Research and Consultations

Recent data

Consultations with official-language minority communities

A cycle of consultations was developed to follow-up on the deposit of the action 2003-2008 Action Plan for Official Languages which provides for two annual meetings with the communities:

  • In the spring: Consultations with senior officials from federal institutions involved in the implementation of the Action Plan for Official Languages
  • In the fall: Consultation with the ministers of these institutions

Communities value consultations because these events give them an opportunity to express their views on the implementation of the Official Languages strategies.

Research activities

The research activities of the Secretariat help to determine policy priorities by providing decision-makers with a better understanding of the emerging public trends, issues and questions. As a result, the Secretariat is better equipped to assess the potential impact of new programs on given populations by taking into account their needs and the realities they face.

Symposium : Official Languages Research Issues (Ottawa, January 2008). One of the key objectives of this Symposium was to persuade governmental actors to allocate resources to research and encourage exchanges between government officials, academics and community representatives. Discussions focused on the following:

  • the importance and relevance of official languages research in Canada;
  • the connections between the empirical knowledge produced by scientific research and the evaluation of the Official Languages Program;
  • the connections between knowledge and the development of policies and programs that directly or indirectly affect official‑languageminority communities and linguistic duality.