A New Brunswick watchdog is hoping the new Liberal government will take action on language rights in the province.
Official Languages Commissioner Shirley MacLean made the comments Tuesday while discussing her office’s annual report.
Several recommendations were made by Judge Yvette Finn and John McLaughlin during a review of the Official Languages Act (OLA) in 2021.
However, MacLean said the only step taken by the previous Higgs government was creating an official languages secretariat.
“Unfortunately, in my view, apart from the creation of the Secretariat of Official Languages, the most recent review of the OLA was a step back for official language rights in the province, especially for our francophone linguistic minority,” she said.
“I call upon Premier Holt to take action and correct this missed opportunity by adopting further recommendations that were contained in the Finn-McLaughlin report.
“This is something that can be achieved relatively simply. There is no need to begin a new review process at this time, as that work has already been completed by Commissioners Finn and McLaughlin.”
The Liberals committed to implementing recommendations from the Finn-McLaughlin report as part of their platform released during the recent provincial election.
In December, the Holt government announced that it had created a new standing committee on official languages in the legislature.
“This new committee, as recommended by the review of the Official Languages Act, will provide an opportunity to have critical discussions on how we can improve access to and learning of both languages across the province,” Government House Leader Marco LeBlanc said in a news release.
The committee’s mandate will be based on best practices and recommendations from the Finn-McLaughlin report and in consultation with key stakeholders, he said.
MacLean said the new committee, combined with the reference to the report in the Holt government’s throne speech, has her feeling “more optimistic now than I was a couple of years ago.”
“But I certainly hope it’s not going to stop there, that we just didn’t see a flurry of a reaction once the new government was elected, and it’s certainly going to be my job to continue to lobby the government to take some steps,” she said.
“It’s my role as well to try and maybe convince them that some of those recommendations will not be that difficult to implement, and certainly that’s something that I can certainly take on and is my role.”
The commissioner said one of the key recommendations she would like to see brought forward is ensuring language of work is covered by the Official Languages Act.
Provincial civil servants should have the right to work and have their work evaluated in the official language of their choice, she said, just like they do at the federal level.
“In that way, that would assist as well opening up opportunities and encourage the government to open opportunities for education for civil servants to be able to learn a second language,” said MacLean.
