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Follow-up – For Rent: In Search of Bilingual Services from Businesses in NCR Federal Buildings

METHODOLOGY

• The Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages carried out a follow-up study of commercial tenants in federal buildings in the National Capital Region (NCR).
• We measured the progress made regarding the availability of services in the two official languages.
• We audited 198 businesses, most of which (78%) were also audited in 2003.

OBSERVATIONS

National Capital Commission (NCC)

• Businesses with a lease with the NCC located in Quebec received a near-perfect score for availability of services in both official languages; these results are similar to those obtained in 2003.
• Among businesses with a lease with the NCC in Ontario, we note an improvement in bilingual material; in-person service, which is available in French in almost 70% of cases; and telephone service, which is available in three quarters of cases.

Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC)

• In Quebec, almost all businesses with a lease with PWGSC provided bilingual in-person and telephone service, but only half had bilingual signage and promotional material. The availability of signs and written material also declined.
• In Ontario, PWGSC lost ground in terms of level of bilingual in-person and telephone service. Just over a quarter of businesses have exterior signage in both official languages and fewer than a third distribute bilingual promotional material.
• The Commissioner made three new recommendations to PWGSC to improve the situation.

Quebec

• On the Quebec side of the river, the availability of in-person and telephone services in English is almost perfect (97% and 92% respectively).
• Signage and written material were bilingual in 60% of cases. The situation has worsened slightly since 2003.

Ontario

• 60% of tenants are able to serve the public in French in person or on the telephone, more or less the same as in 2003.
• Exterior signs in French are present in only 40% of cases, interior signs in 25% of cases.

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Of the 13 recommendations made in the 2004 study, two have not been implemented by PWGSC. The others have been fully or partially implemented.
• In addition to reminding institutions of the eight recommendations from the 2004 report that have not yet been fully implemented, the Commissioner made four new recommendations (3 to PWGSC and 1 to Canadian Heritage) to promote linguistic duality in the NCR.

STATISTICS

• The NCR is home to 125 embassies and 5 consular offices.
• Statistics Canada reports that in 2003, 7,615,933 visitors came to the Ottawa-Gatineau Region.