LANG Committee Meeting

STANDING JOINT COMMITTEE ON OFFICIAL LANGUAGES

COMITÉ MIXTE PERMANENT DES LANGUES OFFICIELLES

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Monday, May 25, 1998

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[Translation]

The Joint Chair (Senator Rose-Marie Losier-Cool (Tracadie, Lib.)): Good afternoon, everyone. I would like to welcome Dr. Goldbloom.

We have two agendas today, because we are studying a number of issues. The first part of our meeting, from 3:30 P.M. to 4:30 P.M., will be devoted to studying the Estimates of the Commissioner's Office. The questions will be on the budget. In the second part of the meeting, beginning at 4:30 P.M., we will be studying the Commissioner's Annual Report. At the end of the meeting, we will adopt the Estimates.

I would remind the steering committee that there will be a meeting on June 4 to discuss the committee's future business.

Without further ado, I will turn the floor over to you, Dr. Goldbloom.

Mr. Victor Goldbloom (Commissioner of Official Languages): Thank you, Madam Chair. Since the meeting today is in two parts, I could spare you my opening remarks on the budget.

[English]

I would suggest that we go directly to the discussion of the budget, of the credits. If you will allow me, in the second part I would like to make a more general statement regarding the annual report of the commissioner.

[Translation]

The Joint Chair (Senator Rose-Marie Losier-Cool): Fine. Would you be prepared to move to the questioning immediately? Everyone has received a copy of the Estimates. We will begin with the representative from the Reform Party.

[English]

Mr. Randy White (Langley—Abbotsford, Ref.): Thank you, Madam Chairman, and welcome, Mr. Goldbloom.

I have a number of questions. One of the obvious ones is: how many employees are within your department?

Mr. Victor Goldbloom: We have presently 120 in round figures. That is down from just over 160 three years ago.

Mr. Randy White: And why is that down?

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Mr. Victor Goldbloom: Even though the commissioner is an officer of Parliament and as such is not directly under the authority of Treasury Board, we were approached in the process of program review and it was indicated to us that each federal institution was being asked to accept a decrease of budget of 5% a year for three years. I felt that it was not appropriate to resist that and to say, no, we are special; we will not participate.

It is part of the overall budgetary decreases that we share in with other federal institutions.

Mr. Randy White: Within this budget do you have a sort of enforcement department or a regulatory organization? Do you, within your organization?

Mr. Victor Goldbloom: We are an ombudsman department rather than an enforcement one. The commissioner does not have the authority to direct anyone to do or not to do anything.

The commissioner makes recommendations, and fortunately in the very large majority of cases those recommendations are respected and improvements are made in service to the public or in the linguistic working conditions of federal public servants.

Mr. Randy White: With that in mind, then, I would like to ask you a question about Bill C-29, which is getting more of a profile every day. I have been in contact with your department on the amendment that went into the bill.

The amendment read basically that the Official Languages Act applies to the agency and to its subcontractors. That was with regard to parks. I would like to know how far-reaching the concept of subcontractors is, given that I have read much about this actually forcing fence painters, for instance, and garbage pickers or people taking tickets at national parks to become bilingual. I just want to know your position on that, please.

Mr. Victor Goldbloom: It would seem to me that there is a significant difference between people who carry out technical services like picking up garbage and those who relate to the public like ticket takers.

The principle is found in section 25 of the act, which says that where a third party is called upon by contract or otherwise to act on behalf of a federal institution, that federal institution has the responsibility of ensuring that services are appropriately provided.

The point is basically that if the federal government transfers a responsibility to another entity, the service is the same service. The people requiring that service are the same people. Therefore, the public is entitled to receive service of the same understandable quality if the responsibility is passed to a third party.

Mr. Randy White: My understanding and that of legal advice is that this amendment thus changes that, in that subcontractors would be required to be bilingual any place, in Trois-Rivières or wherever there is a federal park. Subcontractors do virtually everything in the park, from painting to cleaning up campsites and a bit of construction and that sort of thing.

Wouldn't that, in the case of parks in Quebec, require people who were normally unilingual French to be bilingual and in other parks in Canada vice versa?

Mr. Victor Goldbloom: Let me take the parallel of the designation of jobs in the federal public service. Some are designated bilingual. Section 91 of the Official Languages Act says there has to be objective demonstration that it is necessary for the person occupying the position to be bilingual.

We get complaints relating to section 91 where people say “This position has not been appropriately designated”.

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Again I come back to the consideration of serving the public. If the person occupying a position carries out a function that does not bring him or her into a service relationship with the public, then it would appear to me in principle that there is no justification for a requirement that the person be bilingual, that the person's job be designated bilingual.

If I may just quote section 25, “Every federal—”

The Joint Chair (Senator Rose-Marie Losier-Cool): You have one minute left.

Mr. Randy White: Yes, I have one minute and two questions, so perhaps you could read that really fast.

Mr. Victor Goldbloom: It says that any member of the public can communicate with and obtain those services from that person or organization. It is a question of services being available to the public.

Mr. Randy White: The amendment to Bill C-29, though, goes further than that. There is no discretionary power, so to speak, within the Official Languages Act once this goes through. That is my understanding of the legalese of it. In fact, there is no discretion. Subcontractors shall be bilingual. Is that not right?

Mr. Victor Goldbloom: I feel it would not be appropriate for me to enter into the debates of the House or of a committee of the House and comment upon the content of an amendment. I have not had the opportunity to study that text.

We have of course, as you well know, Mr. White, received a complaint in this regard. The complaint is being evaluated at the present time. The principle of our function is that while a complaint is under study we do not make public comments about it, because we want to look at all aspects of it, draw a conclusion and then provide that conclusion to the complainant and to the institution.

Mr. Randy White: I have a final question. I would like to pursue this and we will as we go along. I refer you to page 45 of the annual report of 1996, your report in fact, wherein you indicate that the commissioner recommended that the Speaker of the House advise committee chairs, referring particularly to section 4.1 of the Official Languages Act, that language should not be an obstacle to members of Parliament in the performance of their duties.

I believe I have another complaint on this one, but just recently at one of our health committee meetings one of our members was actually refused to be allowed to submit an amendment because it was not in both French and English. He happens to be unilingual English.

Is that not outside what you would consider fair and reasonable? Do members of the House of Commons not have the right and the privilege to submit amendments in either English or French?

Mr. Victor Goldbloom: Let me respond on the basis of principle. Paragraph 4.1 of the Official Languages Act says that English and French are the official languages of Parliament and everyone has the right to use either of those languages in any debates and other proceedings of Parliament. It seems to me, therefore, that there is, to begin with, the right of each member of Parliament to use one or the other of our official languages according to his or her choice.

There then enters into consideration a second principle, which is that there are other members of Parliament who may not be bilingual, who may be unilingual in the other official language and who have the right to understand what is being put before them. That understanding is provided initially by simultaneous interpretation. That simultaneous interpretation, which is obviously of professional quality, is not considered to be an official translation and therefore members of Parliament will ask for an official written translation of a document or resolution that is put to them.

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There then enters into consideration a matter of time, because simultaneous interpretation is provided as the person speaks but it takes a certain time—it may be only a few minutes or it may be a day or two—before a text can be provided in the other language.

First, we have the right of the member of Parliament to use the official language of his or her choice. Second, we have the right of the other members of Parliament to understand and to receive an official verified translation.

That presents a practical problem particularly for committees of the House in that it may be require a certain time; that a member of Parliament wishing to have a resolution dealt with immediately may come up against the difficulty that there is not an official translation, that it may take some time for that to be provided; and that the committee may therefore say “We will have to take that up at a subsequent session”.

[Translation]

The Joint Chair (Senator Rose-Marie Losier-Cool): Mr. Plamondon.

Mr. Louis Plamondon (Richelieu, BQ): With reference to your Estimates, I remember hearing you say, at the time of the budget cuts, that the situation was most unfortunate. You speak about a reduction in the number of employees from 160 to 120. Will this reduction have some effects that are more dangerous than others on the functioning of your office? This is a fairly significant cut after all. It is apparent from your Estimates that the cuts were made over three years, I believe. Is that correct? Were your operations the sector that was most affected?

Mr. Victor Goldbloom: We felt the impact on our human resources. There is a certain number of hours in the day and everyone can do a certain amount of work in that time. With fewer people, there are fewer hours that can be spent on activities such as complaints review, for example.

At the moment, we can still handle the volume of work we get from the complaints we receive from the public, members of Parliament and others. However, we are less and less able to deal with special requests. For example, this Committee asked the Commissioner to evaluate the action plans prepared by federal departments and agencies for the implementation of Part VII of the Act. We evaluated the first and second generations of the plans, but the reduction in our resources in the meantime force us to tell the committee that we are no longer able to evaluate the third generation of action plans.

Mr. Louis Plamondon: Even though you are not allowed to engage in politics, when I hear your comments, I suspect that you fervently hope that the government, in light of its improved financial position and the elimination of the deficit, would at least restore the budget that existed three years ago regarding the implementation of the Official Languages Act.

Mr. Victor Goldbloom: I must say in all honesty that I am preparing a request for additional financial resources which shows how all activities have been limited because of the budget cuts.

Mr. Louis Plamondon: Your operations are broken down into three business lines. The one whose budget was reduced significantly is Complaints and Investigations. Why did you choose to cut this area more?

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Mr. Victor Goldbloom: We had more human resources in this area. There were a number of individuals in this branch who were close to retirement and who chose to take early retirement. Because of these departures, we could choose to fill or not fill the vacant positions, and in most cases, we decided not to fill the positions. As I just said, the team we have at the moment can handle the complaints we receive.

However, we used to do our own performance audits of various federal institutions, and that we can no longer do.

I must say in all honesty that it was agreed, following discussions with Treasury Board, which carries out some audits, that we would drop this activity. We did that willingly, at the request of Treasury Board, but I must emphasize that our investigations and audits were not identical to those done by Treasury Board, and that we were sorry to give up this activity.

Mr. Louis Plamondon: You say—and I find this interesting—that your findings were different from those of Treasury Board and that Treasury Board saw fewer grounds for suspicion than you, because of your experience.

Mr. Victor Goldbloom: Let us just say that our activities were different from the audits conducted by Treasury Board. They too have been reduced, and Treasury Board, in the past few years, has decided to rely more on self-evaluation of departments and agencies.

Mr. Louis Plamondon: Thank you.

The Joint Chair (Senator Rose-Marie Losier-Cool): Mr. Mauril Bélanger.

Mr. Mauril Bélanger (Ottawa—Vanier, Lib.): I'm here today as an alternate.

I would like to comment on a subject raised by my colleague from the Reform Party, that is, an amendment I moved to Bill C-29, which was supported by the committee. In fact, three of the opposition parties supported it. It has to do with the way in which the Official Languages Act applies to the bill that establishes the Canadian Parks Agency.

I don't want to disappoint them, but they are trying to make this into an issue, when none exists. When the amendment was moved, I said clearly to the committee that it would be advisable for the legal drafters to follow the discussions so that they could better understand Parliament's intention. That was something I had not been able to do.

The intent was very clear. Given that an organization that was part of a department was to become an agency, and that in past similar situations, there was erosion with respect to compliance with the Official Languages Act, there was a growing concern, which the Commissioner had in fact mentioned quite eloquently in his report, and the committee's wish was that parks should continue to be required to provide services to the public in both official languages, even if the services were to be offered by third parties. So the intent was very clear. In fact, two of my colleagues who are here were there at the time. They could confirm this themselves, because they took part in the debate.

This was very clearly the intent of the bill. I don't want to reveal the amendment that will be tabled in the House today for debate at report stage, but I can say that those who are paid to do this work have succeeded, in my view, in drafting an amendment that reflects, better than I could, the debate we had. The amendment will be tabled, and I hope the Reform Party will support it.

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The Joint Chair (Senator Rose-Marie Losier-Cool): You have not used up all of your seven minutes.

Mr. Denis Paradis (Brome—Missisquoi, Lib.): A few months ago, the members of this committee asked Mr. Goldbloom to investigate the state of bilingualism at the Ottawa airport. When a federal airport is turned over to the community, we want to ensure that all services to the public—and I'm saying this for our colleague opposite—are provided in both official languages. That is important, because this is the capital of the country. That is why we asked Mr. Goldbloom to look into this matter. When the administration of an airport is turned over to a regional authority, there is a tendency to award some sub-contracts for the sandwich stand, the newsstand, and so on. All those people, including the security staff, deal with the public, and it is important that the spirit of the Official Languages Act be followed and that people who deal with the public be able to respond in both languages.

The Joint Chair (Senator Rose-Marie Losier-Cool): The last few speakers have used up the Liberal Party's seven minutes.

Mr. Muise.

Mr. Mark Muise (West Nova, PC): I would like to support the comments just made by my colleague from the Liberal Party. When we discussed this bill at the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, the discussion about official languages was along the lines explained by Mr. Bélanger. Had it been different, I would have voted against that, and I think my colleagues would have as well.

The Reform Party is just trying to pour oil on the fire, rather than trying to do something credible here. We should be working together, because the objective is to pass a good piece of legislation, and not to play political games.

The Joint Chair (Senator Rose-Marie Losier-Cool): Thank you. Do you care to comment, Mr. Goldbloom?

Mr. Victor Goldbloom: No, thank you, Madam Chair,

The Joint Chair (Rose-Marie Losier-Cool): It is Ms. Vautour's turn.

Ms. Angela Vautour (Beauséjour—Petitcodiac, NDP): I was surprised when I read that we should never support a motion or an amendment that... I was lost for a moment, because I didn't think that that was what had been passed.

We have to clarify that when a decision is made to turn the administration of some campgrounds over to subcontractors, we must ensure that services continue to be provided in both official languages in our parks. It is as simple as that, but I don't think we should focus on this too much, because there are too many other problems in the country.

Most of my questions have been answered, but I do have another one I would like to ask, Mr. Goldbloom. Approximately how many full-time employees do you have in each regional office?

Mr. Victor Goldbloom: On average, we have five employees in each office. The number may vary from four to six, but the average is five per office. Normally, there are three professionals and two support staff.

Ms. Angela Vautour: Have there been employee cuts in some regions? Has that been distributed throughout the country?

Mr. Victor Goldbloom: One of the questions I was asked during program review was: "Do you really need your regional offices?" I answered categorically that we needed them and I defended our regional offices very vigorously. So, for the most part, there has been no change.

Ms. Angela Vautour: Do you expect any problems with the upcoming study, or do you think that the Official Languages Act might be neglected as a result of past or future cuts? Are you concerned enough to try to get the funding today?

Mr. Victor Goldbloom: I am concerned about budget cuts.

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I would like to complete an answer to the question raised by Mr. Plamondon. He asked me why there had been reductions in the complaints area, in particular. We had no staff cuts in the Legal Services Branch, but the workload increased, and we are at a point where it will be difficult to meet any future requests. Consequently, the fact that there are fewer people working in one area does not necessarily mean that this is the sector in which we're having the most significant problems.

The Joint Chair (Senator Rose-Marie Losier-Cool): I would like to ask one final question. How much time does it take to process a complaint? I imagine that with all the changes that have occurred, there must have been some impact on the length of time it takes.

Mr. Victor Goldbloom: We try to process relatively simple complaints within three months. We try to handle general problems within six months. In recent years, complaints have become more complex. That means that in many cases, we need more time. The investigation itself involves much more work. We have to get in touch with more people and question them, and there is more drafting as well. So in some cases, we cannot have a final report ready within six months.

Two or three years ago, I set up a monthly review of complaints, particularly complaints that had been around for some time. I would not want us to get into the habit of having some cases drag on without knowing what is going on and what remains to be done. We must act in order to draw our conclusions in a timely fashion. So we are constantly trying to reduce as much as possible the processing time of each complaint.

The Joint Chair (Senator Rose-Marie Losier-Cool): That completes the first round.

[English]

Mr. Muise did not take the seven minutes for the Progressive Conservatives. Senator Beaudoin would like to comment.

[Translation]

Senator Gérald Beaudoin (Rigaud, PC): I hope my question is not premature. It has to do with Part VII, which I have always found particularly interesting.

In the context of budget cuts, I understand that you have said that the Department of Canadian Heritage must adopt a more effective plan. Could you provide any clarifications about that plan? In view of the ongoing cuts, do you have any specific views about a more effective plan to implement Part VII?

Mr. Victor Goldbloom: The Department of Canadian Heritage has a key role, a coordinating role to play, Senator. Over the years, we have noticed that the department had some difficulty playing this role fully. I suggested in one of my annual reports, and this committee suggested specifically, that there be a responsibility centre with more authority over the various federal institutions, because the Department of Canadian Heritage is on an equal footing with other departments and has horizontal relations with them.

As a result, an agreement was entered into between the Department of Canadian Heritage and Treasury Board. The government decided that Treasury Board would play this role.

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There has been some progress. For example, we noticed that the second generation of action plans were an improvement over the first, and a third is now being prepared.

What concerns me at the moment is that while an action plan may exist on paper, it must produce some concrete results. First of all, there must be more discussions and conversations between federal institutions on the one hand and minority communities on the other. But there again, talking about the problem is not enough. There must be some concrete results.

I can tell you quite frankly that although we no longer have the staff required to study a third generation of action plans, I do not necessarily deplore this situation, in that some day we must stop working on action plans and move to constructive discussions that lead to the introduction of programs and resources that will allow these communities to get on with their lives. That is the point I am particularly stressing.

[English]

Mr. Randy White: Madam Chair, I find interesting some of the comments prior to this about the Reform Party's trying to make politics out of what I consider a very important issue.

One of my colleagues at the table indicated that the motion in question was just something that had some intent but it got worded another way. I want to read a little something about that, a letter from the justice minister to the Secretary of State for Parks.

It says in fact a clause of such scope raises constitutional questions regarding the power of Parliament to impose linguistic duties upon private organizations in a field of activity that generally speaking is of provincial competence, and that is in labour relations matters and so on.

One might say that intent was not there, but the fact is that motion applies to the agency and its subcontractors. It imposes, even constitutionally I believe, certain parameters over and above the Official Languages Act on individuals, third parties, subcontractors in every region of this country, not just the Ottawa airport.

Mr. Goldbloom, in view of what I have just read, do you not think that such an amendment is ultra vires of the Official Languages Act, over and above the intent of the act, and intends to do something else? If it is not the intent of the individuals, it certainly does something over and above what the Official Languages Act was intended for.

Mr. Victor Goldbloom: Mr. White, the Official Languages Act does not apply to the private sector. Therefore its only relationship to the private sector arises in two articles, two sections, one of which says that if a wholly owned subsidiary is carrying out a function it is subject to the act. The other, section 25 to which I referred, focuses on service to the public. I continue by virtue of that section of the act to focus on service to the public.

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At the risk of being repetitive, if a service is shifted to another entity with regard to the responsibility for that service and the service is the same as it was when it was a federal responsibility, and the public to be served is the same public as when it was a federal responsibility, then we should ensure in any legislation that the public continues to receive that same service in understandable language where numbers warrant.

Mr. Randy White: We are not talking about same service in this motion. We are talking about something that is over and above that service. For those who may think the Reform Party is playing politics with this, it is a darn good thing we were in the House when this motion was tabled or it would be law in fact very soon, and that would be a mistake indeed.

Mr. Cliff Breitkreuz (Yellowhead, Ref.): Madam Chair, I want to pursue this parks agency legislation along with the proposed Liberal amendment. It does not surprise me that this amendment was being proposed, because it virtually would not apply to Quebec at all but would really hit western Canada. I want to substantiate that with some figures.

On the percentage of national parks in provinces, excluding the territories, Alberta has 63%, B.C. has over 7%, Saskatchewan has almost 6%, Manitoba has almost 17%, and the list goes on. Quebec has 1.08%. So this really would not apply to Quebec at all other than one little national park.

The other thing is the unfairness and unreasonableness of this amendment. I represent Yellowhead, which contains one of Canada's largest national parks, Jasper National Park. I asked Jasper tourism and commerce for a breakdown on the number of visitors and where they came from. As you would expect, Albertans visit Jasper the most. Next is British Columbia, and then you get divided visiting from Saskatchewan and Manitoba and the northwestern United States. After that it is a large number of visitors from Germany, England, and the list goes on.

Nowhere in that survey was Quebec or France. The stats did not include them because I guess they did not go down that far. You can see how, besides maybe being unconstitutional, it is just plain unfair and out of the realm of reason.

Mr. Victor Goldbloom: Without entering into the argumentation, in Quebec we find that the availability of services in English in federal institutions, federal offices, is the best in Canada. We receive fewer complaints from Quebec than from other parts of Canada and fewer complaints from English-speaking Canadians than from French-speaking Canadians.

Forgive me, I don't have specific figures with me but I could obviously provide them. We do receive a certain number of complaints from French-speaking Canadians who have gone to national parks in different part of Canada and have asked to be communicated with in French but who have not been able to receive service in French.

On the other hand, and Jasper National Park is one of these, we have recognized with a commissioner's merit award parks that have provided courteous service to people of both language groups.

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There is a principle involved that if we designate an area as a national park, Canadians as a whole should be able to feel those are their national parks. So we do look for services in both languages where the public is received at national parks.

[Translation]

The Joint Chair (Senator Rose-Marie Losier-Cool): Do you have any comments on the budget, Mr. Plamondon?

Mr. Louis Plamondon: Not on the budget, Madam Chair. I will wait to make my comments on the report.

The Joint Chair (Senator Rose-Marie Losier-Cool): Mr. Paradis? Does anyone else want to speak about the budget? If not, we will pass the budget and then move into the second part of the meeting, on the report itself.

[English]

Mr. Cliff Breitkreuz: I have a comment about the estimates, about the number of dollars spent on the language police, euphemistically referred to as complaints and investigation in your report. It is salmost $ 3 million. Will this go up should this amendment and this legislation go through?

Mr. Victor Goldbloom: Mr. Breitkreuz, I have no way of guessing what might be the impact of a given piece of legislation. The thing that troubles me, to be very candid, is the confusion of the role of policemen with the role of ombudsmen. We are sometimes called language police. The commissioner is sometimes called the language tsar.

Part of the confusion may arise from a fair amount of public attention received by Quebec's Office de la Langue Française, which does have interventionary powers, which does enter into the private sector and which provokes a certain number of reactions among people who are not comfortable.

The Commissioner of Official Languages has no authority in the private sector except, as I indicated to Mr. White, in relation to section 25 or wholly owned subsidiaries. We have no police authority. We cannot order anyone to do anything or not to do anything. If I can take an example to which you addressed yourself some weeks ago, we cannot tell the Canadian Olympic Committee what to do or not to do. We can and do receive a complaint and evaluate that complaint and make our comments on it and make recommendations in that regard, but we are not a police force.

Mr. Cliff Breitkreuz: What about the airlines, which are all private industries? If they did not comply to certain legislation they would be shut down, such as safety regulations.

Mr. Victor Goldbloom: I am unaware of any airline being shut down.

Mr. Cliff Breitkreuz: I didn't say they were shut down, but they would be shut down if they did not comply to the legislation.

Mr. Victor Goldbloom: I am mystified by the notion that an airline could be shut down. If that exists somewhere in Canada it is probably the Minister of Transport who could shut down an airline. It is certainly not the Commissioner of Official Languages.

Our difficulties with Air Canada, notably, which have taken us to court, have to do with the absence of understandable service in both languages at certain major airports in Canada, specifically Toronto and Halifax. They also have to do with a problem concerning Air Canada's regional carriers. Regional carriers by definition are not federal institutions.

We therefore are not in a position to relate directly to them. But by virtue of section 25 and also now by virtue of those regional carriers being wholly owned subsidiaries of Air Canada, we have said very simply if a Canadian citizen has a complaint there should be a mechanism allowing us to deal with that complaint. It should not go into a drawer and be refused on the basis that nobody has jurisdiction. If a Canadian citizen does not receive good service and that service is provided by someone acting on behalf of the equivalent of a federal institution, which is Air Canada, there should be a mechanism of recourse and redress.

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I have tried to negotiate a mechanism of that nature and avoid going to court on the issue. To this point, and I am still trying, we have not succeeded in working out an agreement with Air Canada for the handling of complaints concerns Air BC, Air Ontario, Air Alliance and Air Nova.

[Translation]

The Joint Chair (Senator Rose-Marie Losier-Cool): Is your comment about the Estimates, Ms. Vautour? All right, please go ahead.

[English]

Ms. Angela Vautour: I would like to clarify a couple of things following the amendment that we did support with parks agency. To make things clear, within my riding I have two national parks. One is Kouchibouguac National Park, and the other one is Fundy. One is in a francophone region and one is in an anglophone region, so I doubt very much I would be supporting a motion that would put one against the other.

The way I am interpreting this is that, for instance, if there was a clerical position within Kouchibouguac National Park that is bilingual that would go out to contract, then it would stay bilingual. If there was a clerical position in Fundy National Park that was an anglophone or a unilingual position that would go out to contract, it would stay with that same language. I don't see this amendment changing anything. And if it was serving the public, it would be the same thing. Whatever language is there at the time, if it goes to contracting out, the same principle exists.

Mr. Victor Goldbloom: Always responding on the basis of principle, what exists when something is a federal responsibility should continue to exist with the same criteria, the same standards, if it is transferred to another sector of responsibility.

[Translation]

The Joint Chair (Senator Rose-Marie Losier-Cool): Since there are no other comments on the budget, I would like a motion for the adoption of the Main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1999.

PRIVY COUNCIL

Commissioner of Official Languages

Vote 25—Program Expenditures $ 8,912,000

The Joint Chair (Senator Rose-Marie Losier-Cool): Moved by Mr. Denis Paradis.

(Vote 25 is carried)

The Joint Chair (Senator Rose-Marie Losier-Cool): This completes the first part of our meeting.