Evidence of meeting #91 for Official Languages in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was bilingual.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:10 a.m.
Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet, Senior Personnel, Privy Council Office
We can obviously tell you what the rate of bilingualism is. However, information specific to an individual is personal in nature. The bilingualism rate isn't a publicly available figure, but we can certainly provide it to you.
10:10 a.m.
NDP
Niki Ashton NDP Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB
My last question is for Mr. Quell or Mr. Adam.
The report of the Commissioner of Official Languages mentions that you're setting up a new language training program for public service employees, in collaboration with the office of the commissioner.
Could you tell us where you're at with this project and what innovative elements of this program will effectively ensure bilingualism in the public service?
10:15 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal René Arseneault
Thank you, Ms. Ashton. I'm sorry, but I'm running out of time. We really have to end the meeting, because another committee is going to be meeting in this room.
Before we conclude, I'd like to make one thing clear to the witnesses. You were asked relevant questions, but we unfortunately ran out of time for some of the answers. I have the difficult task of having to respect the time we have. I'm thinking in particular of questions from Mr. Samson, Mr. Beaulieu and Ms. Ashton. As chair, I would really appreciate it if you could send the clerk of the committee any answers or parts of answers you didn't have time to give us by the end of the month. That will give you plenty of time. The clerk can then send these answers to the committee members.
As for me, Mrs. Hamoui, as chair, I'd like to know, for the benefit of the committee, what functional bilingualism means. Is it a technical definition? If so, what is this technical definition? Also, how does the test for being recognized as functionally bilingual differ? Is the test different depending on whether the person's first language is English or French?
That said, I'd like to thank the witnesses very much for being here. I'm sorry for the lack of time.
In closing, colleagues, I would like to remind you that when we return on April 8, we'll resume the meeting time we lost due to votes this week. So in the first hour of the April 8 meeting, we'll finish this study. Then, in the second hour, we can give our drafting instructions to the analyst.
I wish you a good parliamentary break. I know we're all going to work hard in our ridings.
The meeting is adjourned.