Complaint Statistics

In the 2017-2018 fiscal year, the Commissioner’s Office received 315 complaints and requests for information. As in previous years, there were many individual complaints about all kinds of problems and concerns, such as the absence of counter services in French, English-only public consultations, and services in French that are not equivalent to those available in English.

In its 11^th fiscal year, the Commissioner’s Office received 38 information requests on a wide variety of subjects. Most pertained to French-language services and to obligations concerning the provision of these services, and to interpretation of the French Language Services Act. Thus, many people wishing to determine whether or not there had been a breach of the Act, requested information about the provisions in the Act pertaining to obligations with respect to services provided by public and community organizations, and communications with private businesses.

Some callers wanted information about electoral boundaries and their impact on Francophone representation, or about the designation of bilingual positions. Such requests were handled within a reasonable amount of time and the people making them were either given the information or referred to the appropriate office.

New types of service

Since its creation 10 years ago, the Commissioner’s Office team has operated with only one or two investigators, while receiving several complaints every day. This of course caused delays in processing complaints. The Commissioner’s Office has therefore taken steps to catch up on existing delays and prevent any future delays in dealing with complaints.

In 2017, the Office developed new service standards for determining the time required to process complaints and information requests, based on their level of complexity. These new standards should also result in a higher level of satisfaction because they require ongoing contacts with clients. The recent hiring of additional staff to assist the investigators should also help the Commissioner’s Office avoid any delays in processing complaints and requests for information. The goal is to build a culture of excellence in service to the public.

In 2017-2018, the Commissioner’s Office also launched a portal that allows clients to track the processing of their complaints, to communicate rapidly with the Investigations Unit and to file other complaints. These changes will enable us to process all complaints and information requests submitted to us efficiently and promptly.