Electoral Reform committee  The difficulties that women face in being elected to the House of Commons are the same ones that linguistic minorities face. It is the same reality. How can you convince people who are different from you to vote for you, adopt your values or understand life through your particula

Electoral Reform committee  Thank you. Mr. Chair, members of the committee, thank you for inviting the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada to give this presentation today. Founded in 1975, the FCFA is the main voice of the 2.6 million francophones in minority communities in the

Official Languages committee  To answer your first question, regarding the safeguard, we totally understand the problem there. Should we post a warning saying “Warning, danger” when we use—

Official Languages committee  That's it. Some people could be allergic. It is interesting as a potential solution, but by the same token, this would be a type of admission that there is a problem there. I do not have any specific answers to give you, because we would really need to think about it. When we d

Official Languages committee  Yes, we think that all public servants should be given training on the federal government's official languages obligations. In that way they could understand what this means for their department, what it means for them, their colleagues, and thus develop harmonious and respectful

Official Languages committee  This would ensure a certain level of coordination, and see to it that within the public service as a whole, action plans would have a certain cohesion, a consistency, and would contain clear objectives for everyone. We would also be in a better position to verify what is done or

Official Languages committee  If I may, I would add that we intended to do so. We think that there has to be a better understanding of the Official Languages Act, of what it means and of how it could better be implemented within government structures.

Official Languages committee  For us, it is important to think that there will be a new generation of translators in our country, and in the Canadian government in particular. There is such a crying need within the federal apparatus for good communication with Canadians in both languages. There has been a ch

Official Languages committee  Based on our current information and understanding, we would not recommend a major role for this tool; I think we have to be careful. We tend to agree with people who say that nothing compares to a human being when it comes to translating what another human being is trying to say

Official Languages committee  In my presentation, I mentioned the rayon de bagnole example.

Official Languages committee  One simply has to read the reports published by Commissioner of Official Languages in recent years. In an appearance before a Senate committee in 2013-14, the commissioner spoke about the subtle erosion of bilingualism in the public service owing to the transfer of federal office

Official Languages committee  That is a good question because it brings the issue back to the person who receives documents in one language, and who wants to understand them and carry on with their work. Our understanding is that Portage is a software program intended for unofficial communication that should

Official Languages committee  In short, this is perhaps the question we are getting at: are we creating other more serious problems than the one we wanted to address? I am not a public servant and I am not in the situation on a daily basis, but I think the use of both official languages and public servants' r

Official Languages committee  Can you repeat the question?

Official Languages committee  Mr. Chair, committee members, thank you for once again inviting the FCFA to appear before you today. Given that this is the second invitation you have extended to us in two months, I am very encouraged by this committee's willingness to listen to francophone and Acadian communiti