Language probe won’t directly target prime minister
Language cops are not about to swoop down on Justin Trudeau.
The federal investigators looking into complaints that the prime minister didn’t answer questions in the official language in which they were asked won’t be asking the prime minister for an explanation.
And you can’t really call them “cops” because they have no power to punish.
About 60 complaints were filed with the federal Commissioner of Official Languages, Ghislaine Saikaley. Most were about Trudeau answering English questions in French at a townhall meeting in Sherbrooke on Jan. 17, with a few about his decision to answer French questions in English in Peterborough, Ont., on Jan. 13.
Trudeau has apologized in writing for the incidents, but the language watchdog’s investigation continues.
So what exactly happens when you file a federal language complaint? Here are some answers.
Q What are the complaints based on?
A The Official Languages Act — adopted in 1969 by the Liberal government led by Trudeau’s father, Pierre Trudeau — says English and French, as Canada’s official languages, must share “equality of status and equal rights and privileges as to their use in all federal institutions.”
Q Who investigates?
A The languages commissioner has 27 full-time investigators. They investigated 725 complaints in 2015-16, a 32-per-cent increase from the 550 cases reviewed the previous years.
Q Can you file a complaint against a politician?
A Not directly. “We investigate federal departments and not politicians because they’re not covered by the act,” said Nelson Kalil, a spokesperson for the Commissioner of Official Languages. In this case, it would be the Privy Council Office, the bureaucratic arm of the prime minister’s office.
Q So in this case, who or what would be investigated?
A It would not be “specific to (Trudeau) speaking to an individual in another language,” Kalil said, “but whether the whole town-hall tour should have had some oversight from the Privy Council Office and if so, did they make it clear to the prime minister’s office what their obligations would have been?”
If the PCO was or should have been involved, should it have provided guidance to Trudeau’s office regarding language issues? For example, should simultaneous translation have to be offered at such events? Should questions have to be answered in the official language in which they are asked?
Q What if Trudeau’s town halls were organized by the Liberal party or another non-government organization?
A The Official Languages Act would not apply because it covers federal government institutions, with Air Canada, a private company, being the exception.
Q What’s next?
A Investigations normally take about 90 working days. That would mean it would conclude in late May. Before then, investigators will prepare a preliminary report that is sent to complainants and the targeted institution, who can then respond. “From there, we produce our final report on the matter and issue recommendations, or close the case, or come to some amicable agreement on the next steps,” Kalil said.
Q What powers does the languages commissioner have?
A “It’s all persuasion and recommendations,” Kalil said. “We don’t have the authority to force anyone to do anything. It’s very different from the (Office québécois de la langue française), which actually has punitive and financial measures they can take if people don’t adhere to Bill 101.”
The commissioner does go to court, but that’s usually in “cases where there’s a void in the law in terms of interpretation” — in minority-language education rights, for example, Kalil said.
Q Has a politician’s unilingual communication been investigated before?
A In 2014, the language commissioner investigated complaints that then-Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird was tweeting in English more than in French.
“As a private citizen, he’s under no obligation to tweet in both official languages,” Kalil said. “But if he’s tweeting on behalf of the department and making pronouncements on government policy, say sanctions in Russia and issues regarding Ukraine, well that’s government business and it’s him as a minister, in that case there’s an obligation for those tweets to be in both languages.”
In that case, a preliminary report, obtained by The Canadian Press, found Baird had violated the law with unilingual tweets. Over two months, 181 of his 202 tweets were Englishonly. The commissioner concluded ministers must tweet in both official languages when communicating “objectives, initiatives, decisions and measures taken or proposed by a ministry or the government.”