Publications

Results-Based Status Report on the Implementation of Section 41 of the Official Languages Act 2005-2006

Status of Women Canada

Table of Contents

General Information

Action Plan Highlights

Summary of Key Results - 2005-2006

Awareness
Consultations
Communications
Coordination and liaison
Funding and Program Delivery
Accountability

Communication Plan

Signatures

Annexes

1. Acronyms and Abbreviations
   
   
2. Detailed Status Report
   
   
3. Initiatives Undertaken by Official Language Minority Women's Organizations
   
   
4. Initiatives Targeting Official Language Minority Women

General Information

Action Plan Highlights

The commitment of the Government of Canada to gender equality has been reaffirmed through domestic and international instruments such as the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women as well as the United Nations Beijing Platform for Action.

Status of Women Canada (SWC) facilitates this commitment by playing three key roles as a knowledge broker on gender equality, a centre of expertise on gender equality issues and a catalyst for networking building, connecting people, and strengthening communities, among others. The mission of SWC is to promote gender equality and the full participation of all women in the economic, social, cultural and political life of Canada.

In fulfilling its mandate, SWC is committed to enhancing the vitality of official language minority communities, to assist in their development, and foster the full recognition and use of both English and French in Canadian society. The agency has an important role in assisting Official Language minority women (OLMW) to become active players in the development of their communities, to participate actively in processes that shape their lives and contribute to the development of Canadian society at large.

SWC uses different mechanisms such as:  program delivery, capacity-building for gender-based analysis, communications and consultations, developing and disseminating policy research tools, facilitating engagement in public policy processes and others. SWC directorates continue to work with official language minority women's (OLMW's) organizations, collaborate with key stakeholders within the federal Public Service, other levels of governments and communities. 

The implementation of Section 41 of the OLA is carried out in the context of SWC's broad mandate of promoting gender equality and within a framework that identifies community needs, principal measures and expected results. SWC continues to monitor the needs of OLMW and their organizations through a variety of consultation mechanisms.

The key elements of the SWC Multi-Year Action Plan 2003-2006 are identified below:

Community Needs

SWC continues to monitor and identify the needs of OLMW through various consultation mechanisms. The key community needs fall under four areas:

• Access to government programs, services and information: access to health and social programs and services, information on relevant federal, provincial/territorial programs, resources for ongoing operations and special initiatives and information materials (e.g. reports, tools, research publications).
  
  
• Financial, material and technical assistance: funding and technical assistance for initiatives designed to address issues pertaining to OLMW.
  
  
• Greater participation in official language minority communities and the movement for women's equality: to become full and active participants in their own communities and to advance women's equality at local, regional and national levels.
  
  
• Opportunities to contribute to the public policy process: greater recognition, by departments and agencies, of the presence, realities and issues of OLMW, as well as mechanisms to facilitate their participation in the public policy process.

Principal Measures

The SWC Action Plan identified four principal measures, which serve as strategies to respond to the identified common needs of OLMW:

• To provide funding and technical assistance to OLMW's organizations and funding for initiatives consistent with the Women's Program funding requirements.
  
  
• To promote greater collaboration between decision-makers and OLMW's organizations to facilitate the involvement of these organizations in the public policy process at local, regional, national and international levels.
  
  
• To encourage OLMW and organizations to participate in SWC activities related to policy research.
  
  
• To promote and facilitate the commemoration of key women's equality dates (Women's History Month, International Women's Day, National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women, Persons Day, etc.) by OLMW and organizations, as well as to encourage their greater involvement.

Expected Results

The Action Plan identifies three planned results:

1. Enhanced organizational capacity among OLMW's groups.
   
   
2. More inclusive public policy process.
   
   
3. Active role and full participation by OLMW and organizations in their community and in the women's equality movement.

The four principal measures of SWC's Action Plan 2003-2006 are reflected in the six categories suggested by Canadian Heritage. 

The following pages provide an overview of key results in six categories: awareness, consultation, communications, coordination and liaison, funding and program delivery, and accountability.

Summary of Key Results - 2005-2006

The results identified under the Multi-Year Action Plan for Section 41 (2003-2006) are linked to the strategic outcomes of SWC. As such, OLA results and SWC strategic outcomes are consistent and complementary. In implementing Section 41 of the OLA, SWC uses its different roles and activities, including program delivery, communications and consultations, policy work, policy research and gender-based analysis. SWC continues to make steady progress in implementing Section 41 of the OLA. The annual results achieved in different areas contribute to the corporate outcomes as well as to the horizontal results of the Government of Canada, under the legislation.  The following section highlights the key results achieved in relation to the various initiatives carried out in the reporting year.

Awareness

In-house activities related to the implementation of Section 41 included efforts to increase staff knowledge of the OLA, enhance SWC capacity to implement the Multi-Year Action Plan (2003-2006) and build SWC capacity in the use of official languages. Official language obligations are part of senior management performance commitments and tools are regularly made available to assist managers in promoting official languages within SWC.There is evidence of increased awareness of the legislative obligations of SWC under the OLA and the need to implement Section 41 in a coherent manner, with a greater focus on achieving results.

• All in-house activities promote the bilingual character of Canada, SWC events are in keeping with the requirements of the Act, messages from the Co-ordinator and/or Minister to staff are relayed in both official language

Consultations

One of the expected results in implementing Section 41 is to increase the role and broaden the participation of OLMW in community, institutional and government activities and to facilitate their engagement in public policy processes. As such, SWC was proactive in its consultations with OLMW so as to ensure adequate Official Language (OL) representation, including their participation in domestic and international activities, consultations and public policy processes. There is evidence of OL representation in SWC activities such as consultations, meetings, commemoration of key women's equality dates such as Women's History Month, International Women's Day, National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women, and the Persons Case.

• In 2005-2006, SWC carried out cross-country consultations on a gender equality strategy, ensuring that OLMW were engaged in the dialogue on the equality for women in six regional consultations as well as the national consultation in Ottawa. 
• In Prairies/NWT Region, SWC facilitated a meeting between Pluri-Elles and Minister of Canadian Heritage and Minister responsible for the Status of Women in 2005 to discuss issues and concerns of the target group and to increase awareness of their priorities.
• SWC ensured that OLMW's organizations were included in the invitations to non-governmental organizations to participate in meetings of the U.N. Committee on Status of Women and the SWC/P/T Policy Forum on Aboriginal Women and Violence.

 Communications

One of the primary needs identified by OLMW is greater access to information about programs, services and activities of different levels of government. In an effort to respond to this need, SWC carried out various communication activities using different methods  (e.g. website, publications, meetings) to keep OLMW informed about its programs, services and activities. As a result, OLMW not only received timely information about SWC activities but were also able to take part in relevant initiatives.              

• SWC continuously updates its website to ensure that capacity-building materials, such as information on gender-based analysis, are both available to and accessible by OLMW.
• In B.C./Yukon region, regional descriptive lists of all grants for 2005-06 have been translated into French and distributed to Francophone women's groups in the region.
• OLMW and their organizations were included on SWC's mailing lists to ensure that information documents and requests for proposals and others are regularly available to the groups.

Coordination and liaison

SWC continued working with different partners such as Canadian Heritage, provincial and territorial governments and other partners on issues pertaining to OLMW. This ongoing communication and information exchange was valuable in facilitating effective intelligence gathering to identify new and emerging needs and facilitated the flow of information between SWC and its partners.  While the immediate outcome of this activity was evident in the availability of, and access to, relevant information by pertinent government officials, in the long run, this will contribute to policy processes that integrate OLMW issues.

• SWC continues to work in collaboration with PCH, particularly the use of joint strategic funding under the Interdepartmental Partnership with the Official-Language Communities (IPOLC) in order to facilitate the implementation of Section 41.
• In B.C./Yukon region, the Regional Director and staff continued to champion the priority issues of Francophone women in the region at inter-departmental and inter-governmental meetings, including those in the B.C. Rural Team, the Pacific Council of Federal Officials, the Vancouver Agreement and Homelessness Research Committee.
• There was increased participation in the official languages committee of the various federal councils in the Atlantic region.

Funding and Program Delivery

In 2005-2006, SWC provided funding in the amount of $1,067,616 as well as technical assistance and strategic support for 16 initiatives carried out across Canada, specifically to respond to the needs, issues and priorities of OLMW. Of the 16 initiatives, 13 were carried out by OLMW's organizations for a total of $931,906. The remaining three initiatives, which targeted OLMW, were implemented by other groups. OLMW also benefited from other SWC-supported initiatives designed to address women's equality issues. These initiatives produced outputs and outcomes that contributed to the SWC Action Plan and the results expected under the OLA.

• SWC continued to partner with PCH, through the Interdepartmental Partnership with the Official-Language Communities (IPOLC), to fund seven initiatives:
  • Table féministe francophone de concertation provinciale de l'Ontario -  « Pauvreté et francophonie ontarienne : vers une plate-forme revendicative » [ Poverty and Francophones in Ontario : Towards a Platform for Demanding Change];
  • Pluri-Elles Inc. -  « Stratégie de développement de la capacité des femmes francophones du Manitoba rural » [ Capacity Development Strategy for Francophone Women in Rural Manitoba];
  • Comité organisateur du 4ième congrès international des recherches féministes dans la francophonie plurielle -  « 4e Congrès international des recherches féministes dans la francophonie plurielle » [ 4th International Congress of Feminist Research in the Plural Francophonie];
  • Femmes équité atlantique - « L'Équité économique et les femmes acadiennes et francophones évoluant en situation minoritaire dans les provinces atlantiques -    Volet III - Mobilisation régionale » [Economic Equity for Acadian and Francophone Women in Minority-Language Communities in the Atlantic Provinces - Phase III - Regional Mobilization];
  • Comité Femmes en affaires - « Étude sur les femmes entrepreneures en Ontario » [Studies on Francophone Women Entrepreneurs in Ontario];
  • Les EssentiElles - « Les femmes et la garde d'enfants au Yukon » [ Women and Childcare in the Yukon];
  • Guava Collective - “Pop and Politics : Evaluating the Needs and Situation of Women in the Independent Music Industry”.

The following are other examples of initiatives supported and work carried out by SWC in compliance with Section 41 of the OLA:

• In the Atlantic region, SWC provided assistance to the Collectif des femmes du Nouveau-Brunswick for an initiative designed to promote the social and economic integration of francophone immigrant women. This initiative helped the group develop more appropriate communication tools as well as build strategic alliances that will enable them to have a strong and cohesive representative voice on the various socio-economic files of New Brunswick.  Also, the initiative facilitated an exchange of experiences between Atlantic francophone women's organizations, thereby providing an opportunity to enhance their organizational capacity to address their issues.
  
  
• In B. C. /Yukon region, proposals were systematically reviewed in light of prospects for participation by Francophone women and impact on the Francophone minority community. Also, the region incorporated explicit attention to the realities and priorities of Francophone minority women in B.C. and Yukon into the regional strategic planning process.
  
  
• SWC supported an initiative of Pluri-Elles (Manitoba) to develop the capacity of Francophone women in rural communities to mobilize around common issues and solutions, and to develop their own action plans on key priority issues. Initiatives funded in the Prairies were designed to enhance the capacity of Francophone women's groups and to develop strategies concurrent with identified local priorities in each of the three provinces.
  
  
• In the Quebec/Nunavut region, SWC helped enhance collaboration between decision-makers and Anglophone women's organizations. The work done with these organizations and the information transmitted, among other things about potential partnerships and issues related to different policies, helped them design strategies to stimulate community mobilization by Anglophone women, particularly in regard to access to social services and health care in their language, thereby aiming at institutional change.
  
  
• Together with the Alliance des femmes de la francophonie canadienne, the national office of the Women's Program (WP) facilitated strategic planning linked to promoting equality for Francophone minority women in federal policies and programs. Strategies were also developed and proposed to the members to encourage them to take charge of implementing them in their respective communities and in the seven provincial and territorial governments. These strategies pertain to poverty and to improving the economic situation of minority women.
  
  

• In Ontario, SWC supported an initiative by the Mouvement ontarien des femmes immigrantes francophones to analyze the issues related to the separation of immigrant and refugee women from their children. The initiative enables and facilitates participation by immigrant and refugee women in the development of strategies aimed at changing family reunification policies. It also helps inform the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration about the realities faced by women in connection with family reunification.

Accountability

In the fall of 2005, SWC held cross-country consultations on gender equality with key stakeholders, including OLMW's groups, to solicit views on strategies to advance women's equality. Over the past year and a half, SWC also carried out an external evaluation of the WP that provided important findings on the impact of its work. OLMCs had the opportunity to share their opinions and concerns regarding the funding and technical assistance from the WP.

In its April 2006 assessment of the Management Accountability Framework (MAF) for SWC, Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) gave their highest rating, namely notable, on the two MAF indicators related to the implementation of Official Languages. Regarding the first indicator, language of work, TBS highlighted the commitment demonstrated by SWC; the levels of fluent incumbents in bilingual positions (92%) and in a supervisory status (89%), whichare higher by 3% and 4% than the Public Service as a whole; the bilingual face of its communications and Web site; and the extended language training offered to its staff. For the second indicator, official languages for external service delivery, TBS underlined the following additional measures at SWC: the level of proficiency in positions providing services to the public; the internal monitoring mechanisms regarding translations; and the absence of complaints regarding language.

Communication Plan

Distribution list

• SWC staff
• Members of  the Committee of Deputy Ministers on Official Languages
• Members of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Official Languages
• Members of the Senate Standing Committee on Official Languages
• Commissioner of Official Languages
• Key Official Language Minority Community Organizations at national, regional and local levels

This report will be available, in downloadable format, on the SWC Web site (http://www.swc-cfc.gc.ca/pubs/ola/index_e.html)

Signatures

Date

Valerie Lavergne
National Official Languages Section 41 Co-ordinator
Status of Women Canada
Telephone : (613) 947-0932

Date

Florence Ievers
Co-ordinator
Status of Women Canada