Francophone report shows boost in bilingual civil servants, but more needs to be done
Offering bilingual services a priority for Manitoba, says minister
The provincial body that advises the government on francophone services reports that the number of civil servants who offer bilingual services went up by 20 per cent, but more could be done to boost the language in Manitoba.
The Francophone Affairs Secretariat's report on French language services shows that in the 2018-19 year, 1,459 civil servants were bilingual — a 20 per cent increase from the previous year.
The province says this is the first year that all public bodies have created and put into action strategic French-language service plans. This means that the data from this report will be used as a benchmark going forward.
"We've never measured where we are, and so we never have a roadmap to where we're going," said Rochelle Squires, the provincial minister responsible for francophone affairs.
"We know what French language services offerings looks like in the province of Manitoba, so we have a baseline from which to measure progress."
The report also states the importance of improving French language services in Manitoba. One repeated issue was that of "active offer," which is the ability for civil servants to offer bilingual services quickly and easily, and to communicate that option to anyone who wants it.
According to the data, less than half of all employees in public bodies took active offer training. Now, one of the 11 recommendations suggests that the Civil Service Commission should make their online training mandatory.
"When people phone MPI or Manitoba Hydro and they want to speak to a service representative in the language of their choice, they need to feel confident that they will receive that support in a timely and accurate way as if they're receiving that information in English," said Squires.
Other recommendations include ways to build stronger relationships with the Francophone community, making sure public bodies put in effort to find bilingual candidates for vacant positions, and review all existing and new documents are in both official languages.