Official Languages committee  We can provide information on the costs of the community service offices as well as the replacement services that will be provided. But the change we effected from this March to next March had to do with contracts with service providers. The objective was not to save money; the objective was to improve service, to provide people in those communities with the same level of service that Canadians in other communities receive.

Official Languages committee  We're confident that the people in these communities will get to know the outreach service that we provide and will appreciate the enhanced service they will receive. I can understand that they're familiar with the service providers that they have in their community, and that they're familiar with what they've experienced in the past, but we are confident that we will be able to demonstrate that the services they receive through the new approach will in fact be greater than the services they received before.

Official Languages committee  Proportionally, taking into account the overall population of the entire region...

Official Languages committee  Not personally, but this is what they had asked her to do.

Official Languages committee  This is more or less what I was saying earlier. First, there is the issue of serving the public. Because New Brunswick is a bilingual province, they are set up to provide bilingual services wherever there is demand.

Official Languages committee  The designation of the Atlantic region is compliant with the requirements of the Official Languages Act.

Official Languages committee  It depends on the size of the demand and the presence of francophones.

Official Languages committee  In terms of the administrative aspect, the Atlantic region is a unilingual region but, once again, under the provisions of the act dealing with languages of work, there is an obligation to be capable of supervising bilingual positions in the language of choice.

Official Languages committee  Perhaps they have anglophone names...

Official Languages committee  ... but they have been trained and we have positions...

Official Languages committee  Thank you. I would like to begin by saying, sir, in answer to your first question, that we are going ahead with training managers in the Atlantic region, which was recently amalgamated. The two top positions, the assistant deputy minister and the director general, are both occupied by people who meet the requirements of a bilingual position.

Official Languages committee  Our basis is the Official Languages Act; the provisions and regulations we need are set out in section 32. A regulation under section 32 of the act describes the situations and the circumstances in which the service must be provided in one language or both. The regulation states that there must be a bilingual service at places where the demand is substantial.

Official Languages committee  It depends on where the person is in Nova Scotia. Earlier, we mentioned the fact that, on Cape Breton Island, for example, we have an office in Inverness and another in Port Hawkesbury, both bilingual. Cape Breton is a region of Nova Scotia. It depends where you are in Nova Scotia.

Official Languages committee  We are making great efforts to try to attract and recruit anglophone employees in Quebec. You are right to point out the fact that we did not get a good mark there. We have made some small progress. We have increased our numbers of bilingual employees by 20%. This is not very significant because it was 4% and now it is 5%.

Official Languages committee  The Atlantic administrative region is designated anglophone. Within that administrative region, the province of New Brunswick is bilingual.