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Implementation of section 41 of the Official Languages Act

Home - Section 41 - Role of Justice Canada - Publications - Action Plan 2005-2010

Five-Year Action Plan 2005-2010

Section II - Setting of community priorities

5. Measures taken to establish the priorities of Official Language Minority Communities at the national, provincial and territorial levels

To build this Action Plan, the Department of Justice held widespread consultations with Francophone and Anglophone minority community networks.

The Department’s efforts began in September 2002. Two consultation meetings were held with Official Language Minority Communities. In November 2002, thirty-seven people took part in a one-and-a-half day session, from the Department of Justice, official language minority community organizations and institutions and various government agencies concerned with the implementation of  41 of the Official Languages Act. Representatives from the Department’s senior management took part in informal discussions with community representatives at this meeting. In addition, a consultation with the Quebec Anglophone community took place in February 2003 as part of the annual meeting of the Quebec Community Groups Network.

Further meetings were held with key stakeholders from these communities in the area of justice, including the Fédération des associations de juristes d’expression française de common law. The Department also included in its approach the justice priorities described in the overall plan of the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada, presented to the government in the wake of the preparations for the federal government’s Action Plan for Official Languages.

The National Coordination Team for the implementation of Section 41 at the Department of Justice held regular meetings with some fifteen departmental program managers who currently have ties with Official Language Minority Communities or who have had such ties in recent years.

The Action Plan is also based on the results of a study entitled Environmental Scan: Access to Justice in Both Official Languages, prepared for the Department of Justice and published in July 2002. This study is available at: http://www.justice.gc.ca/en/ps/franc/ 

6. Main priorities identified at the national, provincial and territorial levels

Following Departmental consultations and an analysis of the environment, an effective and efficient implementation of Section 41, Community Component will have to meet the following four priority categories:

1. The Department of Justice must be better acquainted with the priorities of the various groups from Official Language Minority Communities.

• groups working in the area of family violence;
• ethno cultural communities (new Canadians, immigrants, Francophone refugees living in minority communities);
• women;
• youth;
• seniors;
• children.

2. The official language communities and their intermediary organizations must be better informed about the programs and services offered by the Department of Justice.

A study of the July 2002 Environmental Scan, as well as the consultations that followed, showed that communities knew little or nothing about the component of the Department’s mandate related to social development. A departmental study had already confirmed, back in December 2000, that the majority of the Canadian public was ill-informed about the Justice Department’s programs and services. This study recommended that the Department implement measures to raise public awareness of the activities and programs designed to protect and defend the Canadian population.

3. Justice is a shared jurisdiction. As such, there is a need for cooperation between the federal and provincial-territorial organizations and agencies working in the area of justice. 

4. Official Language Minority Communities and the different government agencies working in the area of justice must be more aware of the potential impact of justice issues on the vitality of these communities.

Analyses showed that community groups were mostly interested in funding programs. During consultations, however, these same groups discovered that the Department was developing policies related to the administration of justice, and they realized the impact of this role on the development of Official Language Minority Communities, namely in matters of family justice, divorce, shared custody and their linguistic dimensions. It is likely that other areas of intervention by the Department have a similar impact on the communities without having yet been identified as such. The ability to identify such links early is in fact one of the reasons why the Department wanted to set up permanent consultation mechanisms with communities.

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