ARCHIVED - Audit on Official Languages - Grants and Contributions - Number 27

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1. Introduction

This audit was conducted to assess the degree to which selected federal institutions met their obligations under the Official Languages Act to provide service to the public in both official languages, especially in awarding grants and contributions as required by the Treasury Board policy in this regard (Chapter 1-4). Given the national and international scope of activities and events, and the level of funding provided by federal institutions to voluntary non-governmental organizations, it is important to ensure that federal institutions honour the spirit of the Official Languages Act when redistributing public funds.

This report outlines the objectives and scope of the audit, the procedure followed, and the results of our study.

2. Audit Objectives

The audit objectives were based on Part IV of the Official Languages Act, particularly Chapter 1-4 of the Treasury Board Policy on Official Languages:

• To determine whether, and to what degree, the targeted federal institutions awarding grants (unconditional transfer payments) or contributions (conditional transfer payments) to voluntary non-governmental organizations for activities, projects or programs affecting both official language communities:

• - are familiar with the provisions of the Policy on Official Languages that relate to awarding such grants and contributions;

  - apply this policy;

  - monitor the inclusion of language clauses in agreements with recipient organizations;

  - follow up on the application of language obligations included in agreements and the implementation of language clauses in awarding grants and contributions.

• To examine the circumstances and the reasons if the policy is not applied as it should be.

3. Scope

The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat selected the following federal institutions⁽²⁾:

It was first agreed that the audit would focus only on grants and contributions awarded to voluntary non-governmental organizations by the headquarters of these various institutions. However, we were then obliged to modify this initial approach slightly and to reflect the regional role of two organizations. We also agreed to consider only grants and contributions for events or activities of national or international scope, or at least aimed at both language communities. For the purposes of this study, an event or activity was defined as being of national scope if several provinces participated, including one of the following, if possible: Quebec, New Brunswick and Ontario.

We were to review a predetermined distribution of 90 per cent contributions and 10 per cent grants. However, it was not always possible to maintain this distribution. Among other things, one of the institutions in our sample awarded practically nothing but grants.

Grants and contributions under $10,000 were not considered in this audit.

In the case of Canadian Heritage, the audit did not focus on grants and contributions made in applying section 43 of the Official Languages Act.

4. Approach

The audit followed the procedures outlined below:

• Review of legislation and policies applicable to TBS and the nine selected departments and agencies.

• Development of questionnaires to collect data and information.

• Review of grant and contribution agreements in federal institutions.

• Personal or telephone interviews with official languages officers and officers responsible for preparing and approving grant and contribution documents.

• Telephone interviews with grant and contribution recipients.

• Development of recommendations for each department and agency, where necessary.

• Analysis of results and drafting of report.

• Inclusion of feedback from federal institutions after submitting the draft of their worksheet.

5. Summary of Results

Our audit enabled us to determine that half of the audited institutions had no corporate policy on official languages. The institutions concerned are the Canadian International Development Agency, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, Human Resources Development Canada and Health Canada. These institutions use the Treasury Board policy, to which electronic networks allow them easy access.

Status of Women Canada and Correctional Service Canada have a corporate policy on official languages, but it contains no grant and contribution provisions. These two agencies also use the Treasury Board policy.

Sport Canada is part of Canadian Heritage, which has a policy on official languages. This policy contains only a paragraph of intention, however, whereby the department must ensure that recipients of public funds provide services in both official languages. It should also be noted that, at Sport Canada, all of the provisions of the Treasury Board Policy on Official Languages (Chapter 1-4) are well known and published in a brochure for recipient organizations. Sport Canada also uses Chapter 1-3 on Events of National or International Scope for the General Public. Finally, Sport Canada has an internal policy entitled Federal Policy for Hosting International Sport Events.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada has no internal corporate policy on official languages and uses the Treasury Board policy, except for grants and contributions. The department has developed its own policy, Policy concerning Third-Party Services, Grants and Contributions. This policy reflects all of the obligations described in the Treasury Board policy. It is even more specific in some respects, since it outlines various characteristics associated with different types of agreements. The policy even provides that managers must ensure compliance with the official languages clause as a condition for grant or contribution payments. This policy has not been fully implemented but is nevertheless a step in the right direction.

Federal institutions do not have an internal corporate policy on grants and contributions. They use the Treasury Board Policy on Transfer Payments found in the Financial Administration Manual. This policy contains a section on official languages (clause 12), which reads as follows:

This policy thus refers to circulars that are obsolete and inconsistent with Chapter 1-4 of the policy on official languages. Thus, managers who are unfamiliar with Chapter 1-4, and who consult only the policy on transfer payments in preparing their contribution agreements, would not have the proper information to make sound official languages decisions.

The official languages representatives of federal institutions that we met generally feel that applying Chapter 1-4 of the Treasury Board policy is the responsibility of grants and contributions officers. When they examine the wording of their terms of reference, moreover, they do not acknowledge being specifically accountable for this chapter of the policy. We also note that official languages divisions have not developed measures to monitor the application of the policy. Managers and recipient organizations virtually never consult them to determine the ramifications of Chapter 1-4 of the policy or to obtain advice on its interpretation.

It seems that legal counsels have contributed more to developing and drafting standard clauses found in the contribution agreements of some federal institutions. Several official languages representatives could not say whether the contribution agreements of their institutions contained a language clause. Apart from Sport Canada, where the Official Languages Division actively took part in organizing information sessions for recipient organizations, and from Citizenship and Immigration Canada, where the Official Languages Division helped to develop a corporate policy on official languages grants and contributions, official languages divisions may be said to have played a fairly minor role in applying Chapter 1-4 of the policy in other organizations.

Grant and contribution program officers must apply the Treasury Board policy in this regard. Program officers in operational sectors are responsible for making recipient organizations aware of the objectives of their programs, eligibility criteria for government funding, application evaluation criteria, and so on. They must also analyze proposals, recommend approving or rejecting requests for funding, and prepare memorandums of understanding.

The issue of official languages depends on the level of knowledge that program officers possess. In most cases, they are aware of the Official Languages Act but do not necessarily know that a policy exists in this regard. As a result, official languages considerations are often limited to translating documents or providing simultaneous interpretation. Rarely do program officers concern themselves with ensuring the participation of both language groups. The operational sector at Sport Canada has adopted a systematic approach to including bilingualism in events of national or international scope, via an accountability agreement negotiated with recipient organizations along with financial agreements. The agency has also prescribed mechanisms for monitoring the execution of these accountability agreements.

The financial services of departments and agencies are often responsible for creating files and ensuring that payments are consistent with the department's or agency's commitments as described in memorandums of understanding. Program officers inform them whether the clauses of the memorandum have been applied and when it is appropriate to make contributions.

Federal institutions that make grants or contributions possess different tools to inform voluntary organizations about the existence of their programs. They publish guidelines for organizations seeking funding, guides for applicants, procedural requirements for contributions, requests for proposals, and so on. Each department and agency thus has its own operating procedure, which is formulated differently but requires basically the same kind of information from participating organizations: the objective of the program for which it is applying, scope, categories of recipients, documentation accompanying the application (description, relevance and significance of the project, business plan, expected results, and so on), terms of payment, duration of mandate and so on.

Proposals submitted under contribution programs are then analyzed by program officers. Some federal institutions use analytical grids, but these do not include information related to Chapter 1-4 of the policy, even if language concerns are reflected in the request for proposal. When the analysis is completed, the officer recommends accepting or rejecting the proposal. Once the proposal is accepted, the applicant receives a letter, generally signed by the minister, announcing the news and indicating that a program officer will contact the applicant to prepare the content of an agreement.

Some program officers contact the representatives of applicant organizations, discuss official languages with them, and refer them to the Canadian Heritage Official Languages Promotion Program for translation and simultaneous interpretation. The departmental official languages procedures of some federal institutions are not based on all the information contained in Chapter 1-4. Rather, they tend to be written in very general terms. Thus for example, an organization that is organizing an international conference is required to reflect the bilingual nature of Canada or an applicant is required to reflect the spirit and the letter of the Official Languages Act. The latter leaves us perplexed as the Official Languages Act contains several sections, including one on language of work and another on equitable participation. Needless to say, applicant organizations cannot be required to apply these sections of the Act but they should hold particularly to Part IV of the Act regarding service to the public.

Slightly more specific requirements are sometimes found. For one type of contribution, a department requires that the participating organization be of national scope and able to provide part of its services in both official languages. Moreover, Sport Canada is the only institution that regularly informs applicant organizations of their official languages obligations. Indeed, Part 8 of the guidelines contains a complete section on official languages. It reproduces all the information in Chapter 1-4 of the policy, so that the applicant organization is aware of its obligations before completing its application for funding.

We reviewed a total of 152 files (18 grants and 134 contributions). We eliminated 29 of these contributions since they were outside the parameters defined in the scope (such as contributions under $10,000, contributions to for-profit organizations, contributions for activities aimed at a single language group, and so on). We thus selected 105 contribution agreements for analysis. Our main findings with regard to official languages are as follows:

• About 25 per cent of contribution agreements contain a language clause clearly outlining all of the information in Chapter 1-4 of the policy for events of national or international scope.

• About 15 per cent of contribution agreements contain a clause whereby the recipient must consider the Official Languages Act or the client's language of choice in providing service. These agreements usually also contain one of the three following clauses.

• Slightly more than 10 per cent of contribution agreements contain one of the following three clauses: a clause on translating the summary of the recipient organization's report, a clause on the relevance of translating the recipient organization's entire report, or a clause in the copyright section authorizing the department to translate the deliverable of the funded activity at its own expense.

• Finally, about 5 per cent of contribution agreements contain only one language clause in the recognition section. This clause encourages the recipient organization to publicize, in both official languages, the department's contribution to funding the activity.

• About 40 per cent of contribution agreements contain no language clause.

The above-mentioned copyright clause, which is used by three federal institutions (nine agreements), creates no financial obligation for the recipient organization, which is not required to translate its deliverable. However, this clause allows the federal institution a way out if it must use the finished product for its own purposes. The federal institution can thus meet its obligations regarding service to the public, while respecting the recipient organization's intellectual property rights. In our opinion, this is a stopgap solution. It has the advantage of being economical, since not all documents are systematically translated. However, it has the disadvantage of departing from the spirit of Chapter 1-4 of the policy, which requires any government-funded deliverable of national or international scope to be available immediately in both official languages.

All contribution agreements contain a section stating that the federal institution reserves the right to conduct an audit. This audit is mainly financial in nature. Only Sport Canada audits the official languages accountability agreement.

We would like to point out that one federal institution has taken an initiative regarding Web sites, although Chapter 1-4 of the policy does not mention this subject. Since recipient organizations increasingly use electronic communications to publicize their research findings or the content of their government-funded activities, this federal institution has requested that other organizations have bilingual Web sites. This exemplary practice is entirely consistent with the spirit of the Official Languages Act. The file review indicated that, in applying for contributions, several recipient organizations specify that the consultation or information output or process will occur electronically. Some recipient organizations are justly proud of having bilingual Web sites. In this regard, these organizations go beyond the requirements of Chapter 1-4 of the policy. The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat should examine this issue in order to provide clear guidelines on the subject. The Treasury Board Policy on the Use of Electronic Networks, which is based on the obligation to have bilingual offices, does not apply to grants and contributions. Recipient organizations cannot be considered as offices.

We reviewed 18 grant files. There are no grant agreements as there are contribution agreements, nor are there analytical grids that would mention official languages data. We examined the documentation on file to audit whether grant recipients complied with Chapter 1-4 of the policy regarding service to the public in holding events of national or international scope.

Half of the recipient organizations that applied for grants have files indicating that these organizations have a bilingual structure. The documentation accompanying the application is bilingual, and the budget includes an item for translation and simultaneous interpretation. There are seven other cases, moreover, where the recipient organization also provided budget estimates for translation or simultaneous interpretation. The other two grant files contained no evidence suggesting that the activity or event had been conducted in both official languages.

We talked to about 20 officers or managers of grant or contribution programs. We wanted to know whether they applied a corporate grant or contribution policy, or were familiar with the Treasury Board policy in this regard, particularly the official languages section. They were generally aware of some aspects of language requirements, such as translating documents, providing simultaneous interpretation, and promoting official language minority communities.

About one third of officers were well aware of all the language obligations to be met by recipient organizations that receive public funds to hold activities or events of national scope. Chapter 1-4 of the policy is somewhat unknown. This does not mean, however, that officers do not discuss official languages in their communications with recipient organizations. They discuss them, but this is often restricted to their limited knowledge of the subject. The same is true of monitoring measures.

Several officers indicated that budgets allocated for translation and interpretation were often inadequate. In such cases, they put organizations in contact with spokespersons of the Canadian Heritage Official Languages Promotion Program. However, these spokespersons cannot always meet all requests. Organizations must then bear the cost of translation.

Some officers seemed sceptical about the idea of including specific obligations in memorandums of understanding because they prefer an informal approach in discussions with voluntary organizations. They usually limit themselves to the standard wording of agreements and deem that such agreements are more the responsibility of Legal Services. We found no agreement where officers could write comments on official languages or language obligations in the section on special provisions or characteristics.

We contacted 18 voluntary organizations, including 10 headquartered in the National Capital Region. The other organizations are headquartered in Halifax, Montreal and Toronto. Before contacting managers of these organizations, we asked program officers to inform them that we would call to make initial contact and that an audit was being conducted, so that they would not be surprised by our call. Our objective was to find out whether organizations were aware of their official languages obligations, how well they had been informed by their program officers, and whether they could offer service in both official languages.

Most of the organizations consulted had previously applied for funding from a federal institution and some had past experience with other federal institutions. About 70 per cent of these organizations had some knowledge of their language obligations, especially translating documents or providing simultaneous interpretation at conferences or workshops. Most of the time, these organizations had acquired knowledge in this regard as a result of prior experience that was not necessarily related to the information received from their program officers. This is fairly difficult to measure, since organizations certainly do not wish to criticize their funders.

Organizations make an effort when a unilingual Anglophone or Francophone persists, but are generally far from actively offering service and even respecting the language of the person's choice. It must be noted, however, that slightly more than half of the organizations consulted have a structure that allows them to offer service in both official languages, independently of whether or not the memorandum of understanding contains an official languages clause. In a sense, some organizations go beyond the commitments they have made.

Some organizations say that they are fully bilingual in terms of their statutes, by-laws and charter. Among other things, they feel that their documentation, minutes, reception services and Web site are bilingual, their annual general meeting is held in both official languages, and so on.

On the other hand, 30 per cent of recipient organizations are unaware of their language obligations. They feel that they were not informed of these obligations in their discussions with program officers or when signing contribution agreements.

6. Recommendations

For Federal Institutions

The following is a summary of the main recommendations made for the institutions that took part in this audit.

It is recommended:

That responsibility for applying and monitoring Chapter 1-4 of the Treasury Board policy be clearly assigned within federal institutions.

That departmental official languages officers take the necessary steps to inform the organization's various sectors of the language obligations of recipient organizations to provide bilingual service in events or activities of national or international scope.

That voluntary organizations be clearly informed of the content of the Policy on Official Languages, so that they consider it in submitting their project proposal.

That funding guidelines published for organizations include a section describing the elements of bilingual service as required by the Treasury Board Policy on Official Languages (Chapter 1-4).

That departmental contribution procedures include a section on examining the language clientele targeted by a project or activity. When the event or activity is of national or international scope, conditions for applying the policy should be included in the letter of understanding with the organization.

That a section of the model analytical grid used by program officers focus on examining the language clientele targeted by the project. When the event or activity is of national or international scope, conditions for applying the policy should be included in the letter of understanding with the organization.

That an item on applying the policy be included in the checklist for controlling the quality of letters of understanding.

That monitoring mechanisms be developed and implemented to ensure that organizations regularly meet their responsibilities to apply the policy.

For the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat

It is recommended that the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat:

Send an explanatory memorandum to departmental official languages officers defining the scope of Chapter 1-4 of the policy so that it is properly understood.

Issue a reminder to departmental official languages officers, to ensure that they publicize and clearly explain the content of Chapter 1-4 of the Policy on Official Languages to managers of sectors responsible for making grants and contributions.

Make representations to the appropriate authorities, so that members of the legal community, who work in federal institutions and are responsible for drafting standard clauses of contribution agreements, are aware of the importance of including, not only a general clause referring to the Official Languages Act as a whole, but also specific clauses so that the parties clearly know their obligations.

Take the necessary steps to ensure that the Policy on Transfer Payments correctly reflects the requirements of Chapter 1-4 of the Policy on Official Languages.

Consider the appropriateness of amending Chapter 1-4 of the Policy on Official Languages to include a section on Web sites.

Pay special attention to applying Chapter 1-4 of the Policy on Official Languages in analyzing annual management reports.

Follow up on specific recommendations to each of the audited federal institutions.

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