LANG Committee Report

PART III: ROADMAP GOVERNANCE

A. Roadmap management framework

The Roadmap is governed by two main frameworks. The first, the Accountability and Coordination Framework, encompasses all Roadmap initiatives; it “enhances horizontal coordination of the Official Languages Program (OLP), for instance, by ensuring the Roadmap’s success.”[309]

The second, the Horizontal Results-based Management and Accountability Framework (HRMAF), which was introduced in 2009, one year after the Roadmap was launched, describes the Roadmap’s major governance tools, such as its logic model and consultation strategies, as well as its accountability, reporting and performance measurement mechanisms.

B. Roles and responsibilities of the federal partners in implementing the Roadmap

Responsibility for Roadmap implementation is shared between the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages and his counterparts in the federal institutions. The Minister responsible for Official Languages is supported by the Committee of Assistant Deputy Ministers on Official Languages, which acts on behalf of the federal partners of the Roadmap and provides leadership in management of the Official Languages Program (OLP).

Three interdepartmental committees support the Committee of Assistant Deputy Ministers on Official Languages:[310]

• the Interdepartmental Policy Committee is an information-exchange forum for federal partners to take a coordinated approach to the OLP;
• the Interdepartmental Management Committee for the OLP facilitates and structures interdepartmental coordination for the OLP — and specifically the Roadmap — by assessing its implementation and strengthening the management and reporting processes; and
• the Coordinating Committee on Official Languages Research ensures that official languages research is coordinated and that all findings are widely distributed.

The Official Languages Secretariat (OLS) coordinates implementation of the Roadmap. It is also responsible for:

• supporting the Minister responsible for Official Languages as well as the senior officials of departments, institutions and federal agencies in the coordination of all the government’s official languages activities;
• supporting the Committee of Assistant Deputy Ministers on Official Languages;
• coordinating government action;
• coordinating the Roadmap reporting process; and
• promoting awareness among federal institutions about government commitments and priorities in connection with their obligations regarding the Official Languages Act.[311]

The OLS received $13.5 million over 5 years under the Roadmap for the management and accountability framework.

The federal partners in the Roadmap are responsible for managing their assigned programs and resources and for reporting on scheduled and achieved results:

The structure helps clarify the roles and responsibilities of federal partners and those of the Official Languages Secretariat. Roadmap federal partners are responsible for the management of the programs and the resources allocated to them, as well as for reporting on the scheduled and achieved results. Partners are specifically tasked with informing the Official Languages Secretariat on the planning and performance of the initiatives financed by the funds of the Roadmap.[312]

Generally speaking, the evidence showed that the HRMAF needs to be improved in the areas of governance, communications, consultations, interdepartmental and intergovernmental coordination, accountability, reporting and evaluation mechanisms.

C. Role of Canadian Heritage’s Official Languages Secretariat

As mentioned, Canadian Heritage’s Official Languages Secretariat (OLS) coordinates implementation of the Roadmap. The Fédération des communautés Francophones et acadienne du Canada (FCFA) believes that the OLS does not have the necessary resources to take on this responsibility:

Implementation of the Roadmap requires a central authority that can oversee what each of the federal institutions concerned is doing, demand results and coordinate match-ups with all partners. The Official Languages Secretariat, which is responsible for implementing the Roadmap, is not equipped or in any position to perform that work efficiently.[313]

The Committee acknowledges that coordination is the key to a horizontal initiative like the Roadmap. It is therefore essential for the federal institution responsible for coordination to have the human and financial resources needed to perform this task, and for it to have the authority required to carry out its leadership role. At the moment, the Committee has been unable to evaluate the work done by the OLS in implementing the Roadmap and the Horizontal Results-based Management and Accountability Framework (HRMAF). Accordingly, the Committee recommends:

Recommendation 34

That the Department of Canadian Heritage evaluate the performance of the Official Languages Secretariat (OLS) in coordinating the Roadmap and implementing the Horizontal Results-based Management and Accountability Framework; that it provide the House of Commons Standing Committee on Official Languages with the evaluation results by March 31, 2013, by providing possible improvements to the recommendations concerning the human and financial resource needs of the OLS for any future horizontal official languages initiative.

D. A rigorous management and accountability framework

The success of any future horizontal official languages initiative also depends on the management and accountability framework governing it. The OLMC should be able to contribute to the development of such a framework:

We need to create a management and accountability framework, and our communities need to participate in defining objectives, indicators and timelines. Moreover, community organizations and institutions will no doubt be called upon to play a lead role in implementing this new Roadmap, as they were in the case of the current Roadmap.[314]

The Committee believes that Canadian Heritage would do well to review the management and accountability framework with due regard to the comments and recommendations made by the OLMC. That management and accountability framework must include clear and coordinated strategies for communications, consultations, interdepartmental coordination, intergovernmental coordination, accountability and evaluation.

E. The need to establish a communications plan

When he appeared before the Committee, Graham Fraser, Commissioner of Official Languages of Canada, observed that the Roadmap could have been promoted more effectively:

I am always astonished at the number of supposedly well-informed people who know nothing whatsoever about the Roadmap, even though it’s a $1.1 billion program lasting five years. Being transparent does not mean the government has to become invisible and silent with regard to the Roadmap. In fact, it is vital that the government promote the Roadmap and do so effectively, just as it did with the economic action plan, for example.[315]

The Commissioner of Official Languages of Canada believes that it would be useful to develop a good communications plan for a future horizontal official languages initiative. The Committee agrees with this recommendation and reiterates:

Recommendation 35

That the Government of Canada ensure that the management and accountability framework for a future horizontal initiative for official languages include a strategy for communicating with Canadians.

F. Consultations

1. To better define the consultation process

There is no denying that the Horizontal Results-based Management and Accountability Framework (HRMAF) has little to say about the strategies for consultations on the Roadmap. Section 2.1.2, “Dialogue,” describes the activities that “promote dialogue and information-sharing”[316] between the Government of Canada, provincial and territorial governments and all Canadians and lists three main activities: the annual Ministerial Conference on the Canadian Francophonie, meetings with representatives from communities, and research projects from the scientific and academic community.[317]

The OLMC are concerned about this lack of detail. The Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada (FCFA) finds that the HRMAF provides few mechanisms for consultation and does not define them very thoroughly:

The Roadmap’s horizontal management framework provides for very few mechanisms for dialogue with the official language minority communities….[318]

2. Improving interdepartmental coordination of consultations

The HRMAF does not contain any mechanisms for coordinating the consultation efforts of the OLS and the various federal partners. Moreover, each of these parties uses the method of its own choice:

Each one has its own ways. They do use questionnaires as a tool or means. I have received some questionnaires to complete. There are other means, individual meetings, evaluation by each of the departments of the funding received under the Roadmap.[319]

This lack of interdepartmental coordination of consultations causes problems. For one thing, the large number of consultation exercises places a heavy burden on OLMC organizations and institutions, which do not always have the administrative capacity needed to participate in several consultations in the same year. For another, this approach does not foster collaboration and dialogue between the Roadmap partners and
the OLMC.

3. Defining performance indicators together

In general, federal institutions recognize the importance of the consultations. They allow these institutions to align their priorities with those of the OLMC and to find innovative ways of implementing Part VII of the Official Languages Act. According to the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development (HRSDC):

These [consultation] sessions really are fundamental to allowing us to get a better understanding of what the community priorities and challenges are. It also allows the communities to be more aware of what our role is with respect to supporting part VII of the Official Languages Act, but also the programs and services we provide to Canadians more broadly.[320]

The consultations are all-the-more useful when they take the form of an ongoing dialogue:

In terms of consultation, I would like it to be carried out on more of an ongoing basis and focus more on dialogue. Let me give you an example. We are consulted, we are asked what we all want, we go back home, the drafting begins, and then we are told: “Here is the program.” Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. I believe that ongoing dialogue as an approach would be more satisfactory, and that the government would end up with a program the goals of which would be more easily met.[321]

The concept of an ongoing dialogue implies consultations at crucial stages of the implementation of initiatives, including conceptualization; definition of objectives, targets and performance indicators; mid-term evaluation; and final evaluation. The Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada (FCFA) said that few federal institutions collaborated with the OLMC when defining the objectives, timetables, targets and performance measures for Roadmap initiatives:

…some federal institutions have set targets and objectives for themselves without consulting the communities that do not necessarily reflect the objectives of the communities themselves. A horizontal management framework for a renewed Roadmap should provide for systematic consultations with the communities for the development, implementation and evaluation of each of the initiatives.[322]

The Roadmap targets and performance indicators, in most cases, were not identified in collaboration with the communities. In many cases, we were not consulted for the purpose of setting those targets. So we realized that they do not correspond at all to what we would have liked.[323]

The Société Saint-Thomas-d’Aquin (SSTA) made the same point:

My supplementary comment would be that, for the next Roadmap, performance indicators should be coordinated. We can do that, we can work together.[324]

And yet, identifying objectives and performance indicators is a crucial step that has an impact on the success of any initiative. According to the Fédération culturelle canadienne-française (FCCF), the success of the Music Showcases for Artists from OLMC program can be attributed to the collaborative work that was done when the program’s priorities, objectives and performance indicators were defined:

Without a shadow of a doubt, this success is due to the fact that the program criteria were developed with representatives of artists from official language minority communities. The criteria therefore reflects the needs of the community.[325]

For the Black Community Resource Centre (BCRC), this stage determines how success will be defined:

You really need, before you do that, to set in place measurable indicators; you need to tell us. And it needs to be done together. We need to understand what you define as success, just as we will tell you how we see success in our community. If we are all on the same page about the steps we’re meeting, then in terms of a partnership, once we’ve met those steps, we deserve and should continue, for the sustainability of our community, with that funding.[326]

4. For an increased use of community development plans

Consultations can take a variety of forms. In this regard, the OLMC representatives called for greater use of their community development plans when a future Government of Canada horizontal initiative for official languages is being developed and planned. The Société franco-manitobaine (SFM) nicely summed up the essence and importance of these community plans:

The plan was designed as a consultation and mobilization tool for the Franco-Manitoban community and its partner organizations. It targets the aspirations of the community towards linguistic and cultural vitality, and it suggests five areas for community development over five years in order to mobilize its partner organizations for action.[327]

On the national stage, the members of the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada (FCFA) and the Forum des leaders de la Francophonie have developed a Community Strategic Plan. This plan emerged from the Summit of Francophone and Acadian Communities held in 2007 and is to be implemented by 2017:

… the Community Strategic Plan is also adjusted to the overall development plans. So we have a big plan for the community as a whole. We suggest further aligning it with the priorities of the new Roadmap.[328]

The Société Saint-Thomas-d’Aquin (SSTA), like all the representatives of Francophone minority language communities, supports the Community Strategic Plan:

We do have a kind of consistency interprovincially through the Federation of Francophone and Acadian Communities of Canada. Their priorities and ours are aligned. There is the leaders’ forum. Overall, each province ties its global development plan with a Canada-wide plan.[329]

As for English-speaking communities in Quebec, the Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN) is developing a new community strategic plan. At their Strategic Priorities Forum in March 2012, the QCGN identified six strategic priorities: access to services in English, community building, economic prosperity, identity and renewal, leadership and representation, and strong institutions.

The FCFA and the QCGN want the Government of Canada to make better use of the OLMC’ overall development plans and the sectoral organizations’ strategic plans. This practice would, among other things, help to align the OLMC’s priorities with those of the federal government. The FCFA also recommended: “…that the next Roadmap closely match up with the priorities expressed in the plan by the communities themselves.”[330]

According to the Société franco-manitobaine (SFM), “Since it is the federal government requiring us to create this plan, it would make sense to put in place a strategy connecting provincial priorities to those of the Roadmap.”[331] Also, the current Roadmap states that the community strategic plans “brought the needs of official language minority communities into sharper focus.”[332] But the SFM said that its overall development plan was not considered when the Roadmap was developed:

We see that no strategy to bring the priorities of our community in line with the Roadmap has been developed. We feel it is appropriate to ask that the priorities of communities and their provincial realities are factored in when the next Roadmap is developed, especially since Francophone communities in each province, together with the advocacy organizations of the Société franco-manitobaine, were asked to come up with a community strategic plan.[333]

The development plans are seen as consultation tools that can facilitate and even streamline the consultation process for OLMC organizations and institutions:

I admit, however, that consultation can also be a burden on us. We have to be honest. Every department submits questionnaires to us and wants us to bring everyone together to talk about one of the 32 programs, then the thirty-first, then the thirtieth, and so on.

When the next Roadmap is developed, it will be very interesting to consider the Leaders Forum of the Fédération des communautés Francophones et acadienne du Canada. That forum reflects what the Roadmap is doing on the community side. It brings together all the sectors of the Francophone and Acadian communities, the municipal governments, the representatives of health, post-secondary and college-level education and us, a representative organization in health and justice. We are all there.

We have an action plan. It’s a community strategic plan for the entire country. We can draw considerably on that work done by the Francophone and Acadian communities.

We’re using all our joint action systems to provide information on the Roadmap for Canada’s Linguistic Duality. I think that would be an effective approach.[334]

In addition to better aligning community and government priorities and streamlining the consultation process, increased use of community development plans provides a better understanding of the OLMC’s governance structures. In Manitoba, if the Franco-Manitoban community’s overall development plan had been used in connection with the Roadmap, it would have enhanced the organizational capabilities of the Société franco-manitobaine (SFM), especially with respect to financial management. According to the SFM, the government did not consider the mechanisms that the Franco-Manitoban community had already put in place for governance and for the allocation of funding:

Right now, the way funds are allocated seems to show a lack of coordination with our Manitoban process that places the Société franco-manitobaine at the centre of our community strategies.

The vast majority of Roadmap funding is managed by national organizations and is then directly transferred to provincial organizations, without necessarily reflecting provincial priorities or actually keeping the whole community informed.[335]

The Assemblée communautaire fransaskoise (ACF) representatives also believe that implementation of the procedures and methodology for Roadmap funds allocation should be revised to take OLMC governance structures into account. In its brief, the ACF alludes to tensions that arise within the network of associations when the existing structures are not respected:

In Saskatchewan, we have developed and adopted a new governance structure for the Fransaskois community: the Assemblée communautaire fransaskoise (ACF). This representation structure, in which the president and community representatives (elected regional community members) are elected by universal suffrage, has been completely overlooked and not respected in the Roadmap’s implementation in Saskatchewan. As a governing entity, the ACF must be fully consulted on any agreement signed between a federal funding agency and a Fransaskois organization. This failure to acknowledge the ACF’s political and administrative authority, as may be seen from the apparent willingness of federal departments to negotiate funding with any party whatever, is inconsistent with federal recognition of our governance structure and creates serious tension in our association network.[336]

The Fédération acadienne de la Nouvelle-Écosse made the same point:

… in our province, we have an overall development plan for the Acadian community and our 29 member associations. Under the next Roadmap, we would like there to be a collaborative relationship with the government on how that funding will meet the needs of the province’s overall plan for all our member associations and all our communities….[337]

Overall development plans are also excellent tools for promoting tripartite collaboration among the federal government, provincial and territorial governments and OLMC. The Société Saint-Thomas-d’Aquin (SSTA) told the Committee that the overall development plan for the Francophone and Acadian community of Prince Edward Island was written in collaboration with the provincial government:

What is interesting in the process that the community undertook in creating its global development plan is that the Société Saint-Thomas-d’Aquin also approached the provincial government to establish a joint development plan. It defines what the Acadian and Francophone community and the provincial government hope to accomplish in the future and how they intend to do it. The process and the planning support are both as important as the planning document itself.[338]

This is the first collaboration of its kind in Canada. The SSTA explained that this work was undertaken as the result of a request that this organization had made to the provincial government, which showed a great deal of openness. The Premier established a joint committee composed of representatives of the Francophone and Acadian community and the government. This collaborative effort produced the overall development plan, which aligns the priorities of the two parties with regard to French-language services on Prince Edward Island.[339] It is an example that should be emulated.

Clearly, Canadian Heritage must establish a consultation process that is firmly anchored in a management and accountability framework. The Department must also set a schedule for the consultations in advance, so as to encourage ongoing exchanges at the key stages in the implementation of programs: conceptualization; identification of objectives, targets and performance indicators; mid-term evaluation; and final evaluation. There must also be better coordination between the consultations conducted by Canadian Heritage’s Official Languages Secretariat (OLS) and those conducted by the various federal partners, so as to streamline the process. Lastly, increased use of the OLMC’s overall development plans as a tool for consultations should be encouraged.

G. Interdepartmental coordination

The representatives of the OLMC and of the Roadmap partner departments and agencies believe that in order to fully implement initiatives such as the Roadmap, which involves 15 federal partners, interdepartmental coordination is vital. Many federal institutions have appreciated the interdepartmental coordination and collaboration that has been achieved thanks to the Roadmap. One notable example is Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC):

On the other hand, in terms of the horizontal collaboration across federal departments and the various ADM [assistant deputy ministers] committees and working groups, it has provided a really interesting opportunity for us too. It’s provided a larger framework within which we have been able to talk about our own initiatives, to situate those, to share and discuss information. For example, in the last couple of years we launched an interdepartmental research committee to look at the various research that all the departments do. I think some of those types of cross-federal government institution activities are in place partly thanks to the Roadmap, which encouraged us to adopt a more comprehensive approach throughout government, in addition to our individual responsibilities.[340]

But interdepartmental coordination is not something that affects federal administrators alone. The federal partners’ ability to cooperate has an impact on the delivery of programs and services in the communities:

…it’s important to realize what that interdepartmental coordination means on the ground. We all live in communities and we all access services as individuals within our own communities. We don’t access silos. We access fully functional communities. So the way our minority communities work is as a horizontal organism, not as a vertical organism —health, economic development. You go to HRSDC; you go to Health Canada. You go here, you go there. That’s not the way you, as an individual, expect services to come from.

So this interdepartmental coordination, if it’s done properly, has a real and significant impact on individual people on the ground.[341]

The Fédération des Francophones de Terre-Neuve et du Labrador representatives told the Committee about the advantages of interdepartmental coordination and its benefits for the Francophone and Acadian communities of Newfoundland and Labrador:

The interdepartmental approach of the current Roadmap has facilitated our development in all priority areas by emphasizing the responsibility of all federal departments in the development of our communities. Since 2008, the Roadmap has had numerous positive effects on the everyday lives of our communities.[342]

However, some witnesses believe that interdepartmental coordination of the Roadmap might have been improved:

We on the ground sometimes don’t feel the efforts of coordination. We feel the departments are still working in silos. It’s so important, I would think, for the Francophone community outside Quebec, as well as for the English-speaking community, to feel interdepartmental work. I think there’s a problem there.

It is not that there is a lack of good will, but I think that given the budget cuts, and the way departments are set up, the way they work, all this means that people work separately. I find that that does not foster true coordination.[343]

The Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne (FCFA) asserted that the problem of interdepartmental coordination stems from a problem of leadership in the official languages portfolio:

… there is no authority, there is no office, whether it be at Canadian Heritage or elsewhere, that can require that collaboration. There’s no accountability in the collaborative effort. We are therefore finding interdepartmental and intergovernmental communication difficult.[344]

In light of the foregoing, the Committee recommends:

Recommendation 36

That the Department of Canadian Heritage, in the Government of Canada’s future horizontal initiative for official languages, develop tools and mechanisms that enable greater interdepartmental coordination so as to improve the quality of services provided to official language minority communities.

H. Intergovernmental coordination

As we have already seen, the Roadmap is a horizontal initiative that requires the cooperation of provincial and territorial governments. It cannot be otherwise, because several Roadmap areas of intervention fall under provincial and territorial jurisdiction:

…the provinces and municipalities are at the forefront in ensuring delivery of a number of direct programs and services to citizens. It is therefore imperative that there be a federal-provincial dialogue to ensure that Canadian citizens are well served in the official language of their choice and that programs and services be developed in both official languages.[345]

In his 2008-2009 annual report, the Commissioner of Official Languages of Canada noted that, at the 13th Ministerial Conference on the Canadian Francophonie, held in the City of Québec in September 2008, the provincial and territorial representatives expressed a desire to “enhance their partnership with the ...federal government with regard to the implementation of the Roadmap [2008–2013].”[346] The Committee is pleased to note that the Roadmap has acted as a springboard to establish a better dialogue between the provincial and territorial governments and their OLMC. According to the Fédération culturelle canadienne-française (FCCF) :

The Roadmap has created a significant leverage effect. That is to say it has made collaborations possible with provincial ministries, which is a new element. It is a positive change.[347]

Several witnesses stressed to the Committee the importance of aligning the activities of any future federal initiative for official languages with the priorities of the provincial and territorial governments:

…it is necessary to ensure that the priorities of the provincial and federal government are established and worked on together, in connection with the priorities of the minority communities. It is also essential to ensure that a clear, specific, transparent and responsible implementation process is established.[348]

It is important to recall that the Roadmap is a comprehensive approach that also involves interdepartmental joint action and the contributions of the provincial government and municipal authorities.[349]

With regard to intergovernmental collaboration, tripartite mechanisms have proven to be highly successful. The previously cited example of the Acadian and Francophone community of Prince Edward Island is especially interesting. Under the direction of the Société Saint-Thomas-d’Aquin (SSTA), this community prepared a global development plan 2011-2016, and the provincial government was fully involved in the process. The result is therefore a joint program for which the community and the provincial government have set common priorities and defined common strategies. The SSTA hopes that this model for cooperation between communities and provincial and territorial governments can be incorporated into a future federal government initiative for official languages. The Committee believes that intergovernmental collaboration is a key factor in the success of horizontal initiatives such as the Roadmap.

I. Accountability

Accountability practices are highly important for the community partners. As explained by the Assemblée communautaire fransaskoise (ACF), sound accountability practices facilitate communication between the federal partners and the communities and strengthen their partnerships:

One of the major things that is key to our communities is that we really consider ourselves as partners in government investments. So if we have the opportunity to be more informed about those investments, we can also be of greater service to that department and to the Government of Canada in serving the needs of our community.

Some citizens in the four corners of the province may not even be aware of the existence of funding because they don’t know that an investment has been made under the Roadmap in relation to such and such a department. By being able to know those aspects, we can inform our community. We can ensure that it is equipped and that it makes specific requests in connection with those issues. We are part of a continuum.

We are important to the process because we are the spokespersons of our communities. We absolutely have to be kept informed of those decisions; we have to know who is making those investments and how they are being made.[350]

The Association canadienne-française de l’Alberta agreed, adding that sound accountability practices help make the partners more responsible:

In addition, in November 2009, the Francophone community of Alberta learned that, through the Société Santé en français, Health Canada was investing $1 million of Roadmap investment money over three years. From the start, we knew where the funding was coming from, what amount had been allocated and what the timetable was.

At the invitation of the Réseau santé albertain, the community attended a round table meeting to determine needs and priorities. Three major community projects were selected and are currently being implemented. The officers responsible for the projects are being assisted in the process and must report on a regular basis.

The community is therefore responsible to the government. In our minds, this is a concrete example of a winning model in which a community and the government can work together to achieve their respective objectives.[351]

However, several witnesses told the Committee that it is not always easy to follow the implementation of the Roadmap initiatives or the course of the investments. In addition, the evidence shows that there are some differences in the accountability practices of the federal Roadmap partners. Consequently, access to data on funding and programming varies from one institution to another. The Fédération culturelle canadienne-française (FCCF) explained the problem as follows:

In some cases, the transparency is excellent. We mentioned the music showcases program, for example, that allows us to follow the investments to the dollar.

The cultural development fund is another matter. Today, I can give you a number of projects that have been approved and I can tell you the amounts of money they have received. But I do not know what they asked for, and I do not know about the programs on the list that were not approved. That seems to me to be a lack of transparency and accountability. You could follow the same process for all the programs. We have the framework and we have the individual programs. We do not have a tie-in between the two.

The Commissioner of Official Languages of Canada made the same point:

I believe we are also very much aware of the difference from the standpoint of accountability and the reporting process. Some departments have very clearly stated in their departmental performance reports what they have done and spent, while others have made no mention of that. So it’s quite difficult to follow the progress of those programs based on public documents.[352]

The witnesses from the OLMC also told the Committee that they cannot always differentiate between Roadmap investments and those investments that come from the participating federal institutions’ regular programs:

…it is often very difficult to know, when you look at the reports from the various departments, which amounts are attributed under the Roadmap, to whom they were attributed, how, and whether it was under a bilateral agreement.[353]

…many of our community organizations that have received federal funding were not able to say clearly whether the funds came from the Roadmap or from other sources. All this has led us to believe that we should develop a process that promotes more strategic and effective communication in line with community priorities.[354]

This is a matter of concern for the OLMC organizations and institutions that have to evaluate the programs:

With regard to governance, when we are asked about the impact of the Roadmap at the midway point, one of the challenges our communities face is the lack of clarity. It is often difficult to establish a direct connection between an investment and a result in the field, or even to know whether a specific initiative has been funded out of the Roadmap or another program.[355]

…sometimes we are not sure if the funding comes from the Roadmap or from another program. There is always the danger of deciding to reduce funding and not knowing whether it will be funding from the Roadmap or funding from an existing program.[356]

How can these accountability problems identified by the OLMC organizations and institutions be explained? Department of Canadian Heritage officials offered the following explanations:

Every department integrates official language activities with overall operations. So, depending on circumstances, departments and their mandates, it can be difficult to identify what they are doing specifically in terms of official languages.

A coordinated strategy like the strategy under the Roadmap makes it at least possible to establish some clear key initiatives — there are 32 in the Roadmap — that together reflect a significant part of the federal government’s action in terms of official languages....

In retrospect, we see that — and this is included in our mid-term evaluation — we definitely need to spend more time on tracing funding on the ground. We should perhaps do something so that people on the ground know that the Roadmap exists and that funding or part of the funding for such and such a project comes from the Roadmap. That is perhaps an improvement we should consider.

…We have actually noted the same comments. Difficulties of a practical nature don’t make our task any easier. In a number of cases, the funding from the Roadmap basically gets added on to existing funds. So that simply increases the amounts that are available for investment. From an accounting point of view in terms of how funding is allocated, it is challenging to distinguish between money that comes from the Roadmap and regular money within the same fund. But we should be able to solve those problems somehow. That is actually something to consider improving.[357]

To meet the needs of OLMC and federal institutions with regard to accountability, the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada (FCFA) suggested the development of a tool, preferably with a Web interface, that would allow the development and progress of initiatives to be followed in more detail:

In planning services and in ensuring a positive outcome for such an initiative, it is essential that we all have a good idea of how it is to be implemented along the way. We are recommending that the next Roadmap include a monitoring tool that will enable us to follow investments as they are made, by department, by year and by program.[358]

To sum up, it is hard for the community partners to monitor the implementation of Roadmap programs and investments. The OLMC say that they are not always able to distinguish between the funding that comes from regular programs and the funding that comes from the Roadmap. For these reasons, Canadian Heritage must develop an accountability tool or mechanism that will help to encourage communication and establish a partnership between Canadian Heritage’s Official Languages Secretariat (OLS), the government partners and OLMC representatives.

This tool could take the form of a Web portal where users could find all of the following at a single location: descriptions of the various initiatives, information on the progress of these initiatives in terms of programming and investments, the press releases and announcements that federal institutions issue regarding these initiatives, a section on best practices, a timetable for consultations, and other elements that would promote better collaboration between the partners. In light of the foregoing, the Committee recommends:

Recommendation 37

That the Department of Canadian Heritage, in collaboration with the official language minority communities (OLMC) and its federal, provincial and territorial partners, develop a tool to improve accountability practices for the Government of Canada’s future horizontal initiative for official languages and, in particular, to properly distinguish between funding provided through the Roadmap and that provided through ongoing programs.

That the Minister responsible for Official Languages ensure better intergovernmental coordination in a future horizontal initiative for official languages and that the Official Languages Secretariat have the necessary tools for this purpose.

J. Roadmap evaluation mechanisms

The Roadmap evaluation strategy, as described in the Horizontal Results-based Management and Accountability Framework (HRMAF), comprises two steps. First, the federal institutions must conduct summative evaluations of their initiatives. The Mid-Term Report on the Roadmap states that the summative evaluations “will be completed during the summer of 2012.”[359] It is important to note that each participating institution has developed its own evaluation mechanisms, with one exception: Industry Canada has established a common set of performance indicators in partnership with the regional development agencies:

Industry Canada carries responsibility for the overall evaluation of the economic development initiative. Using a common set of performance objectives, Industry Canada coordinates with the regional development agencies’ evaluation and reporting for the initiative, which in turn feeds into Canadian Heritage’s evaluation of the Roadmap. We are in the midst of conducting the summative evaluation, the results of which will be made available shortly to Canadian Heritage.[360]

The federal institutions’ summative evaluations will be used to produce the horizontal summative evaluation, which, according to the HRMAF, will be conducted from January 2011 to November 2012. As mentioned before, Canadian Heritage has already conducted a mid-term evaluation, the report on which was released on April 5, 2012.

OLMC representatives have many concerns about the Roadmap evaluation. The Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada (FCFA) stated that it does not know much about the evaluation process:

That said, it is important to note that the FCFA and its members have very little information on how the summary evaluations that should begin this fall will be conducted.[361]

The Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN) also expressed its concerns about this evaluation:

We have communicated to the department [Canadian Heritage] that we remain very concerned that this evaluation, both at the individual department as well as at the horizontal level, will not properly reflect the impact of the Roadmap on our community. The reasons are twofold and are of a logistical and systemic nature. The results, we fear, will provide unreliable data regarding the English-speaking community of Quebec for decision-makers and political leaders.[362]

The reasons of a “logistical nature” to which the QCGN refers are problems that were encountered in the process of consulting organizations and institutions of Quebec’s English-speaking communities. These consultations were apparently delayed until the summer, when many of these organizations are on break or operate with reduced staff to save money. The reasons of a systemic nature come down to the fact that many of the Roadmap initiatives have no equivalent in Quebec. Hence it is impossible for Quebec’s English-speaking communities to evaluate a wide range of initiatives and thereby communicate their needs in terms of immigration, literacy and early-childhood services. This is one of the reasons that the QCGN is calling for a comprehensive evaluation methodology that would enable all federal departments and agencies to take the priorities of Quebec’s English-speaking communities into account.

Other concerns were also expressed to the Committee with regard to the summative evaluations and the horizontal summative evaluation. The OLMC representatives told the Committee that the effectiveness of the evaluation process depends largely on how closely the federal institutions and the OLMC collaborate in developing the evaluation tools, as well as the targets and performance indicators:

Based on my experience, an evaluation is valid when the criteria are cited in advance and all stakeholders understand them clearly and know what will be measured, the performance or learning. If I had to advance an argument on how to evaluate, I would say that there at least has to be a common understanding of evaluations.[363]

The Fédération de la jeunesse canadienne-française (FJCF) testified that it would have liked to work collaboratively with Canadian Heritage to determine the evaluation mechanisms:

We took part in a consultation that was conducted by the Official Languages Secretariat in September. We were able to share our opinion on the positive points that we had noted. Our involvement was limited to that. We did not take part in a process to propose evaluation methods or anything else. But we are pleased to have the opportunity to be here today to determine methods and mechanisms that could be introduced.[364]

The OLMC representatives are also concerned that every federal partner in the Roadmap has its own evaluation mechanism, except for those institutions that participate in the economic development initiative. For one thing, the large number of different mechanisms raises methodological issues. For another, it makes the evaluation process more burdensome, which is especially hard for those OLMC organizations and institutions that lack the administrative capacity to deal with it.

In light of the foregoing, the Committee recommends:

Recommendation 38

That, as part of a future Government of Canada horizontal initiative for official languages, the Department of Canadian Heritage work with official language minority communities to develop a simple and efficient process for evaluating programs.

GENERAL CONCLUSION

On May 3, 2012, the Honourable James Moore, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, announced to the Committee that he was going to undertake an extensive cross-Canada consultation tour for the purpose of preparing the Government of Canada’s next horizontal initiative for official languages. The Committee supports this initiative and hopes that the recommendations in this report will guide the Government of Canada in preparing its next horizontal initiative for official languages.