Vol. 140, No. 40 — October 7, 2006

Regulations Amending the Official Languages (Communications with and Services to the Public) Regulations

Statutory authority

Official Languages Act

Sponsoring agency

Public Service Human Resources Management Agency of Canada

REGULATORY IMPACT ANALYSIS STATEMENT

(This statement is not part of the Regulations.)

Description

The President of the Treasury Board, who is responsible for the Public Service Human Resources Management Agency of Canada, is proposing to amend the Official Languages (Communications with and Services to the Public) Regulations (the Regulations) in response to a Federal Court judgment. The following chronology explains the context of this amendment.

On March 8, 1998, Mr. Donnie Doucet, a francophone living in Nova Scotia, was stopped for speeding on Highway 104 near Amherst, Nova Scotia, by a unilingual English-speaking officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Amherst detachment.

Mr. Doucet filed a statement with the Federal Court alleging that the Regulations, which set out the terms and conditions for application of the Official Languages Act for services to official language minorities, are inconsistent with the guarantees provided under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (the Charter).

In the judgment rendered on October 19, 2004, the Federal Court concludes that "the Regulations are incompatible with subsection 20(1) of the Charter in that they violate the right of any member of the public to communicate with a federal institution in either official language where there is a significant demand for the use of that language."

The Court declares that "during the relevant period, the section of the Trans-Canada Highway crossing the service area of the RCMP - Amherst detachment, Nova Scotia, is an area of significant demand within the meaning of paragraph 20(1)(a) of the Charter."

The Court orders that "as long as the area described in paragraph 2 of this judgment [above] continues to be an area of significant demand within the meaning of paragraph 20(1)(a) of the Charter, the Governor in Council shall remedy the infringement and fulfill her constitutional obligations (...)"

The proposed amendment will serve to comply with the Federal Court judgment by adding to section 6 of the Regulations an additional specific circumstance whereby the RCMP detachment serving the section of the Trans Canada Highway specified in the judgment will be required to provide its services in either official languages where at least 5% of the demand for services, on this section, over a year, is in that language.

Alternatives

The Court having ordered that the Regulations be modified to be consistent with paragraph 20(1)(a) of the Charter and respect the right of any member of the public to communicate with a federal institution in either official language where there is significant demand for the use of that language, no alternative was considered.

Benefits and costs

This proposed amendment will serve to ensure that the public travelling on the section of the Trans-Canada Highway located within the service area of the RCMP - Amherst detachment, in Nova Scotia, will be able to communicate and receive services in either official language where there is significant demand for services in that language.

The implementation of this amendment will not result in any additional costs.

Consultation

In May and June 2005, the Agency's Official Languages Branch (OLB) consulted representatives of the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages (OCOL) and the following community groups: the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne (FCFA), the Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN), the Société des Acadiens et des Acadiennes du Nouveau-Brunswick (SAANB) and the Fédération acadienne de la Nouvelle-Écosse (FANÉ).

The amendment options proposed by the OLB received limited support from the parties consulted. All the parties consulted recommend, if not a complete overhaul of the Regulations, at least much broader amendments than are being proposed. Although stakeholders would like a complete overhaul of the Regulations, the goal of this amendment is to respond to the Court order.

Compliance and enforcement

Because this is an amendment to the existing Regulations, and because the amendment would fall within the monitoring and audit framework already in place, no additional monitoring and compliance mechanism would be required.

Contact

Mr. Kelly Collins, Director General, Research, Strategic Planning and Policy Development, Official Languages Branch, Public Service Human Resources Management Agency of Canada, 300 Laurier Avenue W, West Tower, 7th Floor, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0R3, 613-954-2582 (telephone), 613-946-7730 (fax).

PROPOSED REGULATORY TEXT

Notice is hereby given, pursuant to section 86 of the Official Languages Act (see footnote a), that the Governor in Council, pursuant to section 32 of that Act, proposes to make the annexed Regulations Amending the Official Languages (Communications with and Services to the Public) Regulations.

Interested persons may make representations concerning the proposed Regulations to the President of the Treasury Board within 30 days after the date of publication of this notice, which 30 days shall be days on which both Houses of Parliament are sitting. All such representations must cite the Canada Gazette, Part I, and the date of publication of this notice, and be adressed to the Research, Strategic Planning and Policy Development Division, Official Languages Branch, Public Service Human Resources Management Agency of Canada, 300 Laurier Avenue West, 7th Floor, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0R3 (fax: 613-946-7730; email: OLLOReg@hrma-agrh.gc.ca).

Ottawa, September 28, 2006

MARY O'NEILL
Assistant Clerk of the Privy Council

REGULATIONS AMENDING THE OFFICIAL LANGUAGES (COMMUNICATIONS WITH AND SERVICES TO THE PUBLIC) REGULATIONS

AMENDMENT

1. Subsection 6(1) of the Official Languages (Communications with and Services to the Public) Regulations (see footnote 1) is amended by striking out the word "or" at the end of paragraph (d), by adding the word "or" at the end of paragraph (e) and by adding the following after paragraph (e):

(f) the office or facility is a Royal Canadian Mounted Police detachment that provides services in a province to sections of the Trans-Canada Highway where there is a point of entry to another province that is officially bilingual, and over a year at least 5 per cent of the demand from the public for those services is in that language.

COMING INTO FORCE

2. These Regulations come into force on the day on which they are registered.

[40-1-o]

Footnote a

R.S., c. 31 (4th Supp.)

Footnote 1

DORS/92-48

NOTICE:
The format of the electronic version of this issue of the Canada Gazette was modified in order to be compatible with hypertext language (HTML). Its content is very similar except for the footnotes, the symbols and the tables.

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