Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Official Languages
Issue 5 - Evidence
OTTAWA, Monday, May 31, 2010
The Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages met this day at 5:04 pm. to study the application of the Official Languages Act and regulations and directives made under it. Topic: 2009-10 Annual Report of the Commissioner of Official Languages.
Senator Maria Chaput (Chair) in the chair.
[Traduction]
The Chair: Honourable senators, I would like to welcome you to the Senate Standing Committee on Official Languages. I will introduce myself: I am Senator Maria Chaput, from Manitoba, chair of the committee.
To begin, I would like to introduce the committee members who are here today. On my left, Senator Andrée Champagne, from Québec, who is also the vice-chair of the committee, Senator Suzanne Fortin-Duplessis, from Québec, Senator Judith Seidman, from Québec, and Senator Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu, from Québec. On my right, you have Senator Claudette Tardif, from Alberta, and Senator Rose-Marie Losier-Cool, from Nouveau-Brunswick.
Today we welcome the Commissioner of Official Languages, Mr. Graham Fraser, who is appearing to present us with the main findings in the annual report on official languages that was released last week.
Mr. Fraser, it is always a very great pleasure for the committee to have you here. With you today are four senior officials from the Office of the Commissioner: Ghislaine Charlebois, Assistant Commissioner, Compliance Assurance Branch, Lise Cloutier, Assistant Commissioner, Corporate Services Branch; Johane Tremblay, General Counsel and Director of Legal Affairs, and Sylvain Giguère, Assistant Commissioner of Policy and Communications. Welcome, everyone.
Mr. Commissioner, I will now give you the floor, and the senators will follow with questions.
Graham Fraser, Commissioner of Official Languages, Officer of the Commissioner of Official Languages: Thank you, Madam Chair. It is always a pleasure to appear before you, particularly after the annual report is tabled.
[Français]
I am delighted to be here today to present the findings of volume I of my fourth annual report. You will notice that Volume 1 of the report does not include the federal institution report cards or any data on complaints. This information will be featured in volume II of my annual report to be published next fall.
Volume I of the annual report deals with three separate issue that must be considered as a whole. If the government were to neglect any one of them, setbacks would occur in the other areas. It would be a good idea to keep this in mind as departments and agencies are taking a close look at their budgets.
If universities are not preparing their students adequately, the government and the private sector will have trouble hiring the bilingual employees they need. If managers and supervisors do not encourage their employees to use the official language of their choice, bilingual services to the public will suffer and the development of official language communities will be affected. If the leaders of federal institutions do not live up to the responsibilities arising from the changes made to official languages governance, the governance performance in this area will deteriorate quickly. Everything is interrelated.
[Traduction]
The language of work in federal institutions is important. Since 1988, federal government employees in certain Canadian regions have been entitled to work in English or in French, depending on their preference. However, only 67 per cent of francophones report that they feel comfortable using French in meetings, and the same proportion of Anglophones say they have access to all of their professional development training in English.
The language of work situation is undeniably complex. There is no one solution to these problems, but I present a number of paths to explore in my report. Although strong leadership from the government's senior management is necessary, supervisors and managers also have a role to play in their daily interactions with employees. A respectful relationship between co-workers is key to a successful bilingual workplace.
In many cases, maintaining a unilingual work culture hinders the public service's efforts to offer quality bilingual services to the public. A bilingual work environment offers both language communities the opportunity to fully contribute, in their first official language, to the development and implementation of policies and programs that serve all Canadians. Forty per cent of the jobs In the federal public service require bilingualism. The private sector also has significant bilingual and multilingual labour needs.
As Canada's largest employer, the federal government must work with the universities and provincial governments so that students across Canada have access to better second-language learning opportunities. Providing better learning opportunities to students will improve the performance of future Canadian workers. However, to accomplish this, planning, coordination and strong government leadership are vital.
[Français]
Successful implementation of the Official Languages Act also relies on the application of the principles of sound governance. Processes that may seem purely bureaucratic often have an impact on the daily lives of people living thousands of kilometres away from the decision-making centres. This is why one chapter of my report addresses the recent changes to the way that the federal government's central agencies fulfill their language responsibilities.
Combined with the elimination of the Canada Public Service Agency and its official languages unit, the recent reduction in the Treasury Board Secretariat's Centre of Excellence for Official Languages workforce has led to a considerable loss of expertise for federal institutions attempting to improve their official languages performance.
Although it is too early to assess the final impact these is changes will have on how the federal government fulfills its obligations, I think it is a shame that these changes were adopted without consulting, for example, those responsible for official languages in the federal departments and agencies. It is not a good start for an initiative that is fundamentally risky.
[Traduction]
In this context, senior management must demonstrate vision.
If these managers act without any clear plan to ensure results, we can expect setbacks.
The delegation of responsibilities must not lead to laxity. The government must demonstrate how this new approach will pave the way for a more effective implementation of the Act and improve the vitality of official language communities.
Moreover, leaders of these communities expressed their concerns on the delays in implementing the Roadmap for Canada's Linguistic Duality 2008-13.
Serious delays in signing the agreements between federal institutions and community organizations are also a source of concern. Working to strengthen the vitality of official language communities, the heads of some of these agencies have gone so far as to use their own credit card to pay for their agency's expenses while waiting for government funding. When the funding needed by these organizations to provide essential services is not received until very late in the year, the entire community pays the price.
Despite concerns caused by delays in the implementation of its commitment to official language communities, I was nonetheless pleased to note that, in the most recent Speech from the Throne, the government committed to keeping the Roadmap intact. On the same occasion, the government proclaimed that ``Canada's two official languages are an integral part of our history and position us uniquely in the world.''
To my mind, this statement means that English and French are not only part of our past but of our future as well. To sustain this vision, the government must act with foresight. It must carefully assess the decisions that could affect Canada's linguistic duality. The decision-making process must be transparent.
[Français]
Language policies are sometimes a topic of debate. These debates remind us of the fundamental values that are the foundation of Canadian language policy.
Following discussions in the House of Commons, a bill addressing the bilingualism of Supreme Court judges is now before you in the Senate, and at the heart of the debate. My position is clear. Judges of the highest court in the land must be sufficiently fluent in both official languages in order to hear appeals without needing interpretation. Bilingualism is a fundamental skill for Supreme Court judges. It is a matter of justice and equality.
This debate clearly shows the relevance of the topics dealt with in my report. Universities must prepare future legal experts to work in a justice system where citizens have the right to be heard in the official language of their choice. Moreover, in order to work effectively and derive maximum benefit from everyone's expertise, judges must be able to discuss cases with each other in the official language of their choice.
In fact, this debate may be thought of in terms of the privilege of legal practitioners who aspire to sit as a judge in the highest court in the land or in terms of the right of citizens to be understood by the highest court of the land in the official language of their choice. In examining the issue and its obligations under the Official Languages Act, the government must remember the spirit of the act and the values that it enshrines. I am available to discuss the issue in greater detail, should you so wish.
[Traduction]
The 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games perfectly illustrated the challenge that the government must meet to fully implement the Official Languages Act. By approaching the Act as a set of rules, we can put all the administrative details into place, but we risk forgetting what is really important. Thus, in Vancouver, many services were offered in French as well as English; the opening ceremony, however, drew much criticism and generated numerous complaints. These complaints are now being investigated. Fortunately, our athletes themselves, through their inspiring bilingualism, reminded us that linguistic duality is a value to be cherished.
[Français]
I would now like to take the remaining time to answer any questions you may have.
[Traduction]
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Commissioner. The first question will be asked by the vice-chair of our committee, Senator Champagne.
Senator Champagne: You can well imagine that a majority of us were very busy over the weekend reading this first volume of your report.
Two points in particular caught my attention, undoubtedly because they are closely connected with a subject that is of considerable concern to us in the Senate at the moment, and that you were just talking about: Bill C-232.
You stress the difficulty that some students encounter in improving the language skills they acquired in elementary and secondary school when they go on to university. In fact, you say that very few postsecondary institutions give their students an opportunity to take courses in their specialties in the language of their choice.
If, as you said, and reiterated, you want to make bilingualism a requirement for appointment to the Supreme Court, I am wondering whether instead of starting at the top of the pyramid we should not rather intensify our efforts at the bottom of the pyramid. We might start by making sure that our future lawyers and judges are able to represent clients in both our official languages when they are young, rather than waiting until they are older. In my view, efforts should be made in that regard.
What should we do to ensure that students have the option of studying in the official language of their choice when they get to university, to become professionals who are able to practise in both languages?
Mr. Fraser: First, I will say that what you are saying is true. We have to start early. However, they two are not mutually exclusive. The importance of judges of the Supreme Court being bilingual is a responsibility for all levels of government and for the government that appoints judges to the Supreme Court. There is a Canadian judicial institution responsible for training judges. I have been told that there are intensive language courses for judges specifically. That intensive training focuses on the knowledge that judges need to be able to understand argument in court. Some trial judges, judges on courts of Queen's bench, superior courts, provincial supreme courts and federal courts have taken those courses. As a result, eight out of nine judges on the Supreme Court are sufficiently bilingual to meet those criteria.
When we talk about bilingualism requirements for certain positions, in some cases I get a little defensive. It may be said that this factor is important for people representing Canada and sometimes for symbolic reasons, but it is often difficult to move on from there.
One of the essential skills of a Supreme Court judge is understanding the country and its legal landscape. In Canada, we have two legal systems that meet in one place: the Supreme Court. When you go from the provincial level or the Federal Court to the Supreme Court, one of the essential skills is listening.
Senator Champagne: However, we realize that the Supreme Court does not hear the average member of the public, with their regional expressions and accents.
Those cases have already been heard and decided by the lower courts; the judges have read the voluminous documentation and they will hear counsel, who are experienced lawyers. You talk about the need to test a common language framework in Canada in order, and I will quote you, to make a level of second language proficiency essential for admission, whether to a postsecondary institution or to the Supreme Court.
Who will be the judge? Who will decide how bilingual people are? Who is going to organize this common framework? Who will say that a person is bilingual enough to be on some court, but not the Supreme Court? Who could organize the common framework for language knowledge?
Mr. Fraser: I think those are two separate questions.
The question of the common framework is one that has been asked in the context of learning at the elementary, secondary and postsecondary levels, which is adopted from a system developed in Europe to have a common framework of reference for the level achieved.
At present, students who take courses in French in Alberta, Manitoba or Ontario, or in English in Quebec, at the end of the year, know that they speak better than one of their classmates, but they do not necessarily have a framework of reference that gives them confidence that in fact they have achieved an internationally recognized level.
Edmonton Public Schools is the only school board that has really made progress in using the framework. When they started intensifying their immersion courses 10 years ago, they adopted the course used by the Public Service Commission of Canada. The Public Service Commission of Canada then decided they were not entitled, under the act, to lend out their testing system. With great regret, Edmonton Public Schools went elsewhere, to Europe, to use their common framework of reference. That is all addressed in our report, in the context of learning opportunities for students.
On the question of appointments of judges to the Supreme Court, that is another matter. There is already a process for evaluating judges' proficiency, handled by the Department of Justice, in consultation with the Canadian Bar Association. There is a selection committee that does it all discreetly.
I argue that now that the discussion has been initiated, to some extent, we can't say that from now on we can avoid the issue by fighting this bill. The question is on the table now and it will necessarily become a topic of discussion, whatever happens with the next appointments of judges. So to some extent, if the bill is passed, if it becomes legislation, it will be easier for the government, for parliamentarians and for the Department of Justice to discreetly look into the language question in evaluating judges' skills.
Some argue that the judges now on the Supreme Court would not have been appointed if this criterion had been in place when they were appointed. I do not agree. I think judges themselves are not the right people to evaluate their level of bilingualism.
When I was appointed to this position myself, my level of knowledge of French worried me a little. I was afraid I would be formally evaluated. What an embarrassment if I failed the public service test! I realized afterward that I should not have been worried about it. I base myself on my own experience when I say that individuals are not necessarily the right people to say, ``You know, I would not have been at an appropriate level when I was appointed.''
The judges on the Supreme Court at present are people who in some cases took intensive courses before being appointed and who made sure that after they were appointed they very quickly reached a sufficient level of bilingualism to perform the duties of their office.
Senator Champagne: Thank you. I will go a little farther in the second round. I am going to give my colleagues a chance now.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Thank you, Madam Chair.
First, Mr. Commissioner, I want to congratulate you on the quality of your report. I was particularly glad to see the inclusion of the curricula vitae of people who have achieved and reached truly impressive heights in their careers thanks to their impressive bilingualism.
One of the initiatives in the Roadmap that is under the responsibility of the Canada School of Public Service aims to expand access to learning products, through Canadian universities. We also know, because you have even said it at some point, that the School is known worldwide for its language training tools. What do you think about this initiative and what favourable side effects might there be from it in the long term?
Mr. Fraser: I am very impressed by the initiative. The pilot project involves 11 universities, I think, throughout Canada, and the goal is to ensure that after students have access to the same learning tools as public service, at some point in their studies, they are able to qualify for the language accreditation given by the Public Service Commission of Canada.
I think that is really a step in the right direction, to get to a point where the ability of universities to teach French is recognized, just as their ability to teach law, engineering or medicine is recognized, by the public service; in every other field, the accreditation granted by universities is accepted without requiring that new public servants take a second training course or get a second accreditation.
So this is a pilot project that will enable us to see whether we can connect language training to university programs so that new employees coming to the public service have some form of language accreditation.
This is the first year of the experiment, so it is too soon to evaluate the results.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Madam Chair, I have a question of another nature.
As you said in your last report, government support amounting to $1.1 billion for official languages is the largest amount ever invested by a government in the history of Canada.
Today, more than 70 per cent of the commitments made in the Roadmap have been met and funded. That represents over $792 million.
What do you think about the government's evaluation and accountability plan for measuring the effectiveness of the Roadmap?
Mr. Fraser: I cannot give you a definitive answer because the evaluation hasn't been done yet. I think it is important to ensure that there is as much transparency as possible, that people are accountable for these expenditures, but we are not yet in a position, as far as I know, to report on the results formally.
As we said in the report, and as I mentioned in my statement, there are problems with funding delays. The minister has recognized the nature of the problem and we were pleased to see that recognition. We are already seeing some signs of improvement. When I held consultations with the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada and the Quebec Community Groups Network, they both said that they were in fact seeing encouraging signs, but it was just precursor signs. That is why we are asking the minister to report to us at the end of the fiscal year on what concrete measures have been taken to ensure that this situation does not recur.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: It may be too soon to ask you the question, but what do you think about the ultimate, intermediate and immediate results set out in the plan?
Mr. Fraser: We cannot do an evaluation at this point, but we will be monitoring. I note that Canadian Heritage is monitoring the implementation of the plan closely. We are too. We are at about the halfway point between 2008 and 2013 so it is not entirely read yet. There is an evaluation process underway at Canadian Heritage. That is the time when we can start to say: What do we do next, what programs should be continued, what is there that has the potential to become permanent programs?
The Chair: I have a supplementary question from Senator Fortin-Duplessis' question. Would you agree, Mr. Commissioner, if I said it is not necessarily the money associated with the Roadmap that is a problem, since there really is a certain amount of money associated with it? Might it not be more the coordination within the government bureaucracy that might be done more appropriately, that might be stronger or clearer?
Mr. Fraser: It is always a challenge. We always have to take into account the obligations of accountability and transparency, and ensure that all those obligations do not become obstacles to the effectiveness of the programs. In the past, we have seen some positions in the government eliminated, which meant that money was spent on the same oversight, and this caused some concern at the time.
There always has to be a balance struck. If we are too careful at some point or demand too many audits, that will put an excessive burden on groups that depend on volunteers or people who work for non-governmental organizations. It is sometimes difficult to find the right balance.
The Chair: What do you think might be the best balance?
Mr. Fraser: It always has to be considered and reconsidered. We have to ensure that the importance of accountability and transparency does not impose an excessive burden. I cannot give you a theoretical framework to say how it should be. It is often a management challenge. It calls for a degree of trust in the groups who were responsible in the past, trust in organizations that have always shown a sense of responsibility with taxpayers' money. It takes a degree of trust, on the part of public servants, in the fact that those organizations will continue to operate responsibly.
Senator Tardif: Good morning to you and the members of your team, Mr. Commissioner. There were a number of changes made in 2009 by the present government in terms of official language governance. The Public Service Agency was eliminated and its responsibilities transferred, and the expertise at the Centre of Excellence in Official Languages in the human resources office at Treasury Board lost some of its expertise, if I understand correctly. But there was a reduction in staff, a 60 per cent reduction, unless I am mistaken, at the Centre of Excellence, between 2008 and 2009.
Mr. Fraser: I think it was from 2006 to 2009.
Senator Tardif: It says it went from 30 to 13 employees.
Mr. Fraser: Yes, and before that it was 74 employees.
Senator Tardif: It went from 30 to 13 employees from 2008 to 2009, a decline of nearly 60 per cent.
Mr. Fraser: Yes, that is right, excuse me.
Senator Tardif: It is your report I am quoting. You talked about risks associated with this transfer of responsibilities. Could you give us some more details in terms of what you see as being the risks associated with the transfer of responsibilities and the fact that the workforce has declined and were not concentrated in one place, as in the past with the Public Service Agency?
Mr. Fraser: I was careful in the report not to condemn decentralization as a phenomenon. It is all in how decentralization is done. We have seen in the past, with the transformation of official language responsibilities in the government, first the transfer of the unit that was at Privy Council to Canadian Heritage. That concerned me somewhat, because often, when a message comes from Privy Council, it is taken seriously. I have talked about public servants who started to work, who were transferred to Privy Council from other departments and were surprised at the speed with which their telephone messages got replies. Here in Ottawa, the central agencies carry psychological weight.
In itself, that concerned me somewhat. You may recall that a study by Professor Savoie was commissioned; he alleviated my fears by talking about the importance of horizontality and how it could work. The Centre of Excellence, which went, as you said, from 30 to 13 employees, and before that from 74 to 30 employees, a constant decline over 4 or 5 years, was an organization in which people had responsibilities for certain departments' portfolios.
So when the official languages champions in the departments had questions about how to require that their department comply with the act, they could telephone someone directly who had that expertise and ask for advice about how to handle a situation.
Now, it has been decided, and this goes hand in hand with other decisions by the government to make departments accountable, that they had obligations, they have to know what they are, and it is up to them to meet them.
That means that people who in the past had access to expert advice at Treasury Board Secretariat no longer have access to that expertise, although Treasury Board Secretariat continues to have the same responsibility for ensuring that the Act is complied with and the departments meet with their obligations.
That concerns us. It is evidence that the departments no longer have the same resources — and there has been no money transferred at the same time.
Sylvain Giguère, Assistant Commissioner, Policy and Communications Branch, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages: In the departments, there are two or three people who handle official languages and have to develop the expertise that 30 or 40 people had before. Each department has to have its own expertise. So it counts on mutual assistance. They form a mutual assistance group to find solutions, because the experts they had for portfolios are no longer there.
Senator Tardif: If I understand correctly, there were no resources to go with the restructuring? So the departments are left to their own devices to find the expertise and the funds. There are only one or two people in charge in departments that are enormous.
Mr. Graham: Yes.
Senator Tardif: You said in your report that there are also functions at Treasury Board Secretariat that no longer exist now, like offering services to interpret the Official Languages Act, playing a key role in the Rendez-vous de la Francophonie and identifying best practices, all that does not exist now? Who is responsible for handing this coordination role and making sure that it gets done when the responsibilities are delegated to the various departments?
Mr. Graham: In terms of best practices, and it is in the report, the former clerk asked Monique Colette at ACOA to identify best practices in relation to linguistic duality and cultural diversity. One of our recommendations in the report is that all deputy ministers should use that collection of best practices and have them adopted in the departments. I am afraid that the report, which is very valuable, will get left on the shelf and not be used as the valuable tool it should be in terms of best practices.
However, as you say, there are other activities, like the Semaine de la Francophonie, where there was in fact a coordinating role and other activities that involved coordination that it's difficult to see. Technically, the act was not amended, so Treasury Board Secretariat continues to have the same responsibilities as before.
The Chair: Do you think the government is showing interest in using Monique Colette's report and considering it as a guide?
Mr. Graham: I hope so, but the reason we make a point of mentioning it and reminding the deputy ministers of it is to encourage them to do that. I have had a deputy minister ask me whether we had best practices. So I told him about Ms. Colette's collection of best practices.
It is important for me to remind the government of existing resources. If the coordinating role, the centre of expertise, have declined in importance, that means there are fewer influential people to play the role of reminding the assistant deputy ministers, the directors, of the tools that exist.
The Chair: Did you include that in your recommendations?
Mr. Graham: Yes.
Senator De Bané: Mr. Commissioner, I would like to review a few pages of chapter 2 with you, and in particular I would like you to explain page 22 for us as well.
You say that the federal government has to get back on course. Why do you say in this chapter that it has to get back on course regarding the concerns you see on the horizon? You were not sure that everything would have negative effects, but you say you have concerns and it has to get back on course.
At page 22, you talk a little about major changes. I would like you to explain them to us in language we can understand.
Mr. Graham: I was careful not to say that administrative changes, structural reorganizations, are necessarily to be condemned in themselves. When we see a trend that was central to Privy Council decisions, when there was a Centre of Excellence at Treasury Board Secretariat that was significant, and then an office was moved to Canadian Heritage, resources were king of scattered around, the departments are told they have these responsibilities, we will not have the same resources to help you meet your responsibilities, the risk is that it will diminish the weight the government assigns to official languages.
I have always thought that when a message comes from the heart of the departments, it is given much more weight than if it comes from inside.
If someone holds a director position, they have less influence on an assistant deputy minister than if it is an assistant deputy minister at Privy Council picking up the telephone or sending the message. That's human nature.
As it says on page 22, the Centre of Excellence for Official Languages still has the same responsibilities, but with less staff. That is a trend that concerns me. How can we say that official languages are being handled with the same responsibilities if the same resources are not being devoted to them on the inside? Or when the same resources are devoted, but not at the same level within the government? So that is a concern I express in that chapter.
The same is true with other transformations that may be considered by the government in difficult economic circumstances. We saw this with the privatization of the port authorities where there were existing obligations, coherent obligations, uniform obligations that were followed by the then Minister of Transport. When the responsibility of managing airports was handed to independent authorities, they had the same responsibilities, but not the same directives and the same oversight. Each airport authority interprets its obligations differently. Each authority assigns responsibility for official languages to a different department. Some treat it as if it were the responsibility of the department of legal affairs, others say it is the job of government affairs. There is a whole range of responses. Some talk about the responsibility and say it has value, others say it is a burden.
Similarly, in the government, it is inevitable that there will be changes in structure, changes in responsibility, and some changes within departments. However, we have seen examples that made us think we had to warn the government that we are a little concerned about the trends we have observed.
Senator De Bané: Forty years ago, it was: ``Treasury Board will have authority in respect of official languages, so it can give orders to the various departments.'' That was done deliberately to have someone giving orders. Apart from the central agencies, the departments that have authority over all the others are all autonomous in relation to one another. No one can give orders to the other one, except a central agency. No department can give orders to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade except Privy Council, Treasury Board, and so on. IT concerns me as well that each department is being told to do this or do that, but who is going to rap their knuckles if they do not do it? That is the concern.
The other day, we met with the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. I asked him why an embassy in Paris that advertises in its language, in French, advertises in English only in Ottawa? He told me: ``Nobody rapped our knuckles to do it. I'm going to try to see whether we can do something.''
Mr. Commissioner, there are so many questions we'd like to ask you. I'm going to try to summarize my thoughts in one point. You are the commissioner, and you think about this, you and your whole team, and you seem to be distracted by other priorities. The question that I am obsessed is this: How aware are the various government institutions, and God knows there are enough of them, that the supreme law of the land states that this country has two official languages and that it has speak up for them in everything it does? That the country has to be a sounding board for the two languages, the two cultures? I am not sure that this provision in the supreme law is given the priority it should be. Can you tell me your thoughts on this subject?
Mr. Graham: One of the reasons why I make a special effort to stress the question of leadership, which is a recurring theme in my report, is that I have observed the extent to which a leader, in the public sector, and it can be a minister, a deputy minister, a director, can change things for the better and for the worse, when it comes to official languages.
I can give you an example of a former minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada, but in this government. When he took up the position, he was shocked to discover that his department had been rated ``poor'' for its performance. The next year, it was rated ``average,'' and the year after, it got a ``good'' score. Often, ministers are competitive people who do not like getting bad marks. One minister told me: ``I have never got a `poor' mark in my life, that's the first time and I won't accept it.'' That example showed me that there are some ministers and some deputy ministers who take the matter seriously. After our meetings with them, we received calls from other employees in the department, who told us: ``We know you had a discussion with the minister or the deputy minister and this is what we are proposing to do.''
While there are positive examples like those, there are also other less positive examples. Someone who truly takes it seriously may be replaced by someone for whom it is a secondary issue.
I am going to repeat something I have often said. I find the Prime Minister's public actions when it comes to linguistic duality to be exemplary.
However, that consideration is not uniform across the government. When we see positive examples of leadership, we try to highlight them. When institutions are dragging their feet, we indicate that too. The entire question of evaluating institutions will be addressed in Volume II.
Senator De Bané: I share your view on the exemplary way the Prime Minister embodies both cultures, both official languages. He does it consistently.
On the question of leadership, the Prime Minister and the Clerk of the Privy Council communicate the priorities they assign, the Prime Minister to the ministers and the Clerk to the deputy ministers, by letter or written documents. The letter from the Prime Minister is sent to each minister and states the matters to which great weight is to be assigned. Because we are talking about leadership, it would be desirable, Mr. Commissioner, for the Prime Minister and his Cabinet colleagues, and the Clerk, for the heads of the various departments, to write in their annual letter that this is a very important subject and they will be evaluated on this subject, among others. You should not hesitate to ask them to include this subject. After all, this element is part of the Constitution.
Mr. Fraser: I have raised this question, concerning performance evaluations of deputy ministers, in the past. I did not reiterate it this year. You will not be surprised to learn that the Prime Minister does not copy me on his letters to the ministers and deputy ministers.
Senator De Bané: That is confidential, certainly.
Mr. Fraser: It is a confidential document. As a member of the public, I would be curious sometimes to know the content of the letters, but we have to wait 30 years to read the correspondence in the archives.
Senator De Bané: I am not asking for you to be authorized to see these highly confidential letters. But you could say: ``I am urging that this subject be included in the priorities assigned to the ministers.'' And if the Prime Minister replies that he has taken your recommendation into account, no need to see the letter. It goes without saying that the letters are very confidential.
So what I would like, because if this request were in the letter from the Prime Minister, is for each minister to have to make it high priority.
Mr. Fraser: I will make a note of that.
Senator Losier-Cool: My question is a follow-up to Senator De Bané's and relates to the importance of a clear, plain directive for everyone. That would avoid the example you cited, of the minister who was not aware and received a poor evaluation. That is why I support Senator De Bané's proposal. I hope that you will take it into account in your next report, Mr. Commissioner. This question is important. In my opinion, it would demonstrate leadership. I think the ministers and people in charge would be very happy to have a clear, plain directive for everyone.
Mr. Fraser: We note your recommendation and se will see what we can do.
[Français]
Senator Seidman: In the fall of 2010, this committee intends to travel to meet the English-speaking communities in Quebec to learn about their vitality.
Mr. Fraser: That is excellent.
Senator Seidman: In your opinion, from your review and work and from the consultations for your report, what are the main challenges facing these communities?
Mr. Fraser: I am glad you used the word ``communities'' because what is particularly striking about the English communities in Quebec is how different they are, depending on where they are located. I have always thought that the English communities in Quebec suffer from a larger degree of misunderstanding than is the case for many other minority language communities. A recent study has shown that, for the first time ever, the income level of the English community is lower than the income level of the French-speaking majority. I think it was Jack Jedwab of the Association for Canadian Studies who followed this up with a poll and found that 99 per cent of the francophones who were polled believed that the English community was wealthier than the French-speaking majority. Myths die hard.
We have done a number of vitality studies on the English-speaking communities in Quebec, looking particularly at the communities off the island of Montreal. One was looking at the Lower North Shore, another English community in Quebec City, and another English community in the Eastern Townships. Each one of these communities faces a different series of challenges. The community with the most dramatic challenges is the English community in the Lower North Shore, where you have 5,000 anglophones. Over a short period of time, the English minority in Quebec has rapidly become very bilingual. That is not the case in the Lower North Shore, where you have communities that are quite isolated. They have depended on the fishery, and the fishery has dried up in the same way that it has been drying up elsewhere. About 80 per cent of that community is unilingual, which means that they find it hard to get services either from the Quebec government or, in some cases, from the regional offices of the federal government. Both their provincial MNA and their federal MP are unilingual francophones, so they have all the problems that are consistent with the problems of isolated, rural, resource-based communities anywhere in the country, but with the additional isolation of the language barrier. This means that as those communities try to make the transition from a fisheries- based economy to a service-based economy and welcome tourism, they are all the more handicapped because they do not have the language skills to be able to deal effectively with the provincial government, to get access to the various funds that might be available to be able to reach out to francophone tourists. They have all those problems, plus the problems of the exodus of young people and an aging population.
Another particular problem is similarly felt by a number of isolated communities, particularly in Eastern Canada, where many of the husbands and fathers spend a large part of the year in Alberta working in the oil sands. You have villages with single-parent problems throughout the school year while the husbands and fathers are away earning money. They then return with a sudden injection of funds into the community. Newfoundland has been doing some studies on this because you see that not just in the Lower North Shore but in Newfoundland and parts of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
In the Eastern Townships, part of the challenge of the community in terms of having access to community resources is just how widespread and scattered the community is. The Eastern Townships is the size of Belgium, and the English community no longer has a single centre in the way that it did. You have people in Brome, Bolton, Sherbrooke, Granby and a whole series of small communities in which they are an increasingly small minority. They have problems in accessing resources when they are stretched as thinly over as large a territory.
In Quebec City, the problem as identified in the vitality study was a problem of leadership and renewing the leadership in community resources. I would just like to note that the English community in Quebec City recently suffered a serious loss in the death of Sister Marianna O'Gallagher, who was devoted to the history of the Irish-English community in Quebec City. She was a remarkably forceful person who devoted an enormous amount of her life to the institution in the English community in Quebec. I hope you do not mind my taking this occasion to mention her contribution.
The education system has challenges. Particularly off the island of Montreal, the education system for the English minority has a double challenge. Some 20 per cent of children who are eligible to go to English schools are going to French schools because their parents feel that the English school system will not prepare them adequately to stay and work in Quebec in French.
At the same time, a significant number of students who are growing up in French from mixed marriages or parents who are francophone, but because the parents went to English schools, they have the constitutional right to send their kids to English schools, are being sent to English schools. That represents about 20 per cent of the English school population of children who are speaking French at home, who are arriving in English schools but who are really learning English as a second language in small communities where the overwhelming language of the community is French.
Therefore, those schools are having a double challenge. They do not have the full capacity of the people who have the right to go to the school, and at the same time they have people who do have the right to go to the school but do not have the language skills. They do not receive any extra funding for English second-language learning when they have some 20 per cent of their students who are, in all the other aspects of their lives, francophones. I could go on at some length. Sorry if I have used up too much of the time.
Senator Seidman: That is okay. I will not use up any more except to say that I appreciate your frank and insightful perspective. Perhaps we can discuss this at greater length when we are actually engaged in the study.
Mr. Fraser: I would be glad to. If you want to get in touch with me and my office, I can share more of the information that we have accumulated. The English community in Quebec is often misunderstood, and it is a community I care a great deal about.
To a large extent, what experience I have of life in a minority community is my own experience of having lived in Quebec as a member of the English-speaking minority. I lived in Quebec City for seven years and Montreal for three years, so to a large extent that is the experience that I bring to my understanding of minority community life.
[Traduction]
Senator Champagne: Allow me to make a brief, quick comment before moving on to another topic, since you were just talking about it. I am going to go back to the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Mr. Fraser: Yes.
Senator Champagne: We remember very clearly how disappointed everyone was at the meagre francophone content of the Olympic Games opening ceremony. It was terrible. Things improved in the closing ceremony. At the Paralympic Games opening ceremony, French played a major role. I turned the television off that evening and said to myself that by the time we got to the closing of the Paralympic Games, the whole thing would be in French.
When James Moore, the Minister of Canadian Heritage, appeared a few weeks ago, I tried to find out how the Government of Canada, as a funder, could not have insisted that it be kept aware of the content of the Olympic Games opening ceremony.
I was later told that a francophone performer had withdrawn at the last minute or there was a problem with negotiating the performance fee.
I made a comparison with the angels of Broadway, that is what funders are called there, and I didn't have to think for long before I concluded that if they were prohibited from seeing the play they are financing before the premier, no money would get spent. When I suggested to the Minister that our situation was comparable, his reply was simply that our Official Languages Act was quite different, depending on whether it was your interpretation or my interpretation or the interpretation of the people at VANOC.
I was delighted to hear that there is an investigation being conducted into this. We may know something a little later.
I know you are as disappointed as we are about what happened, when the eyes of the world were riveted on Canada, the night of the opening ceremony. I cannot resist asking you to comment on that.
Mr. Fraser: Like you, I had an emotional reaction and I spoke about it the next day, as did the Minister.
Senator Champagne: The Minister was sorry; I was furious, myself. That is the difference!
Mr. Fraser: I spoke fairly frankly the next day. After that, we received complaints and the nature of the procedure for handing the complaints was such that I had to be more discreet after that. So I will not revisit my comments.
Senator Champagne: We may, but not you.
Mr. Fraser: I can tell you that the analyst responsible for the investigation report has completed his interviews. He is at the stage of writing his report.
Senator Champagne: I also thought it very unfortunate that people made very harsh comments about Mr. Furlong, when I thought that he made extraordinary efforts to speak in French at the closing ceremony.
Mr. Fraser: To reiterate what I said in my presentation, I find it regrettable that the opening ceremony cast a shadow over the successes. I was in Vancouver for the first part of the Games and I was truly impressed by the efforts made by everyone. Personally, I attended one of the Canadian women's hockey team games, against Switzerland. I got to the arena with my pass and I asked for directions in French.
The lady answered: ``I don't speak French. Do any of you speak French?'' And immediately, someone was able to serve me. It took them more time to find out exactly where I was supposed to go than to serve me in French. She found the information and accompanied me to the right section. The person who answered me was an anglophone student from British Columbia who spoke elegant French. I thought to myself that this is how things should work in circumstances like that.
Senator Champagne: It was a fantastic experience. At the Games site and during the presentations to the winning athletes, everything went smoothly.
Mr. Fraser: I was careful to note in my preface the extent to which the institutions made extra efforts for that to happen. In my opinion, it shows that where there is the will and the leadership we can succeed.
Senator Champagne: I had an absolutely extraordinary time in Vancouver. When I got to customs, I filled out the little form like everyone else, but I filled it out in French. When I got to the counter, I was asked to wait and they went and got someone for me. A tall lady came over, and she spoke French to put a lot of people to shame. She explained that she had studied French in the Saguenay. She spoke truly extraordinary French, and I thought to myself: Here is the ideal person to greet you. You would have been proud and you would have seen that we can in fact do very good things, since we are managing to have young women greet us at customs in French.
I would like to go back to the question of appointing bilingual judges. You say that the people whose role is to interpret the spirit and letter of our laws must be bilingual. What do you say about the people who think up and write our laws? Would the same not be true for all members of Parliament, everybody who would like to be appointed to the Senate, everybody who would like a position not only on the Supreme Court, but in the public service? Should they not be bilingual? No bilingualism, no appointment. That is what we are heading toward. If we start at the top of the pyramid, as I mentioned earlier, in my opinion, we aren't starting in the right place.
You said that 40 per cent of public servants are bilingual. Some are not in designated bilingual regions, of course. Should that criterion not be applied, for example, to people who are running in elections? Once again, who is going to judge the candidates' bilingualism?
Mr. Fraser: In a word, no, I never argue that this should be the case for members of Parliament, senators or ministers. Those people have the same rights as members of the public. The very nature of the Official Languages Act is that it is institutions that have to be bilingual, not individuals. The right of the public takes precedence over the right of public servants to work in their language. The entire system is based on that principle.
Senator Champagne: Does a judge appointed to the Supreme Court automatically lose their rights as an individual to speak in the language of their choice?
Mr. Fraser: No, absolutely not.
Senator Champagne: So why can they not use simultaneous interpretation?
Mr. Fraser: You are making a distinction between the right to use one's language and the importance of understanding people who appear before the Supreme Court. One thing I have said in this discussion is that all the arguments I have heard, including the arguments you have just made —
Senator Champagne: Does the judge lose their right as an individual when they arrive at the Supreme Court?
Mr. Fraser: No. Bilingualism is the rule at the Supreme Court. However, the rule applies only to francophones. At present, with a unilingual judge, all the francophones have to work in English when they have conversations with the other judges. The bill contemplates a situation where each judge can use the official language of their choice and know they will be understood.
We sometimes hear arguments that this is an extreme bilingualism requirement. I do not believe that is the case. What is required is passive bilingualism. It is not so difficult to be in a situation where you understand the other person without necessarily having to speak in the other language.
Senator Champagne: So can the judge address one of the lawyers present in the language of their choice?
Mr. Fraser: Absolutely.
Senator Champagne: If the lawyer wants, they can use the simultaneous interpretation. But if they reply to the judge in French, under the bill, the judge won't have the same option?
Mr. Fraser: The bill takes the requirement that now applies to judges of the Federal Court. The Federal Court has an obligation to hold a trial with judges who are capable of hearing testimony in both official languages without interpretation. The sentence that applies to the Federal Court has been taken and is being applied to the Supreme Court. The obligation already exists.
Given the large number of judges on the Federal Court, it is easier to compose panels of judges for hearings. Our two legal systems meet at the top, in the Supreme Court. One third of appeal coming from the provincial courts are from Quebec and in those cases all argument is prepared in French.
A lawyer once explained to me that after arguing a case at first and second instance, when he gets to the Supreme Court he has a strategic challenge, because the lawyer has only 10 minutes. He knows he will have to address at least one of the judges through a filter, simultaneous interpretation. For the eight other judges, there is no filter. So what should he do? Should he use both methods, or should he repeat himself? What strategy should he use to address the judge and establish the connection that every lawyer wants to establish when they make a presentation in any court?
As I said in my opening statement, there are two ways of seeing the problem. Is there a right to be appointed to the Supreme Court? Should we be more concerned about judges' rights or the rights of members of the public?
Senator Champagne: The question is whether we should be more concerned about a judge's language proficiency or their legal expertise.
Mr. Fraser: I am profoundly convinced that in a bijural and bilingual country, language proficiency is a legal competency. I don't think we can say that there is legal expertise and then there is the separate issue of language, in a context in which they have to work with colleagues who speak another language, where a third of provincial appeals will be coming to the court in another language, when there are piles of cases that are not necessarily translated.
A summary written the clerks says that we cannot say that a unilingual judge is as competent as a judge who is proficient in both official languages.
Senator Champagne: In a better world, we would all be bilingual. A few weeks ago, we met with francophone common law lawyers, who told us about the problems they had finding bilingual judges, because trials were delayed when nobody was available. When you say ``justice delayed is justice denied,'' I would hope for all of us that they would be wonderfully bilingual and wonderful judges. We are starting at the top of the pyramid and I am not certain that is where we should be starting.
Mr. Fraser: Twenty-two years ago, when the Official Languages Act was amended, the exception for the Supreme Court was raised. At that time, the then Minister of Justice, Ray Hnatyshyn, said we were not yet prepared to fill that requirement, that we might do it later. It is now 22 years later.
I think the debate itself is very healthy. It has sent a very powerful message to the government and to lawyers and law students. Whatever happens with the bill, the message has been sent and it will be difficult to not consider this question of legal competency in future. I heard an assistant dean of a law faculty say:
[Français]
``This has been a wake-up call for us.''
[Traduction]
I am impressed by the very civil nature of debate in the Senate on this issue, on both sides of the Chamber when they debate the issue. People expressed concern about the debate, that it would be a divisive bill. The nature of democratic debate is that it is divided. Holding a public debate on a question this crucial means that people are divided, that they take a position, that it is debated. But what I find striking is that this entire debate was held 40 years ago on the Official Languages Act, and we are saying exactly the same thing: we will have more candidates who work for the federal government, and people from the West will never be public servants again. We now have a chief justice of the Supreme Court who comes from Alberta, a registrar who comes from Saskatchewan, a commander in chief of the Canadian Forces comes Manitoba, the Premier of Alberta, a Minister of Canadian Heritage from British Columbia, the Premier of Alberta, a Minister of Canadian Heritage is from British Columbia, the Minister of Immigration comes from Alberta. They are all capable and they all decided that to hold a position of national importance they had to be able to listen to people and understand them in the other official language.
[Français]
Senator Champagne: I can do it, too.
[Traduction]
Senator Tardif: You said in you report that 67 per cent of francophones did not feel comfortable using their language in the workplace. What can we do to ensure there is more stress placed on the ability to use French, for example, in the public service, in the government and in all our federal institutions?
Mr. Fraser: The language of work issue is very complex. I have observed that giving employees this right in designated bilingual regions was a radical act. When you think about it, you realize that for a public servant, an employee, a majority of the workplace is defined by other people: the policy of the government of the day, the minister, the deputy minister, Treasury Board Secretariat directives. Their workplace is defined by the Public Works and Government Services regulations: every branch has rules governing the style in which summaries are written, there are standards and regulations. But there is one thing that an employee has the ability to affect and that is when they say they want to work in their language in designated bilingual regions, they want to speak at meetings in their language, write their summaries in their language, and receive performance measures in their language. That act runs counter to all the other factors that are decided by other people. In that context, it is a radical act and runs very much counter to all the other factors in the workplace.
So it is not surprising that there are a lot of employees who decide to use their supervisor's language, knowing that some are uncomfortable and they do not want to be perceived as a wet blanket, the stubborn person who stands on their rights. They want to do kind of what everybody else does.
I am not surprised to see a significant percentage of people saying they don't feel completely comfortable. There are very fundamental aspects of human nature in play here. There is also another factor. In my experience, human relationships are formed in a language. If you are in a work group and Jacques knows Harry and Harry goes off on language training and comes back with his CBC level, the fact that Harry has received language training does not mean that their human relationship, which was formed first in English, is going to be completely transformed.
It is a challenge. It comes down to the question of leadership, where it is the manager's responsibility to do what is called, in relation to services to the public, ``active offer.'' It is the responsibility of the assistant deputy minister to make sure that at meetings the use of both official languages is not just tolerated, but welcomed. It should be very clear that when the manager opens the discussion in French with francophones and in English with anglophones, it is to create a working climate that follows the unwritten rules of human conversation, and that we expect people to use the official language of their choice. It is not easy, because there are all sorts of other tendencies that are just as natural. It is exactly the same thing in Quebec. Anglophones are just as reluctant to use English at meetings in Quebec as francophones are here in Ottawa.
Senator Tardif: You are quite correct to say that it is up to the department and the agency to make the effort, because often, the individual feels helpless and it sometimes takes courageous action to get past that and assert one's self in that regard.
Mr. Fraser: I also know there is sometimes frustration expressed by management in some departments and agencies. Recently, I visited an agency where the head of the agency is someone who truly cares about the use of the official languages. He said, very openly: ``I am have a frustration. In fact, I have several, but I'm only going to mention one.'' He said: ``For heaven's sake, can the francophones use their language at meetings?'' One of his frustrations, as a perfectly bilingual anglophone, and he has put a lot of effort into that, is that in spite of all that, the francophones choose to use the language of the majority.
Senator Tardif: I can give you a few explanations for that. I think it is the force of assimilation, but that would be a completely different discussion.
Mr. Fraser: Exactly, but as you know, it is a very complex subject. There is sociolinguistic work to be done to understand all these factors.
Senator Tardif: I wanted to make a connection with the question of Bill C-232. Do you not also think it is a question of language of work? When judges meet to deliberate, if there is a unilingual anglophone judge, that means that the language of work changes and a person who wanted to speak in French would have to switch to English in the deliberations because there is no translation or interpretation in those private discussions. It is also a question of respecting the language of work for the judges of the Supreme Court of Canada.
Mr. Fraser: I completely agree. In fact, the only mention of the Supreme Court in the annual report deals with that subject. My only regret is that this is the kind of typo you see only after it is published and then it is too late. As you noticed, in the annual report, we give the reason why the commissioner supports the bill. It is one reason among others, but what is said about it in the annual report is in reference to the language of work question.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Mr. Commissioner, you will be a little surprised by the question I am going to ask you. Think of the impact that you, as the Commissioner of Official Languages, could have on the institutional elites responsible for our communications, like Hubert Lacroix, Sylvain Lafrance and Julie Miville-Deschênes at the CBC, Konrad von Finkenstein, James Moore, the Minister at Canadian Heritage, the Association de la presse francophone and the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada, if you had your own blog. How would you choose to express yourself? It would be truly fascinating to see. Would you use French and English, or would that just be redundant? And imagine the reaction of our media. An official of the Francophonie who chose to speak directly on the Internet, without a media release, in French and English, more or less how a member of the public who is engaged with public issues has to operate in 2010. When will you have your blog, Mr. Commissioner?
Mr. Fraser: We had this discussion when I took up my position. My reaction was to say that I had to make the transition from journalist to commissioner, and that already called for some effort. I am very aware of how much time it takes to write for the public.
I said: ``Let's wait and see before I commit to that.'' Since then, we have seen the development of GCPEDIA and other items I have followed with fascination. But one thing I have noticed is that there are problems at present with our IM-IT system. At present, we are in discussions with Treasury board to obtain funds for updating our communication systems. For some time, people have been advising me not to keep thinking about what we could do. Because as things now stand, it would be difficult to embark on that kind of project for crassly technological reasons.
I am taking a great interest in watching the development of every aspect of Canada 2.0, government 2.0, the whole question of real-time interaction between people in positions of responsibility and the public. I note that my provincial counterpart in Ontario, François Boileau, the French Language Services Commissioner, has a blog. I am very aware of the challenge that represents. We are continuing to think about it, but before even having a through discussion of it, we have to have the technological capacity to consider it.
Lise Cloutier, Assistant Commissioner, Corporate Services Branch, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages: We are working with Treasury Board Secretariat to make a presentation to the Advisory Committee of senior government officials on oversight and funding in September in order to request funds for updating our technological platform. The entire question of new social media is something we are very interested in. However, if there is a positive decision on funding, we are at least two years away from seeing the necessary platform for communicating directly with Canadians.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Exactly, François Boileau has made a success of it. It is positive. I would think it would be for you too.
The Chair: I have a question to follow up on Senator Fortin-Duplessis': Where do French and linguistic duality stand in this era, when our technological capacity enables us to have interact in real time? Is someone considering developing guidelines so these new tools will not be used simply for assimilation?
Mr. Fraser: That is a very important question. It is one of the questions that are of considerable concern to departments and people in the forefront of interaction between federal institutions and the public using social media.
Some non-governmental institutions have already done some trials. Someone in the organization Engineers Without Borders told me that user communities have helped to create on-line discussions. Some people have said they would arrange for it to be possible to translate them.
A social media consultant also told me that drafts were now being corrected collectively. He puts his comments on his blog and the readers correct them. This does present dangers for French and it's a question that is of concern to everyone. There is no easy answer.
If I had a blog, obviously I would have to do it in both languages, but how to do it would necessarily be one of the things we will have to think about when we have the technological capacity to consider the question. For the moment, we aren't there yet.
Senator Losier-Cool: There is so much talk about ``positive measures'' that it might become part of the committee's mandate to study the use of technology and good French as ``positive measures''? It may be up to Canadians to do it. We must not rely on francophones, because they have more of a tendency to adopt English terms. So that will be a suggestion for the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure.
Senator De Bané: I would really like it if one day you would explain your thinking on this point: why, in this country, and to an extent that we do not realize, is there a mental block about communicating in both languages, which represent two of the greatest human civilizations? An example leapt to my eyes. On Bank Street, here, 100 feet from Wellington Street, 100 feet from Parliament, there is a sign for the Mouvement Desjardins. There is nothing more francophone than that in Quebec. The sign is only in English. Why? Because they came to the conclusion that it would be negative to put up a sign in French. And yet it would take a hundredth of the energy put into learning the other language.
In Europe, everyone understands that they have to learn two or three or four languages. What produces this kind of mental block here, and prompts the Mouvement Desjardins to put its sign up in English only? You are an important player on the Canadian scene, could you explain why something that should be seen as a unique opportunity is seen as a burden?
Senator Champagne: But they did make an effort with an English sign.
Mr. Fraser: I am going to tell you about something experienced by people in the Acadian Peninsula. Those people had had huge problems with Quebec property companies that were convinced that French ended at the Quebec border and outside Quebec it was in English only. They had more problems with Jean Coutu, Rona and others, you mentioned Desjardins, than with American multinationals. The McDonald's restaurant chain, for example, does market studies before opening branches. Their assessment is done very neutrally, without regard for geography or other factors. In one region, they discovered that 98 per cent of the population was francophone, and they made sure that service was available in French.
You mentioned a financial institution, but if you walk along Bank Street, I have seen a CIBC sign in French; on Sparks Street, I have seen the RBC sign in French. So other financial institutions have made an effort in the national capital region.
In Vancouver, one of the things that struck me was the effort made by Olympic Games sponsors to advertise in both languages.
There were Coke ads in French and English. There were bilingual signs for the city of Vancouver, for The Bay, in other words, people who had no obligations under the Official Languages Act, but who, in the spirit of the act, in the spirit of the Olympic Games —
Senator Champagne: They were afraid of you.
Mr. Fraser: I do not think so.
The Chair: Mr. Commissioner, I do not have to tell you how much the members of the committee always appreciate you appearing here. On behalf of them and of myself, I would like to thank you and the members of your team.
(The committee adjourned.)