Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Official Languages
Issue 7 - Evidence - Meeting of March 5, 2012
OTTAWA, Monday, March 5, 2012
The Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages met this day at 4:30 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: Welcome to the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Senator Maria Chaput from Manitoba, chair of the committee. Before introducing the witnesses appearing today, I would like to invite committee member to introduce themselves.
I will start on my left with the deputy chair.
Senator Champagne: Good afternoon, I am Andrée Champagne from Quebec.
Senator Day: Good afternoon, I am Senator Joseph Day from New Brunswick.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Good afternoon, I am Suzanne Fortin-Duplessis from Quebec City.
Senator Losier-Cool: Good afternoon, I am Rose-Marie Losier-Cool from New Brunswick.
Senator Segal: Good afternoon, I am Senator Hugh Segal from Kingston, Ontario.
The Chair: Thank you. The committee is continuing its study of the use of the Internet, new media and social media and the respect for Canadians' language rights. We would now like to learn more about the use of the web and social media in the Government of Canada, in concrete terms.
[English]
The committee is particularly interested in the use of new technologies and the respect for Canadians' and employees' language rights. It is also interested in new technologies as a means to foster participation and to reach out to official language minority communities.
The meeting today is divided into two panels. Five federal institutions will appear in each panel to talk about how they use new information, communications and service delivery technologies.
[Translation]
On the first panel, we have the representatives of Passport Canada, Environment Canada, Parks Canada, the Canada Border Services Agency and Human Resources and Skills Development Canada. We will proceed to the next panel at about 5:45 p.m.
I will now invite the representatives of the institutions to take the floor, in turn, and the senators will follow with questions.
[English]
Lisa Pezzack, Acting Director General, Legislation and International Relations Bureau, Passport Canada: Madam Chair and members of the committee, good afternoon. I am pleased to have been asked here today to discuss official languages as they relate to Passport Canada's use of the Internet, new media and social media in communicating with Canadians.
[Translation]
As you know, the passport program is among the most visible services provided by the Government of Canada.
Each year, Passport Canada interacts with millions of Canadians who depend on us for internationally recognized travel documents. In fact, about 64 per cent of Canadians hold a valid passport.
We are an agency of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada and we function on a 100 per cent cost- recovery basis. Passport Canada is financed by the fees paid by Canadian passport applicants, and not by federal tax revenues.
[English]
Given the important service we offer Canadians, providing accessible bilingual services is one of our key priorities whether in person or online. The Internet is a cost-effective and timely way to inform and engage Canadians at home and overseas — especially when compared to the cost of print advertising and promotional campaigns. For example, as we prepare to introduce the higher security ePassport and a new fee structure in the coming year, Passport Canada has undertaken a rigorous consultation process in accordance with the User Fees Act. As part of this process, we developed an online consultations questionnaire. This was posted on Passport Canada's website in both official languages to gather input from Canadians at home and abroad.
This was the first time that we took advantage of the Internet as a two-way public engagement tool. The questionnaire generated more than 7,200 responses. With a specific view to obtaining input from official language minority communities in the consultations, we also sent invitations to participate to the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadiennes du Canada, and the Quebec Community Groups Network. When our fee proposal was released in November 2011, it was also posted online and announced on Facebook and Twitter. A further 7,400 Canadians accessed our consultations web page.
These consultations are just one example of a successful online presence. Passport Canada's website is by far our primary communications vehicle. The site receives about 200,000 visits each week and over 11 million visits last year alone, ranking it thirteenth among 49 federal government sites.
[Translation]
The English and French sites are mirror images of each other. They comprise some 200 pages, in each official language, of content dedicated to client service. The websites and content are updated regularly and concurrently to ensure information is timely and accurate.
In terms of social media, Passport Canada launched its Facebook, Twitter and YouTube sites almost one year ago today. Each has an English and French version. We use Facebook and Twitter to disseminate useful information such as application tips and other advice.
Canadians can also send us comments, questions or feedback. To date we have answered over 150 questions.
We are equally proud of the Passport Canada YouTube French and English channels. This year we have produced two videos, with English and French versions of each. The video format allows us to explain more in-depth concepts to our audiences in a way that is simple and easy to understand. To date, our videos have been viewed more than 19,000 times.
Finally, Passport Canada's internal website contains a variety of resources and information for all Passport Canada personnel, presented in both official languages.
[English]
While I have highlighted many of our successes, I know that you are also interested in hearing about challenges relating to official languages and online communications. One example is that Twitter posts, or tweets, are limited to 140 characters. Keeping up with the instant-information expectations of the new media generation is a challenge. Much content can be prepared in advance, but when we do need to post an urgent message, the necessary review and translation do take some time. What is more, we currently answer questions from Facebook and Twitter in the language of the request on the given page. In the interest of respecting an individual's privacy, we do not repost their comment in the other language.
However, if the answer would benefit a broader audience, we create a new post on that topic, one that is not specific to the individual, and post that in both languages. For this reason, our Facebook and Twitter pages are not identical when it comes to people's posts and comments.
[Translation]
In closing, new media supplement but do not replace traditional communications tools. Through our evolving website and growing YouTube, Facebook and Twitter presence, Passport Canada is proud to be offering more and alternate ways of engaging with Canadians and partners around the world.
[English]
We look forward to continuing to explore other ways of using new technologies to reach Canadians in both official languages.
[Translation]
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Pezzack.
George Enei, Assistant Deputy Minister and Chief Information Officer, Corporate Services Branch, Environment Canada: Good afternoon, and thanks to the committee members for inviting me to appear before your committee. I am pleased to be here today on behalf of Environment Canada to share with you some of Environment Canada's initiatives for communicating with Canadians, and within our department, in both official languages.
[English]
Supporting me here today are Ms. Deidre Keane, Director General, Human Resources Corporate Programs, and Mr. Roch Rollin, Director of Program and Production Communications.
Environment Canada fully assumes its responsibilities and obligations under the Official Languages Act and the Government of Canada communications policy. We take our responsibilities very seriously, not only because we are compelled to do so by law and policy, but also because it is the right thing to do. We continue to demonstrate leadership and innovation through our official languages plan, which focuses on three main areas; service that meets the expectations of Canadians; a workplace that is conducive to the use of both languages; and a workforce that reflects the Canadian population.
On the first theme of service to Canadians, we provide our information to Canadians in both official languages on all our public channels. This is in line with the Official Languages Act and the Government of Canada communications policy.
[Translation]
We have a 1-800 Public Inquiries Centre, our Media Relations Office, our main Environment Canada website, a weather website — the most popular Government of Canada website — and we use social media tools to communicate with the public.
All of our Public Inquires officers and our Media Relations officers are fully bilingual and serve Canadians in their language of choice.
Environment Canada uses a variety of web and social media tools to communicate with Canadians. This was a deliberate policy decision made at the time we embraced social media a few years ago.
Our primary tool for Canadians to obtain information about us is through the web. Our web content gives consistent and coherent departmental messages to Canadians, directly linked to Environment Canada's mandate and priorities in both official languages.
[English]
The specific tools we use are the Environment Canada website, ec.gc.ca, and our weather office website which contains daily and weekly forecasts for cities across the country, severe weather warnings and historical and climate data. There is also a mobile version of this for users on the move. Obviously, we have Twitter and Facebook as well as YouTube. People are accessing us and our information.
To provide some brief statistics, our public inquiries team answered approximately 37,000 requests in 2011; our media relations team received over 3,100 requests for the same period; our Environment Canada departmental website was visited a little over 8.5 million times in 2011; and of course our very popular Weather Office website was visited slightly under 1 billion times in 2011. At the end of 2011, Environment Canada's Twitter pages had a total of 15,009 followers and our corporate Facebook page had a total of approximately 5,900 "likes" for the same period. Our statistics show that between 75 and 85 per cent of requests, page views and followers are in English, with a further 15 to 20 per cent in French. We would be happy to provide those statistics if you wish.
Our second theme is a workplace that is conducive to the use of both official languages. We are committed to providing an exemplary workplace in the area of official languages. In accordance with the act, we promote and respect the right of our employees to work and communicate in the official language of their choice.
[Translation]
Regardless of the type of region where EC employees are located, it is essential that they remember that the right of the public to be served in the language of its choice prevails over the employees' right to work in their preferred official language.
[English]
Approximately 40 employees from across the country joined our department's Official Languages Network to participate in advancement of official languages within Environment Canada. Indeed, members even wrote and recorded a song about official languages that launched throughout the department during 2011 Linguistic Duality Day.
[Translation]
And our Official Languages Champions' Network, in consultation with Communications Branch, has developed a tool on bilingual voice mail.
The third theme, a workforce that reflects the Canadian population, is that we are committed to ensuring that both official language communities have equal opportunities for employment and advancement within our workforce. We are committed to taking steps to ensure that its workforce reflects Canadian society.
[English]
In closing, Environment Canadian is very proud of how it communicates with Canadians and within our department in both official languages.
We will be happy to take questions.
[Translation]
Georges Rioux, Vice-President, Corporate Affairs Branch, Canada Border Services Agency: Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today about the use of social media and the Internet by the Canada Border Services Agency.
The CBSA has a complex role to play in Canada's national security and economic prosperity. The agency relies on its website as the primary means of making a considerable amount of information available about all of our business lines, in French and English. It is also accessible to Canadians with vision problems or who are hearing impaired.
The CBSA has clearly outlined the terms of use, including official languages, for all our social media tools on our website, so that users understand the nature of how the CBSA uses that particular type of social media tool.
The committee should note that our social media tools are not used by the CBSA as stand-alone means to communicate, but rather, they are used to promote and to complement the information found on our website.
The CBSA is currently piloting three social media tools to communicate to the general public. An evaluation, including an official languages section, is scheduled for this June where we will determine their effectiveness and decide whether or not to become more active on these sites.
I would now like to say a few words about Twitter.
[English]
In May 2010, the CBSA launched the first component of its social media pilot on Twitter. The aim was to quickly promote the border wait times that were being posted on our website. Currently, there are separate English and French Twitter accounts for 22 ports of entry. Users can follow whichever account best meets their needs.
This past December, the CBSA launched separate English and French corporate Twitter accounts which are used to promote CBSA initiatives and programs. These accounts are closely monitored by staff who are able to provide responses in French or English as deemed appropriate. We understand the importance of timely communication and I am pleased to advise the committee that the CBSA has appropriate in-house language services. As such, when the agency tweets information, it is done so quickly and in quality French and English.
[Translation]
In addition to our Twitter accounts, the CBSA launched its Facebook accounts in this past December. This is another way to promote the CBSA and is an alternative method for accessing the material posted on the agency's website. The Facebook pages are designed as distribution channels to provide information to the user. It is not an engagement tool for policy conversations. Followers can only comment on information posted by the CBSA, not randomly add a comment to its wall. However, the agency will respond to user comments, when deemed appropriate, in the language of origin.
The CBSA's Facebook pages are available in both official languages and viewers can select their language of choice from either page.
The CBSA has also used the YouTube site to complement its media relations to advise travellers of tips to assist them in crossing the border quickly and efficiently.
Currently, the YouTube channels are being primarily used to promote the agency's corporate video. Plans to expand the use of this social media tool are underway and all videos destined for the YouTube channel will also be made available on our website. They include closed captions, transcripts and alternate formats, available in both official languages.
While Internet use is now commonplace for government departments, the use of social media tools is quite new. It is really still early days for this.
The exhaustive Treasury Board guidelines were only released last November. When we were developing our own guidelines, we sought Treasury Board's advice and also consulted our legal experts about language rights questions that could have been raised.
[English]
The committee should be assured that the CBSA knows the importance, tremendous influence and potential of social media. This is why we wanted to get it right the first time. That being said, our intent remains to use social media tools as a supplement and a complement to information available on our website.
I would like to thank the committee once again for this opportunity, and I welcome any questions you may have.
Larry Ostola, Vice-President, Heritage Conservation and Commemoration Directorate, Parks Canada: Honourable senators, good afternoon. My name is Larry Ostola, and I am Vice-President of Heritage Conservation and Commemoration with Parks Canada.
[Translation]
It is a great privilege to me, as Official Languages Champion for the Parks Canada Agency, to be able to participate in the work of your committee and show you how the Parks Canada Agency has been able to use new media to broaden its bilingual service offer and thereby interact more closely with Canadians in the official language of their choice everywhere in the country.
In the next few minutes, I will present to you, not without a degree of pride, some of our more recent initiatives, some of which have enjoyed real success.
[English]
To provide you with a bit of context, let me begin by saying that we at Parks Canada have been given the mandate on behalf of the people of Canada to protect and present nationally significant examples of Canada's natural and cultural heritage and foster public understanding, appreciation and enjoyment in ways that ensure their ecological and commemorative integrity for present and future generations.
Comprised of dedicated employees strongly attached to their mandate, our team is regarded a world leader in heritage presentation and conservation, both nationally as well as internationally. Parks Canada, through its presence in hundreds of communities across our country and its position among the top players in the tourism industry, has an overall national economic impact that was estimated at more than $3 billion for 2008-09, generating over 41,000 full- time equivalents in terms of employment for Canadians.
As well, Parks Canada's significant presence in the North protects pristine yet fragile landscapes and celebrates our shared history, while helping to affirm Canada's sovereignty in this important region of our country. We also engage Aboriginal peoples in ways that value the wealth of their traditional knowledge and respect the sacred placed and traditions that they have had since time immemorial. In fact, the Park Canada charter is actually written in more than 27 Aboriginal languages in addition to English and French, and there are more to come.
All Parks Canada team members, beginning with our CEO, actively seek to contribute to making Canada's treasured natural and historic places a living legacy, connecting hearts and minds to a stronger, deeper understanding of the very essence of Canada, as stated in our agency's vision.
[Translation]
We are of the view that Canadians' attachment to and support for this mandate — to which we are dedicated — cannot be sustained unless we can bring to them and acquaint them better, wherever they may be and in the language of their choice, with what Parks Canada is and the unforgettable experiences we have to offer them.
This is why the capabilities of the new media, especially in reaching and interacting with a whole new generation of Canadians, have quickly assumed strategic importance for us.
Already in the mid 2000s, our website offered opportunities, in both official languages, for a virtual tour of some of our sites, and in 2009 Parks Canada innovated by creating Hello / Bonjour. This multimedia information kit includes a DVD used to train our staff in the active offer of service in both official languages. This was given to all employees in 2010, and since then has been given to all seasonal employees when they start their term.
This initiative has been cited by the Commissioner of Official Languages as an example of effective promotion of official languages and has won its creators a Public Service Award of Excellence. It has been copied by numerous bodies serving Canadians, including 13 agencies of the Government of Canada. It was even used to train employees of the 2010 Olympic Games.
The Council of the Network of Official Languages Champions picked up on this fruitful concept the following year and brought together representatives of various departments and agencies, including Parks Canada, to publish a second kit, OSEZ! DARE!, encouraging employees to use the official language of their choice at work.
This second DVD production likewise earned a Public Service Award of Excellence.
[English]
With the launch its YouTube channel in May 2009, Parks Canada was among the first federal government agencies to adopt the use of social media to reach out to Canadians, and particularly younger Canadians who, as you know already, are very familiar with new technologies. Today, we have become proficient in using various social media to reach new audiences in both languages with creative and interactive contents. Parks Canada national YouTube channels in French and English have more than half a million videos viewed, more than 1,000 viewers and more than 138 videos published from our field units right across the country.
The Parks Canada national Twitter feed has surpassed 10,000 followers. In fact, on the way in here, a colleague gave me the latest statistics to illustrate some of the immediacy of the technology. As of three o'clock this afternoon, we had 12,275 Twitter feed users for Parks Canada.
Our national brand channel on Facebook has more than 6,500 fans who collectively have 1.6 million friends.
Parks Canada has also been recognized for its work in the development of social media policy. Our agency undertook a thorough analysis of review of Government of Canada policies that bear on the use of social media, including official languages, privacy, information management, accessibility and others. This resulted in a comprehensive set of guidelines to govern our use of social media that stand up to the scrutiny of legal and policy specialists and meet the operational needs of our field units.
The Chair: Could you conclude, please. The five minutes is up.
Mr. Ostola: I would be happy to do that. The best way for me to do that would be to highlight a couple of specific initiatives.
The Chair: Thank you.
[Translation]
Mr. Ostala: As part of the "Best Summer Job in Canada" project, the new media and new technologies enabled 32 young students to produce videos highlighting the natural heritage of our parks and recounting their experience on their own blog. They put their talents to work, in their own way conveying to Canadians of their generation plugged in to the social media networks the history of our national historic sites, our parks and our people, while sharing their own experience.
Whether it be through Facebook or Twitter or another one of the new media, we can now reach more Canadians in language minority communities and share our passion with them in the language of their choice.
Senators, thanks to the new media, we have been able to engage a conversation with Canadians in both official languages.
[English]
Thank you very much for your kind attention. As Parks Canada's champion of official languages, I cannot claim to be a techie in the true sense of the word, but I would be pleased to try to answer any questions you might have.
François Morissette, Director, Corporate Web, Strategic Communications and Stakeholder Relations, Public Affairs and Stakeholder Relations Branch, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada: Thank you for inviting HRSDC; we are happy to be here this afternoon. As you are aware, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada includes three entities: Service Canada, the Labour Program and HRSD.
[Translation]
Our department uses the web extensively to deliver on its mandate. All our programs have some sort of web component to provide information or ensure service delivery, and all our web content is published bilingually at the same time.
We have started using social media, both to engage with Canadians and to increase collaboration between our employees. This is a new experience. We are learning and adapting as we go along. But as we do, we always ensure we respect official language requirements.
Our main public social media tools are our institutional Twitter and YouTube accounts. Both accounts were launched last fall to increase the reach of our communications with Canadians and to more actively bring people back to our websites, which have heavy traffic. Two major programs, CanLearn and Working in Canada, also make use of such tools.
[English]
In practical terms, while we do not specifically target official language minority communities with our corporate Twitter and YouTube accounts, everything is done in both official languages, as is the case with other departments. For HRSDC, we manage two accounts: RHDC Canada and HRSDC Canada. We always send out two Tweets at once, in English and in French, which are written together; one is not a translation of the other. We use French and English hash tags and key words to reach audiences, and the same is true with all of our other Twitter accounts. For YouTube, we manage two channels at once: one English and one French; all videos are published twice, in English and in French; and transcriptions are available in both official languages and the same is true for our other YouTube channels for Service Canada and Labour.
[Translation]
People can comment in the language of their choice on our sites and channels. If a response is required, we do it in the language of the original comment. This is also the case for blogging components on some of our program sites, for example Working in Canada on Facebook and Youth.gc.ca's new Voice blog.
[English]
Internally, HRSDC employees use social media to collaborate and share knowledge, and have been doing so for several years. This includes senior officials' blogs, a service wiki that is operational across the country, an employee knowledge portal and other online employee communities. Employees can also use the government-wide GCPEDIA to collaborate with other departments. As we embrace social media, we are doing so in a planned and deliberate manner. In particular, we are ensuring that we meet our official language obligations.
[Translation]
We have two main tools for ensuring that we meet our obligations: first, our internal web Governance mechanisms and management committees, which have expanded in recent years, and also the HRSDC Handbook on the Personal and Professional use of Social Media. This is an online tool for all HRSDC managers and employees.
The online handbook is a practical guide on how to meet our various obligations, including official languages, when using social media, both as an institution and as individual public servants, whether it be to engage the public or to collaborate internally.
[English]
I have shared copies of this guide with the clerk of the committee for your reading after the meeting. The handbook was created last year using social media within the department. It is consistent with Treasury Board guidelines on the of web 2.0 technology. Its guidance on official languages was developed by departmental officials to ensure that HRSDC respects its official language obligations. It has been shared with several other departments and is available to all federal public servants on GCPEDIA. Like other guidelines in other departments, it covers procurement, access to information, privacy, security considerations, et cetera.
[Translation]
This year, thanks to dozens of comments and questions from employees, our Handbook was revised with new or clarified content in the Values and Ethics, Privacy, and Official Languages sections.
As I indicated earlier, the adoption of social media is a learning exercise for HRSDC, Service Canada and the Labour Program. The end benefit is greater and better connection to the people we serve and to each other. The challenge is in taking the time to do it right and to respect all of our obligations in this new medium. We will continue to learn and adapt our approaches as we go along.
[English]
I would be happy to answer any questions.
[Translation]
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Morissette. We will now proceed immediately to the question period. Honourable senators, I would like to remind you that our time is limited, so I will ask you to make your questions very specific, and also, if you want a particular witness to answer you, to specify the person whom you are asking the question. The first question will be from Senator Segal.
Senator Segal: I am going to ask Mr. Rioux a question, if I may. One of the problems with websites is that generally, the public is divided into those who are wealthy, who are prosperous, who have easy access to websites and are involved in that. For impoverished members of the public, 10 per cent of the Canadian population, access is not as easy.
[English]
What do you do to ensure that you are not establishing an Internet system for wealthy Canadians who have access, which excludes low-income Canadians who have far less access to web-based data sets?
Mr. Rioux: As far as I know, we do our best not to discriminate. We do one web. We try to do is as best as we can. We try to publicize it as often as we can, when we put out press releases, announcements and that. As far as I know, we are not working overtime to try to make it more accessible to some groups rather than others.
A lot of our services are located more along the border. Fortunately, or unfortunately for us, we have a lot of Canadians who live close to the border or close to airports, where we have a significant presence too. A lot of Canadians know about us.
We do our best to put out one product, do it well and push it out as hard as we can.
[Translation]
Senator Segal: I think it was Mr. Ostola, if I recall correctly, who said you did an analysis of portions of your audience.
[English]
Who is using the system? I think you said you do some sort of analysis of who is using the system. One of our colleagues at the table this afternoon said that they try to get a sense. Mr. Enei, does that give you any sense of the breakdown of in terms of region and educational background or in any other way of who is using your system?
Mr. Enei: Our standard feedback is principally that for all intents and purposes much of our cache at Environment Canada is about information and data. Much of what is surfed on the web is through industry, environmental nongovernment groups and academia. We try to provide the information in raw form as well as quality assured and quality controlled at a later date. The information that we have vis-à-vis users is not that precise, but it does indicate that large users want access to readily available information in as much real time as possible. That seems to be one of the drivers, if you will, to how we position ourselves on the web. For a number of our programs that offer information and data, or however you wish to present it, we normally do it in those two lenses of real time, for instance the weather or reporting on emissions. We follow up reporting on emissions with a quality assurance and quality control to ensure that the information is correct and validated according to protocol.
[Translation]
Senator Day: My question is for Mr. Morissette, first.
[English]
Particularly in Atlantic Canada, we have been contacted by a good number of people who have indicated that your website and the information on the Internet are not available for those who were seeking jobs. I would like reassurance from you that it was not because of bilingual service that this service was down. What was the problem?
Mr. Morissette: First, I am happy to say that the service is back up. The issue was that we took a precautionary measure because we became aware that some individuals were trying to access employers' accounts on the job bank and trying to get information from individual Canadians to which they did not have access. As a precautionary measure, working with our security team we shut the site down and we contacted the Privacy Commissioner. We reviewed our system to make sure it is safe and made a few technical upgrades to it. As of last Friday it IS back up and functioning, and employers are now re-populating it with job postings.
It had nothing to do with official languages.
Senator Day: How long was it down?
Mr. Morissette: It was down for over a week.
In the process we started using our Twitter account to follow the discussion. We noticed that people were commenting on the value of it and that media were working with commenting with individual Canadians about it. We used our Twitter account to respond as often as possible, to apologize, and to give reassurance and updates on the status of the system.
Senator Day: Is it your policy to answer questions that came in on Twitter in the language they were asked in?
Mr. Morissette: Yes.
Senator Day: Does the new media and the new technologies, social media in particular, make it easier or more difficult to meet your obligations under the Official Languages Act, or is it neutral?
Ms. Pezzack: I do not think it makes any difference to us because we have a fully bilingual team in our communications shop that keeps our information up to date. The official languages requirement does not make any difference.
Mr. Ostola: I agree. We have a fully bilingual team in place that thus far has been able to respond to the demands of new technology. We see this as an opportunity to reach younger Canadians who, as I mentioned, are well versed in the use of this technology, and thus far we have been able to do it.
One of my colleagues highlighted the fact that when you speak about things like Twitter and Facebook there is a speed and an immediacy to it. People want information very quickly. That can be a challenge, but thus far Parks Canada has been able to meet that challenge.
Mr. Rioux: The same is true for us. We are able to meet the demand and integrate it with what we are doing.
Senator Day: It is not a challenge for you to satisfy your obligations under the Official Languages Act?
Ms. Pezzack: It can be a bit more difficult to put a message in 140 characters in French than it is in English. That is the only thing we have identified as being remotely related.
Mr. Rioux: Francophones are wordier than anglophones.
Ms. Pezzack: We often use Twitter to point people to the website where we can have fuller elaboration of an idea.
Senator Champagne: Mr. Enei, in your presentation there is an extraordinary paragraph that says:
[Translation]
Regardless of the type of region where EC employees are located, it is essential that they remember that the right of the public to be served in the language of its choice prevails over the employees' right to work in their preferred official language.
[English]
Would you agree to have that made into a big sign and put in every institution where the Official Languages Act applies, be it Air Canada, VIA Rail or any Government of Canada offices anywhere?
Senator Segal: They have it on airplanes actually.
Senator Champagne: This is fantastic. Whoever wrote it should get paid so that we can use this paragraph all over Canada.
Mr. Enei: You are free to use it as you see fit.
Senator Champagne: I would have liked to have had it on a big board when I was told by Air Canada in Winnipeg, "You don't speak English? That's your problem." That is a different story.
The next paragraph talks about a song that was apparently composed by members of your department. Do you have a cassette of it? I have never heard of it. The only reason I go to the Environment Canada site is to know what the weather conditions will be on my drive between my home and Ottawa every week.
I would love to hear the song. Can we get a copy?
Mr. Enei: We can provide a recording of it.
Senator Champagne: That would be nice.
[Translation]
Senator Champagne: I have another very brief question for Ms. Pezzack.
You told us that you currently answer questions on Facebook and Twitter in the language of the request on the page in question, but for privacy reasons you do not post the comments in the other language.
[English]
If someone makes a comment or asks a question, there should be another page on the site where you could write the answer in the other language so that people who do not speak the language in which the question was asked can benefit from the response as well.
Ms. Pezzack: It depends on the nature of the question. Sometimes the questions are very specific to an application for a passport. When we recognize that the answers would be of interest to a more general audience, we do prepare a sort of "did you know" hash tag and we put it on both the English and the French sites simultaneously.
Senator Champagne: You do have an FYI section in both languages?
Ms. Pezzack: Yes, we have a "commonly asked questions" portion where we post answers on both sites to less specific questions.
[Translation]
Senator Champagne: Thank you; I will come back to that if there is time.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to say how much I appreciated your presentations and the efforts your departments and agencies are making to facilitate the exchange of information between Canadians and federal institutions using new media.
I am going to ask you a rather odd question and ask each of you to answer. I would like to know what percentage of your budget is allocated to your social media presence.
[English]
Ms. Pezzack: It is done within our communications group and the additional money that is devoted strictly to social media is about $88,000 a year. In addition, we have used external groups to make videos, and the two we made cost about $22,000 each. It is not a huge investment at this point.
[Translation]
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: What percentage of the total budget does that represent?
Ms. Pezzack: For the agency's budget, that represents about $300 million per year, because there are costs for the passports and all the equipment.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: And you, Mr. Enei?
[English]
Mr. Enei: I would have to follow up and commit to get back to the committee. Our overall departmental budget is approximately $1 billion, and we have a communications group that is principally charged with I will say putting out the message, but the content of the message sometimes is within each respective program organization, so I cannot give a precise number, but I will follow up.
[Translation]
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: So we will get confirmation of the amount of money and the percentage?
Mr. Enei: Yes.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Mr. Rioux?
Mr. Rioux: The development costs are minimal: essentially, it is the cost of two person-years and it is the same thing at present to handle the content and oversight.
Management of all of it is done internally by my communications team, and they have an annual budget of about $5 million, while the Canada Border Service Agency's total budget is about $1.8 billion per year. Our spending is actually minimal, but it is important because we are in the first stages and we do ongoing evaluation of its importance. It will not be a matter of us knowing what we will do less, but how we are going to do more at an economical cost.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: If I recall correctly, you are the ones who will be doing an evaluation in a few months; is that right?
Mr. Rioux: Yes.
Mr. Ostola: Our social media activities are included in our branch via the visitor's experience and through external relations. I will also have to send you the exact figures, but investment in these areas is significant if we are talking about Twitter, Facebook and our website. I will undertake to get back to you with the information you have requested.
Mr. Morissette: In our case, we have three employees who make up the departmental web team for the entire department, and who are expressly responsible for social media. That payroll comes to about $150,000 to $175,000. Those three people are part of a team of about 20 people; the other 17 employees look after traditional web activities, website management, content management and technical support.
Regarding the use of the Twitter and YouTube accounts, that is what is managed on a day to day basis. Regarding video production, for example, in that case, somewhat like Ms. Pezzack, it varies from one video to another. It is in the range of $10,000 to $15,000 per video, all depending on the production quality. If it is part of a major publicity campaign, it costs more, as opposed to something more modest that costs a lot less.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: What percentage is devoted to translating one of your messages? Do you use outside resources or is it just people in your departments who handle the translation that you put on line?
Mr. Morissette: For messages on Twitter, it is done in house. For the videos, there are two scripts: one in French and one in English, or with a different soundtrack. Then, there is a transcript of the videos. It all depends on the length of the videos; it may be in the range of $500 to $600, but it is often done in house as well.
Mr. Ostola: I think it depends on the product. I would say we do both. We use in house resources for our Twitter feed, but in the case of more complex projects, we will also use external resources to do the translation. It depends on the nature of the project.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: Could we say half and half or more?
Mr. Ostola: Again, I will get back to you with exact figures, to give you a better idea of our investments.
Mr. Rioux: Ours is mainly done in house. The two person-years who work on it full-time are perfectly bilingual. They do a first draft and then we have some very good editors who check the work. To answer requests on Twitter, we are committed to doing it within 24 hours. It is not done within an hour of getting the request. Our sites are clear: we tell people that we will answer within 24 hours. That gives us a bit of a chance to touch it up. This works well.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: That is a good method.
Mr. Rioux: You have to make time for these things.
[English]
Mr. Enei: Given we are part of the same portfolio as Parks Canada, we have the same situation where it is a mix of internal and external, depending on the product and the situation. We can commit to get back to you with those figures.
Ms. Pezzack: Most of it is done within the communications team. We have one resource dedicated more or less full time to social media. All of the team are completely bilingual. There would be a few occasions where we would use translation, but primarily internal.
[Translation]
Senator Tardif: Good evening. I apologize for being late; I also had to attend another meeting.
My question is for all the witnesses. Do you think that the offer of services on electronic platforms is equitable and of equal quality in French and English? If not, what are the barriers and what improvements can you make?
[English]
Ms. Pezzack: For Passport, all of our web information is done in both languages at the same time, so it is immediately available and, yes, I would say very equal. It also offers us an opportunity to reach clients outside of Canada, Canadian citizens who reside outside of Canada. I think it provides them as well. Having the internet and social media, I would say, because it does go out in both official languages, is a great way for minority-language communities to have equal access to all of the information that we provide.
Mr. Enei: From an Environment Canada perspective, the web is arguably our principal vehicle to get the information out. I submit we do so in a fair and equitable manner when it comes to official languages. By and large, we do not have principally what I would characterize as regional organizations. All of our programs are managed on a national stage, and we deliver them depending on where the expertise resides. We, in effect, build what I call dual linguistic capacity throughout our national programs. It does not matter if you are located in Vancouver, Dartmouth, Quebec City, Montreal or Ottawa; if you are a centre of expertise for delivering a particular program, you do so in both official languages. We try to reinforce linguistic duality in how we operate our department and our programs. Being the web is our principal tool and our mechanism for communicating out, it is a smooth and seamless transition between both official languages.
[Translation]
Mr. Rioux: It is the same for us. We do it equitably. If it cannot be done equitably, we do not do it. For our websites and our current new media services, it was very clear from the outset that we would serve people in the language of their choice and we would make a perfectly bilingual product available. And again, it seems to be working. Like my colleague, our website is managed at the national level. In the early days, members of the agency are allowed only limited use, that is, there are not a lot of accounts and management is quite tight. However, it is perfectly bilingual and people are answered in the language of their choice. If there is information that we think is in the interests of all Canadians, anglophone and francophone, then we will not only answer in the language of the person who requested the information, but also give the information in both official languages.
Mr. Ostola: We always do everything possible to make sure that people are served in the language of their choice and we take our responsibilities under the Official Languages Act very seriously. I can give you two concrete examples.
[English]
We ensure that any content posted to a platform, whether Twitter, Facebook or the Internet, is available in both official languages at the same time of equal quality. We also ensure that unilingual videos that might be produced are fully versioned or created in the version of the language before the first one is posted to ensure that people have access to the same products at the same time of the same quality.
[Translation]
Mr. Morissette: In our case, the situation is similar; everything has to be published simultaneously in both languages. If a quality problem is brought to our attention, it will be corrected immediately. In the last three or four years, we have also emphasized the governance, the management of our websites, because we are a very large department and we have several websites, several web tools, and it is handled in a centralized way.
So on the one hand we have centralized somewhat, but we have also organized our systems better so we have more oversight measures, both for official languages and for accessibility for people with disabilities.
Senator Tardif: I think you have touched on an important point: the governance and oversight of websites. Your responses indicate that everything seems to be for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Is there no room for improvement? I cannot believe that everything is perfect.
Mr. Morissette: There is continual improvement, on our part at least, but it is really over the course of the last four years that we have really done a better job of management. For example, in terms of accessibility, we undertook a major exercise over the last year to make sure that our sites are 100 per cent accessible to people with disabilities. And they are, now.
In doing that, we reviewed all of our web content, in French and English. Where there may have been problems, they were solved. We took the time to look at everything. Our oversight measures are now tighter and better quality.
Senator Losier-Cool: A brief comment addressed to all of you: would you have any joint recommendation to make to the committee? We often hear "Internet access." But as Senator Segal said, not everyone has Internet access.
Based on your experience with all the new Canadians, what could you recommend to the committee for implementing measures so there the Internet is more accessible across the country?
Mr. Ostola: I may not have the solution that will solve all the problems, but I think it is important to try to provide information to the public in the language of their choice using the most mechanisms or channels possible.
I think it is important to expand the question. We should not talk just about the Internet, but also about other mechanisms that people are using today and that are currently being developed. There is the Internet, but we now have Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr. I do not think we should consider only the Internet. Different people are going to have different opportunities for access, I think.
Senator Losier-Cool: Mr. Ostola, Parks Canada often uses seasonal employees. I agree with you that it may no longer be the Internet that has to be expanded, with the advent of Facebook and Twitter. Are your employees comfortable enough with all this technology when they are hired? How can you make sure they are?
Mr. Ostola: We offer training. Not to generalize, but their level of comfort with technology often depends on their age. Our employees who are in their twenties are very comfortable with technologies that I do not manage to grasp, myself.
But for our summer students, when they start work, it is not often a problem. They are used to a world of iPhones and iPads. But for people a little less familiar with the new technologies, we have to put training systems in place and resource people they can consult to get answers to their questions.
Ms. Pezzack: I would like to add something.
[English]
QR Codes, or Quick Response Codes, are little bar codes that you can take a picture of with your phone, and that can get you into the website as well. The mobile technology is there for people who do not have necessarily a computer at home, but they may have a mobile phone that would allow them to have access to some of that same information through that mechanism. We are starting to use those, and I think others are doing that as well.
Senator Losier-Cool: Our committee should stress more not necessarily on access to the Internet but on being more prepared for new technology such as Facebook and Twitter.
Mr. Enei: If I may add, our biggest challenge at Environment Canada is arguably the issue of volume. We have 65,000 web pages that we have to maintain. If anything, we need to retrench a little to focus our communications out, obviously in both official languages. Sometimes the issue is not so much access to information but access to too much information. When your clients are asking for real-time quality information and you have a multitude of points where they can collect that information, it might not be serving our clients as best we could serve them.
[Translation]
Senator Mockler: I will be brief. My first question is for Mr. Rioux.
We can see there is a major challenge and upheaval going on in traditional communications in governments across the country, at the municipal level as well as at the provincial and federal levels. I am sure that young people will be inventing more social media.
You say you use three applications: Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Which one is the most effective at present?
And are social media a threat to security? Or, could they improve the security of users and of Canadians, regardless of where they are?
Mr. Rioux: In terms of the usefulness of the three applications, it really depends on what you want to do. Twitter lets you turn over quickly, publicize something relatively quickly, but it is ephemeral. As was mentioned earlier, 140 characters is rather limited. That is why there has to be a good site to support it, where you can store information that is more serious, that is more in-depth.
In terms of YouTube, in the government we sometimes make good videos, we make interesting things. At present, we have working groups, concerning services, for example, where we sit down around the table with the private sector. And in fact we are developing videos, for example, that our airline companies could show in flight, for example to describe what to expect at airports in terms of offer of services, for international travellers.
What information should they get to demystify the experience of going through customs? We are going to put the video on YouTube as a teaching tool. However, we have not yet reached the stage of producing videos just for that. People who are responsible for security have a growing onus to use these tools in order to have a significant impact.
Last summer, we developed a site called The Most Wanted to draw Canadians' attention to the undesired presence of people who have committed offences and are living illegally in Canada: in other words, people whom Canadians are not interested in having in the country. We publicized it and it is in operation. It is unprecedented. Some people think we may be pushing the envelope a bit, but the comments we have got back are positive.
However, in terms of the entire security aspect, I suggest that you invite the people who are more familiar with that issue than we are. There are risks associated with anything that involves the web. People talk about cyber security, next attacks, and so on. Not a week goes by, these days, that these things are not talked about.
The agencies whose mandates cover security unfortunately cannot allow all of their employees to have as much access as they would like. In our case, access to certain internal sites is limited. There are pros and cons.
The Chair: I think that answers the question very well.
Since there are senators with other questions to ask you, I am going to ask you to send them to us in writing, to the clerk. I would ask you to get back to us with the answers in writing, if that is okay with you. Thank you.
Senator Champagne: In the Montreal region, and even in Ottawa, we have a radio station that does traffic reports. Mr. Ostola, you said that people in a certain generation have a little more difficulty. I have those problems myself.
Is there no radio station you could collaborate with to inform drivers about waiting times at border posts, to direct traffic to another post that is not as busy? For example, if you are driving to Rouses Point and waiting time is 13 hours, redirect traffic to Noyan where there might be no waiting time. That would be very useful. It would certainly be a public service you could provide, in collaboration with a radio station.
Mr. Rioux: I will pass your suggestion on to my communications team. However, that might create conflicts, if we give more information to one radio station than to another.
Senator Champagne: There would have to be one radio station in Canada and another on the other side of the border, near Plattsburg.
The Chair: On behalf of the committee members, I would like to thank you sincerely for coming to answer our many questions. The clerk will send you the other questions that could not be asked. We thank you in advance for the answers you send. Thank you very much.
We will suspend for a few minutes and we will resume with the second group of witnesses in a few minutes.
The Chair: Honourable senators, we are now proceeding with our second panel. We have with us representatives of Health Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, the National Capital Commission and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the committee. Discussions with this panel should end at about 7 p.m., to comply with the time allotted to us. I will now invite our witnesses to take the floor, in turn; the senators will then ask their questions.
[English]
Jane Hazel, Acting Senior Director General, Public Affairs, Consultation and Communications Branch, Health Canada: Madam chair, members of the committee, my name is Jane Hazel, and I am a director general in the Communications Branch at Health Canada.
For a few years now, health information has been one of the most important subjects for online research. It is estimated that 80 per cent of Internet users gather some kind of health information online.
When Canadians have a question about their health, they often turn to Health Canada as a trusted source of information. Our website gets a combined total of more than 5 million page views per month from around the world in both English and French. From within our borders, 72 per cent of the views from Canadians are in English and 28 per cent are in French. That means that usage by francophones is at a slightly higher rate than anglophones, if compared to the linguistic demographics of our country.
What do Canadians come looking for? What kind of health information is most important to them? If they come to our site through a Google search, which most of them do, most users are looking for information about nutrition, tobacco and drug safety.
[Translation]
In our most recent Health Canada Survey, Canadians were asked to rate Health Canada's performance in communicating with the public. The answer from both English and French respondents was the same; 79 per cent of both groups said Health Canada is doing an excellent job of communicating with them in the language of their choice.
We have worked hard to make our website accessible and easy to navigate. It is worth noting that, in his most recent report card, Official Languages Commissioner Graham Fraser rated Health Canada's performance as excellent when it comes to providing services through the internet.
And now we are using social media to reach Canadians in more interactive and engaging ways. For example; we have used YouTube to demonstrate health issues in a way that is simply not possible through, for example, a news release.
We can show you what a radon detector looks like and where to place it in the home. We can show you how to safely use flea and tick treatments on the family pet; and we can show Canadians how to shop for healthy foods by showing them how to read and interpret the nutrition information on a label.
[English]
Our English YouTube channel has had more than 260,000 upload views and our French channel about 130,000. In proportion to the country's demographics, we have a high rate of usage among francophones. We tweet health alerts and safety recalls several times a day to more than 21,000 followers in both English and French.
We also know that young Canadians are the most voracious users of social media, and we reached out to them through Facebook in our DrugsNot4Me campaign. It is an antidrug campaign designed to get young people thinking about how their lives would be different, worse, if they took drugs. To get them interested, we created a widget, an app, and we even made a ring tone available for them to download. To get them to share their stories, we created Facebook pages in both English and French. To date, we have more than 62,000 fans on the English page and more than 22,000 on our French pages. That means that the number of French-speaking fans is an impressive 36 per cent of the total of English fans.
[Translation]
Parents also want to use social media tools to help them protect the health and safety of their families. And for our health and safety campaign we used many social media tools to get that information to them.
To make recall and safety alert information easier to access, we have developed an "app" for easy access; we have created a widget so that the information can be reposted on blogs or other websites; and we have a QR code — a Quick Response Code — that can be scanned and gives owners of smartphones a quick link the information. Those links and devices will bring you to the information in the language of your choice.
[English]
In everything we do, we are in compliance with Treasury Board Secretariat's guidelines on web 2.0 and the Official Languages Act. In other words, we are advancing the use of both English and French, and we are doing so in step with the Government of Canada's approach.
[Translation]
In the years ahead, we hope to use social media to get input from Canadians that will have an influence on our policies and help us develop new programs.
[English]
I would like to thank the committee for this opportunity to tell you about Health Canada's web presence and our commitment to fostering the full recognition and use of both English and French in Canadian society.
[Translation]
If you have any questions, I would be more than happy to answer them. Thank you.
Louise de Jourdan, Acting Director General, Communications Directorate, Public Health Agency of Canada: My name is Louise de Jourdan, and I am the Acting Director General at the Public Health Agency. Thank you for inviting me, and I will be pleased to answer your questions.
Since the inception of the Public Health Agency of Canada in 2004, our website has ranked consistently in the top 20 of Government of Canada websites in terms of visitor traffic. Providing timely access to important public health information online in English and French is essential for public health and safety.
For this reason, we have internal quality assurance practices in place to provide necessary linguistic resources, to ensure that our in-house translation and editorial services are available.
These are essential elements of the agency's efforts to meet demands for accessible, timely content in both official languages, which I would like to describe briefly today.
Both English- and French-speaking Canadians are clearly interested in public health issues. For example, parents want to learn about immunizations for their children. Public health professionals require guidance on the efficacy of vaccines. Academics search for surveillance data to produce health research reports. And families search for travel health information when planning a trip for March Break — like this week.
[English]
During the H1N1 pandemic in 2009, the value to Canadians of public health information was most apparent when the agency's website received over 15 million visits. That represents nearly one in two Canadians.
During this period, the agency also became one of the first federal organizations to use social media extensively and effectively to convey rapidly-changing information to Canadians about the situation. It also became apparent that francophones and anglophones sometimes had different information needs and interests. In particular, the issue of pregnancy and vaccines was of special interest to francophones. In response to this finding, the agency quickly adjusted its Google ad marketing campaign to make that type of information easier to find for this community.
Our research shows that anglophone audiences tend to search for more information on immunization determinants of health and disease symptoms. Francophones focus on things like pregnancy and travel health.
[Translation]
Visitor patterns have remained consistent over the past several years; approximately 79 per cent of our visitors search in English and 21 per cent in French.
While content is written for Canadians and they constitute the majority of visits to the French pages of the agency's website, about 60 per cent, the attention from other countries is notable. Almost 26 per cent of the visits to our French content come from countries in la Francophonie.
The agency continues to use social media and web 2.0 technology actively, maintaining a strong presence on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube with simultaneous English and French tweets, posts and videos.
[English]
When consulting with citizens online, the agency reinforces its commitment to serving citizens in their preferred official language. For example, in 2011, the "Our Health, Our Future" campaign, which was a major consultation across Canada, set out to inform Canadians of the real impacts on childhood obesity through an engagement strategy that included an interactive bilingual website and a suite of bilingual learning resources and social media applications.
The agency is continuously refining new strategies to serve emerging needs for important real-time information. We look at what sorts of information people are searching for, and what language, culture, lifestyle or location might determine their behaviours online. We assess emerging technologies and aim to broaden the accessibility of public health information through webcasts, video and mobile technologies.
[Translation]
The Public Health Agency seeks to continuously improve its understanding of the best ways to communicate with Canadians through online technology, while respecting the linguistic duality of our country.
Janice Keenan, Director, E-Communications, Citizenship and Immigration Canada: Good evening, Madam Chair, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Janice Keenan. I am the Director of E-Communications at Citizenship and Immigration Canada.
Before I begin, I would like to thank the committee for inviting me to speak about the delivery of our web services.
[English]
Citizenship and Immigration has one of the most widely accessed Government of Canada websites. In 2011 we had 53.6 million visits to our website. I would like to point out that more than half of those visits come from outside of Canada; the remainder — 23.8 million, representing 44.5 per cent of the visits during 2011 — came from within Canada.
[Translation]
Despite our website's popularity, I am pleased to report that CIC received only one complaint in recent years about the language in which we provide our services. And even in that instance, an investigation by the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages found we were indeed complying with all language policies and the complaint was closed. That is because we comply with the Official Languages Act by posting content to our website in both official languages simultaneously, ensuring equal quality.
[English]
In delivering all of our web services, including our social media tools, our number one goal is to make them as accessible and user friendly as possible. In order to do that, we understand it is critical to make these available in both of our official languages.
One initiative we have undertaken is rewriting website content in plain language. Such an initiative explains complex topics in common rather than operational language, which allows users to better understand the topics. Plain language is especially important for those who may not speak French or English as a first language. Another initiative is to constantly fine-tune our website search engine based on actual terms used by our users and not bureaucratic language, ensuring that the site is responsive to their needs.
The act has also always guided our decisions on developing our social media tools. Our foray into social media began with YouTube in 2009. We decided to have a bilingual channel, offering videos in both languages. All videos contain the same information and are of equal quality.
[Translation]
In addition to YouTube, CIC uses Twitter and we have a Facebook page. We want to offer a single point from which the public can obtain information and we encourage participation in both official languages.
[English]
Our name on YouTube and Twitter is CitImmCanada, which can translate into Citizenship and Immigration Canada or Citoyenneté et Immigration Canada. Likewise, our Facebook page uses a bilingual URL: facebook.com/ citcanada.
When responding to questions we receive through these channels, we reply in the language in which the question was asked. However, we also keep in mind that users in the other official language group may not be able to understand or reply.
[Translation]
Recognizing this, we always ensure to post information that might be of interest to a broader audience in the other official language as well. For example, we learned from comments on an English language video that users were having difficulty opening a PDF on our site. We then posted a solution to both the English and French video pages.
With a sizeable audience that comes from outside of Canada, we recognize that many of our users may not speak either English or French.
[English]
This is why we also offer a number of videos in eight of the world's most popular languages. For example, tutorial videos provide step-by-step instructions on completing immigration application forms in Arabic, Mandarin, Spanish, Hindi, Cantonese, Punjabi, Tagalog, and Urdu.
In closing, CIC is committed to providing information that our users can easily understand. A key method for doing so is simultaneously posting text, images and forms of equal quality in both of Canada's official languages. As the first government website encountered by many who wish to come to Canada, it is essential that our country's linguistic duality be both respected and represented.
[Translation]
Guy Laflamme, Senior Vice-President, Capital Experience, Communications and Marketing, National Capital Commission: Good evening, Madam Chair. Thanks you for the opportunity we have been given, as a federal Crown corporation, to tell you about our practices in implementing official languages policy.
[English]
My name is Guy Laflamme and I am the Senior Vice-President of the Capital Experience, in Communications and Marketing at the National Capital Commission, the NCC. I am pleased to be here today to speak about the use of Internet and the new media from the perspective of the official languages.
At the NCC, our goal is to ensure that Canada's capital region is a source of national pride and significance. With this in mind, we are the determined to fulfill this mandate to provide a world-class experience, including a connected experience for Canadians visiting this region and to improve our reach across the country.
The NCC has established best practices and developed innovations in four ways, allowing for better promotion of official language policies by integrating the online and offline components with a cultural adaptation through all of our programs, integrating our website with all platforms, making content accessible on external platforms, and, finally, using pilot projects to refine our internal procedures and guidelines.
I will define these best practices through my presentation.
The NCC is improving the way it offers information to visitors. We are reaching the visitors where they are before, during, and after their stay in Canada's capital region.
As part of the new approach, the NCC is using technology to its full potential by offering a number of new services and by integrating the web, new media, social networks, mobile application and WiFi to the mix in both official languages.
The NCC recently released its completely revamped website, canadascapital.gc.ca, along with a strategy focusing on reaching Internet users who are searching for information on Canada's capital region.
[Translation]
The NCC has modernized and improved its website in order to better meet Canadians' needs, but our efforts go beyond our site, it applies to all our web presence. More than ever, we are active with social media networks in both of Canada's official languages.
[English]
A series of some 30 social media projects such as Facebook, flickr, YouTube and Twitter, among others, were piloted during the past two years. These pilot projects provided opportunities to explore all aspects of social media. The results were successful and encouraging. Such an incremental approach allowed us to refine and confirm our procedure and internal guidelines.
Here are some recent examples: Online analytic results from Winterlude 2012 tell us we interacted with 10,000 fans online on our French and English Facebook pages. Our strategy allowed us to double the number of visits to our website, compared with last year's edition of Winterlude. The official launch events of this year's Winterlude generated over 45,000 online visits on a single day.
The NCC has integrated online and offline offerings with its modified visitor services. We will also be expanding our outdoor roving interpretation service by having information officers along Confederation Boulevard equipped with iPads during the summer months. The priority remains having a human face-to-face interaction. However, we will no longer wait for visitors to come to us; we will reach them where they are.
Furthermore, on integration, we will deploy the following tools to improve services to visitors and enrich their visit to the capital region. QR codes, or quick response barcodes, interpretation modules for mobile devices, more commonly known as apps, and an outdoor Internet wireless network, or WiFi, will be deployed in core areas both on the Quebec and Ontario side. All these tools provide multiple opportunities to connect Canadians in the capital to relevant bilingual content at different landmarks and sites in the heart of Canada's capital.
To do all of this, we need good strategies, efficient processes and quality content. Content development to populate these social media is done collaboratively at the NCC, and each proposed social media initiative is, therefore, evaluated using three criteria in terms of significance, sustainability and official languages.
We look, first, at significance in terms of NCC priorities and programs and topics of interest to the public. We evaluate in a specific program or initiative the merits of a social media campaign as well as the resources it will require.
Second, we look at sustainability in terms of having the resources to sustain dialogue on the program through social media.
Finally, we take official languages into consideration in order to ensure a method for creating and responding to public dialogue in both of Canada's official languages.
[Translation]
The Chair: Mr. Laflamme, could you summarize the rest of the document? The time allocated to you has expired.
Mr. Laflamme: Yes. I have less than a minute left.
Right from the beginning, when the NGC began creating tools for communicating through electronic media, we ensured that we complied with established federal guidelines already in place such as, the Policy on Management of Information Technology, the Guidelines for External Use of web 2.0 and the Communications Policy of the Government of Canada, and as a result we have won international awards that recognize the excellence of this work.
[English]
Tim Cogan, Chief Superintendent, Director General, National Communication Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police: Good evening honourable senators. I thank you for having me here today.
[Translation]
As I start, I would like to emphasize that the RCMP recognizes its obligation to provide information on our programs and services in both official languages and in accessible formats to all Canadians.
[English]
We remain committed to meeting these requirements and, in fact, believe that it is vital to our success as a policing service that we reach individuals and communities we serve in the language of their choice.
The RCMP, like other federal entities, has been exploring the use of various social media platforms for several years, and, like others, we are still trying to figure out what works for us and what does not.
Social media allows the RCMP to expand its profile and make connection with a wider audience including those who may no longer use conventional media to get their information.
[Translation]
We use social media to reach Canadians directly to inform them of issues that may impact their immediate safety and security.
[English]
We also use social media platforms to proactively support our crime prevention awareness and reduction efforts through the promotion of materials that are available on our Internet site. In October 2009, we launched the RCMP's national Facebook site in English and in French. Through this account, we provide information such as wanted persons, current fraud scams, missing persons, crime prevention tips and other police related materials.
We currently have 28,000 Facebook fans on our national English site and about 1,200 fans on our national French site.
In 2009, the RCMP opened a national YouTube account, which is bilingual. Our YouTube site has had approximately 95,000 views.
In 2010, we created the RCMP national Twitter account, and like our Facebook presence, we have separate but equivalent French and English Twitter pages. Our audience in this forum is growing as it becomes more popular. We currently have approximately 7,000 followers on our English site and about 2,500 followers on our French site.
As is the case with our national corporate Internet site, which receives roughly 6 million visits per year, all the national social media accounts are managed by National Communication Services, and there have been no issues with respect to official languages with these accounts.
In addition to the national accounts, many of our larger divisions are creating their own individual divisional accounts, and, in some cases, smaller units and detachments have a presence in these social media environments.
At the divisional level, we have Facebook sites, which are bilingual in Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario and British Columbia. We have bilingual Twitter accounts in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario, the National Capital Region, our depot training division in Regina and in B.C. New Brunswick, Quebec and British Columbia have bilingual YouTube sites. The Canadian Police College, which is here in Ottawa, has a bilingual Facebook and Twitter presence.
[Translation]
We manage these social media activities in accordance with the Government of Canada's Guideline for External Use of web 2.0. As the national policy centre, National Communication Services has developed a Guide for Employee Use of Social Media.
[English]
An awareness campaign on the RCMP internal intranet site has been providing weekly tips since October 2011 to educate our employees on the use of social media both in a personal and professional capacity and to provide tips and guidelines for that use.
Links are provided to the communications policy of the Government of Canada and the RCMP's Internet and intranet policy, both which clearly outline the official languages obligations.
We also provide ongoing guidance and support to divisional web masters in interpreting relevant policies, including the official languages policy, as they relate to social media. This is supported by resource documents that include best practices.
In addition to providing this guidance, the National Communications Services monitors compliance. Internet sites, including social media pages, are checked on a bimonthly basis, and any issues that arise are addressed promptly. Internally the RCMP maintains an extensive bilingual intranet presence which serves both the operational and administrative needs of the organization.
The RCMP has not yet made widespread use of social media internally. The National Communication Services has developed a wiki for the web publishing community where resources and best practices are shared, including those related to official languages and accessibility.
In closing, I would like to emphasize that the challenge we face in engaging the public and our employees through these modern social media communications tools is to find ways to use them in the way that they were intended to be used, taking full advantage of the speed and versatility they offer us while respecting the legislative requirements set out in the Official Languages Act and leveraging these tools for the operational advantages that we pursue as we communicate in both official languages.
I would be happy to take your questions.
[Translation]
Senator Segal: My question is for Ms. de Jourdan. Based on what we know about health care in general, impoverished people have a more serious problem than other segments of the Canadian population.
[English]
We know that poverty is a precise predictor of worse performance on disease issues, earlier admission to hospital, earlier death and a series of pathologies. When you indicate in a fashion, which is very encouraging, that millions of Canadians are making use of your site, the question I asked the previous panel suggests itself. We know that the impoverished sector of the population has more health problems by definition and might have extraordinary benefit from the site. What are you able to do in the department to encourage —
[Translation]
How can we better guarantee participation by the economically disadvantaged population, who need your services and the information that is available? Those services are as serious for them as for the more economically well-off population.
[English]
Ms. de Jourdan: I am not sure we are able to answer the question about Internet accessibility, which is a different issue. Ours is really about providing information. The Internet is only one way that we provide information to people. For disadvantaged Canadians, there are other ways that we would augment our provision of information if the web were not accessible. We cover off through a multitude of different channels to ensure that people have information accessible to them through community programs and other things — outreach.
For the Internet, we do ongoing visitor pattern analyses. Earlier, we were sitting at the back making note of the questions you asked the previous panel. A few of us sent quick emails back to the office to get information about that. Again, while I cannot speak about the access portion, I can tell you that our analyses give us some insight into things like the time of day when people are coming, some of their socio-economic situations but not in the level of detail that you refer to. Largely speaking, we know if visitors are coming from a house, from a health organization or from provincial governments. We have education statistics on our visitors if they are coming from municipalities, the media or Aboriginal groups, and so on. The most important point is that the Internet, while hugely important, is not the only way that we ensure that information gets out to all the groups. We understand that not everybody has access to the Internet, so we have other programs to augment it.
Senator Segal: In many parts of Africa and Asia, the cell phone has become the instrument that people have access to without regard to how wealthy they are simply because they are accessible on a pay-as-you-go basis and manageable in that respect. Does your present communication plan, insofar as it is digitally focused, anticipate more and more Canadians accessing information? As you know, in Africa people are dealing with financial and other requirements by cell phone, and governments are using the cell phone to send out information on HIV and aids clinics and things of that nature. Do you anticipate a tertiary effort? We know that many of the poorer parts of our population have cell phones, but may not have an iPad, or desktop or laptop computers. It is important that that communication also be available in both official languages like the others are.
Ms. de Jourdan: Right now, we do not have a large mobile plan in place. We have used QR Codes in the past for certain much targeted programs. Certainly, in the case of an emergency like H1N1, it is critical that people everywhere get information but not just through us because we work with a host of partners to ensure that the reach is 100 per cent. We use them in certain instances but not as a matter of course for everything that we do. It is a good point, and I am taking note.
[Translation]
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: I would like to congratulate you and thank you for the high quality of the briefs you have submitted.
I do not know whether my question relates more to the political side or whether each of the departments may be affected by this. I have heard it said that some people are afraid that well-crafted and well-executed social media campaigns led by interest groups can dominate on-line discussions with federal institutions, to the point that decision- makers are misled about the extent to which the ideas shared via these campaigns are representative of a large audience. These tactics are sometimes called "astroturf lobbying." I do not know whether you have had dealings with people who occupy the new social media and try to block everything. What electronic mechanisms do you use to reduce the risk of interest groups abusing on-line discussions between federal institutions and the public?
Who will take on the challenge of answering that question? When people do not like a bill, we as senators get email.
The Chair: Would one of our witnesses like to risk answering?
Mr. Laflamme: I would like to share an experience we had when we consulted Canadians across the country in the course of the planning exercise for the next 50 years for the capital region, Horizon 2067: The Plan for Canada's Capital. The method we used was, first, to be sure to properly validate the identity of the person sending us comments. It is sufficient, to start with, to have tools that can be used to be sure of the individual's identity. The person has to enter an email address. And I would tell you to have a good balance between push and pull strategies, if I can use those English expressions.
Second, we went looking by using a variety of platforms by which we solicited individuals' contributions. We visited cities in all regions of Canada. We used academic networks, networks of associations, specialists and platforms for the general public, to make sure we had variety in the sources of information we collected.
The third aspect, which was really beneficial in this approach, was to use three levels of methods. If people wanted to take a few minutes, they could contribute a word or a theme about what should influence the future of the capital. The person could then answer an on-line questionnaire, which was written in English and French, and tell us about their aspirations for the capital region. And third, if the person wanted to go further, they could write something themselves and tell us their visions and ideas about the future of the capital.
In other words, I would tell you that you need to use a variety of information channels and offer different methods, but most importantly validate the source of the individual who is contributing, in addition to using tested research methods when you are using on-line panels where people's identity has already been validated by a third party or a research firm.
Senator Fortin-Duplessis: How is that done in the other departments?
[English]
Mr. Cogan: I am not sure how we regulate that on the technical side of the house, but I know from a practical point of view that in all of our social media platforms we have clearly articulated the rules of engagement for the platform. We have said what we will accept in the way of commentary and what we will not. Simple things such as choice of language, for example, are clearly identified in terms of what is acceptable and what is not acceptable.
As an administrative process, we basically look at the feedback we get on a daily basis, which is fairly substantial, and if there are things in there that we feel need to be addressed in terms of editing or inappropriate commentary, we remove it or block it. It is our site, so we do have the authority to control what is on it and we do exercise that authority. We are looking for interaction, but obviously within certain parameters, and we set those parameters.
Ms. Keenan: At Citizenship and Immigration Canada we follow something very similar in that we tend to push out messages rather than receive comments or have two-way conversations. People can leave comments, but we do monitor those on a regular basis and we do have a very clear policy on our site as to what is and what is not appropriate. We have guidelines for social media use on our site, which we link to from our social media channels.
[Translation]
Ms. de Jourdan: It is the same thing. I would say that this is somewhat the beauty and the risk in social media: that we are inviting the general public to participate in a conversation, but there are also risks associated with that. In my experience, at least to date, there have not been any campaigns like that.
Senator Tardif: I would like to come back to the subject of official languages and my question is for all of you.
In your presentations, you all seemed to be saying that the offer of services in the new electronic platforms or in social media is of equal quality in French and English. Given the breadth of the information and content on each of your sites, what mechanisms do you put in place for the governance of your sites, to be sure that the principle of equal quality, and also of equity in both official languages, is adhered to?
[English]
Mr. Cogan: As I said in my opening remarks, we have a fairly robust auditing process. We monitor all our sites regularly for compliance. Our policy structure around the use of these tools is very clear. We put a lot of effort into educating employees who are using these sites to communicate out in terms of what their responsibilities are for respecting both official languages.
There are content management tools that allow us, in an automated way, to control the uploading of text to ensure that it is done in both official languages with equal quality.
Senator Tardif: You indicated in your presentation that, in addition to the national accounts, you have larger divisions that are creating their own individual accounts and in some cases smaller units within divisions are using these innovative communication tools to reach specific local audiences. As it is no longer centralized, how do you ensure that they are respecting those policies? Do you do an evaluation?
Mr. Cogan: As I said, we audit it thoroughly twice monthly.
Senator Tardif: What do you mean by "audit"?
Mr. Cogan: We go through the sites and examine and assess what has been posted in terms of compliance with regard to official languages as well as for accessibility for smaller websites. It is part of our management process.
[Translation]
Mr. Laflamme: In our case, I would say that the process for validating content is as elaborate and exhaustive as the one we used in the past for print tools.
In terms of centralized management of the content, it is the fact that we have a resource person dedicated to managing responses and putting out content on social sites: someone who has a background in communications and is perfectly bilingual.
In terms of the review process, this involves using our creative services to review all written, audio and video content. It also involves having content management tools that allow us a certain level of efficiency and effectiveness in disseminating content that is developed in one place so that it is reflected in other places on the website.
And last, there is selection of personnel and training provided to personnel to ensure best practices in relation to respect for the official languages, as we do for all of our tools and public programs.
[English]
Ms. Keenan: At Citizenship and Immigration Canada the site is centrally managed, so we are able to easily control what goes up. After the content comes back from translation, it goes to an editor who ensures that the language is appropriate, is at the right level and is well written. As well, I think all of our employees who deal with the content part of the site are bilingual.
Senator Tardif: Do you have enough bilingual personnel and resources to do the work sufficiently?
Ms. Keenan: We are able to keep our site completely bilingual with the resources we have.
[Translation]
Ms. de Jourdan: We have a very similar process, which is centralized; we use professional translation services and a reviser/editor works with us to ensure equal quality, that is, it is not just a translation, but rather an adaptation of the text. That is very important. Little mistakes may slip in from time to time, but when we receive corrections, we make them right away.
Senator Tardif: Is there a waiting time between the English version and the French version?
Ms. de Jourdan: No.
[English]
Ms. Hazel: Ours is a similar process. We were decentralized at one time and people across the department could publicize to the web, but we moved to a centralized structure where content is approved in the program areas and comes to the communication branch, where we translate it, adapt it and plain-language edit it. The last process before being published simultaneously in both languages is that it goes through quality assurance.
Senator Day: My question was along the lines of Senator Tardif's question. Maybe you could send us any protocol that you have set up with respect to oversight. You cannot wait for Mr. Fraser to tell you that you have not been doing the job properly or to be invited to a Senate committee from time to time for oversight. I know you have internal oversight and audit, and it would be helpful for us to know what your policies are. Some of you are centralized, which makes it easier, and some of you are not. If you could do that, that would be helpful.
Ms. Hazel, in your presentation you said that 79 per cent of respondents said that they were happy with the work that you were doing in both official languages. What about the other 21 per cent? That is one in five that are not happy with how they were dealt with in the language of their choice. What are you doing to make that 79 per cent 99 per cent?
Ms. Hazel: We strive for perfection. Seventy-nine per cent was fairly good. It was grouped into excellent, good, and very good. The others were sort of on the fence, moderate, weaker. We thought it was pretty good. However, we do have, similar to what my colleague in the RCMP talked about, a continual process of improving our web and the language on it. I know someone on the other panel mentioned the volume of web pages. We too have 55,000 web pages, which is an incredible volume to manage. Our visitor pattern analysis is looking at what pages and areas are of most interest to our visitors and ensuring that that is where we start in making the most viewed pages of the highest quality. We are sort of doing a triage of what the most important pages are, making sure the quality is the highest, and working our way down. There is a constant renewal. We call it our web renewal. It is not a project, but a lifestyle of renewing our webpage every day. We are constantly trying to improve that 79 per cent up.
Senator Day: Part of the problem with the Internet these days is too much information. It is just not able to handle all the information that is coming. In the last panel, someone suggested that that department was going through and trying to reduce the information or tighten it up. Can I assume you are doing that?
Ms. Hazel: We caught that ROT — redundant, outdated and trivial information. We have a team that is working on reducing the ROT on our website.
Senator Day: Interesting acronym.
Ms. Hazel: We also call them the cobwebs. We have a dashboard that we follow to shave that content down. That is one of our primary goals.
Senator Day: My final question is with respect to the RCMP. I know you are posting information that you receive internationally or from other security or policing agencies within Canada. I am thinking of most wanted people and information like that. Is it your policy to post that as received — it would not be in both official languages — or to hold it, then translate it and put it out in both official languages?
Mr. Cogan: We would translate it before it is posted, and it is obviously given priority if it is critical, public safety- related information. We do 100 per cent bilingual posting simultaneously.
Senator Poirier: I would like to thank you all for the presentations. They were very interesting.
My question is for the RCMP. In your presentation, you mentioned that, at the divisional level, you currently have five Facebook sites, which are all bilingual. You named the provinces. Then you said you had bilingual Twitter accounts, and, again, you named the provinces. New Brunswick, Quebec and British Columbia also had YouTube sites. My question is the following: Are other provinces doing it but in only one language, or are the other provinces not listed here not doing it at all? If not, why?
Mr. Cogan: The other provinces that are not listed are not doing it. It is largely a function of capacity. We do not have the capacity in those divisions to use those media as part of our communications platform to the public. It is an interesting puzzle you have to understand. The policing costs involved in providing contract policing services in divisions are based on agreements between the federal government and the provincial governments of the jurisdictions involved. There is a negotiation of service level, and we have to operate within the framework that that negotiation produces. You may have heard, over the last few months, that there have been contract renewals, with respect to police services from the RCMP, in the various provincial jurisdictions across the country. In those contract agreements, there is a pocket of resources dedicated to communications. Within that envelope, there may or may not be sufficient resources to allow the local membership to use some of these more state-of-the-art social media tools. It is really just an issue of capacity.
Secondly, it is an issue of infrastructure availability. In some of the remote parts of country that we operate in, there just is not the infrastructure to support this kind of tool. That is why you would not see us using a Facebook presence, for example, in Nunavut because the communities we would serve there just would not be able to access it. The people do not have the infrastructure to actually use that tool to connect with us.
Those are a couple of the reasons why we would not be using these tools in every jurisdiction that we have police service delivery in.
Senator Poirier: When I looked at the provinces, some of the smaller provinces are listed here, and some of the larger provinces are not. There did not seem to be a balance. There is nothing here about Alberta, Saskatchewan, or Manitoba, the western end of the country and some of the bigger provinces.
Mr. Cogan: That has more to do with the division of resources allocated within the province under the contractual agreements between the federal government and the provincial governments for policing services from the RCMP.
Senator Tardif: I am from the province of Alberta. If I understand correctly, if a francophone living in Alberta wanted to follow Twitter or Facebook in French, they would not be able to do so in Alberta. Could they not do so in English either?
Mr. Cogan: It depends on the jurisdiction. It depends on where you are in Alberta. If you are in an area that is a designated bilingual area within the province and if the Twitter activity is for the local population —
Senator Tardif: I would not think there would be many designated bilingual areas in Alberta.
Mr. Cogan: We would have, as a provincial police service under contract out of our headquarters in Edmonton, a responsibility to communicate in both official languages.
Senator Tardif: Because it has a population of more than 1 million; is that correct?
Mr. Cogan: Yes. We are communicating provincially. If you are in a small community in northern Alberta, you are right; there is no designated bilingual requirement, but there is probably also no one there who would be using that tool from our organization. We would be using other ways of communicating with the public that we are serving in those small communities.
Senator Tardif: In French? It may not be Facebook or Twitter, but —
Mr. Cogan: That is right. If there is a requirement to speak to someone in French, we would have a member there to speak to them in French.
Senator Tardif: Not on social media?
Mr. Cogan: I would not say never. It is quite possible that someone would communicate using a social media platform in an area. You are talking a hypothetical. You would have to give me an example. If we are in Leduc, Alberta, which is a sizeable place, I would guess that we have the ability to communicate through that media in that area. I do not know that we actually do it, though. That is what I am saying.
Senator Tardif: You would not do it because of contractual agreements with the province. Is that what you are saying?
Mr. Cogan: No. I am saying that we may not have the resources in place to allow us to do it in certain areas just because of limited resources.
Senator Tardif: Are you talking financial or human resources?
Mr. Cogan: Both. One is tied to the other for us. Most of our cause is FTE cost; it is people.
Senator Tardif: It would not be equal access, then.
Mr. Cogan: What would not be equal access?
Senator Tardif: Access to social media tools for both official language groups.
Mr. Cogan: If there is a requirement to do it bilingually and the tool is being used, it will be used bilingually. Does that answer your question?
Senator Tardif: No, but that is okay.
Mr. Cogan: I would love to answer your question to your satisfaction.
Senator Tardif: I do not want to take the committee's time. Perhaps we can discuss it after.
Mr. Cogan: Okay.
Senator Poirier: To follow up on the same subject, if I am understanding right here, at the divisional level, only the provinces listed here are getting any type of service out to the people either on Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube?
Mr. Cogan: That is right, right now.
Senator Poirier: Do the provinces that are not listed here have access to any bilingual information from the RCMP?
Mr. Cogan: Absolutely; yes.
Senator Poirier: Through the main line?
Mr. Cogan: Through our websites; our websites are very active.
Senator Poirier: But nothing local; not at the divisional level?
Mr. Cogan: Yes, there are divisional websites and they are providing information in both official languages, where required.
Senator Poirier: But not in the provinces that are not listed here? I am misunderstanding something, I think.
Mr. Cogan: If you look at what I said, I said Facebook sites — I was very specific about that — YouTube sites and Twitter sites. However, we also have a widespread Internet presence that is not using these particular social media tools, but it is —
Senator Poirier: In all provinces?
Mr. Cogan: Yes, in all provinces.
Senator Poirier: This is an add-on, is it?
Mr. Cogan: This is an extra. This is using these new, emerging tools. Well, some of them are not so new anymore, but there you have it.
[Translation]
The Chair: Can you tell the committee what percentage of Canadians are reached across Canada via the Internet, the web or social media?
If you do not know, could you send us the information?
[English]
Mr. Cogan: I could give you statistics about how many visits we get to our various social media- and web-based communication sites. I could certainly provide you with that and give you a bit of an overview of that. Absolutely, we could do that.
In terms of breaking it out to percentages, I do not know that I can do that.
The Chair: As far as Canadians are concerned, would it be 50 per cent of all Canadians, or 30 per cent, with all those different media?
Mr. Cogan: I think I said we get 6 million visits a year to our national website. The provincial sites or the divisional sites, as we call them — I could give you equal statistics for that. We could tell you how many people visit our Facebook pages.
The Chair: Could you send that to the committee?
Mr. Cogan: Absolutely.
The Chair: Also provide a breakdown for English and French.
Mr. Cogan: Yes. I think my opening remarks contained some of that information.
[Translation]
The Chair: Mr. Laflamme, could you send us that information?
Mr. Laflamme: We have statistics both for the website and for all of the platforms, social media, about the number of users and people who have signed up for the various NCC platforms. I have those figures here and we can provide you with them.
[English]
Ms. Keenan: Yes, we can provide statistics on how many people access our site from inside and outside of Canada, from what countries they tend to access it, and also by province, as well.
The Chair: In Canada, could you also tell us how many are from urban versus rural?
Ms. Keenan: I cannot go that far. I will go down to the provincial level.
[Translation]
The Chair: Ms. de Jourdan?
Ms. de Jourdan: Yes, the same thing.
Senator Champagne: We have been listening to the witnesses from various departments for three hours now. They have prepared some very useful tables about usage.
I realize that there are mobile applications or portals for offering services on line. But when it comes to social media, we see that federal institutions use Facebook and Twitter differently. Some institutions are more active on one platform than on another. Some even require that users subscribe to two newsfeeds, one in French and one in English. Others publish information simultaneously in both official languages on a single feed. And others still direct users who have to click for information already available on the Internet.
But not all institutions have adopted guidelines. In other words, when it comes to social media, there seem to be as many ways of doing things as there are federal institutions.
Do you not think it is time that someone decided there needs to be uniformity in all this? It would cost less and it would make the job easier for users who want to access your sites in order to find answers to their questions.
Mr. Laflamme: I would say there is a very clear approach about how to access each of the platforms. And I will give you a good example when it comes to best practices. We lead a committee of federal partners throughout the capital region. And we have regular discussions about using social media, new media, to try to make our practices uniform.
To conclude, I will tell you a little story that you should like, Senator Champagne. Last Canada Day, when the national anthem was being performed on the Hill, someone put a message on Facebook saying it was unacceptable for the national anthem to be performed in a unilingual English version. A few seconds later, another user weighed in to say the opposite, that it was the bilingual version of the national anthem that was being performed. And barely 20 seconds later, the person retracted the statement and admitted their mistake.
That proves the extent to which, when they are properly used, social media can also be tools for disseminating information about the excellence of our practices when it comes to the use of the official languages.
Senator Champagne: That would have been quote appalling, and I would have been furious myself, on Canada Day, to hear my national anthem in only one language.
Mr. Laflamme: You will never have that happen.
The Chair: Would someone else like to answer Senator Champagne's question?
[English]
Ms. Keenan: I think you will see that there will be more standardization of these tools because the Treasury Board has come out with guidelines for the federal departments on the external use of web 2.0 tools, which we are all following and trying to implement at the moment. I think there will be more standardization in the future.
[Translation]
Senator Champagne: You will have grasped that I am not yet a social media expert. I am not on Facebook or YouTube or Twitter. My son promised me that for my 74th birthday he was going to show me how to use those social media.
[English]
Senator Day: It might be helpful for us to have a copy of those guidelines from Treasury Board and circulate it to all the members so we can see what they are asking you to do.
Ms. Keenan: Official languages are in there.
[Translation]
The Chair: If I understand correctly, the federal government has a responsibility, and even a duty, when it comes to policy development, so you can guide your efforts, is that correct?
With that, I thank you very much for coming to our committee. As you have seen from the questions asked, your presentations generated a great deal of interest.
Honourable senators, we will suspend for a few minutes and we will come back in camera to discuss a report.
(The committee continued in camera.)