Moncton City Council met on Tuesday afternoon to further discuss the city’s submission for the review of the Official Languages Act.
During a one hour Special Committee of the Whole meeting, Councillors and city staff reviewed and altered a list of recommendations and clarifications directed towards the Honourable Judge Yvette Finn and Mr. John McLaughlin, the two commissioners appointed to undertake the review.
Council agreed on a meeting to specifically discuss the submission after talks at the last public meeting.
While no significant changes have been made to the city’s submission, councillors took the opportunity to voice minor suggestions.
On the topic of technology, city staff said proposing a specific item to make government services more accessible can be challenging due to the constant change.
“The speed at which technologies evolves is hard to keep up with and certainly even harder for legislation to keep up with, so we’re suggesting that the revised act build in some flexibility to support objectives of enhanced communications and services,” said Nicole Melanson, Manager of Communications and Bilingual Services.
The discussion continued when Councillor Susan Edgett raised a point over provincial updates and announcements which require the listener to choose between French and English.
“We have to make a decision, we either go English or we go French, or we have this back and forth thing,” said Edgett.
“We never get a bilingual version where the person who understands French and English gets to hear the person speaking in the language that they’re delivering it.”
The staff made reference to the province’s COVID-19 briefings, which require viewers to choose between the French and English versions but do not provide an original version without translation services.
Council will vote on the final submission during a Public Meeting on Oct. 18.
