Official Languages Committee on Oct. 27th, 2022

[Michel Bastarache]

I think there is no real need to refer to any provincial legislation when we're talking about the objectives of a federal act. In this case it's illogical, because the act in Quebec favours one single common language for Quebeckers and accommodates the rights of anglophones, mostly directed by the fact that the Constitution of Canada creates constitutional rights for anglophones, so why would we ask l'Office québécois de la langue française to interpret the act or interpret any kind of action as being favourable or unfavourable to the minority when its object is not bilingualism and is not the equality of both languages?

[Patricia Lattanzio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Thank you.

Do you also see, then, a conflict between the role of l'Office québécois de la langue française and the role of the Commissioner of Official Languages?

[Michel Bastarache]

Yes, absolutely.

[Patricia Lattanzio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Okay.

This bill also proposes that we ensure that Supreme Court justices are bilingual. As you know, many Canadians don't have the opportunity to plead their cases and bring them all the way up to the Supreme Court of Canada. I want to hear your opinion with regard to justices at a lower tribunal—for example, a court of appeal. I want to have your input and take on how you see justices at the appellate courts.

[Michel Bastarache]

Well, there is already an obligation in the lower federal courts because amendments in 1988 provided that the litigants had the right to be heard directly by the judges who are sitting there. They can address the court in their language, but they must be heard directly and not through translation.

That was a very important amendment in that time.

[Patricia Lattanzio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

In terms of the role of ensuring that the law be respected, how would you see the role of the commissioner? Do you think we would have perhaps a tribunal for official languages, just as we have the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, or do you see it solely in the mandate of the Commissioner of Official Languages?

[Michel Bastarache]

I think the creation of a tribunal was already discussed and rejected many years ago. It was suggested at this time that we might look at that possibility again, but in fact a lot of people are afraid that this would add to the cost of litigation and also create more delays.

What happens now is not adequate, especially because the commissioner only makes recommendations. He has no power to implement his decisions or even to go back to the offending agencies to ask them to explain and review their positions. If we keep the system we have, we really must reinforce the commissioner.

[Patricia Lattanzio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

In fact, how do we make sure that his powers become executory?

[Michel Bastarache]

We do that by amending the act and creating those powers. Then there is always the possibility of judicial review by the Federal Court.

[Patricia Lattanzio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Okay.

I'd like to hear from you on the reinforcement of the linguistic clauses.

You say that the language clauses are essential and just make sure that the central agency, the Treasury Board, oversees that everything is implemented.

However, with regard to the linguistic clauses, what other amendments...or how can we improve these clauses so that we ensure that the government does assume leadership in this regard?

[Michel Bastarache]

I don't think it would be in the act, except for defining in a better way the supervisory role of different institutions like the Treasury Board.

In the present situation, it's Canadian Heritage that is supposed to make sure that all the departments have a bilingualism plan and officers who supervise it, but—

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Mr. Bastarache. Ms. Lattanzio's six minutes are up. I want everyone to have the same speaking time. You may have an opportunity to come back to this later on with other speakers.

I now give the floor to the second vice-chair of our committee, Mario Beaulieu, for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to the witnesses for being with us today.

My first question is for the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Mr. Giroux.

You said that compliance costs to the private sector and bilingualism bonuses would amount to $240 million, but I don't think there's anything in the bill requiring private businesses to pay bilingualism bonuses.

Would you please tell us more about that?

[Yves Giroux]

Yes, of course.

We considered the wage gap among employees, or rather between bilingual and non-bilingual supervisors. Since there will probably be greater demand for those bilingual employees in the labour market, we assumed that would increase the salaries of employees who become bilingual and who need language training in order to do so. So there's the wage premium component, but that will also increase language training needs as a result of the shortage of bilingual employees in the private sector, which will be subject to the act and will have to meet its requirements.

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

On another note, I'm not particularly surprised when you say you aren't getting much cooperation from the departments. I searched the public accounts for the costs incurred in Quebec under the Official Languages Act, and you can't see what the various grants correspond to. Sometimes it's very hard to get that information.

Do you think we should find a way to make that more transparent?

[Yves Giroux]

This is the kind of information that should be readily available, if not in the public domain, at least for parliamentarians like you who have to examine these matters. The information should be readily available to you when you ask these questions.

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

It's very hard when we contact Canadian Heritage, for example, or when we don't get an answer or are redirected to more political stakeholders.

In some cases, there are also errors in the public accounts. For example, for some years, no amounts were recorded for the Canada-Québec accord, under which Quebec has received $68 million for the anglophone education system and for English-language instruction in francophone schools. It seems to me we would've heard about it if there had been no amounts for those years.

We tried to get information from both Quebec City and Ottawa, and it took a long time. In the end, the English-language services section of Quebec's Ministry of Education confirmed that the funding had been transferred in each year but that they didn't have the exact amounts. We ultimately got them though.

There do seem to be errors in the public accounts because transfers appear to have been made for a number of years for which nothing was recorded.

Do these kinds of errors often occur in the public accounts?

[Yves Giroux]

Not to my knowledge. It's surprising that these kinds of errors crop up in the public accounts, given that the government takes a long time to disclose them. Last year, for example, they were published in December. It's almost November now and we still don't have the public accounts, whereas many other governments can publish their public accounts three or four months after the fiscal year ends. The fiscal year ended nearly seven months ago now, and we still don't have the accounts. That suggests that there shouldn't be any errors in them. They should be nearly perfect since it takes a little more time to publish them.

It fortunately isn't something we often see.

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

We could try to check it, but this didn't concern very recent years. It dates back 15 years or so.

I'd like to hear your opinion of the court challenges program. It's very hard to get any information whatever because we're told there are confidentiality issues. But we're talking about public funds, and we can't even find out how much money has been spent in Quebec or the other provinces. We have access to very little information.

My friends at the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada told me that disclosing certain information could also harm organizations if, for example, they filed suit in a case and the provincial government learned they had funding for that.

However, what could possibly prevent taxpayers from finding out after the fact how their money has been spent?

[Yves Giroux]

There are definitely legitimate strategies that can be considered for organizations that benefit from the court challenges program. It seems to me there should be a way to disclose at least some of the information by province or, at least, by region to avoid disclosing information that might harm certain groups. There should be a way to do that in a transparent manner by providing information that will definitely be useful to you as parliamentarians in determining whether funding under the program is being properly used.

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

Yes.

Perhaps it would be a good idea for the Parliamentary Budget Officer to conduct a study on the matter because we can't check this. And yet we're talking about public money. This is a concern in Quebec because it's frequently used against the Charter of the French language.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu.

Ms. Ashton, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

Thank you very much.

Thanks to the witnesses for being here today.

Mr. Giroux, here in the committee, we were told about the underfunding of services to francophone minority communities long before we began studying Bill C‑13. There has been talk for years about the decline of French, staffing problems in French-language schools outside Quebec and the shortage of schools, child care centres and health care. The data shows that major investments are necessary.

However, you say in your study on the financial consequences of Bill C‑13 that its impact on the government would amount to only $2.9 million. Why is there an enormous discrepancy between the needs of the francophone communities and government underinvestment in their welfare, based on what's contained in Bill C‑13?

[Yves Giroux]

That question goes far beyond the scope of the report. In the report, we attempted to estimate the costs to the private sector of implementing Bill C‑13. The costs to the federal government to administer the bill were estimated based on the costs of similar, though not identical, federal programs, particularly at the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, the CRTC. We therefore estimated the costs to administer the bill, and those costs entailed a broad discretionary element. The government may decide to go at it full throttle, as it were, or be less rigorous in its administration of Bill C‑13. That will be at its discretion.

As for the other aspect of your question, I unfortunately don't have any information on underinvestment, the appropriateness or level of investment in minority language communities. I unfortunately can't comment on that aspect.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

Thank you for your answer.

I would also note that the amount of government expenses you cited to us—we understand that it's limited to one aspect—seems very minor when you acknowledge the existing deficiencies and significant demands of the minority language communities in Canada.

I have another question for you. When you appeared in the Senate, you said that no additional funding was planned for the Department of Justice in implementing the measures included in Bill C‑13. Is that in fact the case?