Canada's language watchdog to intervene about English-only security alert following Ottawa attack

There’s a lot to criticize our public safety officials about following last week’s attack in Ottawa.

After all, a gunman — Michael Zehaf-Bibeau — was able to penetrate the security perimeter of Parliament Hill and get within metres of our elected officials and even the prime minister.

But the latest critique is a little unexpected.

The Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages is calling out the public safety ministry for sending out an emergency safety alert, just minutes after the attack, in only English.

As explained by the Ottawa Citizen, the alert was sent to departmental security officers across the country urging public servants to stay where they were and not leave their buildings until further notice.

"Public Safety officials say they were trying to get information out as quickly as possible," notes the Citizen's report, adding that the alert was at a time when it wasn't clear how many gunmen were involved.

"Meaning they didn’t have time to get the alert translated before it was sent to public servants."

In an email exchange with Yahoo Canada News, a spokesperson for Language Commissioner Graham Fraser said that there have been no complaints about the English-only alert, but that Fraser felt the need to get involved.

“The Commissioner is intervening directly with the institution in question, the Government Operations Centre — part of Public Safety Canada — to ensure that their future planning includes measures to communicate with the Public Service in both official languages in real time during emergency situations,” Nelson Kalil said.

"The Commissioner has stated that ‘When people are in a state of panic, the clarity of information becomes absolutely critical…I don’t want to have to get a [French-English] dictionary to find out my life is in danger.’"

At first glance, this story may elicit a ‘here we go again’ response.

In the past, Fraser’s office has been involved in what some might consider fruitless investigations.

In August, Canada’s so-called language watchdog announced that he was investigating John Baird’s Twitter account after someone complained that the foreign affairs minister’s tweets were mostly in English.

In 2011, the Ottawa Sun reported that Fraser approved a $40,000 initiative to send “mystery shoppers” posing as unilingual francophone tourists into private downtown Ottawa stores to do a “review” of available French-language services in our nation’s capital.

And last year, he ordered Baird to dispose of all his unilingual English-only business cards. Baird had always carried bilingual cards when needed, but the watchdog wasn’t in the mood for compromise.

But this investigation seems to have some merit.

Fraser told the Radio Canada some of these public servants receive multitudes of emails every day. He suggests that some may have looked at the email, seen that it was only in English and dismissed it as a result.

And Yvon Godin, the NDP’s official languages critic, made this very valid comment.

“If the memo had gone out only in French, would people accept that?” he asked, according to the Citizen.

“No way.”

No way, indeed.

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