Language czar probes CBC's posting of unilingual documents
Public broadcaster targeted for not translating access-to-info records
Canada’s official languages commissioner has launched an investigation into CBC/Radio-Canada’s practice of posting unilingual access-to-information documents on its websites.
The public broadcaster has been proactively publishing a selection of the documents it releases in response to access-to-information requests, but only in the original language.
The practice appears to violate the Official Languages Act, which compels every federal institution to provide all material that it publishes in both French and English. The CBC English website warns: “Please note that documents are posted in the language in which they were produced.”
A spokesperson for the commissioner says the investigation was opened after a complainant found that CBC/Radio-Canada had published unilingual access-to-info documents on Aug. 2, 2023. The complainant also cited one other federal institution for doing the same.
“The secrecy of investigations prevents us from confirming the name of the second federal institution that is currently under investigation,” said spokesperson Andreanne Laporte, who also did not identify the complainant.
“As these investigations are currently underway, the Commissioner is unable to comment further at this time.”
The Official Languages Act has been cited frequently as preventing any federal institution from posting access-to-information documents on the web in their original language only. (Three provinces – Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, and British Columbia – currently post original freedom-of-information documents, without translation.) And the Accessible Canada Act requires all federal publications to be available in a format accessible to disabled Canadians, such as the blind.
“[I]n the federal context, all online publications (including the publication of previously released ATI requests) must be made available in both official languages and in accessible format to meet the needs of all Canadians,” said Joie Huynh, spokesperson for the Treasury Board, which oversees the access–to-information system.
CBC/Radio-Canada has nevertheless been an outlier, posting select documents on its website in English- or French-only.
“We believe that publishing those documents in the language in which they exist is fully compliant with both the Official Languages Act and the Accessible Canada Act,” said CBC spokesperson Leon Mar.
“Translating every document would make proactive disclosure labour-intensive and time-consuming, diminishing its value to the public.”
In June, Library and Archives Canada began online posting of the documents it releases in response to access-to-information requests, but only in the language they were created, without translation. By next March, about 2.5 million such documents, representing access requests for the last 10 years, are expected to be searchable online.
Library and Archives says its project is not affected by the Official Languages Act because the material represents the archives of other federal institutions, and historical material does not require translation and must be made available in its original form.
Notably, Library and Archives is prohibited from the unilingual posting of its own access-to-information records, such as operational documents, because of the restrictions imposed by the Act.
Two private organizations not subject to the Official Languages Act have begun online posting of original documents released through access-to-information, without translation. Open By Default, a searchable database run by the Investigative Journalism Foundation, was launched in March and now contains 33,000 documents with 4.6 million pages.
The Canada Declassified website contains a database with security-related documents released under the Access to Information Act, focusing on the post-World War II period to present. The project is shepherded by Tim Sayle, an associate professor of history at the University of Toronto.
The federal government currently maintains a searchable database of previously released access-to-information requests, but provides only meta-data such as date, pages and institution. There are currently 67,000 such bilingual summaries listed, going back to 2020. Users who want the original documents must file an informal or formal request for the material, adding to delays in accessing the material.
An adverse finding by the languages commissioner in the current CBC/Radio-Canada complaint could shut down the corporation’s proactive posting program, and signal to other institutions that restrictions imposed by the Official Languages Act cannot be readily circumvented.