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Treasury Board Policy pursuant to paragraph 46(2)(a)
of the Official Languages Act to give effect to Part IV of the Act, concerning
the concept of significant demand, as determined by the Official Languages
(Communications with and Services to the Public) Regulations
The Official Languages (Communications with and Services to the Public)
Regulations (Regulations) are the instrument used for the application of
certain key provisions in Part IV of the Official Languages Act (Act)
concerning the language of communications with and services to the public.
The Regulations specify that the published data from the most recent
decennial census of the population are to be used to establish "English or
French linguistic minority population" in order to determine at which
office or facility of a federal institution there is "significant
demand" pursuant to section 22 of the Act. Based on the official
languages data released by Statistics Canada in December 2002, the application
of the Regulations has to be reviewed by institutions.
The Regulations do not provide for any transition period, following
the application of the census data to the provisions of the Regulations, during
which the offices of federal institutions could take the necessary steps,
including those pertaining to the consideration of adjustments in service
delivery models and to consultations with the affected minority communities.
For these reasons, pursuant to its authority under paragraph 46(2)(a) of the Official
Languages Act, the Treasury Board establishes the following policy to give
effect to Part IV of the Act, Communications with and Services to the Public:
Wherever the application of data from the 2001 census for the purposes of the
Official Languages (Communications with and Service to the Public)
Regulations would lead to a reduced obligation on the part of certain offices or
facilities that are currently required to communicate with and provide services
to the public in either of the official languages, the status quo pertaining to
these services to the public in either of the official languages should be
maintained by the institutions in order to enable the specified federal
institutions to carry out appropriate consultations and consider the necessary
adjustments.
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