Survey on the Use of the Official Languages at Work in the Federal Institutions in New Brunswick 1996 - Number 15

Executive Summary

The Financial and Information Management Branch, Evaluation and Review Audit Group, of Treasury Board Of Canada Secretariat engaged Statistics Canada to undertake a survey of federal government employees in New Brunswick on the 'Use of the Official Languages at Work'.

The objectives of the survey were to determine:

1. if federal employees in New Brunswick have been informed of their 'language of work rights',
2. whether the work environment for federal employees in New Brunswick is conducive to and accommodates the effective use of both official languages, and
3. if federal institutions in New Brunswick are meeting their obligations in making available specific services in both official languages.

A census of active federal employees (i.e. persons employed by the federal government for a period of more than three months) in New Brunswick was conducted in March and April, 1996. Excluded from the survey were employees of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages, Solicitor General Canada, Department of Justice Canada, and Revenue Canada employees in Moncton and Saint John. The resulting survey population consisted of 10,611 employees.

Useable survey questionnaires were returned by 5,950 employees for a response rate of about 56%.

Survey Highlights

Some of the highlights of the survey findings as they pertain to the survey objectives are as follows:

Employee Data

• English was identified as the first official language by 64% of all respondents while 36% identified French as their first official language.
• Less than half (2640 or 44.5%) of survey respondents are in bilingual positions. Most Francophone respondents (82.6%) are in bilingual positions while relatively few Anglophone respondents (22.9%) occupy such positions. The most common reason for identification of a position as bilingual is to provide services to the public.
• French 'bilingual' respondents perceive themselves as fluent in both official languages. However, about one-third of English 'bilingual' respondents feel that they speak French 'with difficulty' or 'not at all'.

Objective 1: To determine if federal employees in New Brunswick have been informed of their 'language of work rights'.

• Just over two-thirds of responding employees have been informed of their rights/obligations concerning the use of the official languages at work. The remaining approximately one-third either have not been informed or do not know if they have been informed of these rights/obligations.

Objective 2: To determine whether the work environment for federal employees in New Brunswick is conducive to and accommodates the effective use of both official languages.

• Overall, 88% of respondents are satisfied with the opportunity to work in their language of choice when they are 'not serving the public or other employees or providing supervision'. However, a higher percentage (92.4%) of Anglophone respondents are satisfied with this choice than the percentage (79%) of satisfied Francophone respondents, a difference of about 13%.
• Over 90% of Anglophone respondents use 'English Only' or 'Mostly English' in carrying out their duties. By contrast, very few (10.3%) Francophone respondents use 'French Only' or 'Mostly French' in carrying out their duties. Francophone respondents are more likely to use 'English & French Equally' (55.1%) or 'English or Mostly English' (34.3%). This is due to the fact that just over 8 of 10 (82.6%) Francophone respondents are in 'bilingual' positions and another just over 1 of 10 (11.2%) are in 'English-Essential' positions.
• About 4 of 5 survey respondents have the opinion that English is spoken between 80% and 100% of the time at internal staff meetings. Overall, 80.5% of respondents are satisfied with the use of either official language at internal staff meetings. However, only about two-thirds of Francophone respondents are satisfied with this use while one-third of them would prefer to see French used more often in internal staff meetings.

Objective 3: To determine if federal institutions in New Brunswick are meeting their obligations in making available specific services in both official languages.

• 87% of responding employees who use internal services are satisfied with the provision of these services in either official language. However, in comparing the responses of Anglophone respondents with those of Francophone respondents, there is a difference of around 20% in the percentage of satisfied respondents - 94.7% of Anglophone respondents versus 74.4% of Francophone respondents are satisfied with the provision of internal services in either official language. Perhaps it is surprising that satisfaction amongst Francophone respondents is even this high given that 41% of these respondents reported that internal services are 'seldom' or 'never' offered in French, their first official language.
• Approximately 87% of all responding employees who use computer programs at work are satisfied with the availability of computer programs in either official language. Almost all (95.8%) Anglophone respondents are satisfied with this availability. However, just over one-quarter (26.6%) of Francophone respondents would prefer to see more computer programs available in French.

• Almost 90% of responding employees who use work instruments are satisfied with the availability of these instruments in either official language. However, comparing the Francophone respondents to the Anglophone respondents there is a difference of almost 16% in the percentage of responding employees who are satisfied with this availability - 79.7% of the French group are satisfied with the availability of work instruments in either official language versus 95.5% of the English group who are satisfied.

• Close to 80% of respondents have attended a professional training course provided by their department/agency in the last two years. Approximately 86% of these attendees are satisfied with the availability of these professional training courses in either official language. However, there is a difference of 25.5% between the percentage of satisfied Anglophone respondents (95.1%) versus satisfied Francophone respondents (69.6%). Of all the Francophone respondents, 46.5% offered the opinion that these professional courses are 'seldom or never' available in French.

Management's Response

The Official Languages Division, Human Resources Branch, has forwarded the results of the survey to participating federal institutions so that they can take note of them with reference to their mode of operation in New Brunswick.

1. Introduction

1.1 Objectives

The objectives of the survey were as follows:

1. To determine if federal government employees in New Brunswick have been informed of their 'language of work rights'. (Treasury Board Manual - Official Languages, Chap 2-1, Appendix A)
1. To determine if the work environment for federal government employees in New Brunswick is conducive to the effective use of both official languages and accommodates the use of both official languages. (Official Languages Act, Section 35)
2. To determine if federal institutions in New Brunswick are meeting their obligations in making available specific services in both official languages. (Official Languages Act, Section 36)

1.2 Target Population

The population of interest for the survey was all active federal government employees in New Brunswick, i.e. persons employed with the federal government in New Brunswick for a period of more than three months, except employees of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages, Solicitor General Canada, Justice Department Canada, and Revenue Canada employees in Moncton and Saint John.

A list of the target employees, excluding Royal Canadian Mounted Police personnel and National Defence military personnel, was provided to Statistics Canada by Public Works and Government Services Canada. The list of National Defence military personnel was provided to Statistics Canada by Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat. No list of RCMP personnel was provided - rather, Statistics Canada was given the name of a contact person for questionnaire distribution and informed that 650 questionnaires were required for RCMP personnel in New Brunswick.

The total size of the target population according to the information provided to Statistics Canada was 10,611 employees. The size of this target population by department is shown in TABLE 100 on the following page.

TABLE 100: Number of Employees in Target Population by Department **

* A list of the department codes and the corresponding department names can be found in Appendix II.

** Based on lists provided by 'Public Works and Government Services Canada' and 'Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat'.

***
 i) DND and DND(military) are combined as DND in the final results.
ii) DPW and SVC are combined as SVC in the final survey results.
iii) RCM and RCMP are combined as RCM in the final results.

1.3 Survey Methodology

A census of the target population of 10,611 federal employees in New Brunswick was undertaken.

Questionnaires were distributed to all employees in the target population, except National Defence military personnel and RCMP personnel, through the Halifax and National Capital Region Pay Offices of Public Works and Government Services Canada. Questionnaires for National Defence military personnel were mailed directly using the list of mailing addresses provided by Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat. Questionnaires for RCMP personnel were sent to the RCMP contact for distribution.

The initial distribution of questionnaires took place by March 6, 1996. A reminder letter was distributed to all members of the target population by March 20, 1996.

1.4 Response Rate

A total of 6,086 questionnaires or approximately 57% of the distributed questionnaires were returned to Statistics Canada. Of this total, 5,950 useable questionnaires were received from members of the target population for an effective response rate of about 56%. Eleven questionnaires contained only a comment from the respondent (no questions were answered) and therefore, could not be used. The remaining 125 questionnaires were considered 'out-of-scope', i.e. 78 questionnaires were returned because the respondent had moved out of New Brunswick, 11 questionnaires were received from federal employees who were not employed by one of the target departments, and 36 questionnaires were from people who were no longer employed by the federal government at the time of the survey.

The count of the number of questionnaires returned by department name is presented in Table 101 on the next page. (See Appendix II for a list of the department codes and the corresponding department names.)

TABLE 101: Number of Returned Questionnaires by Department

NOTES: 
1) OTHER DEPT
In cases where fewer than five employees responded from a department they were coded as OTHER DEPT.

2) UNKNOWN
This code was used in cases where the respondents write-in response to Question 1 was not explicit enough to identify the name of the department.

3) NOT STATED
In these cases there was no response provided by the respondent to Question 1.

2.0 Structure of the Questionnaire

The survey questionnaire consisted of four main sections:

1. Employee Data & Functions

2. This section of the questionnaire, consisting of Questions 1 - 6, provides a linguistic profile of federal employees in New Brunswick.

3. Program Knowledge (i.e. Official Languages Program)

4. Responses to Question 7 yield the data to satisfy objective 1 - to determine if employees have been informed of their language of work rights.

5. Use of the Official Language at Work

6. Questions 8 - 11 pertain to objective 2 - to determine if the work environment is conducive to and accommodates the effective use of both official languages.

7. Department/Agency Duties

Questions 12 - 28 measure whether federal departments in New Brunswick are meeting their obligations in making available specific services in both official languages, i.e. objective 3.

A copy of the questionnaire may be found in Appendix I on page 31.

3.0 Survey Results

The survey results are based on the 5,950 questionnaires received from members of the target population. The results of individual survey questions are presented as percentages, based on the total number of complete responses to those questions. No attempt has been made to extrapolate the survey results to the population of all federal employees in New Brunswick.

In this report many results are reported by 'first official language'. The term 'Anglophone respondents' is used to describe those respondents who reported 'English' as their first official language and the term 'Francophone respondents' is used to describe those respondents who reported 'French' as their first official language.

A complete set of tabulations of the frequency of responses for each survey question can be found in Appendix III. As well, Appendix IV contains a complete set of tabulations of the percentage distribution of responses to each question cross-classified by first official language. Note that all tabulations contain the category 'Not Stated' meaning no answer was provided by the respondent to the relevant question. Also note that the 'n' column contains the number of responses for the pertinent question category.

3.1 Employee Data and Functions

Respondents were asked to indicate their 'first official language', their fluency in speaking each of the official languages, the language requirements of their position, and the reason(s) for the bilingual classification of their position where applicable.

3.1.1 First Official Language

About 64% of respondents identified 'English' as their 'first official language' while around 36% of respondents identified 'French' as their 'first official language'.

TABLE 202: Count of Question 2 - First Official Language

NOTE: A breakdown of the distribution of first official language by department/agency can be found in Table 201 in Appendix IV.

3.1.2 Fluency in Each Official Language - All Respondents

Overall, close to 92% of respondents consider themselves fluent in speaking 'English' and about 41% of respondents feel they are fluent in speaking 'French'.

As shown in Table 203 on the opposite page, when the first official language of the respondent is taken into account, almost all (98.6%) of the Francophone respondents reported that they speak 'English' either 'fluently' or 'relatively fluently'. Exactly 80% of the Francophone respondents consider themselves 'fluent' in speaking 'English' and close to 19% feel they are 'relatively fluent' in speaking 'English'.

By comparison, as displayed in Table 204 opposite, approximately one-quarter of the Anglophone respondents reported that they speak 'French' either 'fluently' or 'relatively fluently'. Just under 9% of the Anglophone respondents consider themselves 'fluent' in speaking 'French' while nearly 16% feel they are 'relatively fluent' in speaking 'French'. The remaining three-quarters of the Anglophone respondents believe they speak French 'with difficulty' (34.9%) or 'not at all' (40.4%).

TABLE 203: 'Q3 - Fluency in Speaking English' BY 'Q2 - First Official Language'

All Respondents

TABLE 204: 'Q4 - Fluency in Speaking French' BY 'Q2 - First Official Language'
All Respondents

The survey results regarding fluency in speaking the official languages is most pertinent to 'bilingual' respondents as discussed in the following section.

3.1.3 Fluency in Each Official Language - 'Bilingual Respondents'

For 'bilingual employees', that is those who reported in Question 5 that their position had bilingual language requirements, it is evident from Table 204A below that neither the bilingual Anglophone respondents nor the bilingual Francophone respondents perceive any difficulty with their fluency in speaking English, as more than 99% of respondents in each group feel they are 'fluent or relatively fluent' in speaking English. Not surprisingly, the bilingual Francophone respondents did not perceive any difficulty with their fluency in speaking French - 99.9% of them feel they are 'fluent or relatively fluent' in speaking French. For the bilingual Anglophone respondents, however, about two thirds (66.7%) of them reported they are 'fluent' (27.4%) or 'relatively fluent' (39.3%) in speaking French whereas approximately a third (33.4%) of these respondents feel they speak French 'with difficulty' (26.5%) or 'not at all' (6.9%).

TABLE 204A: Fluency in Speaking the Official Languages BY First Official Language

'Bilingual Respondents Only'

3.1.4 Language Requirements of Position

Table 205 below contains the distribution of responses relevant to the language requirements of respondents. About 45% (2640 employees) of all those who responded stated they are in positions identified as 'bilingual'.

Twice as many Francophone respondents (1777) are in 'bilingual' positions as Anglophone respondents (863) are in positions identified as 'bilingual'. In fact, about 4 out of 5 (82.6%) Francophone respondents are in bilingual positions. Slightly less than 1 in 4 (22.9%) Anglophone respondents occupy bilingual positions.

TABLE 205: 'Q5 - Language Requirements of Position' BY 'Q2: First Official Language'

According to bilingual respondents, the most common reason for identification of a position as bilingual is to provide 'services to the public' - 37.4% of those who indicated they are in a bilingual position gave this as the sole reason. The complete distribution of 'reasons for identification of a position as bilingual' is contained in Table 206 in Appendix IV.

3.2 Awareness of the Official Languages Program

Employees were asked if the department/agency had informed them of their rights/obligations concerning the use of either official language at work. The survey results in Table 207 relate directly to objective 1, i.e. to determine if federal employees in New Brunswick have been informed of their 'language of work rights' (Treasury Board Manual - Official Languages, Chap 2-1, Appendix A).

As shown in Table 207 below, about two-thirds of respondents have been informed of their rights/obligations concerning the use of the official languages at work whereas the other nearly one-third of responding employees either have not been informed or don't know if they have been informed.

Table 207: 'Question 7 - Informed of rights/obligations' BY 'Question 2 - First Official Language'

3.3 Use of the Official Languages at Work

The results in this section were tabulated from Questions 8 - 11 and pertain to survey objective 2, i.e. to determine if the work environment for federal government employees in New Brunswick is conducive to the effective use of both official languages and accommodates the use of both official languages. (Official Languages Act, Section 35).

3.3.1 Satisfaction with the Opportunity to Work in the Language of Choice

Overall, as shown in Table 209, about 88% of respondents are satisfied with the opportunity to work in the official language of their choice when they are 'not serving the public or other employees or providing supervision'.

There is a 13% difference in the percentage of satisfied Francophone respondents compared to satisfied Anglophone respondents (79% of Francophones vs 92.4% of Anglophones). Only about 6% of Anglophone respondents would prefer to use English more often while 20% of Francophone respondents would prefer to use French more often when they are 'not serving the public or other employees or providing supervision'.

Since a combined total of 94.3% of Anglophone respondents are in the categories 'satisfied' or 'dissatisfied - prefer more French', it may be postulated that these respondents are not restricted in the use of their first official language.

Comparatively, a combined total of 79.9% of Francophone respondents are in the categories 'satisfied' or 'dissatisfied - prefer more English'.

TABLE 209: 'Q9 - Satisfaction With Opportunity to Work in Official Language of Choice'

BY 'Q2 - First Official Language'

 3.3.2 Use of the Official Languages in Carrying Out Duties

From Table 208 below, 71% of responding employees use either 'English only' or 'mostly English' in carrying out their duties, including all communications with the public and other employees. Most of the remaining employees who responded to the survey (24.3%) use 'English and French equally' in carrying out their duties.

A comparison of the survey results by 'first official language' reveals that around 92% of Anglophone respondents use either 'English only' or 'mostly English' and only about 7% of them use 'English and French equally' in carrying out their duties whereas about 35% of Francophone respondents use either 'English only' or 'mostly English' and more of them (about 55.1%) use 'English and French equally' in carrying out their duties.

TABLE 208: 'Q8 - Official Language Used in Carrying Out Duties' BY 'Q2 - First Official Language

'All Respondents'

One should keep in mind when examining the above results that, as reported in section 4.1.4, only about 1 in 4 Anglophone respondents are in bilingual positions. Furthermore, as reported in section 4.1.3, even amongst the 'bilingual' Anglophone respondents, 1 in 3 speak French 'with difficulty or not at all'. Hence, the prevalence of use of the English language amongst Anglophone respondents is expected to be high. On the other hand, almost 83% of Francophone respondents are in bilingual positions and another 11% of them are in 'English-essential' positions. As well, virtually all of the 'bilingual' Francophone respondents speak English 'fluently' (82.2%) or 'relatively fluently' (16.9%). Consequently, it is not surprising that there is a greater mix of use of both official languages amongst Francophone respondents.

3.3.3 Use of the Official Languages in Carrying Out Duties - 'Bilingual Employees'

As reported earlier, there were 2640 responding employees who stated that the language requirement of their position is 'bilingual'. Table 208A below shows the prevalence of use of the official languages by these 'bilingual' respondents.

TABLE 208A: Official Language Used in Carrying Out Duties BY First Official Language

'Bilingual Respondents Only'

Overall, as shown in Table 208A, just under a half (48.9%) of the 'bilingual' employees use 'English and French Equally' in carrying out their duties. About 43% of them use 'English Only' or 'Mostly English' in carrying out their duties while the remainder (8%) use 'French Only' or 'Mostly French'.

In examining the results by the 'first official language' of respondents, a much greater percentage (61.1%) of bilingual Francophone respondents use 'English and French Equally' in carrying out their duties than the percentage (23.8%) of bilingual Anglophone respondents. Almost three quarters (73.6%) of bilingual Anglophone respondents use 'English Only' or 'Mostly English' in carrying out their duties while just over a quarter (28%) of bilingual Francophone respondents use 'English Only' or 'Mostly English'. The use of 'French Only' or 'Mostly French' is relatively small among bilingual respondents.

3.3.4 Satisfaction with the Use of English and French at Internal Staff Meetings

When specifically asked about the use of English and French at internal staff meetings that they attend the overall satisfaction amongst responding employees drops to 80.5% from the 87.6% of employees who are satisfied with the opportunity to work in the language of their choice as mentioned above in section 4.3.1.

Most Anglophone respondents (89.8%) are satisfied with the use of official languages at internal staff meetings that they attend - only about 8% would prefer that English be spoken more often at these meetings. Furthermore, one could argue that 92.1% of Anglophone respondents are not impeded in the opportunity to function at internal staff meetings in their first official language since they are either 'satisfied' (89.8%) or 'dissatisfied but prefer the use of more French' (2.3%).

In contrast, one third of Francophone respondents would prefer that French be spoken more often at internal staff meetings while around two-thirds (64.2%) of them are satisfied with the use of the official languages at such meetings. Around two-thirds of Francophone respondents feel they are not hampered in using their first official language at internal staff meetings - 64.2% of them are 'satisfied' and 2.0% are 'dissatisfied but prefer the use of more English'.

TABLE 211: 'Q11 - Satisfaction With Use of English & French at Meetings'

BY 'Q2 - First Official Language'

As displayed in Table 210A (a collapsed version of Table 210 in Appendix IV) below, it is evident that English is the predominant language of work at internal staff meetings - approximately 4 of 5 (79.3%) respondents expressed the opinion that English is spoken between 80% and 100% of the time at internal staff meetings that they attend. This opinion was reported by about 88% of Anglophone respondents whereas nearly 64% of Francophone respondents felt this way.

Overall, only 12.6% of all respondents have the impression that French is used 50% of the time or more at internal staff meetings that they attend.

TABLE 210A: 'Q10 - Percentage of Time Each Official Language is Spoken at Internal Meetings'

BY 'Q2 - First Official Language'