Status of Women Committee on May 1st, 2008

[Graham Fraser]

So far, the panel has met when we request additional funding. Initially, we thought we would appear before the panel to introduce ourselves, but, in the end, we had to set up the access to information and internal audit service, so when we appeared before the panel, it was to request funding for these new responsibilities.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

So far, have your appearances before the panel had to do with budget matters, or were there sometimes issues involving your mandate? Have you ever had your request for funding denied?

[Graham Fraser]

I only appeared before the panel once, and our request was approved. So far, we have only appeared with regard to budget submissions for specific activities. For example, there is some pressure on our infrastructure, and we have to renew our internal technology. We are looking at funding requirements. We can also talk about administrative issues. That has nothing to do with our mandate, because the panel deals with financial and administrative matters involving all officers of Parliament. So, as far as my mandate goes, I'm more accountable to the Standing Committee on Official Languages of the House and the Senate.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Mr. Fraser, I think Ms. Davidson's question was still not answered. She asked about your structure, really: what you have in terms of the $90 million you have and the number of people you have in your offices.

[Graham Fraser]

In total resources for the activities, we have 177 full-time employees, or FTEs—that's the phrase; I'm still new at this game. Basically, for compliance assurance, it's $9.133 million; for policy and communications, $10.773 million; and then the balance is for corporate services, legal services, and the commissioner's office.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

You have a head office, and how many regional offices do you have? Is it five?

[Graham Fraser]

We have five regional offices, plus there are satellite offices that report through those regional offices. The regional offices are in Moncton, Montreal, Winnipeg, Edmonton, and Toronto. Vancouver is a one-person operation that reports through Edmonton, Regina reports to Winnipeg, and Sudbury reports to Toronto. In the regional offices there are three or four people.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

Ms. Mathyssen, you have five minutes.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to continue our discussion. You talked about private members' bills and the advice regarding the impact or perhaps even the wisdom of private members' bills.

Does the party or the MP have to approach you to ask, or if you saw something coming down the pipe, could you intervene and say, “Perhaps you should give this some more thought”, or “These are the implications”? What kind of influence do you have?

[Graham Fraser]

We have a monitoring function, not just for private members' bills but for legislation generally. If we see legislation coming that we think is going to have an impact on official languages, on minority language communities, it's specifically part of the mandate—it's our job—to stick our hand up and say, “Here's something you haven't taken into account.”

I've appeared before committees to talk about the acts concerning Air Canada and about the changes to the Criminal Code in terms of the operation of bilingual trials. There are others, where we haven't been formally called upon but where our parliamentary relations people will say, “Here is a piece of legislation that's been tabled; we think we should take a closer look at this.” We're certainly free to intervene and to say, “We have some concerns; here's something you haven't taken into consideration.”

Sometimes what we've done is commission studies by academics. For example, when the government announced that it was transferring responsibility for coordination of official languages inside government from the Privy Council Office to Canadian Heritage, my first reaction was to raise a concern about it in last year's annual report. Then we commissioned Donald Savoie to take a look at the implications of horizontality in making that kind of move. That report is informing one of the chapters in our annual report.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Is your advice usually heeded?

[Graham Fraser]

As I say, it really depends. Certainly if the government is determined to take action in a certain direction.... Let's put it this way. I have not had any indication that the government is reconsidering the decision to transfer coordination of official languages from Canadian Heritage back to the Privy Council Office. We've raised concerns about it. We've done a study on some of the problems. The study itself is not black and white; it looks at some of the challenges and complexities of horizontal management in quite a subtle way.

But it really varies. There are some areas in which we draw things to the government's attention and notice that there are subsequent changes, and other areas where the government has said, “That's the policy we've decided to take.”

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

I don't know whether I'm encouraged or discouraged. In this committee we've seen a couple of recent private members' bills that concern us considerably with regard to their impact on women and women's ability to choose when it comes to their own bodies and their own fertility.

I'm also interested in your role in terms of education and promotion. The education part is of particular interest. Could you expand on that?

[Graham Fraser]

Sure.

When I was appointed by Parliament a year and a half ago, although I had spent a significant part of my career covering official languages in terms of policy in Quebec and in the federal government, I felt I was not equally familiar with the situation in official language communities. I also felt very strongly that it was important for Canadian universities to be aware of its importance, so I set out to go to as many provinces and as many territories as possible in the first year.

I gave some 75 speeches. I went to nine provinces and two territories. I spoke to editorial boards. I spoke to universities. I spoke at conferences of teachers. I spoke to immersion teachers. I spoke to French-language teachers. I visited schools. As a former journalist I also have a fairly quick reflex, in that if I see something in a newspaper that reflects a misunderstanding of linguistic duality, I tend to respond fairly quickly, so I've had a fair number of articles published in response to pieces that have appeared in the press. Earlier this week I was in London, Ontario, at a session organized by French for the Future, and spoke to some 200 high school students who are in immersion. I get a fair number of invitations to speak to organizations and to universities.

In addition to my role in doing that, this is also one of the roles played by the representatives in the regions, who similarly establish relations with provincial governments, with minority institutions, and with local universities and high schools. They are my representatives in the regions and they carry on that work.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Davidson is next. You have five minutes.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you.

I think we've established that you have 177 FTEs now, so I would like to know how that has evolved. I know you've only been here a year and a half and you're not going to be able to give me a 40-year history, but could you or maybe one of the other people tell us what the difference has been over the last 10 years, let's say?

As well, in keeping independence, how do we ensure that we're not setting up another huge bureaucracy? I think that's what everybody fears is going to happen at some point in time, and although we need the accountability, the independence, and the oversight, we still need to set it up properly so that it doesn't become a life unto itself, with no controls. It's a very delicate balance in there somewhere, and I haven't quite figured out yet how you do that.

The other thing was these 177 FTEs. Whose employees are they?

[Graham Fraser]

I'll answer that question first. They are employees of the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages, but we are not a distinct employer to the extent that they are public servants.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Do you set their wage within that department?

[Graham Fraser]

No. Each position is established with a classification that is established by the Public Service Commission and by the Treasury Board Secretariat. We function according to those guidelines.

For example, on the executive committee we have three EX-03 positions, an EX-02 position, an LA-02 position, and those are all fixed at that level on the basis of generally accepted public service guidelines. I can't suddenly say I would actually like my head of policy and communications to be an EX-05 and get that much more money.

In terms of what the evolution has been, I know there was a significant increase, for a specific reason, to increase our research capacity and to respond to the cutbacks after the 1995 referendum. In 2001 our budget was $11 million. We had 124 FTEs, and then after the case was made that we were simply not able to carry out the functions required to meet the obligations in our mandate, additional funding was granted, but it was focused specifically on giving us the research capacity.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Is that controlled, then, through this parliamentary panel?

[Graham Fraser]

At this point, not entirely. At this point, the parliamentary panel works hand in hand with Treasury Board. The Treasury Board is their resource.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Okay. So it's a combination at this point?

[Graham Fraser]

At this point, right now, we deal with Treasury Board, even though it's one of the institutions that we are supposed to monitor. It's that conflict of interest that we are trying to sort out ourselves through the parliamentary panel.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Do you do any gender budgeting or gender analysis when you do your budget?

[Graham Fraser]

Dominique, do you have the answer?