LANG Committee News Release
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Standing Committee on Official Languages |
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Comité permanent des langues officielles |
For immediate release
NEWS RELEASE
Report tabled on the government of Canada's future horizontal initiative for official languages.
Ottawa, November 08, 2012 -
The Honourable Michael Chong, Chair of the Standing Committee on Official Languages (the Committee), today tabled in the House of Commons a report entitled After the Roadmap: Toward Better Programs and Service Delivery. The report sets out 38 recommendations to guide the federal government in developing a future horizontal initiative for official languages. This new initiative would succeed the Roadmap for Canada’s Linguistic Duality 2008–2013: Acting for the Future (the Roadmap), which ends on March 31, 2013. “This report is the culmination of more than a year of work undertaken by the House of Commons’ Standing Committee on Official Languages, which heard from 70 witnesses,” stated the Honourable Michael Chong.
The Committee concluded that the federal government must establish a new official languages initiative that includes funding equivalent to that for the Roadmap. The recommendations contained in the report present the federal government with suggested priorities for investing in official language minority communities in the areas of health, immigration, community development, economic development, education, arts and culture, community media, justice and research. The recommendations also relate to the governance of the federal government’s future official languages initiative, including the creation of a communications strategy and the development of tools to improve the interdepartmental coordination capacity of Canadian Heritage’s Official Languages Secretariat, as well as accountability and evaluation practices for the participating federal partners.
The New Democratic Party of Canada and the Liberal Party of Canada have issued complementary opinions on the Committee’s report.
The latest report is posted on the Committee’s webpage on the Parliament of Canada website (www.parl.gc.ca/LANG-E). Copies of the report can also be obtained from the Committee Clerk.
The House of Commons Standing Committee on Official Languages is composed of 12 members, with the Honourable Michael Chong (Wellington–Halton Hills) serving as Chair and Yvon Godin (Acadie–Bathurst) and the Honourable Stéphane Dion (Saint-Laurent–Cartierville) as Vice-Chairs. The other members are: Joyce Bateman (Winnipeg South Centre), Tyrone Benskin (Jeanne-Le Ber), Corneliu Chisu (Pickering–Scarborough East), Pierre Dionne Lebel (Rivière-du-Nord), Jacques Gourde (Lotbinière–Chutes-de-la-Chaudière), Guy Lauzon (Stormont–Dundas–South Glengarry), Élaine Michaud (Portneuf–Jacques-Cartier), Bernard Trottier (Etobicoke–Lakeshore) and David Wilks (Kootenay–Columbia).
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