Monday, March 27th 2023 - Study on the application of the Official Languages Act within those institutions subject to the Act - The Hon. Mona Fortier - Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat

Senator Poirier: Thank you again for being here with us. I have a question, but I would also like to follow up on something. It was noted that the pool or number of bilingual employees has decreased. When a person in a bilingual position retires, are efforts made to replace that position or to place new employees in bilingual positions in order to maintain the same percentage?

Ms. Fortier: As to recruitment in the public service, I can obviously say that a great deal of effort is made to ensure that newcomers have the official languages skills required. I would say the answer is yes. Each department, as part of its recruitment and retention activities... That is something we strongly encourage them to do. For positions that are designated bilingual, they must find someone with those skills.

Ms. Laroche: The report notes that 96.5% of incumbents in bilingual positions meet the linguistic requirements of their position. So 3.5% of public servants were probably appointed on a non-imperative basis, meaning that they were given two years to meet the requirements. In the vast majority of cases, however, public servants meet the linguistic requirements of their positions.

Senator Poirier: Since the latest report from the Official Languages Commissioner, what measures have you taken to focus more on the official languages in the staffing of senior management positions in the federal public service and in Governor-in-Council appointments?

Ms. Fortier: I would say a number of steps are being taken, including by Privy Council, to recruit people who have the necessary official languages skills for deputy minister positions.

At the assistant deputy minister level, those positions are bilingual imperative, at the CBC level; those assistant deputy ministers might also become deputy ministers in the future. That gives us a pool that Privy Council can draw on to promote some of those people up the ranks. There is always a strong effort... We were talking about the training framework that will support the various departments and agencies in the recruitment and retention of people for bilingual positions, or for positions for which the required competencies are official languages skills.

Ms. Laroche: The minister mentioned that assistant deputy ministers represent a pool for deputy ministers; in 94% of cases, deputy ministers are in fact appointed from the pool of assistant deputy ministers and they do have very good official languages skills. Given the nature of their responsibilities, deputy ministers must comply with the Official Languages Act and promote it, whether they are perfectly bilingual or not.

At lower levels, as noted in Ms. Joly’s white paper of 2021, we are also looking at the possibility of boosting the language profile of supervisors in bilingual regions, which will increase the level of bilingualism and ensure that our employees are able to have all the necessary conversations and be appropriately supervised in their preferred language.

Senator Poirier: If I understand correctly, 94% of Governor-in-Council appointees are currently bilingual?

Ms. Laroche: The pool of assistant deputy ministers... The Governor-in-Council can, of course, appoint people from outside the public service to those positions, but in 94% of cases, the appointments are from within government and those people are bilingual, as the minister noted.

Ms. Fortier: I mentioned this earlier and I would like to further highlight the following.

It is very interesting to see the 200 champions throughout government: not only do they exert pressure, but they also encourage employees to take training and perfect their second-language skills in order to offer services.

This is another type of measure that is not really regulated; it enables the champions to play an influential role in the system.

I simply wanted to say how important this measure is in encouraging people to apply for important positions.

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