LANG Committee Report

The Action Plan for Official Languages announced in March 2003 provided for an injection of $751.3 million over five years in three key areas: education ($381.5 million), community development ($269.3 million) and the public service ($64.6 million). Specific measures were also included for the language industries ($20 million) and for the implementation of the Accountability Framework applicable to designated federal institutions ($16 million). An enabling fund for human resources development and community economic development was added to the Action Plan in March 2005, adding $36 million over three years to the total investments under the Plan. A further $10.6 million investment was made for health in 2006-2007, as well as $12 million from 2005 to 2007 to reduce waiting lists for language training. The Official Languages Innovation Program was cancelled after three years however, reducing total funding by $8 million. Subject to verification of actual spending, a total of $802 million will have been invested when the Action Plan expires on March 31, 2008.

The Action Plan is the culmination of a process that began in 2001, based on three considerations:

1. Linguistic duality is a fundamental aspect of Canadian identity. Together with its openness to global cultural diversity, Canada has maintained this commitment to its linguistic roots, since over 98% of residents indicate they speak one of the official languages. Official-language minority communities have contributed a great deal to preserving this aspect of Canadian identity. The federal government therefore has a responsibility to these communities that have tirelessly cultivated the country’s cultural roots.
2. Linguistic duality is a competitive advantage for Canada internationally. Far from creating “two solitudes,” our duality offers Canadians a window on linguistic plurality that is unique in the American continent, making it easier to forge ties with a multilingual Europe and encouraging us to help the Aboriginal peoples of Canada preserve their linguistic heritage.¹ Moreover, learning a second language is often a springboard to learning a third and fourth language.
3. Since the first official languages policy was established in the late 1960s, there have been significant changes in individual and community ways of life. The cosmopolitan character of Canada’s large urban centres places official language minorities in competition with other cultural communities with respect to services in their language. At the same time however, Francophone minority communities are now in a much better position to assert their rights, and their institutions are much more numerous and stronger. Youth retention, low birth rates and exogamous marriages do however weaken the social fabric of these communities. Finally, the relatively strong state of public finances makes it easier to consider long-term support for the development of these communities.

Based on these considerations, the Government of Canada announced in April 2001 the creation of a committee of ministers, chaired by the Honourable Stéphane Dion, to “consider strong new measures that will continue to ensure the vitality of minority official-language communities and ensure that Canada’s official languages are better reflected in the culture of the federal public service.”²

To achieve this, the Action Plan established:

1. The Accountability and Coordination Framework setting out and reminding federal department and agencies of their respective responsibilities, while establishing a horizontal coordination process for actions stemming from the multiple elements of Official Languages policy.
2. Three key areas for action:
1. education, including both minority language education, pursuant to section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and second-language instruction, in order to promote linguistic duality;
2. community development, which seeks to foster better access to public services in health care, early childhood development and justice, and to create economic development tools;
3. the public service, through which the federal government sets an example by enhancing the provision of federal services in both official languages, the participation of English-speaking and French-speaking Canadians in federal institutions and the use of the official languages in the workplace;
3. And greater support for the development of language industries in order to address the shortage of specialized language training and translation instructors and by expanding the range of careers that foster the language skills required in the federal public service.

4. In March 2005, the Government of Canada added to the Action Plan an Enabling Fund for official language communities, which rounds out existing programs that support human resources development and community economic development.

A.        Accountability and Coordination Framework

This framework is intended to make federal institutions more aware of their obligations under the Official Languages Act, to provide for ongoing consultation with official language communities and to establish an interdepartmental coordination mechanism on official languages. It includes 45 sections, the first 30 of which clearly spell out the responsibilities of federal institutions, especially those of the Department of Canadian Heritage, which is responsible for coordinating all measures taken by federal institutions to support the development of official language minority communities (Part VII of the Official Languages Act), and those of Treasury Board, which is responsible for services to the public (Part IV), language of work (Part V) and the equitable participation of English-speaking and French-speaking Canadians in the federal public service (Part VI).

These sections spell out federal institutions’ current responsibilities. The framework goes one step further by adding new responsibilities under five categories:

1. An official languages perspective in the development of all new initiatives by federal institutions. Section 7 of the Framework stipulates that “all federal institutions are required to analyse the impact of proposals contained in memoranda to Cabinet on the language rights of Canadians and federal public servants.”³
2. The implementation by each federal institution of a systematic process for raising employee awareness, evaluating impact on linguistic duality and community development, consulting interested publics, “especially representatives of official language minority communities, in connection with the development or implementation of policies or programs,”⁴ and the evaluation of results.
3. The establishment of a horizontal coordination mechanism focussed on the minister responsible for official languages. This minister must now ensure that federal institutions fulfill their responsibilities under the Official Languages Act and the Action Plan. This monitoring role will be supported by the Committee of Deputy Ministers on Official Languages and a secretariat that is part of the Privy Council Office.⁵

4. A larger evaluation role for the Department of Justice to allow it to examine the legal implications for official languages of initiatives by federal institutions.
5. The establishment of an evaluation process for measures taken under the Action Plan, including the preparation of a midterm report and an overall evaluation at the end of the implementation period.

The Action Plan includes a budget of $13.5 million allocated over five years to the Privy Council Office for the overall coordination of the plan. In February 2006, this budget was transferred to the Department of Canadian Heritage.

B.        Education

Over half of the $751 million initial investment set out in the Action Plan was earmarked for education, with the following objectives:

• Increase the proportion of rights holders enrolled in French-language schools from 68% in 2003 to 80% in 2013;
• Support for French-language instruction for Anglophones in Quebec, and support to English-language schools outside Montreal;
• Increase the proportion of high school graduates with a working knowledge of their second official language from 24% in 2003 to 50% in 2013;
• Increase the number of participants in summer language bursary and language monitor programs;
• Promote research.

In order to achieve these ambitious objectives, the Action Plan included a significant increase in funding for federal-provincial-territorial agreements: $209 million more over five years for existing minority-language education programs, and $137 million more over five years for second-language instruction programs. These agreements represent an estimate of the additional costs incurred by each province and territory in order to offer minority-language education and second-language instruction, as compared to what it would cost for the same number of students if they were taught in the majority language. The Action Plan also included a $35.5 million increase for the official language monitor and summer bursary programs.

C.        Community Development

In order to foster the vitality of official language minority communities, the Action Plan identified seven key areas of activity: early childhood development, health services, justice, immigration, economic development, partnership with the provinces and territories and support for community life.

With respect to early childhood development ($22 million over five years), three commitments were made:

• $7.4 million for literacy development services;
• $10.8 million for research in the form of pilot projects to evaluate how French‑language child care services influence the cultural and linguistic development of young children;
• $3.8 million in support of national organizations for the sharing of knowledge on early childhood development in official language minority communities.

With respect to health services, the Action Plan provided for a total investment of $129.6 million broken down as follows:

• $14 million for networking to help establish regional networks linking health care professionals, institution managers, local elected officials, teachers and community representatives;
• $75 million for workforce training, recruitment and retention, including $63 million administered by the Consortium national de formation en santé, whose objective is to train 1,000 new Francophone health professionals for minority communities by 2008;
• $30 million, including $10 million for Quebec’s Anglophone community, for the Fonds pour l’adaptation des soins de santé primaires (Entente Santé 2000), which represents a substantial increase in funding for the federal-provincial agreement that was concluded in 2000 and expired in 2006. Further funding of $10.6 million was added for 2006-2007.

With respect to justice, the Action Plan provided $45.5 million for two groups of initiatives:

• $27 million for upholding the legal obligations stemming from the implementation of the Legislative Instruments Re-Enactment Ac⁶ and Contraventions Act⁷ issues;
• $18.5 million for targeted measures to improve access to justice in both official languages, including funding for federal-provincial-territorial initiatives, funding for associations of French-speaking jurists, the creation of a community consultation mechanism, and the development of training tools for counsel employed with the Department of Justice.

With respect to immigration, the Action Plan provided $9 million over five years, administered by Citizenship and Immigration Canada, which previously had no stable funding for official language minority communities. This funding was earmarked for market studies and the production of promotional material to be used abroad and to support information centres for Francophone immigrants and French correspondence courses.

With respect to economic development, the Action Plan included:

• $13 million over five years for the Francommunautés virtuelles program, which seeks to increase online services in French that bring together Francophone and Acadian communities;
• $7.3 million over five years from the existing budgets of Human Resources Development for internships relating to economic development, as well as $2 million in additional funding allocated to regional development agencies;
• $10 million over five years for pilot projects to develop technology infrastructure in order to enhance the services offered;
• $8 million over five years to improve the information and reference services offered by Human Resources Development, Industry Canada and regional development agencies, within existing structures, including the hiring of bilingual counsellors.

As to partnership with the provinces and territories, the Action Plan included an increase in the contribution by Canadian Heritage to federal-provincial-territorial agreements for official language minority services. These agreements encourage and help provincial and territorial governments improve their services to the official language minority community.

With respect to support for community life, the Action Plan includes an additional investment of $19 million over five years to fund projects submitted to Canadian Heritage that are likely to help communities, especially for community centres, culture and the media.

D.        Federal Public Service

With planned investments of $64.6 million over five years, the revitalization of linguistic duality in the federal public service is a key element of the Action Plan for Official Languages:

• $14 million for Treasury Board investments to support initiatives by other departments and agencies, including the creation of a Regional Partnership Fund to adapt federal initiatives locally, and an Official Languages Innovation Fund to support the services offered in both official languages and a corresponding workplace. This program was cancelled after three years, reducing the total investment to about $6 million;
• $12 million increase to the budgets of Treasury Board’s Official Languages Branch in order to develop “evaluation tools as well as measures that institutions can use in the future for self-evaluation.”⁸ All of Treasury Board’s official languages responsibilities and the related budgets were transferred to the Public Service Human Resources Management Agency as of when it was created on December 12, 2003.⁹ The purpose of the Action Plan’s investments was to enable the Agency to serve “as a centre of excellence for other federal institutions.”¹⁰ The Agency’s name was changed to the Canada Public Service Agency in April 2007.
• $38.6 million to the Public Service Commission to increase bilingual capacity in the public service, including $2.5 million to encourage the hiring of candidates who are already bilingual, and $36.1 million to offer language training and foster the retention and development of language skills. ¹¹ An additional $12 million in funding was allocated to the School of Public Service from 2005-2006 to 2006-2007 to reduce waiting lists for language training, thereby increasing the Action Plan’s total investment in language training to $48.1 million.

E.        Language Industries

In an attempt to counter the fragmentation and lack of visibility of these industries, to foster the recruitment of a sufficient number of replacement workers and to support research, the Action Plan included a $20 million investment allocated as follows:

• $5 million for the establishment of a representative organization and to fund its coordination activities;
• $5 million for market promotion and branding initiatives in Canada and internationally, to increase visibility for the industries and attract new talent;
• $10 million for the establishment of a research centre on language industries.

 F.        Enabling Fund

The Enabling Fund, also known as the Enabling Fund for Official Language Minority Communities, replaced the Official Language Minority Communities Support Fund in March 2005, following a review of the latter’s mandate. It was then included under the Action Plan for Official Languages for fiscal years 2005-2006 to 2007-2008. This fund boosts the work of the Réseaux de développement économiques et d’employabilité (RDÉE) and the Community Economic Development and Employability Committees (CEDEC). This Fund received annual funding of $12 million for the last three years of the Action Plan and was initially intended to be renewed until 2010.¹²