Examples of complaints

Outcome

The investigation established that the RCMP introduced a pilot project in March 2019 that includes English second language training for French-speaking cadets. The project aims to ensure a minimum level of language proficiency to prepare French-speaking cadets for assignment across Canada. Cadets in the French-language troop then continue the cadet training program in both official languages in order to maintain and continue to improve English proficiency. Instruction materials are provided in both official languages, and cadets are able to participate in training activities and take exams in the official language of their choice.

The investigation concluded that the decision to modify the cadet training program delivery model for Francophone troops was consistent with the principle of substantive equality of opportunity for employment and consequently is not in contravention of the Official Languages Act. The changes to the delivery model were the result of consultations with French-speaking officers and their superiors. And the new model is designed to give French-speaking cadets a chance to learn and improve their English language skills, which will then give them access to more jobs within the RCMP across Canada. It was therefore concluded that the complaints were unfounded.

Since this is a pilot project, the RCMP has committed to conducting a thorough assessment of the program and to sharing its results with the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages.

Outcome

The VACs named in the complaints act on behalf of IRCC, which failed to fulfill its obligations under Part IV and the spirit of the Official Languages Act (the Act). Therefore, the complaints are founded. The federal institution is of the opinion that section 25 of the Act does not apply and that VACs are not third parties acting on behalf of IRCC. In order for IRCC to comply with Part IV of the Act, the Commissioner made three recommendations

Outcome

In the context of the investigation, PSPC quickly noted English as the complainant’s official language of preference and the Department sent him the English version of the documentation. PSPC wanted to explain the operating mode for this type of mailing: each year in January, PSPC prepares to mail out the Annual Pensioners’ Statement (APS) to Public Service Super Annuation Act (PSSA) members. The language data comes out of the system, which is fed by the federal institutions’ human resources department. Upon receipt of the complaint, PSPC verified the system and noticed that the language for the complainant indicated “French”. Pension Centre then consulted the concerned parties and received the following explanation as to why the complainant’s official language of preference keeps changing from English to French: each time the complainant accepts a contract with Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT), the human resources department of the CHRT feeds and changes the complainant’s language to French in the system. Consequently, if Pension Centre receives another feed from CHRT’s human resources department, it will change the language to French again. The complainant indicated that he will discuss this matter with his Human Resources Officer to advise him that his official language of preference is English, to prevent this situation from reoccurring.

Outcome

The investigation established that the Microsoft Exchange email systems all have postmaster@notredomain.ca as a default address, which is why the email came from postmaster@ci-oic.gc.ca. Following receipt of this complaint, OIC modified its address to maitreposte-postmaster@ci-oic.gc.ca. As for the email content in English, the investigation established that servers Exchange message system are already multilingual, depending on the selected language of the email header which is generally represented by the language of the host computer or the application settings of the user's email. In the case at hand, the email received did not come from OIC but it was automatically generated by the server when linking back to it since an acknowledgement of receipt confirming the message delivery was requested.

To prevent such a situation from reoccurring and to ensure that the clientele receives a confirmation of receipt of an email sent to the message inbox general@ci-oic.gc.ca or to general@oic-ci.gc.ca in its official language of preference, OIC modified its message inboxes so that an automated bilingual acknowledgement of receipt is sent for each email received.

Outcome

The investigation found that CIB has not been able to communicate or provide all of its services in both official languages at all times since its creation. Following the investigation, CIB acknowledged its language obligations under Part IV of the Official Languages Act and committed to implementing the Commissioner of Official Languages’ recommendation. Specifically, it will put a clear and specific action plan in place to ensure that its language obligations are taken into account during its organizational development.

Outcome

The language in which emergency alert messages are issued is governed by the laws and policies of each province and territory. Under the Constitution Act, 1867, provinces are responsible for emergency management and for language within their boundaries. Therefore, the federal government cannot dictate to provincial and territorial organizations how alerts are managed and in what language they are issued within their own jurisdictions.

Although the Official Languages Act cannot require CRTC and Public Safety Canada to obligate emergency management organizations to broadcast their alerts in both languages, the investigation showed that those institutions together have significant influence on NPAS.

The investigation concluded that CRTC has an obligation to clarify its regulations to require that LMDs always broadcast alerts in both official languages when they are issued in both languages, regardless of where the LMDs are located in Canada. The safety and lives of Canadians should not depend on where they are in the country or on the choice of language for broadcasting emergency alert messages.

The Commissioner therefore recommended that CRTC amend Broadcasting Regulatory Policy CRTC 2014-444 within six months of the date of the final investigation report in order to impose an obligation for LMDs to always broadcast emergency alert messages in both official languages when those messages are issued in both languages, regardless of the region in Canada for which the messages are intended.

Outcome

According to subsection 23(2) in Part IV of the Official Languages Act, “Every federal institution has the duty to ensure that such services to the travelling public as may be prescribed by regulation of the Governor in Council that are provided or made available by another person or organization pursuant to a contract with the federal institution for the provision of those services […] are provided or made available, in both official languages, in the manner prescribed by regulation of the Governor in Council.” After receiving the preliminary report, the Ottawa International Airport Authority took immediate measures and implemented a new French-language training program for food concession employees, and compliance checks will be conducted regularly.

Outcome

The two investigations found that the issue did not involve advertising by the Royal Canadian Mint or Parks Canada. The logos of these two institutions were used by third parties in advertising in a way that created confusion regarding these federal institution’s involvement. Although the federal institutions deny responsibility for the use of their logos by private companies, they collaborated to correct the situation and to prevent these situations from recurring in the future. As a result, Parks Canada asked the Ontario Ministry of Transportation to remove unilingual signs containing Parks Canada’s trademark, and the Royal Canadian Mint developed a guide for private companies explaining the requirements for the use of the Royal Canadian Mint logo in advertising.

Outcome

Subsection 39(1)(a) of Part VI of the Official Languages Act sets out the Government of Canada’s commitment to “ensuring that English-speaking Canadians and French-speaking Canadians, without regard to their ethnic origin or first language learned, have equal opportunities to obtain employment and advancement in federal institutions.” Following the investigation, the RCMP informed the human resources employee of its official languages obligations. The Commissioner of Official Languages recommended that the RCMP develop and implement a procedure to ensure that candidates receive communications in the official language of their choice.

Outcome

Following the investigation, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) confirmed that the problem had been resolved and that audio service is now available in both official languages on the primary inspection kiosks at Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport. CBSA also promised to ensure that the audio service is available in both official languages before deploying any primary inspection kiosks at Canadian airports in future.

Outcome

Following the investigation, the Museum quickly put in place corrective measures to rectify the situation. The Museum committed to dubbing the video content in the Arctic Gallery to enhance its service delivery in French. The new French versions of the videos have been available since the end of September.

Outcome

Following the investigation, the Canada Lands Company has employed the services of a bilingual marketing firm to create a new identity for the project that highlights the linguistic duality of the local community. It also committed to conducting more in-depth consultations regarding the project’s name and will make sure that members of the Francophone community are involved in the discussion. The Canada Lands Company will ensure that the project is identified by separate English and French names or by one bilingual name.

Outcome

The investigation found that PCO failed to meet its obligations related to service to the public during the Prime Minister’s town hall events with the public. The Interim Commissioner of Official Languages recommended that PCO ensure that the public receives information on government issues in both official languages during town hall meetings and similar events. The Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages will conduct a follow-up to the recommendation in 2018.

Outcome

The investigation determined that only two of the four institutions failed to meet their obligations under Part VII of the Act: PSPC and Canadian Heritage. It also highlighted a practically inevitable reality: the use of the Internet for federal government advertising and public notices. The Interim Commissioner of Official Languages made three recommendations. The first, addressed to PSPC, is to ensure that federal institutions understand the requirements of Part VII and that their media plans meet these requirements. The other two recommendations, addressed to both PSPC and Canadian Heritage, are to analyze the impact of the federal government’s shift to Internet advertising on official language minority communities, and then to ensure that positive measures are taken based on the results of the impact analysis.

Outcome

Following the investigation, the ATSSC quickly changed its practices. In the future, it will take measures to ensure that all new decisions are made available to the public simultaneously in English and French. As a result, the practice implemented in response to the complaints meets the requirements of the Official Languages Act.

Outcome

To comply fully with the Official Languages Act, the St. Mary’s River Bridge Company created a bilingual website containing information that Sault Ste. Marie International Bridge users would typically want to know. The Commissioner of Official Languages of Canada, satisfied with the corrective action taken, closed this file in November 2013.

Outcome

Service Canada provided a lasting solution to the problem raised by the person who filed the complaint by hiring some 20 bilingual agents.

Outcome

The Commissioner of Official Languages of Canada recommended that the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat take the necessary steps to ensure that the Great-West Life Assurance Company is aware of and respects the language preferences of public servants. The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat will also be expected to systematically monitor whether the insurer is honouring those preferences, and to include language provisions in its agreement with the company.

Outcome

In response to the Commissioner of Official Languages of Canada’s report, Environment Canada raised the linguistic profile of the position to CBC/CBC and informed all the applicants about the change. Environment Canada also agreed to implement both of the Commissioner’s recommendations to avoid this kind of problem in the future.

Outcome

As a result of meetings in the fall of 2012 with the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages of Canada, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada’s senior management agreed to develop a corrective plan for inadequate linguistic designations and profiles. It also agreed to establish directives for managers and introduce measures to improve compliance with section 91 of the Official Languages Act.

This commitment came from the executive level, and the Department then proceeded to put its words into action. It developed new training programs, issued an information bulletin, conducted awareness campaigns for managers and implemented a monitoring process to double-check the language requirements for positions before they are posted.

By March 31, 2013, most of the complaints had been resolved. Since Human Resources and Skills Development Canada has put its corrective measures in place, its performance in complying with section 91 of the Act has improved.

Outcome

This complaint prompted the Office of the Commissioner to intervene with Canada Post, which took the incident seriously. The institution conducted a review and determined that its staff was either unfamiliar with or did not always use French postal expressions. To resolve the problem, Canada Post created a bilingual glossary of current postal terminology and distributed it to all employees at bilingual postal outlets in Atlantic Canada.

Outcome

Through this review, the Canadian Army found many shortcomings, and its webmasters undertook the huge task of correcting them. Thanks to these efforts, ensuring the equality of English and French has become a higher priority for Canadian Army websites. The Office of the Commissioner was thus able to close the investigation into two of the complaints it received.

Outcome

In April 2013, in response to the Commissioner of Official Languages of Canada’s second recommendation, the Canada Media Fund announced the creation of the Anglophone Minority Incentive, a program “designed to encourage television convergent production for English-language production in Québec.”

Outcome

The Commissioner published a guide called Organizing a Major Sporting Event in Canada: A Practical Guide to Promoting Official Languages based on the lessons learned from the Games. The guide is designed to help the federal government and its partners comply with the Official Languages Act when holding major cultural or sporting events in Canada.

The Commissioner and his staff also implemented various awareness strategies on the importance of taking linguistic duality into account at each stage of organizing an event. With the help of the Practical Guide, he raised awareness among the organizers of both the 2013 Canada Summer Games in Sherbrooke, Quebec, and the 2015 Pan American Games and Parapan American Games in Toronto, Ontario. Organizers of the Sherbrooke Games invited the Office of the Commissioner to participate in the event’s organizational process right from the beginning.