a) Accountability framework

At the time of the audit, AAFC did not have an official languages accountability framework, but the Department committed to developing one in 2007–2008.

AAFC has a structure to administer the official languages program: a senior consultant, a national coordinator for Part VII of the Act and four employees responsible for language training and program support. Moreover, AAFC has an official languages champion responsible for Parts IV, V and VI of the Act, and another champion responsible for Part VII. These two individuals have taken a number of measures to promote official languages within the Department (for example, publishing two articles on official languages in the internal magazine, making a few presentations a year to the Senior Management Committee and giving a presentation on bilingualism at the annual leadership conference). The champions also chair the Official Languages Governance Team. This group is comprised of national headquarters and regional staff. In addition to providing strategic advice and recommendations on official languages to committee chairs, the team members discuss priorities and progress several times throughout the year.

In our opinion, the implementation of an accountability framework would allow the Department to clearly define its official languages roles and responsibilities and to give the program its due importance.

b) Official languages action plan

AAFC has an official languages action plan that was approved by the Executive Committee in February 2007. The plan describes goals and deadlines, and indicates the sector responsible for the implementation of each goal associated with different parts of the Act.

The plan contains a few Part IV objectives: make employees aware of their obligations, update Burolis, review the language profiles of positions providing services to the public, assess significant demand at some offices and establish monitoring mechanisms. We believe this plan could be strengthened to eliminate certain weaknesses found in the Office of the Commissioner’s previous report cards (verbal active offer, service in person, language clauses in partnership and contribution agreements).

c) Accountability measures

Accountability is mainly ensured through management agreements. All assistant deputy ministers and director generals have commitments to respect in their agreements regarding the language capacity of their branches and measures to improve the situation. Moreover, those who do not meet the language requirements of their position have been given personal language training objectives. A number of directors have the same commitments in their performance agreements. These commitments are contained in the three-year human resources plan prepared by each branch for 2006–2009. Furthermore, official languages issues are discussed a few times a year by the Senior Management Committee, and decisions are made to correct weaknesses.

We noted that, beyond the measures taken to improve bilingual capacity, the Department does not have a mechanism for evaluating how managers are fulfilling their responsibilities under Part IV of the Act. It is our opinion that the managers of designated bilingual offices should be required to report on the quality of services in both official languages. One way to do this would be to add this responsibility to the formal performance evaluation process.

d) Official languages policy or guidelines on service to the public

The Department does not have an internal official languages policy or guidelines on service to the public; it follows the policy and directives of the Canada Public Service Agency. However, some internal guidelines do exist for language of work and language training.

In our opinion, these measures are insufficient. AAFC should develop an internal policy or guidelines to manage communications with and services to the public in both official languages offered by departmental employees.

In view of the preceding observations, the Commissioner has made the following recommendations:

a) Communication to staff of requirements to provide services in both official languages

A practical guide titled Bilingualism at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada was distributed to all employees in 2006. This guide contains few indications on service to the public, dealing mostly with the active offer of service. The rest of the document deals with language of work.

In June 2006, information kits outlining the obligations of each office as regards active offer and service delivery in both official languages were distributed to all managers of designated bilingual offices. The Department’s intranet site also contains a large amount of information on the various components of the official languages program.

However, most of the managers and employees interviewed did not recall having been given this practical guide or the directives on the language obligations of their office. Furthermore, during the interviews, some managers were surprised to learn that their office was required to provide service in both official languages.

According to its official languages action plan, the Department intends to hold information sessions to make staff aware of their language rights and obligations. More in-depth information kits and tools will be developed and distributed to all staff at offices required to provide services in both official languages. The Department could use as a guide the official languages information tools prepared by the Canada Public Service Agency.

b) Bilingual capacity of offices designated to provide services in both official languages

Source: AAFC, PeopleSoft, January 2007.

In Western Canada, the majority of the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration (PFRA) offices visited had no bilingual capacity. Furthermore, an internal document distributed to members of the Senior Management Committee in May 2006 stated that 60.9% of employees in bilingual positions at the PFRA did not meet the language requirements of their position. Several PFRA managers said it is very difficult to hire bilingual staff with the required specialized skills in the small communities where their offices are located.

AAFC is aware of these weaknesses in language capacity. Furthermore, specific goals to improve language capacity were included in the human resources plans prepared by each branch. In addition, AAFC will determine the best way to continue its language training plan so that unilingual incumbents in bilingual positions can meet the language requirements of their position as quickly as possible. The Department is also developing guidelines to ensure that administrative measures are implemented to fulfill the bilingual duties of positions held by employees who do not meet the language requirements.

The Language Profiler was distributed to managers to help them correctly determine the language requirements of positions, and all employees were informed of language training guidelines. In 2005–2006, several hundred employees in unilingual positions registered for the Department’s “Our Bilingualism” program.

The PFRA also set up an official languages committee, which was given the mandate to develop a strategy for meeting the language obligations of the Act.

We believe the Department should review the language designation of all positions responsible for providing service to the public to ensure that a sufficient number of bilingual positions are present in its offices designated to offer services in both official languages. Moreover, AAFC should allocate the necessary resources to language training so that incumbents in bilingual positions can meet their language requirements as soon as possible. It should also implement the required administrative measures when incumbents in these positions are not capable of providing service in both official languages.

c) Bilingual signage and publications, active offer and delivery of services in both official languages

These components were verified during visits in summer 2006 and winter 2007 to the 42 offices designated to provide services in both official languages (seven in the Atlantic provinces, six in Quebec, six in Ontario and 23 in Western Canada). The results of this exercise are presented in the following sections.

Signage and publications

Service delivery

Of all the offices audited, only 23 (56%) were able to provide satisfactory service in person in the minority official language (the auditor was not able to check service in person for one of the 42 offices). Of the 18 offices that could not provide service in French, 11 were PFRA offices in Western Canada.

The situation was slightly better with regard to service over the telephone: 65% of offices could serve clients satisfactorily in the minority official language. Of the 14 offices that could not, six were PFRA offices.

As mentioned in the previous section, the majority of PFRA offices that could not serve clients in French had no bilingual staff. We believe this situation needs to be corrected as soon as possible, since these offices have been designated bilingual, and their clients expect service in the official language of their choice.

In view of the preceding observations, the Commissioner has made the following recommendations:

Consultation of official language minority communities regarding services

The national coordinator tasked with implementing Part VII of the Act is responsible for consulting official language minority communities (OLMCs). National and regional liaison with OLMCs occurs through interdepartmental meetings of national Part VII coordinators organized by Canadian Heritage. During these meetings, OLMC representatives are invited to express their needs to federal institution representatives. Moreover, the national coordinator participates in the meetings of the government table of the Réseau de développement économique et d’employabilité for Francophones outside Quebec, and the Community Table for Anglophones in Quebec. The goal of these meetings is to find ways to optimize the economic potential of OLMCs.

The staff of AAFC’s Rural Secretariat also consults representative associations in the regions to exchange ideas with OLMCs and better understand their needs. For example, after discussions with representatives from the Community Table, the Rural Secretariat held an information session with the Community Economic Development and Employability Committees in Quebec on the use of the Communities Database. The committee members very much appreciated the exercise, as they now have access to timely, consistent and reliable information on the economic and demographic factors of their communities.

Despite the Department’s efforts, the Office of the Commissioner has learned that regular discussions with OLMCs do not take place. These discussions would allow AAFC to obtain information about their specific service needs and to find out if the services offered by AAFC’s designated offices meet their expectations. In our opinion, these types of discussions should take place with national and regional OLMC representatives, especially those representing Canadian producers and rural areas, to find out their service to the public needs, which may differ from one region to another.

The results of the 2001 Census led to changes to the list of locations required to provide bilingual services, which forced federal institutions, including AAFC, to update their lists of bilingual points of service. As a result, three new AAFC offices in the Atlantic region were designated bilingual. Despite this, the Department did not hold meetings with local OLMC representatives to inform them of these changes and to determine whether the services offered were meeting their needs.

The next section of the report deals with partnership agreements. During the audit, we found that the Department had negotiated hundreds of partnership and contribution agreements with other levels of government and with non-profit or private sector organizations. In the vast majority of cases, the organizations receiving AAFC funds must communicate with the public or provide services. The OLMC representatives interviewed mentioned that the Department did not consult them when negotiating partnership and contribution agreements that might have an impact on the services offered to minority communities.

In its current official languages action plan, AAFC specifies that it intends to expand and formalize the Department’s network of regional officers responsible for consulting OLMCs to develop a better understanding of the needs and priorities of these communities all regions across the country. This is an opportunity for AAFC to ensure that the members of this new network also consult OLMCs regularly, particularly the representatives of Canadian producers and rural areas, in order to collect information on their specific service needs. AAFC should also develop an ongoing feedback mechanism for those persons consulted.

In view of the preceding observations, the Commissioner has made the following recommendation:

Responsibilities regarding service to the public under partnership and contribution agreements

As previously mentioned, the federal, provincial and territorial agriculture ministers developed the APF in 2001 and signed a framework agreement for the strategy. AAFC and each province and territory also signed an implementation agreement to follow up on the APF. This opens the way to cost sharing between the federal government and the provinces and territories, and specifies how new programs supporting the five components of the APF will be administered. The agreement also determines the programs that will be launched, establishes implementation mechanisms and indicates which level of government will monitor application.

In each of the implementation agreements, there is a language clause under the “Communications” section, as well as in some of the schedules. This clause is similar for all provinces and territories, except for Quebec. It stipulates that written information and public announcements must be in both official languages, but says nothing about the provision of services. For Quebec, the clause specifies that service delivery and communications must respect the Charter of the French Language.

Moreover, the federal government and each province and territory have signed collateral agreements for the implementation of different components of the APF. With the exception of the agreement signed with Quebec, all the collateral agreements examined had language clauses on written communications and public announcements, but nothing on service delivery in both official languages.

AAFC has also signed hundreds of contribution agreements with non-profit agencies and private sector companies. Federal contributions normally account for 50% to 100% of the amount required for the activity or project (e.g., training, consulting services and guidance for producers, implementation of agricultural initiatives, research projects). We reviewed 22 contribution agreements and found that the language clause is not the same in all agreements. In several agreements, it states that communication materials must comply with the Official Languages Act. In others, the clause states that communication materials must comply with the Act and with Treasury Board policies and directives and that all public communication must be in both official languages simultaneously, that advertising must appear in minoritylanguage media and that key documents must be posted on the Web site in both official languages. As for the other cases, the language clause varies from one agreement to another.

Agriculture is a shared jurisdiction, meaning the federal and provincial and territorial governments are responsible under the Constitution Act, 1867. Consequently, the specific facts should be reviewed to determine the nature of AAFC language obligations in agricultural agreements. To accurately identify the nature of these obligations and the type of language clause to be included, AAFC should determine the following elements at the beginning of negotiations for a partnership or contribution agreement for a given program or activity:

1. the jurisdiction of the program or activity (federal, provincial or shared);
   
   
2. which institution will provide services for the program or activity.

a) Monitoring of services provided to the public in both official languages

The Department has certain mechanisms in place to monitor official languages compliance. For example, the Governance Committee, chaired by the official languages champions, meets a few times a year to discuss official languages issues and to propose corrective action as needed. Moreover, official languages are discussed by the Senior Management Committee and decisions are often made to improve the situation.

The Office of Audit and Evaluation also carried out a preliminary evaluation of the official languages program in 2003. This analysis found that the program falls short, and that senior management was aware of this. Consequently, the people in charge of the audit decided not to undertake an enhanced audit. Instead, they made several recommendations to the Human Resources Branch with a view to improving the different components of the official languages program, such as service to the public. No follow-up of recommendations has been carried out to date. The Office of Audit and Evaluation agreed to add this follow-up to its three-year audit plan.

In winter 2006–2007, AAFC conducted its own informal audit of active offer and delivery of service over the telephone in both official languages in offices designated bilingual for service to the public. Measures will be taken to correct the weaknesses identified during this exercise.

Despite the mechanisms in place for monitoring compliance, there is no formal monitoring mechanism to determine whether the services offered by the Department and by the organizations that have signed a partnership or contribution agreement with AAFC and have language obligations are in fact provided in both official languages, and whether these services are of good quality. According to the official languages action plan, AAFC plans to develop performance measurement tools to evaluate services to the public in both official languages, and plans to add an official languages component to internal audits.

b) Use of monitoring results to manage service quality

Since the Department does not have a mechanism to monitor compliance with Part IV of the Official Languages Act, it cannot improve the quality of service in both official languages through monitoring activities.

The adoption of such a mechanism would allow AAFC to collect relevant information on service delivery in both official languages. This information could then be used to improve the situation, as needed, and to report on results.

In view of the preceding observations, the Commissioner has made the following recommendation: