Canada is blessed with a bilingual public service – a bureaucracy mildewed with caution and capable of stifling innovation in both official languages. Yet, nearly five decades after the passage of the Official Languages Act, the public service is not bilingual enough, it seems. The complaint is that even when French is used, it is symbolicHowever, the backdrop to this is a public service that is already over-represented in executive positions by French speakers. The hope is that by increasing training levels across the public service, proficiency would improve at all levels. The report’s recommendations may mitigate some of those shortcomings – for example, the requirement for each institution or department to create a “personal language training account” to enable all employees to receive a certain number of hours of language training.

Source: National Post October 17, 2017 23:03 UTC