Statement made on 25 October 2011 by Senator Claudette Tardif
Hon. Claudette Tardif (Deputy Leader of the Opposition):
Honourable senators, my question is for the Leader of the Government in the Senate. In 2003, the Government of Canada established the position of Minister Responsible for Official Languages. It was a decisive step forward for official language minority communities.
Then the Official Languages Branch was created within the Privy Council Office, the Prime Minister's department, in order to support the Minister Responsible for Official Languages in coordinating official languages programs.
On April 1, 2006, shortly after coming to power, the new Conservative government quickly decided to close this branch so that the Prime Minister could dissociate himself from the official languages file. Responsibilities were transferred from the Privy Council Office to the former secretariat, which already existed at Canadian Heritage.
When the Commissioner of Official Languages submitted his report to Parliament last week, one of the most critical findings was the lack of coherence and uneven application of the Official Languages Act from one department to the next, which most likely is attributable to the move of the Official Languages Branch from Privy Council to Canadian Heritage.
It is obvious that this move has considerably weakened the authority and decision-making power that the Official Languages Secretariat had when it was part of the Privy Council Office.
What does the government plan on doing to remedy this serious problem of governance, which may explain the mediocre results achieved by certain federal institutions and departments with respect to the application of the Official Languages Act?
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