2005-2006 Fact Sheet
Royal Canadian Mounted Police

a) An accountability framework, an action plan and accountability mechanisms are in place (5%)

Note: Under the terms of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act, the RCMP is a separate employer. However, about one-fifth of its workforce is composed of federal public servants who are covered by the Public Service Employment Act. For the purposes of this assessment exercise, especially the statistical parts, only employees hired under the RCMP Act (that is, "Regular Members") are covered.

The RCMP does not have an official language (OL) accountability framework but has a limited five-point OL Action Plan in terms of the bilingual capacity for supervisors, EX and staff serving the public. The plan also covers increasing active offer of service. However, no specific measures or deadlines are specified in the plan. The Chief Human Resources Officer, who is also the OL champion, sent out the Action Plan to all senior managers in August 2005, with a requirement that they report back on implementation status by early 2006.

Accountability for proper implementation of some OL responsibilities is specified in the performance agreement signed by senior officers.

The RCMP produces both the Report on Plans and Priorities and the Performance Report but there is no mention of OL in either of these documents again this year. The RCMP has indicated to the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages (OCOL) that even though there may not be any explicit mention of OL in current strategic documents, nonetheless, like the concept of "Community Policing," OL are becoming a part of the culture—of the standard way of doing policing.

The RCMP does subject-specific OL audits and evaluations. For example, the Internal Audit and Evaluation Branch will be auditing payments of the bilingualism bonus as part of a larger audit it is conducting in 2005-2006 on compensation. The determination of when, and on what subjects, internal audits will be done is based on risk-management principles. The last OL-related full audit was done in 2003.

OL are discussed at Senior Executive Committee meetings on average three times a year. The OL champion attends these meetings.

The national OL Policy Centre receives all OCOL complaints and handles those it judges to be systemic or national in nature; otherwise, they are referred to the particular regional OL officer. The regional coordinators work with the specific manager(s) involved to resolve the issue.

After a hiatus of several years, there is now a mechanism in place again to help OL coordinators learn from the OL complaints received. This is the annual meeting of OL coordinators with the OL director and her Ottawa staff, which started up again in November 2005. One of the items on the agenda of such meetings is a review of shared problems and of systemic complaints. The annual meeting is complemented by videoconferences or teleconference several times a year where such information is also shared.

OCOL has identified that the serious systemic problem related to the language requirements of positions in New Brunswick is not completely resolved.

a) Bilingual services advertised to the public and sufficient bilingual staff (4%)

Members of the public are made aware that bilingual services are available through BUROLIS and listings in the Government Blue Pages of local telephone directories. However, while visiting service points in the fall of 2005, OCOL representatives noted that BUROLIS was not up to date, particularly in the case of office no. 10699.

Table 3 of the RCMP's 2004-2005 Annual Review of Official Languages indicates that as of March 31, 2005, 2,453 of 2,838 non-Public Service employees in bilingual positions serving the public 86.4% met the language requirements of their position.

According to observations of in-person service made by OCOL in the fall of 2005, active visual offer was present in 76% of cases, active offer by staff was made in 26% of cases, while service in the language of the linguistic minority was adequate in 74% of cases.

According to observations of service on the telephone conducted by OCOL in the fall of 2005, active offer of service by staff or by an automated system was made in 37% of cases, while service in the language of the linguistic minority was adequate in 60% of cases.

It is the RCMP's policy that when members receive their orientation upon joining a bilingual detachment, information on bilingual service requirements is to be given to them locally. However, there is little ongoing central monitoring that the employee is indeed informed of these obligations by the detachment, or that local managers monitor the implementation of these obligations. In 2004-2005, the RCMP's OL policy centre determined that the policy requirement was not consistently applied in bilingual detachments across the country.

The RCMP's policy provides that OL coordinators should meet regularly with OL minority representatives to determine their degree of service satisfaction. During 2004-2005 fiscal year, the Strategic Policy and Planning Branch (SPPB) of the RCMP conducted a survey of the RCMP's "non-policing" partners, i.e. federal and provincial governments, non-profit associations and OL minority groups that included some questions on service to the public. Among other subjects, this survey measured the level of satisfaction with the RCMP's ability to provide services to this particular target group in its official language of choice. In 2005-2006, the RCMP worked at developing a survey that will be administered to citizens concerning telephone services to the public. It will contain six questions about language (i.e. French or English service).

Through their monitoring of internal and OCOL complaints and some active monitoring (e.g. informal check-ups or assessments), the OL Directorate does some monitoring of compliance with the RCMP's bilingual service obligations.

a) Adequate bilingual supervision and language of work policy (12.5%)

82% of the RCMP's non-Public Service supervisors in bilingual regions who are required to supervise their employees in both official languages are able to do so. (Source: Table 3 of the RCMP's 2004-2005 Annual Review of Official Languages)

The RCMP has a policy that specifies the rights and obligations related to language of work. Some supports for this policy are in place such as language training and limited editing/revision services. As a corporate entity, the RCMP has provided for and confirmed its budget commitment for language training to ensure that its employees receive the language training they need. (The RCMP spends over one million dollars each year to provide such training to its members.)

The OL Directorate provides some information sessions on language of work, upon request. However, besides this, the RCMP did not provide other examples of measures to encourage employees to use the language of the local OL minority or of reminders of the language of work policy to employees and managers.

Most members of the Executive are bilingual, but Senior Executive Committee meetings are held primarily in English.

No control mechanisms are in place to ensure the language of work policy is applied properly.

a) Percentage of Francophone participation throughout Canada (5%)

a) Strategic planning and the development of policies and programs take into account the development of minority language communities (12.5%)

The RCMP does not have a formal mechanism in place to ensure that strategic planning and policy and program development consciously consider the RCMP's corporate impact on the economic and social development of OL minority communities. There is no requirement to consider Part VII implications in either Cabinet documents or Treasury Board submissions; only Parts IV, V and VI need to be considered.

Through its community policing initiatives, the RCMP conducts several consultations with the communities at the regional level (i.e. most mayors and town councils of Francophone municipalities in New Brunswick). In addition, in the spring of 2004, the four Commanding Officers (COs) in the Atlantic Region each appointed a liaison officer for their division (province) to consult with representatives of the Francophone communities in order to better understand their needs, to enhance communication with these groups, and to improve services to minority language communities where required. The B Division (Newfoundland and Labrador) CO met personally with the Newfoundland and Labrador Francophone Federation. The District Commander of Prince District in Prince Edward Island had previously established a community consultative committee with the local Francophone community there. Given the success of this committee, the CO has been organizing consultation groups with the Francophone communities in the other two districts on Prince Edward Island. RCMP policy stipulates that regional OL coordinators should meet regularly with the OL minority representatives to determine their degree of service satisfaction. A satisfaction questionnaire will be carried out in 2006-2007.

The requirement for the purchase of space and time in media serving OL minority communities is part of the RCMP's policy. The Director General of Communications ensures all press releases and media-buys comply with this policy.

There does not seem to be an organized effort to inform RCMP employees about the needs and situation of official language minority communities. Nonetheless, by the very nature of how the RCMP does community policing today, members are in regular contact with a wide variety of socio-demographic groups, including representatives of the OL community. This provides them with information on the needs of the communities.

The RCMP does not have a mechanism to ensure strategic planning, policy and program development take into account the promotion of linguistic duality.

Still, the RCMP's buildings and other capital resources (e.g. cruisers) clearly project the bilingual image of the RCMP, even in unilingual regions. The RCMP has a long tradition of being active in volunteer and social activities for the communities in which it operates. Internally, opportunities such as Les Rendez-vous de la francophonie are used to promote the linguistic duality of the country.