Official Languages Committee on Nov. 13th, 2020

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Commissioner.

There's good information here. I see you have five regional offices. Whereabouts are they in the country?

I'm phoning from Manitoba. Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa is the riding, straight north of Brandon. How do you communicate with these rural communities that are basically isolated—Saint-Lazare, Ste. Rose—in emergency situations, and just day to day? Do you offer any services out of those regional offices so that communities can interact and build more awareness, not only for the French communities that are there, but also to help the English communities support those communities that are out in the isolated areas?

[Raymond Théberge]

Yes. Actually, I'm currently sitting in Winnipeg, so I know Manitoba really well, just to let you know.

Our regional offices offer a number of official-languages services in the northern communities in the provinces, whether it's in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, or British Columbia. We have offices in Moncton, Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton; and we also have branch offices in Vancouver, Sudbury, and Toronto.

We also work, for example, with federal institutions that are local, provincial, that are situated in the province, and we help bring them together with the community to have a better kind of interaction. For example, we try to encourage border services to communicate with the official-languages community, to try to have access to bilingual staff. We do a lot of presentations in schools—not only French schools, but also French immersion schools—to explain, to promote official languages. We work closely with federal institutions to be able to meet the needs of, for example, those rural communities that you talk about, whether it's Saint-Lazare or Ste. Rose, whatever the case may be.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

As a follow-up, can we get a report on what schools you're actually going to, and who is taking that information up?

[Raymond Théberge]

Sure. We're not doing a lot of schools right now, but we can give you some past records.

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

Mr. Commissioner, thank you very much for appearing today; we very much appreciate it.

What I'm getting from all this is that it is urgent to modernize the Official Languages Act. As you said, it's important to reverse the trend in order to support linguistic minority communities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

I now give the floor to Mr. Arseneault for the next five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We heard some very interesting questions and answers from my colleague and our beloved Commissioner.

Mr. Commissioner, I am going to jump back into the modernization of the Act. I have only five minutes to do so.

In your report, you identified three priority areas that you believe are important. You also provided us with a summary of your 18 recommendations, which we have all read. My question will focus on the third priority area and the fact that you believe the Commissioner should have more enforcement powers to improve compliance. We know your position. However, sometimes, as time goes by, our positions evolve. Your comment on the third priority area contrasts with the comment we received from the Commissioner of Official Languages of New Brunswick, Michel Carrier, and the Commissioner of Official Languages of Ontario, François Boileau, who came here and told us quite the opposite. Their position was to try to be as non-restrictive as possible, but certainly as precise as possible with respect to Official Languages Act enforcement parameters.

I would like to hear your comments on that.

[Raymond Théberge]

Thank you, Mr. Arseneault.

The compliance mechanism is part of the third pillar of a strict law. Since our office was created, we have received 54,000 complaints, and we have dealt with them with varying degrees of success. When it comes to compliance mechanisms, it's important to remember that the Commissioner has mostly investigative powers, and quite broad ones at that. The Commissioner even has the power to issue subpoenas. However, at the end of the day, the Commissioner only has the power to recommend. So, even though 80% of recommendations are acted upon, we see that institutional behaviours are not shifting.

Sometimes, we need to consider introducing compliance mechanisms. We have suggested enforceable agreements. We have talked about monetary penalties. However, there are many other possibilities that legislators might consider. I think we are at a point where we have to seriously question how effective the Act is.

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

Mr. Commissioner, on that subject, I refer you to the testimony we heard from the first Welsh Language Commissioner in Wales. She was in the final year of her seven-year term, as I recall. I believe you heard her testimony. She was talking about their way of doing things, having been around for so few years compared to us in Canada. She was talking about how, in a coercive and a little more subtle way, she could arrange to get non-compliant institutions to obey the law.

What is your position on the way things are done in Wales?

[Raymond Théberge]

According to Commissioner Huws, Wales has a somewhat hybrid model that allowed her to act both as ombudsman and commissioner, with all the powers that go with it. It's important to always distinguish between the role of an ombudsman and that of a commissioner, who must remain independent and impartial. Therefore, any proposed mechanism must take these factors into account and ensure that it truly meets the needs of the complainants. Most complainants expect us to deal with their complaint and acknowledge that harm has been done.

However, for institutions that are often uncooperative, we must find ways, through agreements or otherwise, to ensure better compliance from them. In this regard, legislators have many tools at their disposal. We have been talking about this legislation for 51 years. It's therefore important to think about what to do.

I believe the various reports mention different compliance mechanisms that need to be considered. We need legislation with some powers.

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

Mr. Chair, my thanks to the Commissioner.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

We have just been discussing the Commissioner's annual report. In the second part, we will discuss the main estimates 2020-21.

Since it is already 12:21 p.m. and we have some time constraints, I propose that we begin the first round of six minutes each for this first part, because at the end of the meeting, we will also have to vote to adopt the report and the estimates so we can send them back to the House of Commons.

The first round of six minutes is reserved for Mr. Généreux and Mr. Mazier.

Mr. Généreux, you have the floor.

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

Mr. Chair, Mr. Arseneault referred to the law and to the commissioner for Wales, whose testimony quite impressed us at the time.

Mr. Commissioner, as you know, I have always been vehemently opposed to imposing any kind of sanction, and through any kind of court.

On the other hand, even within the federal government, I see more and more public servants receiving bonuses or financial benefits because they achieve a fairly high bilingualism rating.

This brings me to your maturity model. Is there a potential mechanism to ensure that, in a department where your maturity or self-assessment model is not being valued, some form of constraint or restriction can be imposed on some of the benefits that people with a certain pay scale or certain bonuses have for a service they're required to provide but may not be providing in many cases?

Could there be a cause-and-effect link?

[Raymond Théberge]

That would be quite difficult to achieve using a maturity model that does not look at individuals, but at systems and disciplines within an organization. It looks at human resources departments, for example.

We have not thought about that, but I cannot see how that kind of model could lead to that type of conclusion. Above all, the model must lead to changes in organizational culture to ensure that the necessary structures are in place to comply with the Official Languages Act. Official languages must be integrated.

We often talk about an official languages lens. Too often, that is missing in federal institutions. The maturity model is one way to provide that lens, but I don't believe the objective or goal of the OLMM, as we call it, is to crack down on public servants.

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

The acronym OLMM stands for official languages maturity model, isn't that right?

[Raymond Théberge]

Yes, that's correct.

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

We will have to get used to that. Perhaps even our committee members should take the test. I think we would pass it, because honestly, we do interesting work here.

Mr. Commissioner, you talked about your financial needs earlier. I want to come back to that quickly. Have you assessed what you might need to be able to perform even more eloquently than you do now?

[Raymond Théberge]

We have not looked into that issue to date for the simple reason that we are sticking to our mandate. We have, however, begun to reflect on the impact of the increase in complaints.

As I mentioned in my opening remarks, if we spend more time on investigations, we will spend less time on monitoring, for example. Monitoring is an important part of our work. We must follow up on recommendations. There's no point making recommendations if we don't follow up on them. We are looking into that.

The other point I brought up involves studies and research. We recently published a document about official languages in emergency situations, and yesterday we released a report on section 91 and language requirements for positions. Since I took up my duties, I have noticed that we need a lot more information to better understand some of the things I believe we should look into. We are currently putting together a study on immigration for the coming year because we know very well how important immigration is.

We could establish a much larger research program to inform not only our thinking, but also the government's. A modernized Act could certainly have an impact on the operations of the Office of the Commissioner.

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Théberge.

I would like to go back to Mr. Mazier's question to you.

You have five regional offices in Canada. The Edmonton office serves Alberta, British Columbia and the territories, and the Vancouver liaison office serves the entire population of 5 million people.

Do you feel that is enough to serve our population here in British Columbia?

[Raymond Théberge]

Alberta and British Columbia are two provinces with a growing number of official language minority communities. Obviously, we would like to have more resources to serve very large territories, but we operate based on identified needs. We're able to meet the needs of the communities, but if, as a result of our analyses, we see that the needs are growing, we may have to allocate more resources to them.

Regional offices help promote and advance English and French in Canadian society. They play both a promotional and support role in the communities. Of course, the staff in these offices are extremely busy.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Théberge.

I now give the floor to Ms. Lambropoulos for six minutes, please.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Théberge, thank you for being here with this committee today to answer our questions.

I'm going to switch to English to ask my questions. They aren't necessarily on the estimates, but I'll try to link it back and see what you can tell me about what kinds of funding we can put in place to make sure you can do the job you need to do for both official-language minority communities.

My first question comes from an English-speaking group in Quebec. It had a question about the summary you provided of your official-languages summit, which was held last November to celebrate 50 years of the act. At this summit, there were discussions among young people, one of which caught the group's interest. People sometimes have an outdated view of official-language communities. For example, the economic status of English-speaking Quebeckers is much lower than what is commonly held as a stereotype.

What do you think your office can do to dispel myths such as these, which make the English-speaking minority communities seem wealthier than they are and like the pampered minority?

[Raymond Théberge]

That's an excellent question. We have data with respect to that question, and we have shared the data with a number of institutions.

I've met with many members of the English-speaking minority in Quebec, and there is an outdated perception of what the community is about. I've met researchers who deal with single-income families in NDG, for example, who basically do not at all look like what the perception is.

There's a lot of work that has to be done. I've met with various people. There is also the secretariat in Quebec City, which has some of that information. It is incumbent upon us to always clarify these points when we meet with institutions or groups, to make perfectly clear that the perception they have is very outdated. We have data to support that.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

I think it's a dangerous perception, considering the talks in Quebec at the moment with regard to French in the workplace and all of that. We know that the English-speaking community has a much higher unemployment rate, because it's much more difficult to find work if you don't speak French completely fluently within the province of Quebec.

As much as we're talking about increasing the level of French across Canada and even in Quebec, I'd like to know in what ways you think we can do this without stepping on the rights of the minority community and while still protecting the rights that English-speaking Quebeckers have.

[Raymond Théberge]

When I look at the English-speaking minority in Quebec, what I see today is what I call “a young minority”. It's a minority that does not have in place a lot of the social infrastructure that similar communities would have outside of Quebec. For example, youth organizations or the organizations dealing with seniors don't necessarily have the research capacity within these organizations to put forward their case. Actually, in the action plan until 2023, there are some dollars for the English-speaking minority in Quebec to develop that social infrastructure capacity, which is not there.

I think it's about maintaining institutions. We talk a lot about the institutions that they have. It's all about maintaining them to make sure that it's cultural, that it's educational, that it's about health. Those institutions have to be maintained. How do we do that? Obviously there's a role for various levels of government to do that. However, I think fundamentally we seem to be sometimes at odds with how we can best support the English-speaking minority in Quebec. It goes back to your first question. If we don't receive the problem in the right way, we can't come up with the right kinds of solutions.