Official Languages committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I would like to start off by thanking you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you today. I will use this occasion to share some thoughts on the judicial appointment process and the shortage of bilingual judges. The shortage of bilingual judges in the superior courts of the provinces and territories is one of the main barriers to access to justice in both official languages.

Status of Women committee  Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. What I would also underline is something I said earlier: the greater the independence, the greater the responsibility. And it's a responsibility to be transparent, it's a responsibility to be rigorous in the handling of the money that we have been accorded to meet our responsibilities, and it's a responsibility to ensure that we meet all the standards of responsible financial management.

Status of Women committee  Yes, he has done a report for the agents of Parliament, assessing the first stage of how the parliamentary panel has functioned. He interviewed all of us and interviewed people in Treasury Board and interviewed people in the parliamentary panel to do an interim assessment of how successful this process has been.

Status of Women committee  I will speak to Sheila Fraser to see if that can be made available. They're basically her documents rather than mine, but I will be speaking to her later today.

Status of Women committee  Those are similarly her documents rather than mine, so I will speak to her.

Status of Women committee  Thank you very much.

Status of Women committee  I hesitate in drawing a comparison. I am aware that an individual for whom I have the greatest respect, Georgina Steinskey-Schwartz, appeared before your committee and stated clearly in her report that this would be a direction worth exploring, if not taking. On the other hand, I am aware that there are other analyses that conclude that there already are too many people monitoring the government's actions.

Status of Women committee  Of course, but I will let my colleague speak to this because I cannot... Someone in a EX-2 position is paid an EX-2 salary, someone is in an IS-3 position receives an IS-3 salary. No distinction is made between men and women. However, I will allow my colleagues to speak to this.

Status of Women committee  In terms of report cards, we tick 38 institutions and we do a certain number of.... We have a kind of grid whereby we send out our people and look at whether they got active offer, were they able to be served in the language of their choice, to what extent were our investigators able to assess the degree to which the institution is able to offer services in both languages, and we report the performance of those 38 institutions in our annual report.

Status of Women committee  Dominique, do you have the answer?

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

Status of Women committee  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.

Status of Women committee  In terms of how we handle complaints, we receive complaints by letter, by e-mail, by phone. They are received through the compliance assurance branch. There is a process of assessment of whether or not a complaint is receivable under the act, and to be receivable a complaint has to relate to a specific incident, it has to be concerning a federal institution, and it has to relate to a specific part of the act.

Status of Women committee  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.

Status of Women committee  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.