Chapter 1

An Organizational Story

1.3.5 Greater support for citizens who need it

Cases arise, quite regularly, in which Francophones find themselves up against an administration that is reluctant or just plain unwilling to provide high-quality French-language services. As mentioned earlier, one example is the case of a parent who was prohibited from speaking to her children in French on the pretext that the supervised access centre had to be able to understand her interactions with them.

Under the new approach, the Commissioner’s Office will make every effort to continue helping Francophone citizens to extricate themselves from such situations in which the system has failed to do its duty. That said, it is up to the government ministries and agencies to find solutions for those citizens. In other words, those institutions, with the support of the Commissioner’s Office and potentially the Office of Francophone Affairs, will have to change their way of thinking and work with the citizens to truly help them out.