With the exception of the circumstances already provided for under section 22 of the
Official Languages Act, the Act states that the Governor in Council may make regulations to define any other circumstance in which there is a significant demand for services and communications in either official language at an office of a federal institution (section 32). The
Official Languages (Communications with and Services to the Public)
Regulations, issued on December 16, 1991, identify various circumstances in which services and communications must be available in both official languages. For this purpose, the Regulations stipulate the use of the official languages data from the most recent decennial Canada census. These data are used with respect to the circumstances where significant demand is defined in terms of the size of the official language minority community or its percentage of the total population in the region where it resides. As a result, a number of institutions will have to carry out a review of the application of the Regulations using the official language data from the 2001 Census.
Certain provisions in the Regulations concerning significant demand are based not on demography but on the concept of the volume of demand in either official language. Therefore, when the Regulations came into effect, it was necessary to measure demand at a number of offices and the validity of the results will expire in 2003 or 2004, as applicable. Certain institutions will therefore have to conduct some new assessments of demand in each of the two official languages. The results are essential for determining whether there is an obligation to provide services in both official languages.
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