New Brunswick: Government sets language policy for employees

[Harold Schiffman]

Government sets language policy for employees

Published Thursday April 2nd, 2009
A4By STEPHEN LLEWELLYN
llewellyn.stephen at dailygleaner.com


It's now easier for civil servants to work internally in the official
language of their choice. But the change to the provincial
government's language of work policy, which came into effect Tuesday,
doesn't affect the language of service that applies to dealing with
the public. "The language of work policy is designed to provide an
environment that enables civil servants to pursue a career in their
official language of choice," said Human Resources Minister Rick
Brewer in the legislature. "This policy was first created in 1988 and
our government made a commitment to revise it for the first time in
more than 20 years."

Brewer said the government made revisions to the policy in areas such
as day-to-day communication, supervision, drafting documents and how
meetings are conducted. According to the policy, the goal is to assist
and guide departments, institutions and agencies in providing a work
environment that encourages and enables employees to work and pursue a
career in the official language of their choice. In an interview,
Brewer said an example is that a unilingual anglophone civil servant
with a unilingual francophone director could have a bilingual person
in the room to help them with discussions.

"The employee would have the right to deal with whatever the issue may
be in their language of choice," he said.

Sarah Ketcheson, a Human Resources spokeswoman, said another example
is a francophone civil servant should be able to send e-mails in
French.

Anglophone civil servants who receive e-mails in French can get them
translated by government translation services or by a bilingual
employee in his or her section of the department, she said.

Ketcheson said the changes provide guidelines for the language of work
policy that didn't exist before.

She said it wouldn't affect the government's linguistic hiring policy,
since it didn't change the language classifications of jobs.

Brewer said government isn't hiring additional staff or spending extra
money because departments already use a team approach in each section
of the civil service.

"There would be people in the department already that would be able to
do this," he said.

Brewer said the revisions don't weaken or strengthen English or French
language rights in New Brunswick.

Tom Mann, executive director of the New Brunswick Union of Public and
Private Employees, which represents thousands of civil servants, said
the union wasn't consulted in the review of the language of work
policy.

He said there have been some problems with the language of work
policy, but he didn't want to be more specific until he has had a
chance to review the changes.

New Brunswick Official Languages commissioner Michel Carrier said the
language of work policy doesn't correspond to the status of equality
of both official languages.

"The revised policy seeks to correct that situation," he said.
"However, for that to happen, the senior civil service has to exercise
real leadership aimed at creating a work environment that is
respectful of French and English."

Carrier said for that to happen employees must feel they are being
encouraged to work in the language of their choice.

"Otherwise they will not dare or will be very hesitant to make that
choice," he said.

http://dailygleaner.canadaeast.com/cityregion/article/623002
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