Ottawa, June 13, 2002
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Government On-Line: Connected in both official languages
The Commissioner of Official Languages, Dr. Dyane Adam, released a new study today which shows that the federal government has not yet developed a comprehensive policy to address the official language requirements within the Government On-Line (GOL) initiative. "Government On-Line will transform the way in which the Government delivers services and interacts with Canadians. There is therefore an urgent need for a consistent approach to ensure that the system is equally accessible to both of Canada's language communities," stated Dr. Adam.
Past experience shows that there is often an erosion of language rights when the Government develops new ways of delivering services, since departments tend to consider the language aspect only as an after-thought. The Commissioner therefore decided to pro-actively identify any weaknesses and potential problems relating to official languages within the Government On-Line initiative and to propose corrective measures to be taken immediately rather than simply waiting for problems to crop up and complaints to be lodged.
The Government of Canada has made a commitment to be the most electronically connected government in the world by 2005. This initiative represents a new way of communicating with the public by providing a single window to federal services over the Internet. Current communications rules based on the geographic location of the office no longer apply, since the information is now universally accessible. As such, official language considerations must be built into the development of Government On-Line from the outset. While there are some official language policies and guidelines for the Internet, the Treasury Board Secretariat has not adopted a comprehensive approach for Government On-Line.
The study also looks at the problem of the large quantity of scientific or historical information that is available in one language only (English for the most part) and that departments would like to make available on-line. The Commissioner recommends that the Treasury Board Secretariat take immediate measures to establish a policy regarding the on-line publication of scientific or historical information in both official languages and to increase the availability of specialized documents in French.
The Commissioner intends to periodically publish other reports in order to inform those responsible for Government On-Line about issues needing to be addressed. These studies are meant to help the Government in planning and implementing the various stages of this initiative. "This is an important undertaking that will have long-term repercussions. The linguistic dimension must therefore be taken into account at each step of the process," concluded Dr. Adam.
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