Senior investigators from the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages (CLO) report a “crisis” within it in an internal document dating from November 2021, of which The duty got a copy. According to these investigators, their workload has tripled in the past seven years and the OCOL’s ability to serve the public has been “seriously compromised”.
According to these employees, the crisis was not officially recognized by CLO management, including the Compliance Assurance Branch (DGAC), which is responsible for conducting audits and investigations. The principal investigators note that the DGAC is developing numerous strategies to solve the problem, but that no formal or institutional mechanism has been implemented.
Principal investigators — a different position from investigators — ask management to recognize the crisis and protect its employees. These employees say they are under “enormous and sustained pressure” due, among other things, to the volume of complaints received; their team is exhausted, they say, and the pandemic is not the main cause of this pressure. The number of complaints has steadily increased over the past few years. The COL received 1361 deemed admissible in 2019-2020, compared to 5409 in 2021-2022.
A stagnant number of employees
According to the internal document, there would have been successive departures from the CLO, a lack of succession and difficulty in retaining staff. The recent departures would have caused a “loss of experience and knowledge” for the organization. The OCOL’s 2022-2023 Departmental Plan does not foresee an increase in the number of full-time employees, but a decrease in its total workforce in 2022-2023. Since 2017, the total number of OCOL employees has increased from 155 to 177, as of March 2021. The ministry expects this number to increase to 166 over the next three years.
In a press release, Raymond Théberge, the Commissioner of Official Languages, defended the management of his staff, mentioning in passing that the report had been written by eight principal investigators, who represent a minority of his employees. “We are committed to providing our employees with a healthy work environment and place great importance on the well-being of each and every one of them,” he says. A “vast majority” of employees would be “very satisfied” with their jobs, he says.
The Commissioner says that expectations regarding the volume of files to be processed per employee have not changed in recent years, even though the number of complaints has increased. The OCOL, he says, will make changes to his ways of doing things to allow his team to be more efficient and better manage the volume of complaints. This includes the migration to a new IT solution planned for fall 2022.
With Marie Vastel
This story is supported by the Local Journalism Initiative, funded by the Government of Canada.