Presenting the new members of the OFLSC team

The time has come to introduce the OFLSC team. I left you somewhat in suspense in my last posting, since I think it’s important to introduce the new members of our staff.

As some members of the community and many of our partners know, the Commissioner’s Office has doubled its workforce in the last year. We now have new spaces for this wonderful team, and I can assure you they are eagerly awaiting your inquiries and complaints!

Our existing team – myself, Executive Director Jean-Gilles Pelletier, and investigations staff Mohamed Ghaleb, Jocelyne Samson, Marta Dolecki and Yves-Gérard Méhou-Loko, and also Anne Nguyen, Business Services Coordinator – has been expanded with the addition of an investigator, communications specialists, an analyst and a legal adviser.

The new investigator joining the other four members of the investigations team is Elisabeth Arcila. A native of Colombia, Elisabeth studied law and worked in labour law and arbitration in her country of origin. She immigrated to Canada a number of years ago and completed a B.A. in international studies at the Université de Montréal and a certificate in public administration. Her employment experience includes more than five years of labour relations work for the Government of Quebec, the Commission des partenaires du marché du travail and the Ministère de la Famille.

With a full complement of five investigators, we are ready to receive your complaints! You will undoubtedly have the opportunity to meet the team during our tours of the community and government bodies.

In communications, we have a whole new team! Two individuals who both have very relevant backgrounds. They will be here to field all the inquiries and questions you may have for us.

Our new Strategic Communications Lead is Touria Karim. Native of France, Touria studied business and administration at Laurentian University. She worked for many agencies in the Sudbury area (including the Centre Victoria pour Femmes and the Centre de santé communautaire du Grand Sudbury) and the London area (ACFO – London Sarnia). Subsequently, she worked in communications and marketing for more than 10 years and, more recently, as head of communications for Groupe Média TFO, a job in which she had productive relationships with institutions and Francophone community organizations. Her experience and interpersonal skills will be of great value to us.

To work with Touria, we have hired Mélina Leroux as our Communications and Community Relations Officer. She comes to us from the Ottawa area. After studying at the University of Ottawa and La Cité college, she worked for the Fédération de la jeunesse franco-ontarienne (FESFO) for nearly three years as a major events coordinator. She is quite familiar with the world of community organizations, and her passion for politics and current affairs is an asset for the entire team. She and Touria will often be expected to give presentations and travel around the province to make connections with the community and educate people about their right to receive services in French in accordance with the standards set out in the French Language Services Act.

Very recently, we welcomed Policy and Research Analyst Hermann Amon to the team. Hermann comes to us straight from the Toronto CCAC after working at Entité 4. He has a master’s degree in program evaluation from Quebec’s École nationale d’administration publique and a certificate in Lean Process Improvement from the Ontario Hospital Association. He is also an aficionado of classical studies. In his other life, he is doing research in Roman history in the University of Ottawa Classics and Religious Studies Department’s Ottawa Network for the Study of Late Antiquity, and he has a doctorate in Roman history from the Université Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV). His extensive experience with community organizations and his expertise in areas such as research, planning and databases will certainly come in very handy.

We also welcome to our team a new administrative assistant: Mary Jane Hee Fa Chung. Native from Mauritius, she is quadrilingual, and has been in Canada since 2003. Certified in administration and in Mandarin, Mary Jane continues her studies in Human ressources management. In Canade, she has briefly worked in the private sector, and has worked as an administrative assistant for over 10 years for the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC). Before she came to join us, she was the executive assistant to the General manager of the CMEC.

And last but not least, the newest member of our team is Legal Counsel Joseph Morin. Native of Cornwall, Joseph studied Canadian history and then law in the French common law program at the University of Ottawa. He also studied constitutional law at the master’s level. After articling with a national law firm, he worked as a lawyer for the Senate of Canada, for a public interest group and later for the Government of Nunavut.

Now that I’ve given you a brief introduction to the members of the team, I’d like you to come and meet them at our Open House this Friday. You are hereby cordially invited to visit the new offices and meet the new team of the Office of the French Language Services Commissioner of Ontario on Friday, September 23, between 1 and 3 p.m.

We’re looking forward to welcoming you to our new spaces and to meeting you on Friday afternoon!