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Ottawa Citizen

One in four public servants say lack of language training affected career

Article content More than a quarter of federal public servants say that a lack of access to language training has impacted their career progress, according to a new government survey. Article content The 2024 Public Service Employee Survey, which was published by the Treasury Board this week, found that 27 per cent of government employees said their career advancement over the previous year had suffered due to a lack of access to language training in their second official language. Article content Article content Article content The survey results were released just a few days after more stringent language requirements came into effect for supervisors in bilingual and regions. Article content Article content The new rules require that supervisors in bilingual regions have a CBC level (proficient levels in reading and oral conversation, with intermediate levels in writing) in their second official language. Before June 20, the requirement was BBB (intermediate levels in reading, writing and oral conversation). Article content Of the more than 186,000 public servants who responded to the survey, 10 per cent said a lack of access to language training had 'adversely affected' them to a small extent and seven per cent said they were impacted to a moderate extent. Article content The results showed that 4 per cent of public servants said that the issue affected them to a large extent, whereas 6 per cent said it impacted them to a very large extent. Article content Article content More than 46,000 supervisors responded to the survey. When respondents were broken down into supervisors and non-supervisors, the same percentage of supervisors (27 per cent) said their career had been impacted by the issue. Article content Article content Rola Salem, a Treasury Board spokesperson, said in an emailed statement that the government is 'committed to strengthening bilingualism in the public service, not only to better serve Canadians, but also to foster a work environment where employees in bilingual regions feel truly comfortable working in the official language of their choice.' Article content In addition to the new language requirements for supervisors in bilingual regions, Salam pointed to updates in government policy that say 'all employees in bilingual regions have the right to be supervised in the official language of their choice, regardless of the linguistic identification of their position.'