For federal public servants, workplace language rights have been a decades long struggle.
New language requirements for supervisors in bilingual areas will
go into effect on June 20
. The changes, which apply to supervisors with positions deemed bilingual, are meant to ensure workers can comfortably use their language of choice with their supervisor.
In an interview with the Ottawa Citizen,
Official Languages Comissioner Raymond Théberge
called the changes “a very positive move on the part of government to ensure that the language rights of public servants are respected.”
He added that the policy has something his predecessors “have asked for many, many times.”
The requirements, Théberge said, will help language rights within the public service, as well as bilingual service delivery.
So what are the changes and how will they impact public servants? Here’s everything you need to know.
What rules are changing?
For the public service, the language requirements for supervisors in bilingual regions has been BBB, which means intermediate levels in reading, writing and oral conversation.
On June 20, those requirements will increase to CBC, meaning proficient levels in reading and oral conversation, with only intermediate levels in writing.
Bilingual regions for the federal government include parts of Quebec and Ontario, New Brunswick and the National Capital Region.
Will current supervisors be “grandfathered” in?
To limit the operational impact of the changes, the Treasury Board Secretariat said that the new rules will only apply to new appointments.
Supervisors that currently do not meet the new language requirements will be grandfathered in won’t be mandated to take language training.
However, the Treasury Board Secretariat said that if one of these supervisors changes roles they will be required to meet the new language requirements.
Supervisors that do not meet the new requirements “are also encouraged to work towards CBC (or equivalent) proficiency to assist them in their current role and in their career progression,” Rola Salem, a spokesperson for the Treasury Board Secretariat, said in an emailed statement.
How many supervisors are affected?
Around 35,000 supervisors in the core public service worked in bilingual regions in 2023, with 87 per cent of those in bilingual roles, according to the most data provided by the Treasury Board.
As of 2023, 57 per cent of supervisors in bilingual areas whose first language was English did not meet the CBC level. For those whose first language was French, it was 29 per cent.
About a third of all bilingual supervisors met the requirement.
Do the changes go far enough?
The Treasury Board Secretariat said
that departments and agencies
will be responsible for their own internal monitoring to ensure the new requirements are followed. They’ll also be responsible for ensuring that language data is current.
Théberge was concerned about leaving monitoring to each department or agency, and described the rollout of the new requirement as lacking “a real plan.”
He said he also worries about the time it will take all supervisors in bilingual regions to gain their CBC requirements.
“I think it creates uncertainty when you don’t have a clear plan of action moving forward,” Théberge said. “If we had more clarity, it would move the process much faster.”
Théberge said his office receives a few hundred language rights complaints from public servants every year.
In his report released on June 17, Théberge wrote that he is “concerned about what might happen to employees who are supervised by incumbents of unilingual supervisory positions or by incumbents of bilingual positions who do not meet the CBC second-language requirement.”
Théberge said he wants to see the federal government invest more in language training to elevate the current cohort of supervisors to CBC.
“We’re still building, we’ll always be building this bilingual capacity within government to be able to serve Canadians in the language of their choice,” Théberge added.
Our website is your destination for up-to-the-minute news, so make sure to bookmark our homepage and sign up for our newsletters so we can keep you informed.
