Thank you very much.
Mr. Chair, honourable members, I teach political science at Simon Fraser University, in British Columbia. For the past 15 years or so, I've been researching Canadian language policies, especially the role of Canada's francophone organizations in developing, reviewing and implementing those policies.
My remarks today will focus on three things.
First, the part VII regulations are an essential piece of the modernized Official Languages Act. They should translate Parliament's intent into the real world and make it possible to fully implement the commitments made. Without robust regulations, the modernization that began in 2018 will never be complete, unfortunately.
Regulations, by definition, help to clarify an act and guide its practical application. All acts lay out principles or general commitments. For example, subsection 41(1) of part VII requires the federal government to enhance the vitality of official language minority communities, and support and assist their development.
Those commitments can be implemented in a number of ways, so the question is this: Which one do you choose and why? What factors should inform that decision? What role should minority language organizations play in the decision-making process? Should they be consulted, and if so, how? Should they instead play a meaningful role in designing and implementing related programs? Once the decision is made, what are the mechanisms for measuring its impact on substantive equality progress?
Regulations should answer those types of questions. As my colleague said, the main purpose of regulations is to provide tools to the stakeholders and public servants responsible for implementing the act. Regulations are the tool box for the act.
Second, if regulations that give effect to an act are supposed to equip public servants, we can only conclude that the current draft regulations provide very poor tools. Basically, all they do is repeat what the act says word for word. The few clarifications it provides are, to be clear, obvious. The regulations are silent, utterly and completely silent, on the guiding principle of part VII, of the modernized act as a whole, progress towards substantive equality. I'll come back to that.
Allow me to give you an example of how the regulations tend to paraphrase the act. Paragraph 41(7)(b) of the act requires a federal institution to conduct analyses to determine “the possibilities for avoiding, or at least mitigating, the direct negative impacts that its structuring decisions may have on the commitments under subsections (1) to (3).”
Regulations are the opportunity to make clear the factors for determining whether a decision has positive or, on the contrary, negative impacts. They are also the opportunity to clearly define what a structuring decision is. However, the only light the regulations shed on that matter is that the analysis must determine whether official language minority communities are affected by the decision. I'm sorry, but having to determine whether minority communities are affected by the decision is a no-brainer. Besides that clarification, the draft regulations shed no light on paragraph 41(7)(b). An analysis of the rest of the draft regulations would lead to similar conclusions.
Third and finally, the modernized act represents a paradigm shift. Progress towards substantive equality is now the guiding principle, the centrepiece, if you will, of the Official Languages Act.
The notion of substantive equality, which should be the backbone of the regulations, is missing from the draft regulations. If the main purpose of regulations is to equip public servants to implement an act whose guiding principle is substantive equality, it is reasonable to expect the regulations to clearly state what substantive equality is, and to provide a methodology and tools to determine whether the decisions made and measures taken are effective.
In conclusion, I recommend that the committee ask Treasury Board to go back to the drawing board, with an important reminder: Parliament's intent when it modernized the act in 2023.
Thank you.