Mid-term report for Official Languages

4. OFFICIAL LANGUAGES RESEARCH

Strengthen Capacity for Research Application

Strengthen Capacity for Research Application

RESEARCH: A VITAL TOOL FOR DEVELOPING PUBLIC POLICIES

In official languages, as in any other area, the Government of Canada cannot play an effective role unless it can evaluate the impact of its policies and programs. Whether the issue is fighting poverty and exclusion, improving health services, resolving the problems of cities, or facilitating access to higher education, for example, information relevant to policy development and planning must be gathered and integrated. To do so, the government must rely on researchers in federal departments and agencies, as well as call on other experts. In order to increase its capacity to make the necessary cross-sectoral links, the government has developed horizontal research mechanisms, notably the Policy Research Initiative (PRI), and contributes to international forums, such as the Metropolis project in the areas of immigration, migrations and cultural diversity.

Similarly, it is important to share what is being done in research on official languages and to create a basis on which later studies can be built in order to improve knowledge and expertise on the Official Languages Program (OLP) in its entirety. This is why an Interdepartmental Coordination Committee on Official Languages Research was established, chaired by the Privy Council Office. Research played an important role, moreover, in the development of the Action Plan, helping to clarify its objectives, identifying needs in various areas and making the link between these needs and existing government programs.

The efficiency of the horizontal management framework relies in part on the capacity of federal institutions to evaluate the impact of their policies and programs on Canada’s linguistic duality and on the development of the communities. In addition to sharing information among federal institutions, the interdepartmental committee’s work is designed to help develop the performance measurement strategy applicable to the OLP and to facilitate the gathering of necessary data.

This chapter of the midterm report therefore reviews the activities of the Committee and the federal institutions, and provides an outline of the upcoming post-censal survey on the vitality of communities. It sketches out the strategic directions for follow-up to the Action Plan.

SHARI NG INFORMATION AND RESEARCH ON OFFICIAL LANGUAGES

The interdepartmental committee, created in 2003, is composed of 13 departments and agencies and is primarily concerned with increasing the production of research by federal institutions and fostering exchanges among them. It has provided an opportunity for participants to present the findings of their studies and to make an inventory of federal research on official languages. This exercise confirmed that there is fragmentation in this area and a need to better share information. It highlighted sampling gaps in general surveys of the Canadian population and the underutilization of existing data.

The committee has analyzed the extent to which surveys by Statistics Canada can supply data on official languages, looked at university studies and research in community environments, and has informed the Minister responsible for Official Languages, the Group of Ministers and the Committee of Deputy Ministers of the results and their repercussions for policies. Topics covered include standardization of data to make them comparable; passive bilingualism and the retention of language skills in the federal workplace; employability and literacy within communities; and, the development of indicators with respect to community vitality.

The concept of social capital, defined as “networks and social ties based on a set of standards and values of reciprocity that play a role of integration and mobilization in community development”, was deemed to be essential to the definition of community vitality for purposes of the horizontal management framework (see Chapter 3). Trust, a feeling of belonging and responsibility, and community pride are seen as factors that can be better explained by studying the concept of social capital.

BETTER COORDINATION OF RESEARCH AND CREATION OF PARTNERSHIPS

It would be wrong to conclude that there was no research up to now—on the contrary. The Commissioner of Official Languages recalled this in talking about university research in the special edition of her report marking the 35th anniversary of the Official Languages Act: “Canadian studies centres and programs across the country and around the world play a role in improving understanding of the nature of Canadian duality and related issues ⁹.” Nevertheless, whether it was done in the context of government programs or not, this research was generally confined to the individual institutions.

The Interdepartmental Research Coordination Committee provides an opportunity to increase the consistency of efforts and to promote joint analysis of results. It could build bridges and help gather resources. For example, Citizenship and Immigration Canada can draw on its contacts with the new Francophonie network in the Metropolis project to study diversity and immigration issues specific to the Francophone world. Several departments and agencies can join forces to share the expertise currently being gathered by Social Development Canada related to the pilot project on early childhood development, the expertise being developed by Canadian Heritage on community profiles, or the writing of a monograph on adult literacy by Statistics Canada, Canadian Heritage and the National Literacy Secretariat. The potential of the Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities at the Université de Moncton could be put to better use if the federal institutions represented on the Committee determined their priorities together and ensured that their research plans converged. Finally, oversampling of the communities in the general population surveys by Statistics Canada has a better chance of becoming a reality if departments join together to support it.

Up to now, development of the post-censal survey on community vitality is the best illustration of the interdepartmental committee’s capacity to pool expertise. Indeed, under the leadership of the Privy Council Office and Statistics Canada, the committee has dealt with questions related to the funding, structure, methodology and development of the survey questionnaire. It has ensured that the modules and questions reflect the information needs of a number of federal partners and that they are based on other surveys in the area of official languages or on those undertaken by Statistics Canada. Costs linked to the post-censal survey will be distributed among the partners. Several rounds of qualitative tests have already taken place and a pilot survey is planned for Fall 2005 in order to finalize the questionnaire and conduct the survey the following year.

EXAMPLES OF RESEARCH WITHIN THE GOVERNMENT OF CANADA AND OUTSIDE

By setting new priorities in strategic areas, the Action Plan for Official Languages has contributed to the diversification of research topics, as illustrated by the examples given below:

•  the launch of the Official Languages Research and Dissemination Program in four priority areas: promotion of linguistic duality, second-language learning, minority-language education, and development of the communities, in collaboration between the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Over three years, $3 million will support 22 projects in 13 Canadian universities. This program stems from the commitment in the Action Plan to promote research on the situation of the communities and learning of official languages;

•  the Community Vitality, Community Confidence Official Languages Research Forum, organized by Canadian Heritage in March 2004, in connection with a survey of Canadians’ attitudes and perceptions regarding official languages;

•  the Statistics Canada 1971–2001 database on the communities; the studies of Anglophone migration trends in Quebec and studies of questions such as participation in and access to artistic activities and the opinions of young people about government and society;

•  studies by Industry Canada and regional development agencies mentioned in Chapter 2, and other studies by this department on the use of French on the Internet by Francophones in Canada, and on information technology in French;

•  the contribution by the network of experts at Human Resources and Skills Development Canada to family literacy training research in minority communities;

•  the study by Justice Canada of the practices and policies of provincial legal aid systems and the difficulties experienced with access to these services in the minority official language. This study proposes some strategies for improving and expanding the delivery of such services;

•  the study by the Public Service Human Resources Management Agency of Canada on passive bilingualism and the retention of second-language skills among federal employees in the workplace, and the qualitative study on visible minorities and official languages, published in July 2005;

•  the publication by Statistics Canada of studies on the schooling of young people in minority communities and students in immersion; on the presence of French-speaking health professionals outside Quebec; and on trends in official languages according to the Census of 2001;

•  research undertaken by the Privy Council Office, Official Languages (PCO-OL), on second language learning in OECD countries, visible minorities and the socioeconomic status of minority communities. The PCO-OL also commissioned Canadian Parents for French to undertake a Canada-wide consultation of second language stakeholders;

•  the organization by the Consortium national de formation en santé and the Société Santé en français of the first Forum national de recherche sur la santé des communautés Francophones en situation minoritaire. This event brought together over 180 researchers, representatives of government and funding agencies, as well as community participants to agree on research priorities;

•  studies by CIC and its partners on the needs and reception capacity of Francophone communities; the means that would enable the Acadian community in New Brunswick to recruit more Francophone immigrants, to receive them and foster their integration; and the socioeconomic integration of French-speaking immigrants belonging to a visible minority in Winnipeg;

•  in the context of federal–provincial–territorial collaboration in education, studies on post-secondary education in minority communities (Faculté Saint-Jean), cultural identity and the retention of students in Saskatchewan, and the development of an anthology of French literature in the West to promote identity development; tools for evaluating the skills of teachers in French as a second language and the command of basic French by elementary school pupils in Alberta; and research on immersion and organization of a conference by the Western provinces to foster cooperation among the regions.

TOWARDS A BETTER CAPACITY FOR ANALYZING RESEARCH AND DATA ON OFFICIAL LANGUAGES

Filling the gaps in information on the communities is not enough. It is also necessary to ensure that the empirical data is analyzed so as to inform decision-making.

The information provided by the committee suggests that the capacity of each department and agency for analysis, when taken separately, will be inadequate when current studies and notably the post-censal survey produce new data. Sectoral priorities monopolize research teams and few resources are available for the study of multidisciplinary topics such as official languages. The interpretation of additional data or results from the survey may impose a burden on them. The official languages research strategy must therefore provide for analysis.

The strategy must also include a planning element. In spite of its scope, the post-censal survey will not provide answers to all the questions raised by policy development. Several topics, for example the mobility of Anglophones in Quebec, cannot be dealt with in detail; others, such as the issue of social capital, cannot be researched in depth without additional effort and expense. The departments concerned will have to agree on priorities and plan together how to carry out targeted surveys. The interdepartmental coordination committee could facilitate such discussion. The information contributed in this forum would circulate among the departments and generate follow-up. The door would be open to participation by representatives of groups such as Metropolis and the Policy Research Initiative, that make the link with the government’s high-level research priorities.

9. Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages, Annual Report, Special Edition, 35th Anniversary, 1969-2004, page 82.

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