I'll give it another try.
The performance of the provincial and territorial governments in terms of communications in French has been erratic, even where the obligations are more stringent.
The linguistic obligations of the Government of New Brunswick are also often cited as an example. Yet in spite of these protections, government communications since the beginning of the crisis have been unsatisfactory. For example, even though it would have been possible to use simultaneous interpretation during his press briefings, Premier Higgs has not made use of interpreters for several weeks and has refused to answer any questions put to him in French. After some hemming and hawing, the province's official languages commissioner, Shirley MacLean, recommended that the premier be accompanied by a bilingual spokesperson when giving speeches. He has not yet done so.
Ontario's current Communications in French Directive was established following a series of problems with French-language communications during the H1N1 flu crisis. In spite of this directive, all press briefings up to the end of April were in English only, with no simultaneous interpretation and no government spokesperson to field questions in French. Documentation for journalists was only available in French several hours after the English version was released.
Some best practices were applied in other provinces. For example, in Prince Edward Island, the chief medical health officer answered questions in French during press briefings in the province. In Alberta, the premier has also spoken in French fairly regularly since the beginning of the pandemic. The important thing to note is that it was because there were bilingual people in key positions, and not because of any particular public policies, that it was possible for them to communicate in French. Also noteworthy were efforts in Nova Scotia, where data about the situation in the province were posted on websites in both languages, and approximately the same amount of English and French was used on its institutional Twitter accounts.
And even though public institutions in Quebec have no requirement to communicate in English under the Charter of the French Language, they did so rather effectively, demonstrating that a government can show good faith towards its linguistic minority, even in the absence of any rules requiring it to do so.
Quebec's Canadian intergovernmental affairs secretariat also published a special French-language edition of its COVID-19 self-care guide for Francophones outside Quebec, in provinces where no information in French had been made available.
Stringent linguistic obligations are not enough to ensure effective communications with official language minority communities. At the moment, we still have to rely on the will and political leadership of individuals. Any measures to correct communication problems will be inadequate unless they are protected from people who do not take government linguistic obligations seriously.
Government laxity towards linguistic obligations showed most clearly in communications with the public. You can work hard to redress this, as shown for example in the recent report of the Commissioner of Official Languages, but this approach is too narrow. Official languages cannot be reduced to communication issues. They need to be built into every field and every phase of public action.
For example, let's look at Health Canada's decisions in the spring with respect to labelling on cleaning products and disinfectants. That was not a communication problem, but a problem inherent to the decision-making process on a public policy issue within that institution. What Health Canada did was authorize the distribution and sale of products labelled only in English. After some heavy criticism, the policy was amended via an interim measure requiring additional information in French to be available in proximity to the products. The fact that they did not automatically think of an interim solution as part of the decision-making process shows that official languages had not been factored in prior to the decision.
But this solution is also inadequate. I have seen products that did not comply with the new policy. After considerable effort, I was able to file a complaint about this with Health Canada's health products compliance branch, because this type of complaint does not fall within the mandate of the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages, even though it is a language issue. Four months after the complaint, the product in question is still on the shelves. Apart from receiving an acknowledgement two months later, telling me that the complaint would be investigated, I have still not received any news from Health Canada. The evidence has shown that the solution was poorly adapted, inadequately thought out ,and difficult to implement.
That's only one example that illustrates why the protection and promotion of official languages needs to be built into every step in public action. If institutions want to take this imperative seriously, the pandemic could provide some useful opportunities.
The health crisis has forced service delivery to shift increasingly to digital solutions. As government institutions innovate to cope with an emergency, they could incorporate their linguistic obligations into the exercise rather than treat them as a nuisance. Francophones would definitely welcome being consulted about having access to new services in their language via innovative technological tools. Institutions could be mobilized to plan a transition in the delivery of government services. If this turns out to be one of the impacts of the pandemic, many people will be delighted.
Thank you.