LANG Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Standing Committee on Official Languages

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Wednesday, October 8, 2003

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1535

The Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger (Ottawa—Vanier, Lib.))

Ms. Dyane Adam (Commissioner of Official Languages, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages)

¹

1540

¹

1545

The Chair

Mr. Jason Kenney (Calgary Southeast, Canadian Alliance)

¹

1550

Ms. Dyane Adam

Mr. Jason Kenney

Ms. Dyane Adam

¹

1555

Mr. Jason Kenney

Ms. Dyane Adam

The Chair

Ms. Carole-Marie Allard (Laval East, Lib.)

Ms. Dyane Adam

Ms. Carole-Marie Allard

º

1600

Ms. Dyane Adam

Ms. Carole-Marie Allard

Mr. Guy Renaud (Director General, Policy and Communications Branch, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages)

Ms. Carole-Marie Allard

Mr. Guy Renaud

Ms. Carole-Marie Allard

Ms. Dyane Adam

Ms. Carole-Marie Allard

Ms. Dyane Adam

Ms. Carole-Marie Allard

The Chair

Ms. Carole-Marie Allard

Ms. Dyane Adam

º

1605

The Chair

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau (Repentigny, BQ)

º

1610

Ms. Dyane Adam

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau

Ms. Dyane Adam

The Chair

Mr. Raymond Simard (Saint Boniface, Lib.)

Ms. Dyane Adam

º

1615

Mr. Raymond Simard

Ms. Dyane Adam

Mr. Raymond Simard

Ms. Dyane Adam

º

1620

Mr. Raymond Simard

Ms. Dyane Adam

The Chair

Mr. Yvon Godin (Acadie—Bathurst, NDP)

º

1625

Ms. Dyane Adam

Mr. Yvon Godin

Ms. Dyane Adam

º

1630

Mr. Yvon Godin

Ms. Dyane Adam

Mr. Yvon Godin

Ms. Dyane Adam

Mr. Yvon Godin

Ms. Dyane Adam

Mr. Michel Robichaud (Director General, Investigations Branch, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages)

The Chair

Ms. Yolande Thibeault (Saint-Lambert, Lib.)

º

1635

Ms. Dyane Adam

Ms. Yolande Thibeault

Ms. Dyane Adam

Ms. Yolande Thibeault

The Chair

Mr. Eugène Bellemare (Ottawa—Orléans, Lib.)

º

1640

Ms. Dyane Adam

Mr. Eugène Bellemare

Ms. Dyane Adam

Mr. Eugène Bellemare

Ms. Dyane Adam

º

1645

Mr. Eugène Bellemare

The Chair

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau

Ms. Dyane Adam

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau

Ms. Dyane Adam

º

1650

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau

Ms. Dyane Adam

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau

Ms. Dyane Adam

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau

The Chair

Mr. Eugène Bellemare

Ms. Dyane Adam

The Chair

Ms. Dyane Adam

Mr. Eugène Bellemare

The Chair

Mr. Yvon Godin

Ms. Dyane Adam

Mr. Yvon Godin

Ms. Dyane Adam

Mr. Yvon Godin

The Chair

º

1655

»

1700

Ms. Dyane Adam

The Chair

Ms. Dyane Adam

The Chair

Ms. Dyane Adam

The Chair

Mr. Michel Robichaud

The Chair

Mr. Michel Robichaud

The Chair

Mrs. Johane Tremblay (General Counsel and Director, Legal Services, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages)

The Chair

»

1705

Ms. Johane Tremblay

The Chair

Ms. Dyane Adam

The Chair

Ms. Dyane Adam

Ms. Johane Tremblay

The Chair

Ms. Dyane Adam

The Chair

Ms. Dyane Adam

The Chair

Ms. Dyane Adam

The Chair

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau

»

1710

Ms. Dyane Adam

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau

Ms. Dyane Adam

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau

Ms. Dyane Adam

The Chair

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau

The Chair

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau

Ms. Dyane Adam

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau

The Chair

Ms. Dyane Adam

The Chair

»

1715

Ms. Dyane Adam

The Chair

Ms. Dyane Adam

Ms. Johane Tremblay

The Chair

Ms. Dyane Adam

Mr. Gérard Finn (Advisor to the Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages)

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau

Mr. Gérard Finn

The Chair

Ms. Dyane Adam

The Chair

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau

The Chair

»

1720

Ms. Dyane Adam

The Chair

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CANADA

Standing Committee on Official Languages

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NUMBER 037

l

2nd SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

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EVIDENCE

Wednesday, October 8, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

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[Translation]

    The Chair (Mr. Mauril Bélanger (Ottawa—Vanier, Lib.)): Good afternoon everybody.

    Today we welcome the Commissioner of Official Languages of Canada, who is accompanied by her team. She will be talking to us about her most recent report, her fourth report. Following the presentation made by the commissioner and her team, we will have the traditional question period, in accordance with our usual formula. However, we do not necessarily have to limit our questions to the commissioner's annual report. The door is wide opened. Since the entire team is here, we will be able to ask questions that pertain to nearly every sector.

    Without further ado, Madam commissioner, I would invite you to introduce your team and make your presentation. The floor is yours.

    Ms. Dyane Adam (Commissioner of Official Languages, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    I would like to introduce you to the director, Legal Services, Ms. Johane Tremblay; the director general, Investigations, Mr. Michel Robichaud; the director general, Policy and communications and regional offices, Mr. Guy Renaud; and the special advisor to the commissioner, Mr. Gérard Finn.

    As was mentioned, I have just tabled my fourth annual report, and I would like to take this opportunity to share its highlights with you. In addition to my presentation, I have also provided you with a copy of this year's recommendations. There are nine recommendations in all. I will, of course, also have something to say about health care in both official languages, as this issue is currently being examined very enthusiastically by the committee.

    To start with, though, let us examine the contents of the report. You could say that this is a report that enables us to take stock. The year 2002-2003 began like many other years as far as official languages are concerned, with no great fanfare. However, the year certainly ended on a positive note. You closely monitored the health of English and French and you noted, as I did, an erosion of the government's commitment to official languages in the 1990s. When I took office in 1999, I voiced serious concerns and called on the entire political class and the federal administration to show greater leadership on linguistic duality. To my great satisfaction, I  now recognize that the federal government has begun to change course.

    My optimism about the future of official languages within the federal administration and Canadian society is in large part due to the publication of the much anticipated Action Plan for the Official Languages. This plan is one of the most significant expressions of leadership on official languages in the past decade. If I had to use an image to explain what this plan means for Canadians, I would say that it is a piece to be performed by a full orchestra. We have been waiting for the Canadian Official Languages Symphony for some time, but now, thanks to the action plan, we have the score and all the musicians know the respective parts.

    While I applaud the determination that led to the development of the action plan, I see this as only the beginning. A plan, like a map, may very well serve as a guide, but we have only just begun the journey. To reach our destination, we must not only know how to read the map, but also set off on the journey. The true measure of success will be whether the plan is fully and completely implemented. It is not enough to set ambitious objectives; the government must also make the necessary effort to attain them.

    My office has closely studied the Action Plan for Official Languages. The annual report presents an analysis. I think that it is a noteworthy contribution that will help relaunch the official languages program, but it is not a magic cure. For one thing, the plan does not deal with some important areas for official languages such as bilingualism in our national capital, the arts, and the promotion of our linguistic duality internationally. In addition, the plan does not place enough emphasis on how to make linguistic duality an integral part of our public service.

    How can we strengthen the plan now? What is more disturbing is that the plan provides no mechanism for evaluating its implementation at regular intervals. This is a weakness that could jeopardize the attainment of its objectives. I am going to take the government at its word and ask it to report on progress made towards the realization of the objectives of this plan. My first recommendation proposes three ways to strengthen the action plan.

    First, an evaluation framework must be established to assess the measures taken and the results obtained. This involves not only a description of the activities undertaken, but also the concrete results of such activities and an explanation as to how they have improved the situation.

    Second, the government should establish a framework for intergovernmental cooperation with the provinces and territories. A number of objectives do, in fact, lie in areas of provincial jurisdiction, including education and health. I am therefore proposing specific recommendations for each of these areas. I will return to these later.

    The third way in which the government could strengthen its action plan is to develop a strategy for ongoing consultation and dialogue with the official language majorities with a view to including them in the government's efforts.

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[English]

    My second recommendation is addressed to your committee. I urge you to continue to closely monitor the implementation of the action plan and to convene each year those responsible so they can report publicly on the results obtained. This is a multi-year plan, a five-year plan, so it's very important that we follow progress on an annual basis.

    Your role as parliamentarians is essential to my work as an ombudsman. You lead by example and demonstrate through your participation that progress on official languages is a function of the efforts put into it, and I thank you for your continuous support.

    This year's annual report contains a new component. We present an analysis of the implementation of recommendations contained in our studies, investigations, and follow-ups. This analysis reveals that the federal administration's performance with respect to official languages is quite uneven. I am still too often called upon to act as a disciplinarian and to do follow-up on my follow-up studies. Institutions and managers should live up to their responsibilities as a matter of course.

    I call on the entire federal administration to take the success stories described in this report as an example to follow. Leadership by the federal administration is the necessary complement to political leadership.

    My fourth recommendation is aimed primarily at the senior public service. Deputy ministers and associate deputy ministers should attain the same level of bilingualism as that required of other executives in the public service, and deputy ministers' positions open to those outside the public service should be staffed on an imperative basis to ensure bilingualism.

    As you know, the President of Treasury Board has tabled a bill on the modernization of human resource management, Bill C-25, which should be adopted soon. I did intervene in the legislative review process to propose amendments. One of the changes made to the bill is the addition of a clause in the preamble acknowledging linguistic duality as a fundamental value of the public service. This guiding principle, to quote the President of the Treasury Board, Madam Robillard, should also serve as a basis for updating related policies. The annual report offers a detailed recommendation on modernizing human resources, and that is recommendation 3 in my report.

    This modernization must be accompanied by a change in culture conducive to linguistic duality by emphasizing principles and values instead of rules, by informing senior public servants of their responsibilities, by making people appointed to senior positions aware of those responsibilities as soon as they are hired, and by progressively eliminating non-imperative staff.

    Now to health care. Canadians tell us that health care is a national priority, and the first step in care, we all know, is listening. Quality care depends on the ability of health care professionals to establish a relationship of trust with the patient. As a clinical psychologist, I know this is a key element in the healing process, but how can someone provide a diagnosis and suggest a treatment if they cannot adequately understand or communicate with the patient? The responsibility of caring for our citizens with human dignity must necessarily include linguistic considerations.

    As the epic fight over the Montfort Hospital showed us, the official-language minority communities are well aware of the fragile nature of the health care services they receive in their own language. And you, as parliamentarians, are right to study the issue of health care in both official languages. A number of stakeholders have raised the possibility of signing new agreements with the provinces and territories to benefit the minority communities, or changing the current agreements to include specific provisions on health care services in the minority language.

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    Another possibility is to draw inspiration from the official languages in education agreements administered by the Department of Canadian Heritage and develop similar agreements in health care. So I asked the Minister of Health in my sixth recommendation to take the measures necessary to that end.

[Translation]

    In our report, I come back to the issue of bilingualism in the national capital. I recommend that the federal minister responsible for official languages examine the question and take all measures to have the national capital declared officially bilingual. If we look at the commitment made by the Premier-elect of Ontario, the context today looks perhaps more favourable than it was a few months ago, when we wrote the report. It may be easier for the federal government to work with the province in attaining the objective spelled out in this recommendation.

    In our overview of the past year, we know that the government did not fully implement the seven recommendations made in the 2001-2002 annual report. Of last year's seven recommendations, two have been fully implemented, two are in the process of being implemented and three have not yet been implemented. I had to reiterate two recommendations, including the one that the government gave the Ministerial Reference Group on Official Languages the status of a permanent cabinet committee so that it can support the implementation of the plan. The other recommendation pertains to clarification of the legal scope of part VII of the act. I know that you are committed to ensuring that concrete measures are taken to implement this part, to attain this objective, and that is why I am reiterating this recommendation.

    The vitality of the official language minority communities should not remain wishful thinking. It is a requirement for the promotion of linguistic duality as a fundamental value of this country. If we really want our federal institutions to act in a manner reflective of the clear and mandatory nature of part VII, then its enforceability needs to be clarified either through legislation or regulations.

    Since I took office, and this annual report is no exception, I have stressed the importance of leadership at both the political and administrative levels. I return to this question year after year.

    I must tell you however that I am very concerned about continuity these days. We are in a transitional period for the government. Some individuals may be called on to play new roles and new priorities will appear on the government's agenda. Given that this is a question of fundamental values, the government has a constitutional and legislative obligation to strive to achieve true equality for both French and English in our federal institutions and in Canada. We must continue to move ahead.

    Thank you for your attention. I am prepared to answer all of your questions.

    The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Adam.

    Mr. Kenny, you have seven minutes.

[English]

    Mr. Jason Kenney (Calgary Southeast, Canadian Alliance): Thank you Mr. Chair, and thank you, Commissioner.

    I would like to ask you a question regarding your sixth recommendation. You're recommending that the Minister of Health ensure that federal, provincial, and territorial health agreements are tailored to the particular needs of the official language minorities and that they include specific provisions on health services that must be offered in the minority language. Could you comment on what you propose to be the scope of this recommendation? Do you suggest that these services be offered to minority language communities only where numbers warrant, or in every part of the country? It's not clear to me here.

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    Ms. Dyane Adam: This recommendation does not go into the how-to or the operational, because what it says is that there should be a linguistic clause that more or less binds the two parties to recognize that services should be offered to the official language minority, but I also think it should be tailored, more or less, to the context or the situations, because each province and territory is quite different. So it's left very open, in a way, to let the departments or the governments involved decide how they would go about doing it.

    I could give you specific examples of how we do it, for example, in the areas of education. There is a commitment toward offering services and then the federal government goes into negotiation with each province and territory and defines more or less how it will be delivered and how much money will be allocated, etc.

    Mr. Jason Kenney: I would ask, perhaps, that in addressing this recommendation it might be useful to be a little more focused on exactly how you suggest it should be applied, because I can tell you--I think it's no secret--that provincial governments are straining themselves to provide primary care resources in the health sector. Creating new budget pressures to provide services in the other official language, where there is a tiny official language community, I think is an unfair burden to ask of the provinces.

    I can tell you, for instance, in the city that I represent, Calgary, there are--somebody here probably knows exactly how many francophones there are--a few thousand, 5,000 or 6,000--

    A voice: There are 15,000.

    Mr. Jason Kenney: Really, 15,000? Well, there are probably 80,000 or 90,000 people whose primary language is Cantonese or Mandarin, Hindi or Punjabi, many of whom are unilingual. I doubt any of the francophones are unilingual, but many of the minority language immigrants are unilingual and therefore do need services as a matter of necessity in the health care system.

    Similarly, in the lower mainland of British Columbia, I don't know what the population of francophones is, but it would be a tiny, tiny fraction of Mandarin, Cantonese, Hindi, Punjabi speakers--again, many of whom are unilingual.

    I understand your focus as the Commissioner of Official Languages, but when you're dealing with real health services on the ground, there are different kinds of pressures, particularly when it comes to languages, that I think are difficult, perhaps, for you to take fully into account.

    Ms. Dyane Adam: If you will allow me.... If we speak, let's say, of the health services that are being offered to our French-speaking minority--I'm not talking of the English-speaking minority in Quebec here--already the provincial governments, with the federal government, have called a ministerial conference on francophone affairs. They met recently, in September, and the ministers agreed to look at different sectors to support the official language minority.

    As you know, I'm speaking about French, because the legislatures, as well as our Parliament, have a constitutional commitment contained in our Constitution to support the progress of French and English in Canadian society under subsection 16.(3).

    I'm not negating your question at all. Being a clinical psychologist myself, I can tell you that I agree that we need to be aware of the needs of other linguistic groups in Canada, if they can't understand either French or English, but I'm talking to you about our two official language communities. So our provinces, including Alberta, participated in that conference and have more or less agreed on new ways to go about supporting our official language minority, French-language communities.

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For example, some of the things they are considering is telemedicines, kind of establishing networks of professionals across the country that could support each other. This is already happening.

    We're not asking the provinces to put in an enormous amount of money. I think the provinces are already there and speaking with the federal government about how to do it. How to do it may be different from one province to the other.

    Mr. Jason Kenney: My second question relates to recommendation 7, where you're calling on, in this case, the minister responsible for official languages to take all measures available to him, so that the capital of Canada would be declared officially bilingual. What measures are available to him?

    It's my understanding in our Constitution that municipal law is a function of provincial legislation. We've had successive governments from three different political parties in the Ontario provincial Parliament who opted not to declare Ottawa an officially bilingual city. Could you elucidate us as to what measures are available to the federal minister to do so?

    Ms. Dyane Adam: There is currently an action being taken by one senator, Senator Gauthier, who has more or less done a petition on this issue. There are some lawyers who are looking at it, who have opinions on how the federal government could intervene based on the Constitution. I'm not a constitutionalist nor a lawyer, so I will not get into the how-to. Some lawyers may be divided on this issue. Some think that, yes, our federal government could have some authority in defining the bilingual character of the federal capital.

    This being said, what I'm saying is that whether it's using their federal influence to try to get the provincial government to agree to the demand that has been made by the City of Ottawa to be recognized as such.... Now we have changed the government in the province of Ontario since I wrote this report. I know that Mr. McGuinty during his electoral platform agreed that he would welcome such a request by the City of Ottawa. It may be that recommendation will be acted upon by the Province of Ontario without any action needed by the federal government.

    The Chair: Merci, Madame Adam and Mr. Kenney.

    Madame Allard.

[Translation]

    Ms. Carole-Marie Allard (Laval East, Lib.): Good afternoon, Ms. Adam. I would like to congratulate you on your very interesting report.

    I would like to talk to you about your recommendation 5. You state:

The commissioner recommends that the Minister of Canadian Heritage:

- encourage each provincial minister of education to produce an annual report on progress—

    Given that you are pleased not only with the government's action plan on official languages, but also, indirectly, with the mandate given to Mr. Dion as the coordinator of the official languages file within the federal government, why are you calling upon the Department of Heritage to do this and not on the coordinator of the official languages file?

    Ms. Dyane Adam: In this instance, we are examining responsibility within the federal apparatus. Although we have appointed a minister who is responsible for coordinating the government's effort in carrying out this plan, the initial responsibility, as define in the act, lies within the Department of Canadian Heritage in the area of education. The same holds true for health. The coordinator cannot fill in for these ministers, who keep all of their authority in their portfolio. This is why we can only direct such a recommendation to the minister concerned. The minister is the person who holds the responsibility.

    Ms. Carole-Marie Allard: No mention is made of the new responsibilities given to the President of the Privy Council, but you're essentially saying that the Department of Canadian Heritage has full authority with respect to the official languages action plan.

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    Ms. Dyane Adam: Ms. Allard, I think that the plan also acknowledges that the minister responsible for official languages cannot serve as a substitute for the individuals who have the authority. Mr. Dion clearly said, on several occasions, that he would be working with the ministers and would lead them to—

    Ms. Carole-Marie Allard: Mr. Renaud, you mentioned official languages.

    Mr. Guy Renaud (Director General, Policy and Communications Branch, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages): Non, the Heritage Minister is responsible for education.

    Ms. Carole-Marie Allard: This recommendation pertains to education, but general responsibility for the official languages file does indeed lie with the Department of Canadian Heritage.

    Mr. Guy Renaud: For certain matters.

    Ms. Carole-Marie Allard: For certain matters. I would like some clarification on that. What differences are there, in your opinion?

    Ms. Dyane Adam: Everything that pertains to education, the promotion of French and English in society, and part VII of the act comes under the jurisdiction of the Department of Canadian Heritage. In matters pertaining to justice, it is the Department of Justice that is mandated to interpret certain acts or to intervene in legal cases that may have an impact on the entire official languages apparatus. To some extent, the beauty of the action plan lies in the fact that is a solution to what one could call a concerted or consistent lack of leadership. Different departments were often responsible for part of the official languages component, and the legislation itself attributes these responsibilities. The act has not changed, it is still the same, but we have set up a structure, either within the Cabinet or the government, to encourage the responsible ministers to at least adopt a common vision and to take action together.

    Ms. Carole-Marie Allard: Do you feel that there is any need to include the new responsibilities of the Privy Council president in the act?

    Ms. Dyane Adam: I must confess that we have not looked into that matter. We are working with the legislative and regulatory tools that we have, and the government has chosen to do the same. We are probably in the process of determining whether or not the legislation should be reviewed 15 years after its adoption. That is one of the questions that needs to be examined.

    Ms. Carole-Marie Allard: I have another question, Mr. Chairman. May I put it?

    The Chair: Yes.

    Ms. Carole-Marie Allard: You said that broadcasting should better reflect the Canadian linguistic duality and you spoke about your expectations.

    I do not know whether you live in Ontario or Quebec, but I would like to ask you whether or not that is also part of Radio-Canada's mandate, namely, to reflect in the news questions that are of general interest to the francophone community, including those living in a minority environment.

    This summer, Radio-Canada cancelled the evening sports program. Currently, the evening Radio-Canada news talks only about Quebec and Montreal.

    Are you concerned about this trend in Radio-Canada to focus on Quebec issues when it in fact has a national mandate?

    Ms. Dyane Adam: We probably have not received any formal complaints on that matter, but when we consult in the regions, we often hear comments made about the lack of regional presence in Radio-Canada's news reports. I believe that Radio-Canada has made an effort to try, to the extent possible, to make its reporting more local, but there is no doubt that in Ottawa, when you receive Radio-Canada by satellite,you only receive the Montreal signal; there is not even any local news.

    This problem has not been completely resolved, and we fully understand that Radio-Canada has some autonomy or independence in its programming and can go to certain lengths. Thanks to the past efforts of this committee, Heritage Canada has, to a certain extent, prompted certain institutions, the CRTC in particular, to tighten some of their criteria to sort of force broadcasters to increase their regional content, show more French content, etc. This is how we can influence things. My office has no direct authority as far as that matter is concerned.

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    The Chair: Thank you Ms. Adam and Ms. Allard.

    Mr. Sauvageau.

    Mr. Benoît Sauvageau (Repentigny, BQ): Ms. Adam, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon and thank you for being here. I have several questions. But for now, I have three main questions.

    I think that the main point you make in your annual report is the lack of accountability and the lack of follow-up with regard to the good intentions contained in all these great plans.

    You know, on every committee on which I sit, I always object to reinventing the wheel. Your first recommendation is to establish an evaluation framework. I will make a suggestion based on existing tools, and you can tell me whether the tools we already have at our disposal could enable you to implement this recommendation.

    I sent an e-mail to Ms. Diane Allard, who is the special assistant to the president of the Treasury Board. I asked her what follow-up actions were taken to the action plans. I was asking more specifically about the Department of National Defence, but Ms. Allard's answer, which I shall read to you, is eloquent: "The Department of National Defence, like the 182 other institutions which fall under the Official Languages Act, must report to the Treasury Board Secretariat every year in the matter of official languages." Further on, she states: "A copy of this report must be sent here, to the Official Languages Branch, and elsewhere."

    So, it seems that the 182 institutions and departments must table an annual report with the Treasury Board Secretariat. That is the first stage and it is done. What does the Treasury Board do with the reports? I went to the Treasury Board Secretariat's website and found the Official Languages Audit Guide. The audit guide says that the Treasury Board has the authority "to monitor and audit compliance with the act". It also says:

...all federal institutions must take the necessary steps to discharge their obligations under the Act...

Audit objectives

In order to verify service to the public, the auditors must first obtain the list of their institutions offices...

    It also says that the auditors must obtain the targeted audit objectives. I could read them to you, but the Audit Guide is 27 pages long. I asked the Treasury Board Secretariat for an analysis of the 182 institutions and departments. It does not have one. Would it not be better to simply apply the Audit Guide instead of establishing an evaluation framework? That is my first question.

    Second, I sent an e-mail to the same person with regard to the 29 organizations and departments which must table a report with the Department of Canadian Heritage. They have the same method of analysis, and I asked for an analysis of the report. I did not get one. Again, do you think that the Department of Canadian Heritage should conduct the analysis?

    But in the same reply, it says that the reports and analyses must also be sent to your office. Have you received these analyses and could we see them? In the end, it is the president of the Treasury Board who, in her annual report, must report on all these reports and analyses. But you have it. Do you analyze this report?

    On page 36 of the report on the Treasury Board Secretariat, which deals with positions designated bilingual, it says once more that this year 16 per cent of positions designated bilingual are not filled by bilingual staff. Do you also analyze Ms. Robillard's report? Those are my three questions.

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    Ms. Dyane Adam: I would like to begin by addressing your first question, which dealt with the accountability framework. My recommendation was to have an accountability framework for the action plan. You talked about reports on the regular operations of each department or institution. They are all accountable for their activities. The plan of action is an adjustment framework which comes on top of regular activities. I feel the action plan for official languages already contains an accountability framework. However, I don't think it goes far enough, because it only provides a list of responsibilities. For consistency sake, it should be an accounting framework. What exactly does an accounting framework mean? It means not only setting measurable objectives, but also showing how the proposed measures to be taken over the next five years will make enough progress to attain the targeted objectives.

    Within government today, people want to manage based on results. The problem is that many of the plans you mentioned simply represent a kind of grocery list, a list of activities. That's easy enough to accomplish if you want to keep your staff busy. But what is the end result of these activities? Will their goals be met? That is the weak point of each report. But there is a willingness within government to account for, or, at least, to quantify, results.

    I will now address your second and third questions. Are the reports which are submitted to Treasury Board by the various institutions analyzed by Treasury Board? I cannot answer on behalf of Treasury Board . You'll have to ask them that question.

    Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: I did ask that question, but the answer was no.

    Ms. Dyane Adam: Fine. But you'll notice that the reports often contain a list of activities. No one knows whether or not studies were done to, for instance, assess the quality of service in both official languages provided in Western Canada or elsewhere throughout the country. You usually don't find this type of information in the reports.

    As for section 41, which requires some 27 federal institutions to report on how they respect this section and on what they are doing to meet the objectives, these institutions forward their reports to the Department of Canadian Heritage. Again, you would have to ask the department whether it analyzes the reports. You are saying that it doesn't.

    In the past, the office of the commissioner analyzed every report. But when the department in question—I believe it's the Department of Canadian Heritage, told us that it would do the analyzes, the office of the commissioner stopped its regular analysis of the reports. We look at them when we need information, but we have stopped systematically evaluating them.

    The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Adam.

    You can come back during the second round, Mr. Sauvageau.

    Mr. Simard.

    Mr. Raymond Simard (Saint Boniface, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    Madam Commissioner, I would like to get a better understanding of the office of the commissioner. I am fairly new to this business and it's a bit frustrating for me to read your reports, which frequently mentioned the President of the Treasury Board. Is there anything you can do? Can you only make recommendations to the Treasury Board? If so, is that something which could be reviewed here? What is the structure of the office of the commissioner of official languages?

    Ms. Dyane Adam: I am an officer of Parliament and my mandate is defined by the Official Languages Act. The mandate is a broad one, since I am expected to take all necessary measures to ensure that federal institutions comply fully with the Official Languages Act. I can carry out investigations and receive complaints from the public. I have audit powers and the power to seek legal recourse regarding certain parts of the act, such as part VII, but no judicial powers. I have the power and the obligation, one might say, to promote linguistic duality across Canada. So I have recommending powers, not be confused with judicial power, to order that a decision or a recommendation be implemented. The institutions receive our recommendations. We encourage them strongly to participate in identifying problems and accept what they are being told, otherwise we will not get very far with our recommendations, and then to come up with an action plan to address the problems. Sometimes this happens immediately, if there has just been an administrative oversight, such as the unavailability of a bilingual employee when a citizen asks to be served in the language of his or her choice. Sometimes the issues are much more systemic. For example, at Human Resources Development, there has been a computerized system in place for eight years that translates data at bases and job banks. This information is public and we have been told for years that a wonderful new system is coming, but they do not have enough staff. We agree that a computer can be used to produce a rough draft of a translation, but there have to be human beings to make sure that the translation is accurate before it is put on the site. So that is a much more serious problem. The department has not even invested the necessary resources, and citizens are not getting the services they are entitled to.

º  (1615)  

    Mr. Raymond Simard: Has the mandate of the commissioner's office been reviewed since it was created?

    Ms. Dyane Adam: It was reviewed when the act was last revised in 1988, at which time the commissioner's powers were increased. Before then, the commissioner did not have the right to seek legal remedies, and that power has made a difference since it was added. I could go into detail and talk about various cases in which legal proceedings led to movement on a problem. In particular, we had the Contraventions Act, where we saw the end of a saga. It was the legal route that enabled us to get the situation corrected in that case.

    Mr. Raymond Simard: It has been 14 years since the act was revised. Do you think that it is time your mandate was reviewed to try to resolve these frustrations? It seems to me that you produce very good reports and good analyses, but you do not have a lot of power. I think that this poses a problem. I would like to hear your comments on that.

    Ms. Dyane Adam: We are looking at the situation right now. There have been many changes in society with respect to technology and the way services are delivered. There have been new organizations created. There are some 160 organizations that are subject to the act, but do not come under Treasury Board. They are at arm's length from Parliament. For example, how do we deal with Air Canada, which is a private company that can be held to account if it violates certain laws, but not when it violates the Official Languages Act?

    Ms. Allard raised another issue earlier that I believe gives us good reason to look at the situation together. Should the legislation be reviewed? 

º  (1620)  

    Mr. Raymond Simard: Do I have time to ask one last question? Thank you.

    It is actually on behalf of my colleague, who had to leave us. We had representatives here this week or last week from the Montfort Hospital, and when we talked about their hospital costs, for example, I found it very interesting to hear that the Montfort Hospital, which provides services in both official languages, is one of the most efficient in Ontario.

    I think that there should be an analysis done. I do not know whether it should involve you or someone else, but I know that you do studies of the public service, for example. I think that comments like that are made in a kind of vacuum. Evidence should be collected to see whether in fact there are additional costs, since it does not seem to be true in the case of Montfort. So I would like to see that looked into, and I do not know whose role that would be.

    Ms. Dyane Adam: I can tell you that one of the current tasks of the Commissioner's Office is to look at whether the act should be reviewed. There have been problems raised here around the table. Whether part VII of the act is binding or declaratory is far from clear, so that is already one issue.

    There is also the issue of sanctions in some cases. Should other consequences be introduced for cases in which institutions do not comply with the act? It is something that could be considered. We also need to think about the increasing trend toward the delivery of remote services. You are familiar with the principle of significant demand. It may be possible today to serve all citizens in their language because the bulk of services are delivered over the phone or by computer rather than in person.

    Language of work is another problem. In some situations, such as in Manitoba, the provincial government recognizes the right of some francophones in certain service points to work in their own language. The federal government does not do that. The federal government has made a commitment to promoting the vitality of minority communities. One of the best ways of doing that would be to enable people from minority communities to work in their own language. So I think that we need to reflect on some of these things.

    The Chair: Mr. Godin, go ahead.

    Mr. Yvon Godin (Acadie—Bathurst, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for being late.

    In your fourth recommendation, you suggest that the clerk of the Privy Council should require that deputy ministers and associate deputy ministers have the same level of bilingualism. I do not know whether you have discussed this with them, but do you believe that the government is prepared to make changes, or will they continue to simply make requests? When people elect a member of Parliament, there is no rule that says that that person has to be bilingual. But generally speaking, deputy ministers are hired and not elected by the people. Deputy ministers replace ministers on many occasions. So they have to be able to work with the public and various organizations. Some Canadians would like to be able to speak with the person in charge, and they cannot really do that. They are at a disadvantage.

    I do not think that I have actually asked a question up to now, but are there deputy ministers who can only speak French? No, there are not. Are there deputy ministers who can only speak English? Yes, there are. So the francophone community is at a disadvantage when a francophone wants to ask a question of a deputy minister, who cannot answer in French and has to ask an assistant to answer the question.

    Once again, I would like to know whether any progress is being made on this issue or whether the government does not have the political will to change things.

º  (1625)  

    Ms. Dyane Adam: This is not a new recommendation, in that it was made in a study published in 2001-2002, called Time for a change in culture. It was based on the principle that senior managers, who are responsible for supervising employees in the language of the employee's choice, should be bilingual. If you want to have your appraisal done in French, your manager cannot do it if he or she does not speak French. It is not up to someone else, as you mentioned, to do the appraisal.

    But there is no requirement for deputy ministers and associate deputy ministers, who are senior officials, to be bilingual, and they are not evaluated on that aspect either. Everyone knows that it is best to lead by example. That is a basic principle. If we want an organization to act in a certain way, senior officials and managers have to embody the values and behaviours they want to see in the people they supervise.

    I discussed that recommendation with the clerk again this year, before the report was tabled, and told him that I was not really expecting any action on it. I am always told that most deputy ministers are bilingual. If that is the case, it should be easy to accept my recommendation and officialize the situation that already exists.

    The idea seemed to be well received, but until there is a formal commitment, I will not be able to tell you whether I will be making the same recommendation again next year.

    Mr. Yvon Godin: Ms. Adam, even if the government says that most deputy ministers are bilingual, that is not the answer. We have no problem with most of these people, but there is a problem in the department where the deputy minister is unilingual. If the minister stays in place and decides not to replace the deputy minister, the problem will remain. The government is not leading by example.

    Recommendation 6 states:

The commissioner recommends that the Minister of Health:

-ensure that federal-provincial-territorial health agreements are tailored to the particular needs of the official language minority communities of each province and territory...

    If a province has no official languages act... Unless I have misunderstood, you are talking here about official languages in each province. Is that the same as the official languages of Canada?

    Ms. Dyane Adam: Yes.

º  (1630)  

    Mr. Yvon Godin: All right. The official languages committee is currently studying the subject matter of Bill C-202. As in the case of the deputy ministers, this issue will take time. What recommendations would you make concerning the federal government's participation in resolving this problem?

    For example, would you recommend that the federal government add this to the five principles in the act? Would you recommend that it be made a sixth principle?

    Ms. Dyane Adam: That is one option. My recommendation is aimed at ensuring that the agreements contained a clause on language. Should the act be changed to include a sixth principle? There is nothing preventing the federal government, when it signs agreements with the provinces, from inserting a clause on language. It already puts in various conditions. It does this in the case of immigration. It asks certain provinces to take into account the needs of the minority, to consult the minority, etc. Moreover, as I mentioned, we already have the ministerial conference on francophone affairs that deals with issues of concern to the francophone minority in the country. The federal and provincial governments have started working together on initiatives to better serve francophone minority communities across Canada. Are all the provincial governments involved? Yes, they are. There is already some movement, but I am using this recommendation to ask that the Minister of Health includes specific provisions for official language minority communities when there are funds to be transferred.

    Mr. Yvon Godin: Now I would be interested in hearing your interpretation or opinion with regard to the language of work. If you prefer not to answer this question, that is fine, but I hope you realize that French-speaking fishermen in Shippagan must now be bilingual if they want to work on a vessel and fish for cod, halibut, mackerel or herring, whereas the Department of Fisheries and Oceans only requires workers in Halifax or Yarmouth to speak English, despite the fact that they man the same vessels and engage in the same type of activities.

    Ms. Dyane Adam: What is your question?

    Mr. Yvon Godin: Well, let me tell you what I think. Halifax is an English-speaking city, and there is no reason why the workers there should speak French. We are not asking for everyone to become bilingual. That is not the point; the point is to provide service. If you believe in bilingualism, then service should be provided in both official languages. In my view, the government may not be breaking the law, but it is flouting certain principles in demanding that people from a French-speaking area be bilingual. The government claims that under the law, it is obliged to hire bilingual workers to fill those positions, but nothing says these people have to be bilingual. We are talking about vessels at sea. If that is the case, then anglophones in Halifax should also be treated the same way.

    I am not sure this is a question. I think it is more of a comment.

    Ms. Dyane Adam: No, it is a legitimate question. However, I am not sure there is a simple answer. How do you define what a bilingual position is, and do you set the language requirements for various positions based on criteria established in regulation? Michel, would you like to respond?

    Mr. Michel Robichaud (Director General, Investigations Branch, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages): Language requirements for positions dealing with the public, be it at a counter or over the phone, are established on the basis of need; an "office" is designated bilingual if there is demand for services in both languages.

    Language of work requirements are based on whether a region is deemed bilingual and has a concentration of anglophones and francophones, irrespective of whether it is in Quebec or elsewhere. Some regions are defined in law, such as the entire province of New Brunswick, the national capital region and some parts of Ontario. Employees working in those areas can work in the language of their choice. But elsewhere, the language of the majority has precedence. This amounts to French in Quebec and English elsewhere.

    These factors are relevant to the matter of language of work and service to the public. In situations which are not clear-cut, the latter trumps the former. In a bilingual region, employees dealing with the public must be able to speak French. In short, meeting the language needs of the public always comes first.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Ms. Thibault.

    Ms. Yolande Thibeault (Saint-Lambert, Lib.): Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

    Ms. Adam, allow me to refer to the second part of your fourth recommendation, which is directed at the president of the Treasury Board and to the president of the Public Service Commission. The paragraph ends with the word "exception". It says "that the appointment of candidates who do not meet the language requirements of the position be viewed as an exception."

    That worries me. How do you define what an exception is? It seems fairly open-ended.

º  (1635)  

    Ms. Dyane Adam: As it now stands, we hire people based on non imperative staffing requirements if they come from outside the public service. The imperative staffing requirement is now optional for assistant deputy ministers. I am asking that imperative staffing requirements apply to everyone. At that level, very few people come from the outside, but it happens from time to time.

    Ms. Yolande Thibeault: What only happens from time to time?

    Ms. Dyane Adam: Assistant deputy ministers are rarely hired from outside the public service. I don't remember how many are, however, but it's not a significant number.

    But there is an important principle within the public service: all Canadians should have access to the public service. Since at that level very few people are recruited from the outside, and if imperative staffing requirements applied to everyone, you would be closing the door to any outside candidate. This explains why there are exceptions. They can be assessed. We can ask an institution to explain why it decided to apply non-imperative staffing requirements. Now, this is mainly left to the institution's discretion, and it is not always asked to explain why it made certain exceptions.

    I think we should ask a manager to explain why a person was hired under non-imperative staffing requirements or why a non-bilingual candidate was hired to fill a bilingual position.

    Ms. Yolande Thibeault: Thank you very much.

    The Chair: Mr. Bellemare.

    Mr. Eugène Bellemare (Ottawa—Orléans, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    At our last meeting, or the one before that, I talked about broadcasting and the CRTC.

    In your 7^th recommendation, which deals with the bilingual status of the national capital, I see several pillars. We already have some very good pillars. There is the NCC, for instance, which has a high profile in the region. Imagine if we were in a remote place, perhaps out West, which was very anglophone. If the NCC were present there, there would also be a bit of French.

    Keeping that in mind, I wonder what things make up Ottawa. We have the public service, which is a great boost. We have many families which are involved in school activities in grade school and high school, at the college and university levels, and we even have continuing education. This region has services provided for in the various buildings which house the public service, services which cannot be found in remote areas. There is Heritage Canada, which organizes activities and shows. Radio and television represent another pillar. So far, so good.

    But when a federal government agency designates the City of Ottawa as being an anglophone city for the purposes of cable distribution, it causes an uproar. The agency in question bases its decisions from a market point of view.

    A little earlier, you were saying that you have a bit more authority and that you now have some legal muscle. The CRTC has just signed a seven-year agreement with CPAC to provide English broadcasting. Francophones living in Ottawa will only be able to hear English broadcasts, but anglophones living in Aylmer, Gatineau and Hull will only be able to hear French broadcasts. Yet all these people live in the national capital region. I don't know who, exactly, should change this situation. Is it you?

º  (1640)  

    Ms. Dyane Adam: I think your own committee, as well as our office, work very hard to get the CRTC to change its criteria. I clearly recall your intervention with regard to broadcasting. The CRTC has just made public its decision with regard to CPAC, which, I think, was back in December. CPAC is a public station. If you read the decision, you'll realize that French has made huge gains on that station. CPAC is now required to produce French programming. My colleague tells me—

    Mr. Eugène Bellemare: Yes, great. But I like to come back to the problem of the capital being designated—

    Ms. Dyane Adam: You mentioned the markets. They have their own principles and criteria. They follow the language of the majority. My colleague talked about the language of work within the federal government. Except in areas designated bilingual, people tend to speak the language of the majority. I think that the CRTC nevertheless has criteria for bilingual markets. I will look into it, since I would not want to mislead you.

    Mr. Eugène Bellemare: Let me come back to the city of Ottawa. What do you hear? You hear people say that the City of Ottawa will become officially bilingual and not that it should become a bilingual city. What, in your opinion, is the difference between these two things? The word “officially” bothers a lot of people in some places. Do we really need the word “official”? For instance, a municipality may decide that exceeding 40 kilometres an hour on certain streets is illegal. If the city of Ottawa is declared bilingual, it's official. Legislation to reduce driving speed is not called official. It automatically becomes official by virtue of the fact that the city has the authority to impose a speed limit. When the authorities say that the city of Ottawa is bilingual, it automatically becomes officially bilingual.

    Ms. Dyane Adam: Every minority official-language community is always a bit uncomfortable when its rights are only recognized in a policy. Why is this? Because policies can change quickly. The fact that French and English are recognized in the Canadian Constitution is a huge step. The same applies to legislation. The city of Ottawa can ask the province to recognize the bilingual character of the national capital. But only the legislative assembly of Ontario can change the law. The city cannot. If the province recognizes the city of Ottawa's bilingual character, we won't be subject to the whims of local politicians. Council could adopt changes at a sitting. It would underscore the official status of both languages in our capital. That's why we prefer that approach. If, under the Canadian Constitution, the federal government had received the power not only to declare Ottawa the national capital, but also a bilingual city, we would not be grappling with this problem today. We would not even be discussing it, since it would be enshrined in the Canadian Constitution.

º  (1645)  

    Mr. Eugène Bellemare: That's exactly what my final question is about.

    The Chair: I'm sorry, Mr. Bellemare.

    Mr. Bellemare can come back during the second round and I will also ask a couple of questions. I will be patient. I will now give the floor to Mr. Sauvageau, followed by Mr. Bellemare and myself.

    Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: I acknowledge your patience, Mr. Chairman. I have five minutes and I'll be brief.

    First, I would suggest—I cannot recommend, since I am not the committee—that you be sent the annual reports of every department. Then compare the National Defence reports of 2002-2003 and 2001-2002. They have sanitized their reports to the point where most of the data has been cleaned out. They should be taken to task for that.

    Second, if all the 182 departments and organizations forwarded their reports to you, you would not need to call for accountability under the Dion plan anymore, because that would happen naturally and automatically. Therefore, I would suggest—and I will suggest that the committee make that recommendation—that you demand to receive the 182 reports of analysis. I would also suggest that the Department of Canadian Heritage follow suit.

    I would now like to know whether you make an analysis of the annual report of the president of Treasury Board.

    Ms. Dyane Adam: Yes.

    Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Do you find it acceptable that, over a span of 20 years, the number of bilingual employees working in positions designated bilingual has not increased, but rather decreased by 2 per cent? In 1984, 86 per cent of positions designated bilingual were filled by bilingual employees, but today, it's 84 per cent. According to the 2002-2003 report of the Treasury Board Secretariat, 16 per cent of public servants in positions designated bilingual do not meet language requirements. In your analysis, what would you want to tell Ms. Robillard?

    Ms. Dyane Adam: I will send you one of my published reports, the one from 1999-2000, in which we had conducted an analysis. In fact, that very analysis led us to produce our first report in 1999, which was very critical of the government. We noted a decrease throughout government with regard to those positions, but there was an even greater decrease with regard to the number of positions designated bilingual. Therefore, we carried out this analysis as well as others, which led us to conclude that in the last ten years language rights had regressed.

    We take these facts into account, not always by themselves, but in combination with other facts, which become the basis for our recommendations, or at least for our conclusions.

º  (1650)  

    Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: I don't want to sound compulsive or excessive, but suppose you filed a complaint about a department that failed to respect the Official Languages Act for designated bilingual positions, a complaint about a situation like the one at National Defence, for instance. From what you have told us, am I right to conclude that that complaint would be admissible?

    Thank you very much.

    I asked the Library to give us the budgetary items for each one of the departments mainly concerned with official languages, in other words, your office, Heritage Canada, the Treasury Board Secretariat and the Minister of Justice. For the item concerning total expenditures in the area of official languages at Treasury Board Secretariat, we were told “data not available”. At the Department of Justice, they said “data not available”, and that's been going on since 1997. We didn't go back any further than that.

    Could you recommend that each one of the departments have a specific budgetary item entitled “Total expenditures for official languages” which would allow us to see if expenditures are increasing, decreasing or simply being maintained at the same level for Transport Canada and others?

    You said you were rather in favour of a five-year review. Pardon my ignorance, but would it be legal for you to send our committee a copy of the complaints you received concerning National Defence?

    Ms. Dyane Adam: I have a list of complaints. Over the last ten years, we held 15 investigations. The important thing is that sometimes we group the complaints in order to do a more in-depth investigation on systemic problems. Sometimes the complaint that is filed only addresses one aspect of the organization; it is rather broad.

    We could certainly send you the complaints. They are in our annual reports, but we will send them to you.

    Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Did you know that the F-18 pilot training course is given only in English?

    Ms. Dyane Adam: We had no complaints about that.

    Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: I'm now informing you that the F-18 pilot training courses are given in English only. At 200 knots, translating just before landing is sometimes a bit complicated for the students.

    The Chair: Thank you. It looks like you're targeting the Department of National Defence, Mr. Sauvageau.

    Go ahead, Mr. Bellemare.

    Mr. Eugène Bellemare: A very brief question, Mr. Chairman.

    Ottawa and Gatineau are part of the National Capital Region.

    Would it be possible, without amending the Constitution, to declare that the National Capital Region is a strictly federal area as is the case for Washington which is a federal district? That area would have the powers of a province.

    Ms. Dyane Adam: I know that some senators, in what they said in the past, did allude to the fact that it had been recognized that the federal government had the power to act and intervene in the National Capital Region to protect the environment. It's a legal case. In case you are interested, I could even tell you it's the Munro affair.

    The Chair: That's the case where the power of the NCR was confirmed in the matter of development. It wasn't a case about language.

    Ms. Dyane Adam: It was an environmental matter, but some legal experts believe that there is precedent there that might apply to the language question.

    My recommendation is something along those lines. The minister in charge must do everything necessary and explore all options instead of always saying that the province must do this, that or the other thing because it's an area of provincial jurisdiction. What are the possibilities for the federal government? Let's hope we won't have to go that far, but I think that was the message in your question.

    Mr. Eugène Bellemare: Thank you, Ms. Adam.

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Bellemare.

    Are there any more questions?

    Mr. Godin.

    Mr. Yvon Godin: You know that the Association francophone des municipalités du Nouveau-Brunswick has launched a legal action against the government of Canada with regard to the new electoral limits for the riding of Acadie-Bathurst.

    Will your office involve itself in this action, since the Commissioner of Official Languages had originally disagreed with the commission's decision, especially in view of the fact that the electoral boundaries commission clearly said that it was none of your business? In your report, you replied that it was, indeed, your business and that you had the right to make recommendations. Many people supported you. Even within government, some people disagreed with the commission.

    Will you become involved in this legal action?

    Ms. Dyane Adam: We were informed last week that legal action had begun. As it now stands, our office is examining the grounds presented by the applicants, by those seeking legal remedy, and we will determine whether any intervention on my part would be useful.

    Mr. Yvon Godin: So the matter is presently under study.

    Ms. Dyane Adam: Yes.

    Mr. Yvon Godin: Thank you.

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Godin.

    I would like to say a few words about the subjects we have already discussed.

    To come back to Ms. Adam's response to Mr. Kenney's question, which dealt with the Minister for Francophone Affairs, on October 21, that is, on the Tuesday following the break, we will be hearing from Mr. Edmond LaBossière, the senior official in charge of the Conférence ministérielle sur les affaires francophones. He will discuss the political framework adopted last year in St. John's and the plans of action or activities which they committed to in September of this year in Winnipeg. I think it is important for us to follow this matter, not only as it relates to health care, but also in terms of what every department is planning to do.

    As for the bilingual status of the city, which Mr. Kenney and Mr. Bellemare referred to, in my view, there is no other way to go. I have a hard time believing that people forget that Moncton declared itself officially bilingual and that the city is better off for it. Nobody got sick and Moncton's economy seems to be improving. It is unthinkable that people would object to the capital of Canada becoming officially bilingual. In fact, city council, in a vote of 17 against 4 or 5, I believe, passed a resolution on the city's bilingual status, which called for the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to amend the law incorporating the City of Ottawa so as to reflect the bilingual character of the city, and in such a way as to prevent a future council from amending the legislation on a whim. Under the resolution, future city councils will be bound by the law and there would be a policy on bilingualism, which would see services provided in both languages.

    The Premier-elect said he would accept such a request made by the city. Council made the request. As long as it is not revoked by the current council or by a future one, the request will stand. Everything leads us to believe that the Government of Ontario could settle the matter fairly easily and fairly quickly.

    As for the issue raised by Ms. Allard with regard to the CBC and satellites, I would invite our colleagues to reread the government's response to our first report on the CRTC. The report's first recommendation addressed the issue raised by Mr. Bellemare, namely bilingual markets. We did not get what we had hoped for, but there were hopeful signs we could look into. As for the CBC's regional stations which are not broadcast by the two broadcasters by national satellite, the government has been very clear. It agreed with our position. We recommended that the two satellite broadcasters be required to transmit all of the CBC's and Radio-Canada's regional stations, and the government supported this view. The government noted that the licences must be renewed by the CRTC next year and it gave the CRTC clear marching orders. Otherwise, the government said it would get involved in the issue. The commissioners need not even read between the lines, since the government was clear. I am hoping that a year from now every regional Radio-Canada and CBC station will be broadcast by several satellites.

    In fact, I had issued a press release with regard to the government's response to our first report. I found the government's response respectful, complete and very, very useful, compared to another response we received last week and which I invite you to read. The two are posted on our website. I find the government response to our report on immigration, which we spent a lot of time on, fairly vague, to put it politely. Everyone knows what our website is: you can find us at www.parl.gc.ca/lang-f for the French version, or at www.parl.gc.ca/lang-e if you want to read it in English.

º  (1655)  

[English]

    I want to congratulate John Ryan, president and CEO of the Farm Credit Corporation, for having received the second annual Léon.

[Translation]

    Congratulations, Mr. Ryan. We did not even have to invite that group in, and nevertheless it does things properly. Good for them! I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate them and to thank them.

    Ms. Adam, I would now like to raise some subjects for future discussion. I see that while there has been some improvement, it is uneven. In some departments, in particular Justice, Human Resources Development, Canadian Heritage, Health and Immigration, it is clear that people are aware of the situation. That is not true of other departments such as National Defence—their visit left me with a bad taste in my mouth—Customs and Excise and Finance, which was here the other day and did not impress us. Some people need a little shaking up, and that is our job.

    But let us talk about the future. You commended the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade because employees of that department now have access to on-line language training. I notice that and I also notice that at Canadian Heritage, a service called “Word Wizards” has been established. In an earlier question I asked to the President of Treasury Board, she said that the Public Service Commission was developing software that would be available to all federal public servants to help them learn the other official language.

    Do you think that some day all Canadians could go to a government website to learn the other official language, English or French?

»  (1700)  

    Ms. Dyane Adam: This was one of my recommendations in the study on the Internet.

    The federal government has invested a great deal of money in the last 30 years in what are called the language industries, particularly the teaching of French and English, translation, Termium and terminology. We asked that all this be made available to all Canadians on a website. Efforts along those lines have begun. I know that there is some openness to this, but, until further notice, Termium is not accessible to the public. In Quebec, the Grand dictionnaire terminologique has been made available to the public, and I think I read that this was one of the most frequently visited sites in Quebec.

    Canada could do a very good thing for our two languages if it were to make Termium generally available. It is recognized as one of the best tools of this type in the world. This is true for the courses the government provides as well.

    The Chair: I have a question about paragraph 43(1)(b) of the Official Languages Act. It refers to the Minister of Canadian Heritage. The quote is as follows:

43. (1) The Minister of Canadian Heritage shall take such measures as that Minister considers appropriate to advance the equality of status and use of English and French in Canadian society and, without restricting the generality of the foregoing, may take measures to:

(b)encourage and support the learning of English and French in Canada;

    In light of this, do you think the government could easily say that it has a legal responsibility to act in this way?

    Ms. Dyane Adam: We see no incompatibility there. There are consequences for the language industries. The private sector may have some objections, and that is perhaps where this will play out.

    The Chair: Right, but it could also be positive and create greater demand.

    Is there still an agreement between the office of the Commissioner of Official Languages and the House of Commons about allowing the latter to enforce the Official Languages Act in the House?

    Ms. Dyane Adam: This agreement still exists.

    The Chair: When does it expire?

    Mr. Michel Robichaud: We did take some steps in order to restart the negotiations with the House of Commons, but we have not yet been able to agree on a new memorandum of understanding. We were just about to resume our talks in the coming weeks—

    The Chair: Suppose the memorandum were no longer in force.

    Mr. Michel Robichaud: No expiry date is provided for in the memorandum.

    The Chair: Would the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages be in favour of renewing the memorandum of understanding, whether or not it was amended, or would you prefer not to renew it? Is there a clause that would allow you to withdraw from the agreement, to simply say that there is no longer an agreement?

    Mrs. Johane Tremblay (General Counsel and Director, Legal Services, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages): Yes, indeed. The agreement goes back a number of years, to before the present commissioner was appointed. Obviously, there would be some merit in re-evaluating the agreement in view of recent developments, or in view of cases that are presently before the federal court.

    The Chair: Have you ever thought about rescinding the agreement? I don't quite know how you would go about that. I suppose you would have to give some notice, perhaps six months or a few weeks. How would the Office of the Commissioner go about withdrawing from such an agreement?

»  (1705)  

    Ms. Johane Tremblay: The terms of the agreement are fairly flexible. It's not really a contract as such. I think the agreement is flexible enough to allow us to decide whether or not it is still appropriate. We also have memoranda of understanding with other institutions, and the main purpose of those agreements is to facilitate our investigations, so that we can carry them out within a reasonable timeframe.

    The Chair: How many of these memoranda are there?

    Ms. Dyane Adam: There are several, we have three of them.

    The Chair: Could we get copies of them?

    Ms. Dyane Adam: Yes.

    Ms. Johane Tremblay: The purpose of those memoranda is to ensure that there is cooperation so that our investigations can unfold as smoothly as possible and so that we can get answers and have access to whatever information we need.

    The Chair: Thank you. We can distribute the memoranda when we get them.

    There is one question which has been suggested to us by our researcher which I find quite relevant. I will admit that I find it difficult to read all of the reports, and it is not for lack of wanting to read them. We just don't have the time to read everything. I think I speak on behalf of my colleagues when I say that. Our researcher has made an interesting suggestion about something that is being done in other departments. Would it be possible to have some of those reports grouped together? I'm not talking about the commissioner's report, but would it be possible to see whether or not there might be some willingness on the part of government agencies—you know, we have Heritage Canada, Treasury Board, as well as the others each putting out their own report—to produce a single report, so that we don't have to read all these different reports? There would then be more relevance to these reports. That is a suggestion that I wanted to put to you in order to help move things forward.

    Here are my other two questions, which have also been suggested to us by our researcher. They deal with the purpose of Bill C-202, which the committee started looking at last May. Hopefully, the committee will be able to complete its study by the end of the month.

    I will ask two of the four questions that our researcher has suggested. Do you think the Government of Canada can place a linguistic condition on the provinces, considering that health care delivery is an area of provincial jurisdiction? Have you asked for independent legal opinions about the constitutional and legal basis for health care in both official languages? If so, what were the results?

    Ms. Dyane Adam: We have not asked for independent legal opinions.

    The Chair: In your opinion, given its responsibilities under the Charter, as well as under the Official Languages Act and the Canada Health Act, can the Government of Canada place a linguistic condition on its transfer payments to the provinces?

    I would ask you to please respond to that question in writing.

    Ms. Dyane Adam: Yes, we will do that, because our opinion is similar to that of Mr. Foucher.

    The Chair: It would be most appreciated if you could answer that question in a timely manner. Thank you for allowing me to put those questions. I will come back if there is any time left.

    Mr. Sauvageau.

    Ms. Dyane Adam: Let me give you a very short answer to your question about producing a consolidated report. The Official Languages Act requires that the institutions table a report, but there is nothing to stop the Treasury Board Secretariat or the departments from producing a consolidated report.

    The Chair: I will come back to that once Mr. Sauvageau has had his turn.

    Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: That is what the Treasury Board Secretariat does in a report which is totally unsatisfactory, inadequate and just horrible.

    It seems the chairman and I were on the same wavelength, because I also wanted to ask for a written response to questions 3 and 4. I will give you this excellent document which has been prepared by our researcher. I would like to have written responses to questions 3 and 4, if possible. I will therefore give you the document.

    I would like to talk about those who go on French-language or on English- language training in order to work in a bilingual position. Once they finish their training, they are tested and they get the CBC level. Suppose they work only in English for the next five years. When they were first appointed to the position, they were bilingual, because they had passed the test. But in the ensuing five years, for some reason or another, they worked only in English. Are the incumbents in designated bilingual positions re-evaluated at any time? If not, then would the statistics not be somewhat distorted?

»  (1710)  

    Ms. Dyane Adam: If the public servant remains in the same position, he will not be reassessed, but if he changes positions and the new position requires him to be bilingual, he will be re-evaluated after five years.

    Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: May I suggest that you propose that these positions be evaluated?

    When I come to the end of a course, I am ready for the exam, since the information is fresh in my mind. But if I were asked the same questions five years later, I may not get the same mark.

    That is why I am asking you whether the positions are re-evaluated. If it is not done, the data we are given are probably completely false. This would not be surprising, since we are dealing with official languages.

    Ms. Dyane Adam: Perhaps the data do not reflect reality.

    Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: You express yourself more eloquently than I do.

    Ms. Dyane Adam: My colleagues have pointed out that in the past, people in those positions were tested periodically, but the Treasury Board Secretariat stopped that practice. You are bringing up old ideas and old practices which helped us get a much clearer image of what was really happening. If the people in those positions are not re-evaluated, it is impossible to get a clear picture of whether they still have the skills they had at the beginning.

    The Chair: Are you done?

    Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: If you do not mind, I would like to ask one more question.

    The Chair: Go ahead.

    Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: I had asked you an indirect question, but now I will put it to you directly.

    According to the Treasury Board Secretariat's annual report, 16 per cent of positions designated bilingual are not filled by bilingual personnel. Do you think your office might investigate this issue?

    Ms. Dyane Adam: Yes.

    Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: In that case, I will take the opportunity right now to complain about the situation.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    I have two other questions for you, Ms. Adam.

    My first question deals with a situation which is happening now and which the Office of the Commissioner is looking into, I believe. It has to do with a piece of land in Yellowknife on which the Fédération franco-ténoise, the association representing francophones in the Northwest Territories, was hoping to build a francophone community centre. The association had invited the Department of Public Works and Government Services to take advantage of the flexibility it has under section 41 to buy this piece of land on favourable terms, something which the department did not do.

    It now seems that the land has been sold. I do not know if this transaction can be reversed, but I would like to know if you want to get involved. I would encourage you to act quickly in case the transaction can still be reversed.

    Ms. Dyane Adam: The matter is currently under investigation. I cannot really talk about it more for that reason, but I think the investigation is fairly advanced.

    The Chair: I do not want to speculate on the outcome of your investigation, but if this particular legal provision gives the department a certain degree of flexibility, we should make sure that the department's policies reflect this fact, as well as those of Treasury Board, as it applies to the disposition of land. I am aware of another situation where the provision was used to dispose of a federal property. If you wish, I can send you that information.

»  (1715)  

    Ms. Dyane Adam: Yes, we would be interested in receiving that information.

    The Chair: Would the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages be prepared to share with the House Committee on Official Languages its views on the act itself or possible amendments to it?

    I think the committee should look at this issue at some point and recommend—or not, depending on what it decides—that the government deal with this issue. The act was passed 15 years ago. I think it could be improved in two or three places.

    My question is this: would the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages be prepared to share its views with us, if we schedule a special meeting for that purpose?

    Ms. Dyane Adam: At the moment, this issue is being handled by our legal expert and by certain politicians as well. We are reviewing various aspects of the act that may cause some difficulties or that could be strengthened. As part of this review process, we will be consulting various groups. Consequently, we should be consulting the committee as well.

    Ms. Johane Tremblay: I would like to add that we are developing a process that will lead us to that and that we will be presenting it to the commissioner very soon. We will take into account the need for consultation that you expressed on the committee's behalf.

    The Chair: Would anyone else like to ask any questions or make any comments?

    Do you have any comments to add yourself, Ms. Adam, or any questions for us?

    Ms. Dyane Adam: Mr. Sauvageau raised a question about the fact that institutions do not account for their expenditures on official languages. Once again, I am going to turn to people who have been at the commissioner's office longer than I have. Gérard, I think this has existed in the past.

    Mr. Gérard Finn (Advisor to the Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages): Yes, every year until about five years ago, in Treasury Board's annual report, there was an entry for the expenditures related to administering the official languages in federal institutions. There was an accounting procedure in place. In its wisdom, Treasury Board decided to drop this part of the report, and we have not had this information since that time.

    Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: So as part of the renewed leadership in the area of official languages, a decision was made to abandon the evaluation of designated bilingual positions and items in the budget. Is that correct?

    Mr. Gérard Finn: That was done at the end of the nineties.

    The Chair: This is not something I do often, but this time I am going to defend the government.

    That was before the recovery and that may be part of it. If it is not too much to ask, I would request that Mr. Finn get in touch with our clerk or researcher to find out a little more about this question to see whether we should perhaps be making a recommendation along these lines before November 7.

    Ms. Dyane Adam: [Inaudible—Editor]... whether the role of the employer, that is Treasury Board, is strong enough as regards oversight of accountability for official languages programs. You will recall that last year I recommended that the Official Languages Section of Treasury Board have more resources to do its job. I also said in this report that Treasury Board had not been the biggest winner in the new official languages action plan. I think the Office of the Commissioner shares your concerns.

    The Chair: Mr. Sauvageau.

    Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: In the government directory, there are six names that appear under the heading Official Languages Section of Treasury Board. There are six pages in the section for the Department of Veterans Affairs. It is really awful. There is no item in the budget, but there is at least... I did not ask Human Resources; I looked in the directory, and it is rather pitiful.

    The Chair: On behalf of the committee, I would like to thank you for being here today and for your comments about the committee in your report. You invited us to remain vigilant. I can tell you that we will continue to be vigilant as long as the 37th Parliament exists and this committee of the House remains in place.

    With that, I would like to wish you a good week in your ridings. On October 21, we will be hearing from Mr. LaBossière and representatives from the anglophone community in the Gaspé Peninsula. This will conclude our hearings on the order of reference we received from the House.

    I had a confidential document sent to you by e-mail, which was a proposed outline for our report. It is a draft, and I would like you to look at it between now and Friday noon and make your comments to the researcher. He plans to work on the report over the weekend. So we will have a first draft when we get back, and we can add to it anything that comes out of the meeting on Tuesday the 21^st. After that date, we will have three consecutive meetings to study and possibly adopt a report.

    Ms. Adam.

»  (1720)  

    Ms. Dyane Adam: As for question 3, we would need a copy of... Very well.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    The meeting is adjourned.