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Mr. Denley implies that the presence of a single French-speaking employee transforms a workplace of 50. In actual fact, the reverse is true. All too often, the presence of a single English speaker at a meeting – even if that person understands French – transforms the meeting into an English-speaking event, as one Francophone after another feels the need to speak in English.

Canada is a country with two unilingual majorities: some 60 per cent of Francophones do not speak English, and some 90 per cent of Anglophones do not speak French. For five decades, it has been government policy to ensure that Canadians should not have to learn a second official language to get services from the federal government. In order to accomplish that, it is essential that a critical mass of federal public servants be able to offer services and ministerial advice in both official languages.

However, it is true that the way the Official Languages Act is implemented does not always produce our next generation of bilingual public servants. Federal institutions often provide too little language training and offer it too late in a public servant’s career. In some departments, people are sent for months of intensive language training just before they are transferred to a bilingual position, rather than having them build language skills over a few years. There need to be more opportunities to strengthen language skills at university, and language training must be an integral part of a public servant’s career plans, not something done at the last minute.

I have been pleasantly surprised by the number of public servants who are proud to have learned the other official language, who see language skills as a professional skill that enables them to understand the country and who are committed to providing services in both languages. They see linguistic duality as a value, not a burden, and as an integral part of the federal public service.

Graham Fraser is Canada’s Commissioner of Official Languages.