Brushing up on French
Federal offices get failing grade on French language service

Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Mar 20/00) - Callers and visitors to federal government offices in the North have been getting a slightly different reception the past few weeks.

Instead of a simple "hello," officials are using the more politically, and legally, correct "hello, bonjour."

The greeting is known in official language jargon as an "active offer" and required of almost all federal offices in the North.

"That can be done in a variety of ways," said Deni Lorieau, language commissioner representative for NWT, Nunavut, Alberta and B.C.

"People that answer the phone in a federal office usually say the name of the department in English and then bonjour or an equivalent. As long as there's one French word, that's considered to be an active offer," Lorieau said.

The increase in the use of the two-language greeting came following dismal results in a survey designed to measure how well federal offices were complying with the requirement to deliver services in both official languages.

The survey was a follow-up to a study done in 1994.

Last year a representative of the commissioner, who was posing as a francophone client, telephoned and visited federal offices in the NWT and Nunavut.

During each call and visit the representative noted how well each office complied with the requirements of the Official Languages Act. In addition to the two-language greeting, offices are required to have French- and English- speaking staff available and signs and documentation in both official languages.

The 25 offices surveyed included Canada Post, Revenue Canada, Human Resources Development Canada and the RCMP.

The auditor did not receive the bilingual greeting from the offices visited. On the telephone, officials used the two-language greeting 55 per cent of the time. Each office was called twice. In 33 per cent of the offices, the two-language greeting was used once and an English-only greeting the other time.

The numbers represent a slight improvement in use of the two-language telephone greeting but a drop in its use in personal interactions compared to the 1994 survey.

French language service was available in 69 per cent of offices compared to 64 per cent in 1994. Over the telephone, French service was consistently available in only 57 per cent of the offices, a drop of more than 21 per cent since 1994.

"This is not acceptable," wrote federal language commissioner Dyane Adam in the report on the study. "Such services should be available at all times in all designated offices."

Part of the survey included an interview with a representative of the Northern francophone community.

The representative said the Northern French community was concerned the transfer of federal responsibilities such as health services and job training to the two territorial governments would reduce the availability of French service.