Why must federal institutions review the application of the Official Languages (Communications with and Services to the Public) Regulations in light of the 2001 Census data?
- The Regulations include provisions that define significant demand in terms of the size of the official language minority populations, and other provisions that take into account the volume of demand for services. In the first case, the Regulations provide for the use of the data from the most recent decennial census of the population. Thus, the provisions in the Regulations must be reapplied using the 2001 Census data.
Are all offices and service points of institutions covered by the
compliance review of the Official Languages (Communications with and Services to the Public) Regulations?
- No. Institutions that have only one office, the head office, or offices in the National Capital Region, or that report directly to Parliament are not covered by the review, since those offices are automatically required to serve the public in both official languages under sections 22
or 24 of the
Official Languages Act.
What do we mean by official language minority population?
- In the Regulations, the English or French linguistic minority population is defined as the official language minority population in a given province, as determined by Statistics Canada under "Method 1" described in its publication "Population Estimates by First Official Language Spoken". This statistical method involves combining in an objective way the various figures on knowledge of official languages, mother tongue and home language.
What are the deadlines for reviewing the application of the Official Languages (Communications with and Services to the Public)
Regulations?
- The Regulations do not stipulate a deadline for the review of significant demand in light of the decennial census data. However, since the
Official Languages Act is always in force, institutions must proceed to review the application of the Regulations without undue delay once they have been provided with the new data and the necessary tools.
Does the Public Service Human Resources Management Agency of Canada intend to provide federal departments and agencies with tools for carrying out this exercise?
- The Public Service Human Resources Management Agency of Canada will ensure that institutions have the tools necessary to carry out this regulatory compliance review exercise.
- The Public Service Human Resources Management Agency of Canada is working with Statistics Canada to obtain the tools needed for the analysis, including of course a statement of the population data on first official language spoken.
Does the Public Service Human Resources Management Agency of Canada plan to issue directives to institutions concerning
the compliance review of the Official Languages (Communications with and Services to the Public) Regulations?
- The Public Service Human Resources Management Agency of Canada plans to use various means to inform institutions of their responsibilities in this respect.
- The advisory committee meetings and the Public Service Human Resources Management Agency of Canada
Web site are among the means most likely to be used.
- Other means such as a letter or a bulletin, and even training sessions, have not been ruled out.
What assistance, in terms of human or financial resources, will the Public Service Human Resources Management Agency of Canada
provide to institutions that must carry out the compliance review of the
Official Languages (Communications with and Services to the Public)
Regulations?
- The staff of the Official Languages Branch of the Public Service Human Resources Management Agency of Canada
will advise the institutions as needed, and will provide certain types of training as applicable to help the institutions complete this exercise.
- However, the institutions are responsible for applying the rules to their offices in light of the census language data, and for complying with Treasury Board of Canada directives for measuring the demand for services in both official languages when the provisions of the
Official Languages (Communications with and Services to the Public) Regulations so require.
- Any costs associated with the exercise must be paid out of the institutions' budgets.
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