CNOLC-newsletter-no1/interview

INTERVIEW WITH AN OFFICIAL LANGUAGES CHAMPION

Please meet Linda Savoie, Official Languages Champion at Library and Archives Canada.

Ms. Savoie, thank you for agreeing to participate in this interview with the Council of the Network of Official Languages Champions. for starters, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

After some 12 years of searching (officer in the Armed Forces, lawyer and manager in an airline company), fate led me to the public service. For some 25 years, I have had the pleasure of working with passionate people, in addition to having the opportunity to devote myself to files that are important to me, having managed environmental programs (Transport Canada), citizen participation initiatives (Canadian Heritage) and gender equality (Status of Women), among others. I finally ended up five years ago at Library and Archives Canada (LAC) as Secretary General, a position I held until very recently. Having decided to retire in the coming months, I am now my Deputy Minister’s jack-of-all-trades ninja, responsible for files that will serve the institution in its transformation endeavours. Of course, I continue to serve as an Official Languages Champion!

How long have you been an official languages champion? How does this role manifest itself in your daily life?

 

I asked my Deputy Minister to give me this responsibility three years ago. I saw a good fit with some of the responsibilities of my sector (research and policy, relationships with stakeholders, partnerships and financial contributions to documentary heritage organizations) and opportunities for more active participation, particularly in terms of official language minority communities (OLMCs). I believe that, at least once a week, opportunities for action emerge in the file: for example, increasing our colleagues’ awareness of our obligations, creating opportunities to talk about linguistic insecurity with the members of our Advisory Committee, reviewing the results of rounds of funding or our translation statistics or promoting Mauril. There are many opportunities for taking action. My objective now is a real and effective integration of the official languages perspective into all our strategic and operational plans.

You are known in the archival and library networks of the OLMCs as an Official Languages Champion who demonstrates exemplary leadership. Can you talk about your approach and the initiatives that you have promoted?

One of my colleagues tells me that our approach is based on three perspectives: strategy, collaboration and inspiration. I would like to claim that my approach was very deliberate, but actually everything was done much more intuitively.

From the outset, we decided to stay away from a model of general exchange with national organizations whose mandate made little room for documentary heritage. After identifying the most active and representative local players in each province and territory, we invited them to participate in a network. Their initial surprise was quickly replaced by an outstanding mobilization that gave us wings.

Aside from establishing two networks (one archival and the other library), we set up an internal advisory committee with representatives from all across the institution to implement the required measures, including the creation of an OL lens. In parallel, we did some research to clearly understand how documentary memory and heritage could foster the development of OLMCs, since the lack of recognition of the impact of documentary heritage did not match our observations nor those of the members of our networks who, on a daily basis, witnessed the importance of its contribution to their community. This research, which was validated by a group of academic experts, served to create a feeling of community for both LAC and the members of the networks and, in addition, led the latter, in turn, to design research projects related to the theme. The feeling of being part of a community was also reinforced by the distribution of a monthly newsletter that provides information on members’ activities and various topics (podcasts, research studies, newspaper articles, etc.) that concern our community and official languages in general.

All these activities inspired our members from the two networks to collaborate with LAC on the organization of a LAC national conference in official language minority communities in spring 2021. This conference was not only an opportunity to discuss issues and increase collaboration, but it also confirmed the contribution of memory, heritage and history to the vitality of OLMCs. The support for our work expressed by Canadian Heritage, the Commissioner of Official Languages and Minister Fortier particularly moved the members of our networks and inspired other initiatives, such as a partnership for the publication of a post-conference document by the University of Ottawa Press.

We hope that our second, recently published, research study on the political and regulatory frameworks, as well as on support programs for OLMC libraries, will lead to just as many discussions. What is certain is that community development, close collaboration among the members of our networks and pride in ensuring the recognition of documentary heritage institutions were factors in our overwhelming success.

In closing, what to you appreciate the most about your role as Official Languages Champion?

It is without doubt the opportunity to work and share with people who are passionate about the issue: those who are committed to creating a climate of caring for colleagues who wish to express themselves in their official language of choice, those who want to share the love of their language and those who are making the riches of the OLMCs’ cultural heritage accessible. But also, the curious who want to understand the context or develop concepts that transform our perspective of what sustains an OLMC (I am speaking about you, Alain Roy, a LAC researcher who has been an invaluable partner without whom this success would not have been possible!).

Ms. Savoie, we thank you for granting us this interview. Our readers will certainly be inspired by your approach and your contagious enthusiasm!