Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Official Languages
Issue 8 - Evidence - Meeting of April 2, 2012
OTTAWA, Monday, April 2, 2012
The Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages met this day at 4:02 p.m. to examine the use of the Internet, new media and social media and the respect for Canadians' language rights.
Senator Maria Chaput (Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: Honourable senators, I see we have a quorum. I call this meeting to order.
Welcome to this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages. I am Senator Maria Chaput from Manitoba, chair of the committee.
Before introducing the witnesses appearing today, I would like to invite committee members to introduce themselves. I will start on my left with the senator who is also a member of the subcommittee on agenda and procedure.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: I live in Quebec City, but I am the senator for Rougemont, outside Montreal.
Senator Maltais: I am a senator from Quebec, representing Shawinegan; I am replacing Senator Poirier.
Senator Robichaud: I represent New Brunswick and I am from Saint-Louis-de-Kent.
The Chair: The committee is continuing its study of the use of the Internet, new media and social media and the respect for Canadians' language rights. As part of the study, today it will hear from the Public Service Commission, followed by the Association of Manitoba Bilingual Municipalities.
We now welcome the President of the Public Service Commission, Anne-Marie Robinson, accompanied by Hélène Laurendeau, Senior Vice-President, Policy Branch; and Mr. Gerry Thom, Vice-President, Staffing and Assessment Services.
I invite Ms. Robinson to take the floor, and the senators will follow with questions.
Anne-Marie Robinson, President, Public Service Commission: Honourable senators, thank you for inviting me to your meeting. I am pleased to speak to you about the contribution of the Public Service Commission to bilingualism in the federal public service and the way we use the Internet and social media in our work.
I am accompanied this afternoon by Hélène Laurendeau and Gerry Thom. I would like to add that Mr. Thom is also the Official Languages Champion at the PSC.
The PSC is an independent agency reporting to Parliament, mandated to safeguard the integrity of the public service staffing system and the non-partisanship of the public service. Through its policies, services and oversight, the commission contributes to maintaining a bilingual public service that is able to serve Canadians in the language of their choice.
[English]
Let me begin with our responsibilities for overseeing public service staffing. First, our staffing policies clearly stipulate that all communications with candidates in appointment processes must be done in the language of their choice regardless of the language requirements of a particular position.
Second, as defined in the Public Service Employment Act, merit requires that people meet the official language requirements for public service jobs. Some positions require a bilingual proficiency and others require proficiency in either English or French. Our audits always include official languages as an essential element of the merit test and all audits are tabled in Parliament.
[Translation]
Third, the PSC is responsible for developing language tests to assess individuals' proficiency in their second official language against the standards set by Treasury Board.
These tests have been modernized and help ensure that second language requirements for bilingual positions are assessed fairly and consistently across all federal organizations that are subject to the Public Service Employment Act. In 2010-11, there were more than 80,000 tests administered. We pay close attention to the pass rates in our regular tracking.
[English]
As honourable senators may know, staffing of bilingual positions is largely done on an imperative basis, meaning that the language requirements must be met upon appointment. In its 2010-11 annual report, the PSC found that 94.8 per cent of all staffing processes to bilingual positions were imperative. For the non-imperative processes we found that most of the successful candidates met the language requirements upon appointment.
A small proportion of appointments to bilingual non-imperative positions, or 0.8 per cent or 203 employees, did not meet the language requirements of their positions upon appointment. They are temporarily exempt for a two-year period on condition that they receive language training and meet the language requirements of their position.
I am also pleased to report that since March 31, 2005, there has been a steady decrease in the number of cases that do not comply with the PublicService Official Languages Exclusion Approval Order or its regulations. There were 22 such cases on March 31, 2011, significantly below the 320 cases that were reported by the PSC in 2006. This reduction is attributable to the PSC's monitoring and the proactive measures taken by deputy heads to ensure employees obtain the necessary language qualifications.
[Translation]
I would now like to speak about the work that PSC does as an organization with respect to the Official Languages Act. It is a privilege to work at the PSC where our official languages and bilingualism are well established.
In his 2009-10 report card on the PSC, the Commissioner of Official Languages gave our organization a high rating on participation of French-speaking and English-speaking Canadians, but he also identified some shortcomings. He noted that our official languages action plan needed to be updated.
[English]
The commissioner also called for better coordination in our activities to reach out to the official languages minority communities. His observations, along with the report of this committee, were instrumental in helping us develop a new three-year action plan. We are concerned about our activities involving official language minority communities and we are doing much more work in this area.
For instance, our Atlantic regional office is implementing a pilot project to see how we can work more effectively with the francophone minority community to raise awareness about how staffing works in the federal public service. Our champion, Mr. Thom, is leading our efforts.
Madam Chair, I would also like to acknowledge that the deficit reduction action plan will most likely result in less recruitment over the short term. However, I believe it is still important for us to prepare our systems and tools to both meet current and future recruitment needs. In the meantime, our number one priority at the Public Service Commission is to support departments and employees in implementing the deficit reduction action plan, which also includes that, as appropriate, official language requirements must be respected.
[Translation]
Let me now turn to another issue that is of interest to this committee: how the PSC is using the Internet and social media to communicate more effectively with Canadians and to improve the delivery of our services to them.
The PSC has taken a gradual approach to innovation, first using these new tools within the organization as a way to test their application and then taking advantage of those tools and experience to improve the way we do our work.
[English]
This brings me to our most recent innovation, which involves a pilot project to test and evaluate the use of Twitter to communicate externally with job seekers. We created two Twitter accounts, one in English and one in French. The two accounts now have a total of 944 followers. The PSAC tweets are posted simultaneously in both official languages. In addition, the English account is promoted on the French page and vice versa. Replies to any inquiries are done in the official language of origin.
[Translation]
Another initiative is the instructional video project to explain the test of oral proficiency. We produced two in-house videos, How well do I speak French? and Est-ce que je parle bien l'anglais?
Those videos are available on our website, and we have provided links on the jobs.gc.ca website. We also produced audio clips to clearly demonstrate linguistic performance at the A, B and C levels.
The Twitter and instructional video projects enhance the value of our website, which we recently redesigned in collaboration with departments and agencies. Those changes focused mainly on improvements for the job seeker, including easier access to career information through improved search functions.
There are also videos with employee testimonials and a Job-seeker Satisfaction Survey to solicit feedback about the site, its search tool and their experience with the staffing system.
[English]
This now brings me to the public service resourcing system, or PSRS, which is the national electronic recruitment system behind the federal government's primary job portal. This system is used by all organizations under the Public Service Employment Act for staffing purposes to post jobs open to the public, as well as those for students and post- secondary graduates. In 2010-11, this system handled more than 810,000 job applications in response to just over 3,100 advertisements. All of the information is in both official languages and communication throughout the hiring process is in the preferred language of the applicant.
Through our system, Canadians can now monitor job advertisements on our website and apply directly for jobs from their homes. We are moving forward with other initiatives, such as un-proctored or unsupervised Internet testing. Over the longer term, I believe that online testing will improve access and allow more people to be tested and to have greater opportunities to participate in the federal public service and our hiring processes.
[Translation]
Madam Chair, I also believe that our initiatives at the Public Service Commission will help promote Canada's linguistic duality. I am committed to making sure that linguistic duality is at the forefront of all our activities.
We look forward to continuing to work with parliamentarians, as well as our partners and our fellow Canadians, to ensure a non-partisan and representative public service that is able to serve Canadians in the official language of their choice.
Thank you and I would be very happy to respond to your questions.
The Chair: Thank you. The first question will be asked by Senator Fortin-Duplessis.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Thank you very much. First of all, I am delighted that you agreed to appear before our committee. Thank you for the brief you presented to us.
I see that the public service of Canada has a corporate website where it publishes information on its mandate and its activities except for RSS feeds. The Public Service Commission of Canada does not use social media to publicize information available on its corporate website.
On page 4 of your presentation, you mentioned a pilot project to evaluate the use of Twitter. I would like to know if you are also going to use social media like Facebook and YouTube to reach more Canadians.
Ms. Robinson: Thank you for the question. I can say to start that we are always looking for ways to be innovative and to modernize the manner in which we provide our services to Canadians and information to job seekers.
The Twitter pilot project had a number of goals aimed at communicating with students, new graduates and job seekers, providing information on job opportunities in the federal public service, and promoting our website www.jobs.gc.ca. It is a pilot project we are going to start.
We are now ready to have other types of pilot projects and we are thinking about using, for example, YouTube to show the video I discussed during my opening remarks, which shows, among other things, our second language test. We are currently obtaining the necessary approval to expand our use of social media.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Could you describe the main results you obtained in the case of recruitment programs for students and young graduates? I know you talked about that in your presentation, but I would like to know more. In addition, how do you promote these programs with young people?
Ms. Robinson: I can say that in general, we promote the website www.jobs.gc.ca in our recruitment campaigns, as well as in universities and on all the websites of the Government of Canada. There are also links and the websites of many departments.
The other part of your question concerns our recruitment campaign. I can ask Mr. Thom to discuss our approach and our campaign this year.
Gerry Thom, Vice-President, Staffing and Assessment Services, Public Service Commission: Thank you. Regarding recruitment campaigns for students, we have an annual campaign. Normally, it is in the fall. We send a letter to all educational institutions, universities, CEGEPs. It is open to students from CEGEPs, universities and high schools. We let them know when the campaign will start. Usually, institutions send a message to their students through their network. The campaign is open for a one-month period. People can apply for a position during that period. It is really through institutions, through universities, that it is done. To apply for a job at the federal level, whether or not you are a student, a Canadian or already a government employee, you have to go through our website www.jobs.gc.ca. Obviously, the information is all found on that site. There are icons leading users to a clear explanation of the program, dates and other useful information.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Thank you to both of you.
The Chair: I have a question further to Senator Fortin-Duplessis's. You say that you send a letter to students and to institutions. How many of these institutions do you contact across Canada, whether universities, institutions or others?
Mr. Thom: That is a good question. I could not tell you the numbers, but we have that information and I can certainly send it to you.
The Chair: Thank you. My other question was the following: Afterward, how many of these institutions send you candidates? What feedback do you receive?
Mr. Thom: We have to distinguish between different programs. For programs open to students or to post-secondary recruitment, we promote them with people who are in the various institutions, and interested students apply themselves. They are probably assisted with that by the institutions.
There is also the coop program. It is a program in which people do a period of paid work, and it is based on supply and demand. For coop programs, institutions across the country provide students in all fields, we promote these positions with available people and we try to match students' requests with opportunities offered in different departments.
The Chair: Can you tell us what the impact is of this campaign you conduct with press releases?
Mr. Thom: In the post-secondary recruitment program, despite lower staffing in recent years, we hire about 1,600 to 2,000 students per year. These are students recruited directly through the post-secondary recruitment program. There are many more students in the coop program.
The Chair: If you do not have the information now, you can send it to us later.
Mr. Thom: Okay. The coop programs are popular.
The Chair: It would be worthwhile to see who you reach.
Mr. Thom: The information is part of our annual report. Regarding post-secondary recruitment, people who have just graduated, about 2,000 students are placed in the federal public service.
Every year, through the summer or part-time job program for students, we place about 10,000 students.
Regarding the coop program, participation in the program is what allows people to earn credits — it is part of their training to obtain credits in their university program — and there are about 5,000 placements per year.
The Chair: Does your annual report also provide information on where these students come from across Canada, whether more of them are from the Atlantic versus western provinces, from rural versus urban areas?
Mr. Thom: That would not be in the annual report, but I can try to see if I can obtain that information. In theory I should be able to, but we will check.
Senator Robichaud: Thank you for your presentation. You have created two Twitter accounts. You say that there are now 944 people who follow the two accounts. Can you explain to me what those 944 people do?
Ms. Robinson: I can give you an overview. Of the 886 people who use Twitter, 708 use the English site and 178 use the French site.
I can add that 99 tweets have been reposted (re-tweeted); 70 in English and 29 in French.
We have surpassed by far the goal we had when the project was launched. I can say, however, that we have not had much interaction with users. So it was more one-way communication; we have not had the opportunity to have many conversations.
Senator Robichaud: Could you repeat the numbers for francophones and anglophones for me?
Ms. Robinson: Yes: 886 people follow the commission's site; 708 use Twitter in English and 178 use our site in French.
I can add that we had 99 tweets that were reposted.
Senator Robichaud: How do you explain the difference between the numbers of francophones and anglophones? Do francophones communicate less with the Public Service Commission or is it harder for them to communicate with you?
Ms. Robinson: That is a good question. That is why we are going to launch our pilot project. We are currently conducting an evaluation to better understand why it is used differently. It is hard to say. Perhaps Gerry would like to add something.
Mr. Thom: First of all, it is important to note that the information on both Twitter accounts is exactly the same. What we did every day for this six-month pilot project was give the information at the same time in both languages. We have to be realistic — there are more anglophones than francophones in Canada and that will be reflected. The same thing happens on the commission's website; there are more anglophones who visit the site than francophones.
What has to be said is that the information is the same for everyone, and you answer in the language of your choice. That is one of the reasons why we created two Twitter accounts; unilingual anglophones or francophones can feel at ease knowing they can read the tweet and respond, if they so choose, in either French or English.
And as we stated, there is not much interaction yet. We posted about 100 tweets over the pilot project period. Unfortunately, we do not have that many people coming back to us with questions. Mostly, we provide information. But it is good information. It is information on the various government programs, recruitment programs, job profiles. We describe job profiles no one would believe even exist within the federal government. The fact that 1,000 people, more or less, signed up and receive our tweets every day is what I would consider a good sign. As the president mentioned, our goal was 50 subscribers per month, for a total of approximately 300, and we have almost 1,000.
Senator Robichaud: Would it be possible to know, for instance for New Brunswick, how many replies you get in each language?
Mr. Thom: For the Twitter account? That would be impossible. When people write back, it can be from an address anywhere. We wanted to know if we could find out more detailed information about who accesses our account. We can check, but the information I have received so far is that it would be impossible to know those details.
Senator Robichaud: So what type of information do you receive?
Mr. Thom: No personal information, it is a discussion. If people write back, there would be a discussion on a given subject, but as to finding out where people are writing from, I do not believe we can access that information, but I will check.
Senator Robichaud: In some regions of Canada, Internet communications are not as accessible because of availability issues. Do you also take that into account?
Ms. Robinson: Yes, accessibility is a fundamental value at the commission. Information is posted in both official languages on our website, but as you said, even though most Canadians do have Internet access, there can be difficulties in some areas. That is the reason why Canadians are using Service Canada to access our website. At the commission, we still offer telephone services for job seekers who are interested in public service positions.
Senator Robichaud: The tables provided by our analyst provide results for those who pass the test, either for oral proficiency, written expression or reading comprehension. I see that in all cases, the pass rate is higher for anglophones than for francophones. Is the test more difficult in one language than in the other?
Ms. Robinson: I noticed the same thing when I became the President of the Public Service Commission. I can say that, in general, there are six tests in total. One test of oral proficiency, one of written expression and another for reading comprehension. These tests are in both languages. In five out of six tests, we see that the results have improved over the last three years. That is the good news.
I can also add that, when it comes to written expression, as you mentioned, in all tests, there is a gap between the results in French and those in English, and the results of English tests are better. I also noted that, for written expression, there is a greater gap between the results in English and those in French. So we had a discussion. It is difficult to say why this is so. Nevertheless, I had a conversation with representatives from our psychology centre who prepared the exams. They assured me that they have a quality control system in place for each test to make sure that the level of difficulty for all six exams is the same. They also have a system to monitor results, from time to time, using statistical methods, to see whether the tests are equivalent in difficulty.
Senator Robichaud: You said that there has been improvement. I see the results here for 2009, 2010 and 2011, in both languages. The difference between anglophones and francophones remains considerable. This concerns me because at some point, if you do not pass the test, you do not make it to the final competition for the job. There is a problem.
Ms. Robinson: I mentioned that, in five out of six tests, we noted improvement, but I agree that there remains a gap between results for English tests and those for French tests. That is the reason why I checked to see that we do indeed have a quality control system in place for all of our tests.
Mr. Thom: According to the statistics, those who sit the exams in French are the ones who are not doing as well. It varies and can vary from one year to the next. Historically, there has always been a difference between test results in French and those in English. That has remained. It is not something that rises and falls on the French side or the English side. I think that what is important is to regularly monitor test results to see whether there is a change in this trend. People who draw up the tests and do the quality control are experts, linguists, psychologists and statisticians who design them and have advisory groups throughout the country involving employees and everyday Canadians. We try to reach out to everyone, the audience, the targeted client base and we have people sit tests to see whether results are similar. All this to say that we do not just administer tests; we do follow up and try to ensure that we are trending in the same way. I do not believe that at any one point these two exams will be identical. There is the issue of volume also. There are far more anglophones sitting this exam than there are francophones.
Senator Robichaud: The percentage is based on 100 candidates writing the test in either one language or the other?
Mr. Thom: What I want to say is that there are fewer francophones in language training. When students receive training, they generally try the exam several times before they pass it. If a student fails once, twice, or three times before passing, that has an impact on the success rate. That is just a fact, whether we like it or not.
Senator Robichaud: So, if I am asked to sit a test and I am a francophone, but I also speak the other language, will I have to sit it in both languages?
Mr. Thom: We will ask you what your mother tongue is.
Senator Robichaud: So you will have me sit the test in French?
Mr. Thom: We would have you sit the test in your second language.
Senator Robichaud: The second language?
Mr. Thom: Yes.
Senator Robichaud: That would mean anglophones sit the test in French.
Mr. Thom: Exactly.
Senator Robichaud: And francophones in English.
Mr. Thom: Exactly.
Hélène Laurendeau, Senior Vice-President, Policy Branch, Public Service Commission: Not for an assessment of their general proficiency, simply to assess their language skills.
Senator Robichaud: Yes, I understand.
Ms. Laurendeau: And the results that you are seeing reflect the fact that the anglophones sitting the test to show their French-language proficiency have a slight tendency to be less successful than francophones sitting the English test. So the results of tests we call "English" in our statistics would be for francophones who sat the test in their second language, English. The success rate is higher.
Senator Robichaud: That was my point.
Ms. Laurendeau: I was unsure whether or not that was clear to the committee. Indeed, the results indicate that English tests are sat by francophones and that their success rate in their second language, English, is higher than that of anglophones sitting the tests in their second language, French. And there are far more people sitting the second language test in French, in other words, anglophones, and we think that statistics might factor into the results. We have received assurances from our experts that the tests are comparable in difficulty, if not identical.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: You are sure that these tests are equivalent in quality? The tests prepared by anglophones for francophones are equivalent to those prepared by francophones for anglophones?
Mr. Thom: It takes some time, several months in fact, to prepare tests. Preparation is important but there is a great deal that also needs to be done to see whether the questions really meet the purpose. Advisory groups are formed throughout the country, in all regions of Canada. These groups include allophones, in other words, people whose mother tongue is neither French nor English. That is a way in which we can make sure that the results meet expectations. As a result of these focus groups, exams are adjusted. Once specialists are satisfied, we use those new exams.
Ms. Robinson: I can send you a description of the quality control system used by our psychologists. I read the description in preparing for my appearance, and it is very technical. It will provide the committee with further information.
Senator Losier-Cool: My students used to say: I hate tests!
Our committee is considering the use of the Internet and social media within the public service. My first question has to do with the legislative framework. Would you say that the guidelines you receive from Treasury Board on social media are clear enough? Does Treasury Board use your guidelines or do you have to follow guidelines issued by Treasury Board? Are they clear or too binding?
Ms. Robinson: Recently, a policy framework was sent out by Treasury Board. Our department complies with these guidelines to provide information to our employees and advice on the use of social media.
Points of service among Canadian government agencies must respect the basic principle whereby public servants must be able to communicate in the official language of their choice. Several aspects have to be taken into consideration: accessibility, standardization of web 2.0 sites, the Treasury Board Secretariat standard on web usability and practices relating to privacy and information management. Our department must therefore consider several things in its approach, which makes sense if we want to communicate with Canadian citizens.
Mr. Thom was involved from the start, when we launched our pilot project on Twitter. He can certainly tell you a little bit more based on his experience with the guidelines.
Mr. Thom: It is not always easy. We have many guidelines and policies to comply with. They are there for good reason, to create a framework and ensure that we do things in the right way. We must therefore follow the guidelines and Treasury Board policies.
We work with the other departments. There are working groups within government. Departments share information whenever possible and people from Treasury Board are also there. Social media is still new to us. At least that is the case at the commission. Twitter is the first social media initiative we have taken. So we are being cautious and will continue to be. We have met all requirements and follow all Treasury Board guidelines with respect to accessibility and so forth.
The experience has been positive. We are currently in an assessment phase. The Twitter pilot project ended on March 31, a couple of days ago. We will be making recommendations to the commission's executive committee in the coming weeks.
As the president mentioned, it is important to have a strategy. We need to ask ourselves why it is important to use social media. Given our recruitment mandate, it is important to reach out to as many people as possible and as many Canadians as possible. We want to make sure that people understand the workings of government and the various programs offered. Although at this point there is not much staffing, we must encourage those who want to have a career or apply for jobs within the federal government.
Once we know our objective, we have to develop a social media strategy, determine what we want to do and identify our target clientele. We are looking into options for YouTube and Facebook. We are not simply going to get on Facebook. We want to make sure that we do it for the right reasons and in the right way.
We were asked why Twitter and not Facebook? We wanted to reach out to recent graduates and people who are at the midway point in their careers and may be wanting to change jobs. We wanted to reach out to people between the ages of 25 and 44. The information we receive from specialists in the field indicates that Twitter is really the tool required to reach out to this segment of the population. That is why we chose Twitter.
Senator Losier-Cool: My second question has to do with the budget. How much of your budget goes to social media? You referred to Twitter. You have also talked about resources and communications sharing. The budget seems to be a timely word this week. How much of your budget goes to social media?
Ms. Robinson: It is not much. When I asked my team the same question, I was surprised by the answer. In terms of our pilot project on Twitter, the ongoing use of Twitter costs $15,000 per year. We have six people who work full time not only on social media, but also on everything related to our website. These six people cost about $700,000 per year.
Senator Losier-Cool: Within your overall budget is an envelope for social media, such as the Twitter pilot project. So this would be a special envelope for social media?
Ms. Robinson: No. I would say that it is more so a part of our communications budget. The use of social media and the Internet is increasingly integrated with our daily activities. I do not have the budget information, but I can look into it and provide you with more specific information, if you like.
Ms. Laurendeau: In other words, what Ms. Robinson is saying is that our social media strategy is fully integrated into our website management strategy. It is an additional forum we use to send out our messages.
In terms of investment, $15,000 per year is not a huge amount. We already operate in both official languages. Our messages are already fully integrated in both official languages. It is an extension of our strategy to reach out to Canadians. The process, of course, is not marginal. It is fully integrated and we intend to keep it that way in our strategy to reach out to Canadians. It is the way our website strategy has evolved.
Senator Losier-Cool: Would you like to have a larger envelope? Do you have enough for what you wish to accomplish?
Ms. Laurendeau: For now, we have everything we need to do what we need to do.
Senator Losier-Cool: In terms of financial and human resources?
Senator Robichaud: For now, yes, but what about in six months.
Mr. Thom: What is happening is that the six person-years we have are already working on various websites. A little earlier, we were talking about the www.jobs.gc.ca portal, which requires an awful lot of work. These same people already have the computer skills and they are already familiar with the organization, the mandate, and so on. These are the people we are asking to work on the special Twitter project for a certain period of time, namely six months. They already have the skills, they already know the commission, so it is much easier. For now, it works well.
The Chair: And these people can operate in both official languages.
Mr. Thom: Absolutely.
The Chair: Does a large percentage of your staff operate in both official languages?
Mr. Thom: That is a very good question.
The Chair: Can you answer that question?
Mr. Thom: We asked ourselves that question before meeting you to have the exact numbers.
Ms. Robinson: I do not have the number with me today, but I will send it to you. Based on my experience as a public servant, the Public Service Commission is a very bilingual institution. French and English are spoken each day at our meetings. Perhaps I can refer to the recently published survey that included five questions on the use of both languages in our workplace. Generally speaking, I can say that we had good results. There was improvement in three categories. I could also send the results of the survey to the committee.
I can also say that our report, which was recently submitted by the Commissioner of Official Languages, states that we have a weakness. This has to do with the fact that our employees would like to have more opportunity to work in the language of their choice when it comes to written communication. This is why it was included in our action plan for official languages.
The Chair: Ms. Laurendeau, it appears that you have developed the Twitter account; you have messages in both official language at the same time. However, in terms of accessibility, what percentage of Canadians are able to receive the information and messages that you send throughout Canada?
Ms. Laurendeau: I think Mr. Thom could answer this question.
Mr. Thom: I do not have the number. I should have obtained more numbers. At one point, we wondered whether people in northern Canada had access to the Internet, and we were surprised to find out that yes, many people do have access to the Internet as well as high-speed Internet. There are many public sites where people can go for Internet access.
The Chair: Excuse me sir, we have a limited amount of time. Would you be able to provide us with the information?
Mr. Thom: Yes.
Senator Maltais: It seems the complicated questions are addressed to Mr. Thom. We hear a great deal about social media and you would like to be up to date this year. Good for you! But I am talking about the future.
What clientele could we reach in high schools with Twitter, Facebook, and so forth? We get the sense that both francophone and anglophone youth cannot see the opportunities that bilingualism offers when it comes time to learn a second language. This reflects what many teachers' associations, both francophone and anglophone, have said to me in the past, in a former life. I am talking about the Association canadienne de l'éducation de langue française across Canada. Young people are not being informed of the employment opportunities with the federal government if you are bilingual. I had occasion to see this with my grandson in a McDonald's restaurant in Vancouver. When it was my turn to be served, the young woman said to me: You speak French! Sir, speak French to us!
When it was time for their coffee break, I sat down with them and they were very happy. I asked them why they wanted to learn French in Vancouver, where there are more Chinese people than people of any other nationality. The reason, they answered, was that they wanted to work in the public service. I asked them who had told them that and they said they had read it in the newspaper. The Public Service Commission must have been on holidays at the time?
Mr. Thom: No. We could discuss this subject at great length to find out more. However, I would like to come back to Part VII of the act. Earlier, we were discussing a pilot project in the Atlantic region. To some extent, this is what came out of it. We ran the pilot project and received feedback from different communities.
We decided to work with different minority communities, but also with the school system by going directly to the schools. That worked very well. The feedback told us that people were unfamiliar with the federal government and how it works. People were not aware of the opportunities and various programs and, along the same lines, did not necessarily understand the benefit of being bilingual for some positions.
The various communities told us that our visits and information sessions influenced certain students and encouraged them to continue either learning a second language or maintaining their language skills. That is part of our evaluation and it is in our action plan, which we update every year. This is what we will continue to do in the other regions of Canada with the resources that we have. We are quite aware and your point is well taken.
Senator Maltais: Thank you very much, that is very kind of you.
The Chair: You have a very brief supplementary question, Senator Robichaud?
Senator Robichaud: The question would be too long.
The Chair: I would like to thank you for appearing before our committee. Several of the questions you were asked will require a subsequent response from you. You seem to be doing good work and I thank you very much.
The Chair: Honourable senators, our meeting continues with the Association of Manitoba Bilingual Municipalities.
We welcome Louis Tétrault, Executive Director of the Association of Manitoba Bilingual Municipalities, who will speak to us about the use of the Internet and social media in Manitoba's communities. Mr. Tétrault, I would like to extend a special welcome to you since we come from the same province. Please go ahead and the senators will have some questions for you afterwards.
Louis Tétrault, Executive Director, Association of Manitoba Bilingual Municipalities: Thank you Madam Chair. We do come from the same province, perhaps even the same area. My name is Louis Tétrault and I am the Executive Director of the Association of Manitoba Bilingual Municipalities.
My remarks may be somewhat different from the others. I am going to try to give you a sense of our reality and to show you how our organization, which does business in French in an anglophone majority community, uses the Internet and social media.
The association was created in 1995 with the following mandate: bringing together Manitoba's bilingual municipalities, helping the municipalities adopt policies that support bilingualism in order to offer municipal services in French, developing resources that facilitate the offering of municipal services in French, promoting and developing bilingual municipalities, and improving access to the resources required to ensure bilingual municipal services are in place.
There are five founding municipalities. There are nearly 200 municipalities in all in Manitoba, 5 of which, have a majority of francophone citizens, who in 1995, decided to form an association and who are incorporated with 9 member municipalities. Since 2010, that number has grown to 17 member municipalities.
Our association has an operating budget of $110,000 per year granted by Heritage Canada, the same budget we have received for the past 15 years. We also have a translation budget. That budget is the result of a Canada-Manitoba agreement and allows us to translate minutes as well as all the publications we produce for the citizens of our municipalities.
We have other economic development projects, as well, that are a priority for our members. This money is transferred every year to municipalities to foster economic development, to promote bilingual municipalities and to organize sports and recreational activities in French in our municipalities.
These sums are transferred to municipalities who themselves contribute at least the same amount which we transfer to them. I would say that generally the municipalities contribute four times the amount we transfer to them. We also undertake other projects from time to time, and I will come back to those later.
At the Association of Manitoba Bilingual Municipalities, we have human resources and other services are offered as a package or in partnership with other francophone organizations in Manitoba, which offer secretarial services amongst others.
What you see on the screen is a breakdown of Manitoba's southernmost region. Out of the 17 municipalities, 16 are rural, including Winnipeg, which includes the Riel, Saint-Boniface, Saint-Vital and Saint-Norbert neighbourhoods. The 16 other municipalities are approximately one hour away from the urban centre of Winnipeg, except for Saint- Lazare Ellice, which is located on the Saskatchewan-Manitoba border, approximately a four-hour drive from our headquarters.
If you take Winnipeg out of the data, the average population is approximately 2,000 inhabitants per rural municipality. The smallest municipality, Saint-Léon, has approximately 160 inhabitants whereas the largest, which is probably Taché, has approximately 5,000 inhabitants. As you will note, these are not very dense populations.
The 17 member municipalities make up the organizational structure of our association and each municipality appoints an elected member to the board. Our association is the proprietor of the economic development council for Manitoba's bilingual municipalities or CDEM.
The CDEM is an important partner for the purposes of advancing our projects dealing with the subject on your agenda today, the Internet and social media.
The idea of creating this association was born out of a study conducted by Richard Rounds and a Deloitte & Touche study showing that the population in our francophone or bilingual municipalities in Manitoba was declining and would disappear if a concerted effort was not made to ensure its economic development.
One of the recommendations in these studies was to create regional champions. Bilingualism is important, especially in the part of the service sector that deals with services in French and English, such as in the area of tourism; we knew that there was potential there to underscore the value of bilingualism within our municipalities and our population.
These studies also showed us that provincial or federal government services were practically nonexistent within our municipalities. It appeared that federal and provincial services were all available in communities with an anglophone majority, but not within our member municipalities.
We therefore tried to see how we could increase service sector offerings in French and English in our municipalities. That is when we saw that our municipalities were not being served by the Internet service providers' action plan. I am referring to the years between 1995 and 1998; Industry Canada had mandated certain service providers to make the services available within the communities. However, when we examined their action plan, we saw that our communities were not even included in a five-year action plan.
We therefore decided to put together applications and projects in order to make sure that our communities were included in the action plan. Our organization's priorities dealt with rural development, tourism, youth involvement and the knowledge economy.
Today I will speak to you in particular about the initiatives we attempted undertake in the knowledge economy sector. I referred briefly to the initiative to connect our communities. We wanted to develop these projects and applications so that our member municipalities would have access to high-speed Internet.
There are companies located in some of our communities. For example, in La Broquerie, there is a company called HyLife, which is the second-largest hog operation in Canada. There are two other companies: Roy Legumex in Saint- Jean-Baptiste and Parent Seed in Saint-Joseph. If those companies did not obtain access to the Internet soon, they had already warned us that they would have to consider moving to a community that did give them access to high-speed Internet in order to be able to grow their industry.
Our association wanted to make things easier, so we developed Internet tools and databases for tourism. We tried to get municipal councillors to show an interest in supporting Internet initiatives and companies.
We also wanted to be sure that if our initiatives did go ahead, they would give rise to projects that would be accessible to all our member municipalities. We wanted to demonstrate that our association could be a pioneer and show leadership with regard to the Internet and technological tools.
It should be noted that the majority of these initiatives were developed not to meet linguistic objectives, but rather to create jobs, wealth, businesses and so forth.
The important part for our association was to develop these tools and our communities to preserve the culture and linguistic identity of our communities.
We sought the involvement of francophone leaders in these communities and encouraged them to serve as decision makers in the process to ensure that bilingualism, French and English, had an important place in the development process.
In Manitoba, approximately 4.4 per cent of the population self identifies its mother tongue as French and approximately 10 per cent of the population self identifies as bilingual. For the vast majority of our member municipalities, the percentage exceeds 30 per cent. With respect to population growth, it is important to ensure that, at the very least, the percentage of francophones and the vitality of the francophone community remain constant and do not decrease as a result of progress.
Industry Canada had a policy to connect all communities across Canada to the Internet. Around 2003-04, we submitted applications for community access: Accès Sainte-Anne, Accès Montcalm, depending on the municipality. Ultimately — our communities were extremely small as you can imagine — Industry Canada did not grant any of our applications.
So we went back to work, and we turned to a Canada-Manitoba agreement program. We received a grant to support some high-speed connection projects for small communities, a problem I referred to earlier, and we assisted some small Internet service companies and coops, such as Illico Manitoba, Rat River Communications Co-op and the Montcalm project. This helped in the immediate term to provide various rural communities with high-speed Internet service.
The Chair: I am going to ask you to summarize your brief because questions are to follow. In any event, your document is great.
Mr. Tétrault: All right. We then used our network to carry out an index study on technology use, infrastructure, know-how and cost so we could determine where our communities stood and what we needed to focus on.
We also took part in a study on infrastructure access, the condition of web facilities within our municipalities and the adoption rate by people living in our municipalities. In 2009, our municipalities decided that they needed an electronic portal, so we submitted various applications to that end.
In 2010, we created a portal for all of our member municipalities called DirectionManitoba.com. Each of our municipalities has a link and has received support to create a website, providing residents with products and services in both languages.
I am going quite quickly, but if you have my presentation, you will find the links that will take you to the various initiatives that we have developed.
I would like to give you an idea of the tools we use, as an association, with regard to the Internet and social media. We have a portal; we hold board of director meetings that are paperless and via Skype, which allows individuals to attend our meetings without having to travel eight hours in both directions to come see us. We have a full translation service available via the Internet and email. We have also developed multimedia tools to promote initiatives that our municipalities and elected officials carry out in partnership with La Liberté, a weekly publication in Manitoba.
Over the next few years, we are planning to create promotional videos for our municipalities. We also have a rather interesting project in 3D, which will allow people to visit our communities on the Internet in 3D. Currently, the link exists for Saint-Boniface, which has been completed, and we are trying to create one for each of our municipalities.
I will speak about the challenges we are facing in order to carry out all of these projects, starting of course with core funding and the necessary human resources to provide maintenance, because once a tool is created, it has to be maintained.
Developing these products in both languages is always a challenge. We are accustomed to developing them in French, but we also want to develop them in both languages, for the majority of citizens.
There is also the promotion of the use of French among citizens. To date, the data shows us that approximately 36 per cent of the people using our portal are francophones. That is important to us.
On the last page, you will see links to the various projects, annual reports, promotional videos that we have developed and other things.
I could carry on for a long time, but I will stop there.
Senator Mockler: First of all, I want to congratulate you, and your co-workers, for the wonderful work that you are doing.
My first question is one that I will ask you because I know that at home, in New Brunswick, it is something that would certainly be questioned, without wanting to get into a debate. When we talk about a bilingual association, are we not putting the francophones at risk? Is there not the risk of promoting assimilation in your communities?
Mr. Tétrault: That is a good question. When we opted to call ourselves an association of "bilingual" municipalities rather than an association of "francophone" municipalities, it had to do with the fact that, historically, in our neck of the woods, the term "bilingual" was much less frightening for the majority than the term "francophone." I will tell you that the goal of our association is to create, develop, increase and standardize French-language services for our citizens.
Our operating language is French but all of our external communications are in both languages, which, in addition to having chosen the term "bilingual", reassures our municipal politicians who are anglophones. I do not know if that answers your question.
Senator Mockler: No doubt, but I think we will have the opportunity to delve deeper. I think what you are doing is interesting. We would have difficulty at home because of the degree of assimilation. But having said that, I understand. I am talking about New Brunswick and you about Manitoba. They are different.
Recently, I was speaking to someone from Manitoba, Canada's ambassador to the United States, and I was somewhat involved when I was the minister responsible for the francophonie. We had agreements with Saint-Boniface, and between New Brunswick and Manitoba — the then-premiers were Mr. Lord and Mr. Doer.
With the current program for immigration to Manitoba, do you see any attempts or is it marginal to do any marketing with immigrants who want to come to francophone Canada, to encourage them to move to Manitoba?
Mr. Tétrault: I believe that Manitoba has a very innovative and positive program for francophone immigrants. The Government of Manitoba's current immigration targets call for a 10 per cent francophone minimum. This has been the case for four or five years already, it being an issue of moving progressively from 3 per cent to 10 per cent. They have reached or even exceeded their objective. We are certainly seeing an impact of this policy at home.
Senator Mockler: I want to congratulate you. Are these people settling in our so-called francophone communities, on top of that?
Mr. Tétrault: According to the data we are being given, we are surprised to find that approximately 40 per cent of new francophone immigrants — and this is according to what I have been told, I am not absolutely certain — will settle in rural areas. We were expecting a much lower percentage than that. I am in fact surprised at the data.
Senator Mockler: Congratulations.
The Chair: Mr. Tétrault, access to the Internet — and all of the programs that you have set up — is still not available throughout Manitoba, is it?
Mr. Tétrault: That is right.
The Chair: What will have to be done to make it available, what do we need? What applies to Manitoba could apply across the country if we are talking about accessibility.
Mr. Tétrault: As I mentioned briefly, initially, we submitted applications to Industry Canada. In my opinion, Industry Canada does not necessarily have great confidence in the ability of small rural communities to take matters in hand and survive. I think we are sometimes disadvantaged when they compare our applications with those of other communities that have a bigger population and are more prominent.
It would seem that the decision-makers believe the best chances for success lie with the larger populations and the bigger projects. Often, that has worked against us. Recently, less than a year ago, we prepared some applications. The people in Saint-Lazare do not yet have high-speed Internet, and in other areas high-speed Internet is only available on the main street. We believe we have to go beyond the main street. When we put together our projects, the business plan is not necessarily equal to that of other projects, and we are sometimes disadvantaged by our low density of population served.
The Chair: You heard the first witnesses. You were here when they spoke about the programs that they set up. I asked them whether it was accessible and what percentage of Canadians could receive what was sent. If we take the example of Manitoba, could a large percentage of our people not receive communications from the department?
Mr. Tétrault: A rather high percentage of Manitoba's population does not necessarily have access to high-speed Internet. In some regions, for example, a 15-minute drive from where I live, they do not have access to cell phone service.
The Chair: In my municipality, I do not have access to high-speed Internet. The city of Sainte-Anne has access, but not the municipality. That is a concrete example.
Senator Robichaud: You briefly mentioned three cooperatives that took steps to deliver services.
Mr. Tétrault: Yes. All three are not necessarily cooperatives. They are not-for-profit organizations, that is one cooperative and two other community organizations. The big telecommunication companies did not see any reason to provide service to these people. The cooperatives and other organizations filed applications with Heritage Canadian and Industry Canada. The Province of Manitoba strongly supported these projects and contributed to the start-up of small business service providers. These small businesses still exist but they are trying to survive. I am on one of the boards and I can tell you that it is quite difficult. Once these small companies started offering people the service, the big companies showed interest.
Indeed, these companies have the ability and the resources to contact each individual and ask them if they would like to switch providers. But our small companies do not have the capacity to encourage customer loyalty in that way. We were very much relying on the fact that these were small community businesses offering a service before anyone else. To a certain extent, that remains the situation.
Senator Robichaud: Have you lost any of your business?
Mr. Tétrault: Yes, we have lost a high percentage of what we call "main street". As an example, in Sainte-Anne, or La Broquerie where I live, the big companies offer the service one kilometre from the main street. The community service provider, which today is called Voyageur-Communications-Coop, has a 15-kilometre radius with its equipment and investment — which is still quite high.
Senator Robichaud: Are you talking about wireless?
Mr. Tétrault: Yes, I am talking about wireless. That is the only way. We do not have any infrastructure. These companies have maintained some clientele thanks to the fact that they can go beyond that one-kilometre radius, which is the core of the small urban centre.
Senator Robichaud: Have these organizations received offers of purchase from the big companies?
Mr. Tétrault: Yes, some have changed hands. I sit on the board of directors of the Voyageur-Communications-Coop company. We are in talks with a bigger service provider, not however one of the giants. We are trying to maintain the community level, while increasing the number of clients served.
Senator Robichaud: I had, at one point in time, been approached in New Brunswick, because people wanted to offer television service by cable whereas the signal was only available over the air. We had asked a group to support the application to get a broadcast licence. Once everything was set up, they no longer needed us and they simply told us to go on our way. The system was set up a bit earlier perhaps than if we had waited for the big companies to do it. Today, the big companies own the entire system. I am wondering if that is going to happen where you are.
Mr. Tétrault: I am almost convinced that that is what will happen, but we are not there yet.
Senator Robichaud: Still, you established the core and offered the services. Without you, people would still be waiting.
Mr. Tétrault: We hastened the offer of service. I do not believe they would still be waiting, but we moved it up by at least two years.
The Hylife company now has 1,500 employees, scattered around China and the United States. It has a manufacturing plant three hours from its headquarters. It was an important partner. It was a necessity for them. They helped to set up this cooperative. If we had not been able to offer this service, we could have lost 200 or 300 direct jobs in the community, which would have moved to Winnipeg. The result of this was to fill our schools and increase our services. Postal services, for example, are affected when the population decreases. The spinoff benefits are difficult to assess but, in my opinion, they are enormous.
Senator Robichaud: You said that you have a community that is still not being served?
Mr. Tétrault: In fact, there is more than one. The municipalities of Saint-Lazare and Ellis are quite remote. The only service they have is what we call dial-up. They still do not have cell phone service. Apparently that service is coming; however that is what they have been told for four years.
Senator Robichaud: The service is very important for small businesses. We realized in New Brunswick that all business people need to be connected to the system, if not, they lose out.
Mr. Tétrault: It is very important. We could perhaps discuss the small community of Saint-Léon. This village acquired one of the biggest wind farm projects in Manitoba. At the time of its construction, it was the biggest in Canada. One of the criteria for building this wind farm was having Internet service. They obtained it in partnership with another business, which was not a very big provider. The economic impact for this community was enormous. It is really difficult to quantify it.
The operator of this farm controls all of its wind mills remotely through the Internet. Without high-speed Internet, the project would not exist. The project represents an investment of several hundred million dollars for this small community.
Senator Robichaud: Have you seen any change in the population of your minority francophone communities? Are these communities more apt to communicate in French with their government?
Mr. Tétrault: I believe the answer is yes. There are statistics. I do not have them at hand.
I refer to it in my presentation but I did not talk about it. There was an initiative between the province and the federal government called the bilingual service centres. Six centres were created in Manitoba. This allowed people to come to the counter with the full knowledge that the language of work in these offices was French, but that they could be served in both languages. These are initiatives that have truly enhanced the value, standardized the demand of service in French.
Through the Internet with the province of Manitoba, we created BizPal, for permits, licensing and business registrations and that is in both languages. People can go and get all the permits and licences they need to set up a business. We really contributed to streamlining service. It is no longer necessarily an issue of applying or not.
The Chair: Is accessibility still a problem? Because what you just mentioned is not accessible everywhere.
Mr. Tétrault: It is not accessible everywhere. We have a permit and licence website in partnership with the province of Manitoba. We facilitated the development for each of our municipalities. Now, do people have reasonable access to that? That is another question, but the tool is in place.
The Chair: We must ensure we have a way for all Canadians to have access to these services, that we are developing across the country in French and in English, is that right?
Mr. Tétrault: Yes.
Senator Robichaud: I would like to come back to the question asked by Senator Mockler. You use the term "bilingual" often.
Mr. Tétrault: Yes.
Senator Robichaud: In New Brunswick, we went through a period during which we often discussed bilingualism. When you say you can apply in both languages, does that mean that you can apply entirely in French or entirely in English?
Mr. Tétrault: That is correct.
Senator Robichaud: It is not one form with both languages.
Mr. Tétrault: No, most of the time the form is either in French or in English. Some are in both languages. What we produce for the public will be either in English or in French, whereas before, it was only produced in English. We say "bilingual", but our goal and our mandate is to increase products and services offered in French.
Senator Robichaud: Congratulations! Thank you.
Senator Losier-Cool: Are all of your press releases bilingual, throughout the entire structure or organization, whether it be for the board of directors or the municipalities?
Mr. Tétrault: The association of bilingual municipalities functions in French. Our board meetings, all of our internal communications, and our communications with the municipalities are in French. That is the language of work.
Senator Losier-Cool: Does your funding come from the Canada-Manitoba agreements?
Mr. Tétrault: The operating agreement is with Canadian Heritage. We then have agreements for translation, economic development and other projects. It is not an operation, they are projects. Therefore for the projects, it would be the Canada-Manitoba agreements for official languages.
Senator Losier-Cool: You said that many municipalities in Manitoba do not have access to the Internet. Are there others across the country? Are there many? It is not an issue of francophone municipalities more than others.
Mr. Tétrault: No. That is not the case for us either. There is no disadvantage for bilingual municipalities. I think it is a question of rurality, of remote communities and population density.
Senator Losier-Cool: That is why I asked the question. In your experience, should we concentrate our efforts on Internet access now? There are so many other social media developing at lightning speed and by the time we get the Internet, it will be like the telephone in Africa.
Mr. Tétrault: I have been on two missions to Africa on an international development project and I can say that the Africans are more fortunate than Canadians as far as cell phone service goes. I cannot speak to the Internet.
Senator Losier-Cool: They never got the old phones.
Mr. Tétrault: Every person I met in Africa had at least two cell phones and their rates were lower. I could not allow myself to use my cell phone in Africa because it was too expensive.
Senator Robichaud: Mali is where things are expensive. Things are going very badly in Mali.
Mr. Tétrault: I am not an expert, but I sincerely believe that the Internet is an indispensable tool for the sustainability of our communities.
The Chair: The sustainability and the economy.
Senator Mockler: You may not be an expert, but you know of what you speak. If I may, Madam Chair, I would like to send my questions in writing.
The Chair: Yes.
Senator Mockler: I now understand what motivates you to do what you do, maintaining and promoting the francophonie of Manitoba and the bilingual concept that you have presented. What would you recommend our committee do to further promote French in Manitoba from within big government?
Senator Losier-Cool: Access to the Internet.
Mr. Tétrault: I am thinking along those lines. When I looked at your committee's question, I told myself that for me, for our association and for our purpose, Internet access in both languages has never really been a problem. I never really had a problem at the federal level, over the Internet, as far as bilingualism is concerned. For the province, it is a different story. If my computer is registered as a French computer, I do not have to go and choose "French" because the software will recognize that I visit French sites. When I get to a federal government site, it takes me to the French side. So that is normal. I think that the secret is that it be as easy to access on one side as the other.
The Chair: You say that it is not necessarily the French and English content, it seems to already be there, but rather the accessibility to the content.
Mr. Tétrault: Yes. Also, sometimes the terminology can pose a problem. I have been working in French for almost 20 years, but my spouse is perfectly bilingual and it is sometimes more difficult for her to fill in a form in French rather than in English because of the terminology. It is the popular rise of Internet tools. Sometimes we are lost in the Internet terminology because of the translation and we believe we are not where we should be.
The Chair: We understand very well what you are saying.
Mr. Tétrault, if the committee members have any additional questions in the meantime, we will send them to you. Will you be able to answer?
Mr. Tétrault: I would be pleased to.
Senator Mockler: If there is enough time, I would like to ask a question. What company does the most cell phone business in Manitoba?
Mr. Tétrault: It would be Manitoba Telecom System.
Senator Mockler: Are they partners with Bell?
Mr. Tétrault: My impression is that they are associated with Bell, but in fact, they are a completely independent corporation. Ten years ago, it was a provincial company but it has since been privatized.
Senator Mockler: Under the Canada-Manitoba agreement, do your communities receive all of the funds allocated in the roadmap?
Mr. Tétrault: I do not know how to answer that question. I will just give you an example.
The Chair: It is the killer question! Give us a very brief answer, Mr. Tétrault.
Mr. Tétrault: Allow me to give you an example. Under the Canada-Manitoba agreement that we have for translation, the amount coming from the federal government is supposed to be matched by the province. The province says that the municipality is matching the funding, so they do not contribute. It is really just a transfer of funds.
In my opinion, to give you the short answer, it is no.
The Chair: Honourable senators, there are still many questions to be asked, but because of what is currently going on we will have to end the meeting.
Mr. Tétrault, on behalf of the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages, I thank you very much for having taken the time to come and tell us about your association. If the committee members have any supplementary questions, we will send them to you. Once again, thank you very much and congratulations.
(The committee adjourned.)