FLS Commissioner urges Ontario to respect law; make all out-of-home advertising bilingual

(TORONTO – July 12, 2024) French Language Services Commissioner Carl Bouchard today released a report urging the Ontario government to make all of its out-of-home advertising bilingual, after his latest investigation found it systematically failed to meet its obligations under the French Language Services Act (FLSA) – even when communicating important public health information.

The investigation, led by the French Language Services Unit of the Office of the Ombudsman, examined 17 advertising campaigns by or on behalf of the Ministry of Health between April 1, 2020 and March 31, 2023 – a period when many messages were about the COVID-19 pandemic. Only three of these campaigns included any out-of-home advertising in French.

“The result was that the majority of messages in public spaces about issues of critical importance for Ontarians over three years of COVID-19 – including information about how to stay safe and healthy during the crisis – were in English only, leaving Francophones without access to information critical to their health,” the Commissioner writes in the report, entitled Missed Messages.

To promote systematic compliance with the French Language Services Act, such messages "should be delivered in English and French across the entire province," he says.

Out-of-home government advertising – e.g., billboards, electronic panels, signs on public transit – is a “service to the public” for the purposes of the FLSA, the Commissioner explains. “Unfortunately, our investigation found that not only were the obligations established by the French Language Services Act not met in any of the campaigns we reviewed, very few people involved with the development of the campaigns were even aware of them,” he says.

The investigation was launched by Commissioner Bouchard on his own initiative in light of the French Language Services Unit’s observations of unilingual ads in public places, and trends in cases received over the years. The investigation reviewed the process of developing government advertising campaigns, which is centralized in Cabinet Office.

The investigation found that:

• At no point in the advertising campaign development process were the French Language Services Act obligations (and how to meet them) considered.

• Few people involved in the process were aware of the government’s Communications in French Directive or Communications in French Guidelines.

• The Directive and Guidelines provide no specific instructions on how out-of-home advertising should be developed in order to comply with the FLSA.

Instead, Cabinet Office follows an “unwritten rule” that 5% of each advertising campaign budget be spent on advertisements in French, but this can include platforms other than out-of-home advertising – and in many cases, out-of-home ads are not used to reach Francophones at all. The result is a systematic failure to meet the obligations of the law, the Commissioner says: “The French Language Services Act does not apply to just 5% of the province’s population, or only 5% of Ontario’s geographic area.”

Commissioner Bouchard makes seven recommendations in the report, including that the government use a bilingual format for all out-of-home advertising, to ensure messages are delivered across the province in English and French in an equivalent fashion and at the same time. His report notes that this is common practice for federal government advertising across Canada, as well as in many other jurisdictions, such as New Brunswick and Wales.

He also recommends:

• That the government’s Directive and Guidelines for advertising in French be updated to include instructions for out-of-home advertising, and made public.

• That the Ministry of Francophone Affairs train public servants involved in developing such advertising on the updated Directive and Guidelines.

• That the Ministry of Health actively ensure that its out-of-home advertising is compliant with the requirements of the FLSA.

Cabinet Office, the Ministry of Health, and the Ministry of Francophone Affairs were all given an opportunity to review the Commissioner’s findings and recommendations, as is the normal practice of the Ombudsman’s Office.

All of the recommendations to improve awareness and training about the government’s guidelines for communications in French were accepted. However, the two key recommendations – to make all out-of-home government advertising bilingual and update the guidelines accordingly – are still “under review,” the Commissioner reported.

Cabinet Office said it will “evaluate how it can continue to increase visibility of French-language messages and media while maintaining advertising best practices to ensure value for money.” It also stressed that all advertising campaigns include messages in French in formats other than out-of-home advertising.

The Commissioner reiterated that this approach does not fulfill the government’s obligations under the French Language Services Act. “Even if the campaigns include messages in French in one format or another, the majority of them do not include out-of-home advertising in French, as required by law”, he says, adding: “The linguistic rights of Francophones in Ontario are protected by quasi-constitutional legislation and must not be dependent on value-for-money considerations.”

All three ministries have agreed to report back to the Commissioner regularly on their progress in implementing the recommendations. “We will continue our proactive work with the government so that Recommendations 1 and 2 are accepted and that all of the recommendations are adequately implemented,” said Commissioner Bouchard.


For more information, contact:

Emmanuelle Bleytou
Communications Manager, French Language Services and Children & Youth Units
ebleytou@ombudsman.on.ca

Josée Laperrière
Communications Officer, French Language Services Unit
jlaperriere@ombudsman.on.ca

About the Office of the Ombudsman: The Ombudsman is an independent, non-partisan Officer of the Ontario Legislature, appointed by all parties, whose role is to ensure that the provincial government and public sector serve people in a way that is fair, accountable and respectful of their rights. Under the Ombudsman Act, the Ombudsman reviews and resolves complaints and inquiries from the public about provincial government organizations, as well as French language services, child protection services, municipalities, universities and school boards.

About the Commissioner and French Language Services Unit: The role of the Commissioner is to monitor compliance with the French Language Services Act (FLSA) by government agencies and institutions of the Legislature. As part of the Ombudsman’s Office, the Commissioner is completely independent of government, political parties, individual complainants and interest groups. The French Language Services Unit is a team of Early Resolution Officers and Investigators that is supported by the entire Office of the Ontario Ombudsman, including the Ombudsman’s Legal Services, Communications, Finance and Information Technology and People and Culture staff.