The senior managers of Canadian diplomacy have not yet reserved a space for French in their meetings, a suggestion yet deemed easy to achieve by a working group created a year and a half ago, shows a report.
A single month was supposed to be enough to manage to put the promotion of French on the agenda of the meetings of the Executive Committee of Global Affairs Canada. This is at least the estimate made in the spring of 2021 by an internal “ginger group” on official languages. At least 15 months later, it “has not been done”, settles a follow-up document obtained by The duty.
The recommendation therefore seems to have been ignored by the governing body of the federal department, made up of deputy ministers and assistant deputy ministers, as well as a few ambassadors.
A similar fate awaited the suggestion to alternate English-French at high-level operations and governance meetings, issuing a “reminder to [gestionnaires] and employees of their right to expect a bilingual team”. “Has not progressed in terms of procedures, but this practice seems to have increased in some sectors,” reads the follow-up document dated June 2022.
Several computer complaints
The department’s internal report also suggests that Global Affairs Canada’s computer services violate the Official Languages Act, which is the subject of “several complaints”. For example, it is a question of computer keyboards only in English or software installed in English by default.
The department denied this allegation in its response to the To have to, indicating rather that the standard is multilingual keyboards, but that managers can obtain English and French keyboards for their employees. Other equipment, such as laptops, can also be passed from employee to employee during their life cycle, it is said.
However, some suggestions led to changes in the organization. Global Affairs Canada now offers its employees email signature templates inviting the recipient to respond in English or French. The department also created focus groups and conducted internal surveys.
Importantly, a “problem acknowledgment” message was sent to all employees on March 18, 2021, the memo said. “Linguistic duality is an essential element of the inclusive culture that the department continues to build and seeks to achieve,” reads this communication obtained by The duty. It specifies that all employees are encouraged to speak French on a daily basis, and that managers are asked to “set an example”.
French working group
The phrase “ginger group” (ginger groupin English) is used within the government to describe an internal group whose mission is to advance certain causes within an organization.
The one on the place of French at Global Affairs Canada was created at the beginning of 2021, shortly after The duty revealed that the department with 42% of French-speaking civil servants had only English-speakers in the most prestigious positions in its senior management. Documents have also shown that Francophones were more often eliminated from promotion competitions, as were people from visible minorities, people with disabilities and Aboriginal people.
Since then, the senior civil servant responsible for the diplomatic network, Marta Morgan, has retired. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau then appointed his former personal representative for the G7 Summit, David Morrison, as the new Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Francophones have also recently acceded to senior management positions or been appointed heads of mission. For example, the former high commissioner of Canada to Mozambique and ex-ambassador to Ethiopia, Antoine Chevrier, became the assistant deputy minister for sub-Saharan Africa last March. He replaces in this post a controversial English-speaking manager who had no prior diplomatic experience.
The Canadian Press reported this week that a Senate committee is considering lowering the importance of knowledge of French for the hiring of diplomats — for those who are proficient in Asian languages, for example. This idea explicitly contravenes the official claim of Global Affairs Canada to have an “unwavering commitment” to bilingualism, as well as the vision promised by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mélanie Joly.
“For the Canadian diplomatic network, fluency in French is not only essential, but it is also a strategic advantage. The French language is part of Canada’s unique identity on the international scene,” wrote Minister Joly’s press attaché, Adrien Blanchard.
In an email, the spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada, Patricia Skinner, specifies that the high-level meetings “move fluidly from one official language to another, depending on the speaker’s language of choice”. She therefore concedes nothing that could suggest that the department’s senior management is open to criticism regarding its use of French.