Summary of approved projects for the fiscal year 2005-06 - Backgrounder

Official Languages Innovation Fund

1. Citizenship and Immigration Canada (Pacific Region) will receive $24,000 to facilitate regional employees’ exposure to francophone culture and terminology as well as continual use of French language at work by providing them with an opportunity to work in a francophone environment.
2. Veterans Affairs Canada will receive $30,000 to provide assignment opportunities, to bilingual employees to work in Veterans Affairs offices where the language of work corresponds to the individual’s second official language.
3. Passport Office Canada will receive $15,000 for a project – an exchange of bilingual front-line employees in the Passport Office – that will improve the second-language capability of the participants. Participants will be exposed to second-language cultural and social activities in the receiving office and community.
4. Canada Border Services Agency (Niagara-Fort Erie Region & Windsor-St.Clair Region) in collaboration with the Québec Region of the CBSA will receive $40,000 to allow employees of these two predominantly English regions of Ontario to be temporarily assigned to a position comparable or identical to their substantive one at a port of entry or airport within the Québec Region of the CBSA.
5. Canada Revenue Agency (St.Catherines) will receive $6,000 to allow 3 employees to work in a predominantly French speaking area (Québec or Ontario) to improve their second language competencies. In exchange, 3 CRA employees from Quebec or Ontario will also have the opportunity to work in English at Tax service office in St.Catherines.
6. Correctional Service Canada (CSC) will receive $67,000 to set up an exchange program pilot project for CSC employees in the Quebec, Ontario and Atlantic regions, to help them maintain and improve their second official language. Targeted for the project will be EX-01 to EX-03 employees who have at least level B in oral interaction.
7. Canada Revenue Agency (Ottawa) will receive $270,000 to partly finance the process of developing a procurement strategy to identify French-language training services that support the professional development of Senior and Executive level personnel, incorporating language development in support of everyday business functions.
8. Canadian Defence Academy, in cooperation with the Directorate of Official Languages, will receive $35,000 to conduct a feasibility study on the viability of a second-language retention pilot project for Canadian Forces senior officers and members of the civilian executive group.
9. Public Health Agency of Canada, Atlantic region, will receive $20,000 to hire a third party contractor to conduct an external assessment of its organizational culture with respect to official languages.
10. Environment Canada will receive $50,000 to implement passive bilingualism at the executive level in the department. The project will also help identify the circumstances in which passive bilingualism is useful and can be used.
11. Public Works and Government Services Canada, through the Translation Bureau, will receive $99,000 to develop a mechanism to regularly update, publish and disseminate the bilingual standard ISO/IEC 2382 entitled Information Technology Vocabulary.
12. Health Canada will receive $59,000 to enable Health Canada employees to learn through the innovative medium of videoconferencing. The system, adapted to their workstations and working conditions, will help them improve and retain their second-language skills. Using an interactive and iterative approach, they will work with a telementor, while remaining at their own workstations.
13. Parks Canada (Mountain National Parks) will receive $23,000 to provide the means for sharing of important public safety information and research in both official languages, and for greatly improving service to the public.
14. Transport Canada will receive $90,000 for a pilot project that uses a mixed approach to language training for development purposes. The department will be able to alternate full-time and part-time training as a way of managing employees’ workloads, rather than taking staffing action to replace employees who are on training. The initiative will target primarily employees who are not entitled to language training under the Act.
15. Canada Revenue Agency (Toronto) will receive $31 000 to establish four (4) unilingual French-speaking Toastmasters clubs in the Greater Toronto Area. These clubs will be precedent setting as there are currently no French-speaking Toastmasters clubs in the Public Service in Toronto and its environs. Toastmasters is an internationally recognized group devoted to making effective oral communication a reality.
16. Royal Canadian Mounted Police – Pacific Region will receive $31 000 to implement a program based on the principles of Accelerated Learning techniques. Learners in this program will be invited to actively participate in a wide variety of activities, role plays and games in order to facilitate their learning process.

Regional Partnership Fund

1. Newfoundland and Labrador Regional Council will receive $182,000 for Phase III of the five-year Partners for French Innovation Project. This year’s proposal targets incremental activities to propel official languages objectives to new levels of priority in the workplans, networks and initiatives of the federal public service in this province.
2. Prince Edward Island Regional Council will receive $91,000 for a range of actions focussed particularly on ensuring improvements to service to the public. Several new initiatives will build upon results achieved in the first two years of the Regional Partnerships Fund Project in Prince Edward Island.
3. The New Brunswick Regional Council will receive $165,000 to strengthen the support structure for federal institutions and help them organize innovative activities that foster cultural change and have a long-term ripple effect. The goals have been developed at a retreat of the New Brunswick Official Languages Committee in January 2005.
4. Nova Scotia Regional Council will receive $106,000 to provide workshops, speakers and presentations to discuss the challenges, solutions and best practices that will reinforce a culture change.
5. The Quebec Regional Council will receive $160,000 to step up the recruitment of Anglophones for federal institutions in Quebec. They will be hiring student ambassadors and organizing job clinics at Anglophone educational institutions in Quebec. They will also be creating an inventory of existing jobs in the federal Public Service and setting up an internship program for Anglophone students in their field of study.
6. The Ontario Regional Council will receive $125,000 to hold a forum aimed at developing a regional strategic plan on official languages.
7. The Manitoba Regional Council will receive $102,000 to hire an official languages coordinator for the Manitoba Federal Council who, among other things, will oversee implementation of the Western Federal Councils' Official Languages Strategic Plan.
8. Manitoba Regional Council will receive $200,000 to establish a western official languages regional website geared to the needs of departmental official languages coordinators.
9. Saskatchewan Regional Council will receive $107,000 to engage a full-time coordinator to oversee interdepartmental official languages initiatives. The focus will shift to build strong leadership at the senior level within the federal family of Saskatchewan.
10. Saskatchewan Regional Council will receive $20,000 to commission research that will form the basis of a long-term developmental approach to French-languages training in Saskatchewan. The ultimate objective is to significantly broaden French-language capacity within the Saskatchewan federal public service and thereby improve service to the public.
11. Alberta Regional Council will receive $251,000 to operationalize many of the targeted initiatives that have been identified during the formative and planning stages of the Alberta Linguistic Duality Network in 2004-05.
12. Pacific Regional Council will receive $170,000 to address language retention initiatives in BC through a variety of means. Particular emphasis will be given to use alternative delivery methods which will allow for participation beyond the major population centres.
13. Pacific Regional Council will receive $96,000 for a full-time Official Languages Coordinator position. This person will work on interdepartmental, western and national official languages initiatives on behalf of the Pacific Regional Council, with its Official Languages Champion and the Pacific Federal Council Official Languages Committee.
14. Pacific Regional Council will receive $54,000 to develop a number of initiatives that will become self-sufficient and not require ongoing funding. The project is founded on the principle that education about official languages will result in improved service to the public.
15. Pacific Regional Council will receive $80,000 to target federal government employees with Cantonese as a first language and English as a second language. The project will see the participants learning French with an emphasis on the cultural and community aspects of the Francophone community in British Colombia.