Ottawa, April 7, 2005
Notes for an Appearance Before the House of Commons
Standing Committee on Official Languages
Dr. Dyane Adam - Commissioner of Official Languages
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Mr. Chair, Honourable Committee members:
I thank you for inviting me to appear for the review of our 2005–2006 Estimates. This affords me the opportunity to provide you with a short overview of our objectives for the coming year. These are also detailed in the Report on Plans and Priorities of the Office of the Commissioner, tabled in the House on March 24.
Introduction
As you know, I am an officer of Parliament appointed for seven years. Because I was appointed in August 1999, I am therefore beginning my last full year in office. As in the past, I intend to devote all my energies in the months ahead to my core mandate of ensuring that the status and use of the two official languages are recognized and that the spirit of the Official Languages Act is respected by the machinery of government.
My statement today will demonstrate how, through our activities for 2005–2006, we will take action with federal institutions and have them focus on the following policy lines:
- delivery of quality services in both official languages and full integration of the official languages in Public Service culture;
- greater economic and social support for official language minority communities; and
- promotion of linguistic duality in Canadian society.
I would also like to say a few words about our efforts to make OCOL an exemplary workplace and about the recent endeavours to review the governance of officers of Parliament.
1. Improving bilingual services by transforming the organizational culture
The activities planned for 2005–2006 naturally address the concerns that I expressed when I appeared before you on February 24, particularly with respect to the implementation of the Action Plan for Official Languages.
We will also be closely monitoring the implementation of the 11 recommendations made in my latest Annual Report, especially the need to clarify through legislation or regulation the legal scope of Part VII of the Act. The important thing is for the government to take quick action and get tangible results, particularly by strengthening accountability. This is going to require strong, cohesive leadership and accountability at all levels.
We will also keep a watchful eye on the repercussions that budget cuts might have on services to the public and on official languages programs. As we have noticed on many occasions, official language minority communities are particularly vulnerable in the context of spending cutbacks.
As you are aware, investigating complaints made against different federal institutions is an important part of our activities. The improvement of our inquiry process has allowed us to reduce delays, notably because we set in place a faster process for certain types of complaints.
It seems essential for us to make federal institutions more accountable by encouraging them to develop an organizational culture focussed on achieving measurable results and accountability in the field of official languages. For instance, OCOL will urge the Public Service Human Resources Management Agency of Canada to conduct more audits and require federal institutions to carry out their own internal audits on implementation of the Act.
We will examine the reliability of the official language performance indicators that were developed by the central agencies for federal institutions.
We will encourage Public Works and Government Services Canada and participating organizations to increase the volume of services in French offered on-line. We will also follow up on a previous study on the use of both official languages on federal government Internet sites.
We will conduct audits and spot checks at National Defence, border crossings, designated airports and selected flights by Air Canada and its partners, as well as other institutions.
We will continue our research on the equitable use of English and French at work in the federal administration, particularly in Crown corporations and the federal Public Service in Quebec. This research will be complemented by a review of the situation in New Brunswick.
We will be examining retention of French language skills acquired in French as a second language programs, so as to identify the factors that contribute to second language retention.
Finally, we will publish for the first time performance report cards in our Annual Report that evaluate the degree to which 29 departments and agencies of the Government of Canada conform to official languages policies. I plan on making this an annual exercise and will include more organizations in next year’s evaluation.
2. Supporting official language minority communities
OCOL will evaluate the outcome of the mid-mandate review of the Action Plan, particularly as regards the federal-provincial-territorial agreements in education and other key sectors such as health and immigration.
On the subject of education, the objective of the Action Plan is to provide French language education to 80% of the target student population by 2013. However, we are impatiently awaiting the signing of the memorandum of understanding with the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada, as well as certain bilateral agreements. Canadian Heritage must to take action.
Whether in health, in early childhood or in any other strategic field for the development of official language minority communities, the federal government must include linguistic arrangements in its federal-provincial-territorial agreements. Progress resulting from these agreements has to benefit every citizen regardless of which official language they prefer.
In its Ninth Report, this Committee asked me to closely monitor the status of official languages in the federal-provincial-territorial health agreements. This investigation will take place in 2005. It also raised the issue of organizing a national forum on ways of strengthening the legal foundations for health services provided to linguistic minorities. We examined this issue at a round table on Canada’s language framework held in April 2004.
On immigration, we will continue our efforts to create a national policy framework to facilitate integration of immigrants in official language minority communities.
Our regional representatives will continue to carry out our mission in the field. They will continue to encourage the communities as well as departments and agencies of the federal, provincial and territorial governments to network, share best practices and collaborate on the most effective development strategies.
When I began my mandate, I conducted a broad consultation of many Canadian communities, both majority and minority. That initiative concerned the national and regional stakes in official languages, the promotion of duality and ways of strengthening official language minority communities. With the aim of drawing up an assessment and identifying new avenues of action, I intend to come full circle at the end of my mandate and launch another consultation of the same nature.
3. Strengthening the bilingual identity of Canada
There is no question now that the majority of Canadians recognize the importance of linguistic duality as one of the core values of Canadian society.
We will ask Canadian Heritage to more actively pursue its official languages mandate, particularly by requiring the federal institutions concerned to include activities to promote linguistic duality in their Part VII plans and to measure their progress.
Despite our rather modest resources, OCOL intends to develop an approach to highlight the importance and unifying character of linguistic duality. Canada’s bilingual identity is a tremendous advantage in a society increasingly characterized by its growing diversity. As Canada is about to redefine its relations with other countries of the world, we have to remind ourselves that our nation’s linguistic duality offers opportunities we should fully exploit, particularly regarding our governance model, our cultural diversity and its impact on our economy.
4. The Office of the Commissioner: effective and efficient management
OCOL views itself as a work environment that is grounded in leadership, knowledge and respect.
Over the past year, we have continued to develop our Management Accountability Framework by identifying a first level of performance indicators and by analysing different methods of evaluating and auditing OCOL’s activities. This work will continue in 2005–2006.
As an officer of Parliament, I attach great importance to the integrity and transparency of our actions and to our obligation to be accountable to parliamentarians. That is why I have asked the Office of the Auditor General to audit our financial statements on an annual basis. The OAG has given us an unqualified opinion for 2003–2004, which is to say, an excellent performance rating.
Since we are discussing the Estimates today, I would like to mention in passing that the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics is presently examining various models of funding officers of Parliament that were proposed by the Treasury Board Secretariat. In our view, it is important that the approaches adopted take due account of the specific characteristics and very different mandates of each of the officers of Parliament.
For example, the Official Languages Act stipulates that Parliament shall designate a committee responsible for monitoring implementation of the Act. Therefore, pending a possible amendment to the legislation, I have proposed to the committee in question that OCOL’s budget forecasts be prepared in consultation with the parliamentary committees on official languages. Those committees would then relay them to the speakers of the House and the Senate for transmission to the government and inclusion in the Estimates. On the strength of the experience of such a pilot project, it would be possible to better plan the transition while at the same time making the necessary adjustments.
Conclusion
You will have noted in listening to my presentation that we have a great deal on our plate. In addition to our planned work, we are frequently called out by unexpected events.
For instance, let us just mention the recent announcement of the Canadian Tourism Commission’s moving to a region not designated bilingual forlanguage of work. In the case of the CTC, we have to react promptly and accurately to make sure that the government will take the necessary measures in order to protect the linguistic rights of the Commission’s employees. Indeed, if the CTC’s headquarters keep the obligation of offering services to the public in both official languages, its moving to a region not designated bilingual for language of work could compromise the right of its employees to work in the official language of their choice.
You will also have understood that our fields of interest intersect with a great many sectors of activity of the federal government, and by extension, of Canadian society. By making the most of the different tools that the Official Languages Act empowers me to use, I can intervene effectively to ensure a continuous progress towards a society that is more tolerant, more open to the world and more respectful of its official languages communities.
Thank you for your attention. I will be pleased to receive your comments and to answer your questions.
