been an easy task, and I appreciate the recognition.

Thank you.

[Louise Youdale]

Thank you.

In addition to the measures that Mr. Vinette spoke to, we also ensured that we were continuing to supply bilingual candidates to the front line. The agency has its own school of 16 instructors. During the pandemic we switched to a virtual classroom to be able to continue to provide that French language training. We will be graduating 736 participants from that training.

In terms of goals that we're hoping to achieve, currently when we look at the front line, 96.8% of individuals in those bilingual positions meet the requirements of their position and, of course, we would like to elevate that to the same number that we are seeing with our superintendents now, which is approximately 99.1%.

In addition to the training, we are continuing to develop our recruitment program. We have a frontline officer recruitment program that has been informed as a result of our engagement with the official languages minority communities across the country. Once we establish the new national advisory committee on official languages that was previously referenced, we will continue to learn from that engagement and inform that national officer recruitment program.

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

I think I have time for one more question.

The Commissioner of Official Languages' audit of the agency was referenced earlier in your presentation and by some of our questioners. He indicated there was a need for more bilingual superintendents within the CBSA. What are you doing to close the gap on that particular item that the Commissioner of Official Languages highlighted?

[Louise Youdale]

The gap that the commissioner highlighted was that we had actually increased the number, but the superintendents were not meeting the linguistic profiles of their positions. We further increased the number to 214 and have focused on ensuring that the incumbents receive the training they require to meet their linguistic profiles, and 99.1% of them now meet those profiles.

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much, Mr. Duguid and Ms Youdale.

We now move to Mr. Beaulieu.

Mr. Beaulieu, the floor is yours for six minutes.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

I'm always a little concerned when there is a major difference between the reality and what is presented to us.

If I understand correctly, the Canada Border Services Agency, CBSA, says that it has always provided service of equal quality when travellers arrive at a bilingual port of entry, and that each traveller is greeted in the language of their choice. However, in 2015, the Commissioner of Official Languages published a report and made recommendations. Four years later, he looked into the matter again and concluded that the agency was not moving forward and that work remained to be done. He said that there are major systemic obstacles it comes to comes to providing service in French at the border and the nub of the problem is the inadequate bilingual capacity among border services officers.

Between 2015 and 2017, for example, no improvement was observed in the hiring of bilingual officers. It was even said that the number of bilingual superintendents had decreased, going from 80 to 76 in 2017. I would like to know exactly how many there are today.

Moreover, the Commissioner of Official Languages said that it is impossible to assess the bilingual services, because there is no oversight mechanism for officers and no monitoring of the traffic through the airports to allow bilingual service to be provided. In his report in 2020, he again noted the lack of bilingual services provided by the Canada Border Services Agency in COVID-19 matters, either in international airports or at land borders.

How do we explain this discrepancy between what we have been told and what seems to be the reality, according to the Commissioner of Official Languages?

[Denis Vinette]

My thanks to the member for his question.

For us, it is a constant effort. As you know, at the moment, during the pandemic, all incoming flights are limited to four airports. By moving staff to new positions, we have made sure that we have the people we need to carry out the border controls, including the new health controls, and that we have an adequate complement of bilingual employees. We are always looking to increase the number of bilingual officers in the organization, including by providing internal training, as my colleague mentioned. This training is provided by a school created inside the agency itself and that therefore always reports to it.

We have also continued our recruiting efforts. For example, in Ottawa, where I am at the moment, we go to career fairs at the University of Ottawa and the Cité collégiale. We focus on francophone environments, but the RCMP, the municipal police services and the correctional services, for example, are also looking for bilingual people. It's a little difficult therefore to find people who are already bilingual.

As for our services, one complaint is always one complaint too many. We certainly have measures in place to ensure that the officers offer and provide bilingual services at all times, which may mean calling on a colleague or an interpreter. So when someone wants service in the language of their choice, we make sure they get it.

So we will keep making these efforts, guided by our action plan, which is designed to respond to the commissioner's observations.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

That's fine, but when you consider the commissioner's findings, the number of complaints and the numerous stories reported in the media, they all seem to add up to one thing: it is very hard for people to receive services in French at border crossings.

Do you acknowledge that there are problems?

According to the assistant commissioner at the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages, nothing will change until CBSA commits to overcoming the barriers.

Do you acknowledge that there are numerous problems that call for drastic changes?