CNOLC-newsletter-no2/interview

INTERVIEW WITH AN OFFICIAL LANGUAGES CHAMPION

Please meet Marcelo Gomez-Wiuckstern, Official Languages Champion at the Canada Lands Company.

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 exploring careers (officer in the Armed Forces, lawyer, 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 on files that are important to me, such as 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 miscellaneous stuff ninja, responsible for files that will serve the institution in its transformation endeavours. Of course, I continue to serve as Official Languages Champion!

How long have you been an Official Languages Champion? How does this role manifest itself in your daily life?

 
I asked for this role 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 involvement, particularly with official language minority communities (OLMCs). Every week, opportunities for action emerge in this file: whether increasing 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 translation statistics, or promoting Mauril. There are countless opportunities for taking action. My next objective is a real and effective integration of the official languages perspective into all our strategic and operational plans.

You are known in the OLMCs' archival and library networks 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 we have a three-pronged approach: strategy, collaboration and inspiration. I would like to claim that my approach was very deliberate, but actually, everything was done rather intuitively.

From the outset, we decided to avoid a model of general discussions 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 quickly turned into an outstanding mobilization that gave us wings.

Aside from establishing two networks (one archival and the other for libraries), we set up an internal advisory committee with representatives from across LAC to implement necessary measures, including the creation of an OL lens. In parallel, we did some research to clearly understand how memory and documentary 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, created a feeling of community for both LAC and the members of the networks and, in addition, led the latter 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.

All these activities inspired our members from the two networks to collaborate with LAC on the organization of a national conference Archives and Libraries 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 volume at the University of Ottawa Press.

We hope that our second, recently published research examining the policy and regulatory frameworks, as well as support programs for OLMC libraries, will lead to just as many discussions. What is certain is that creating a community, close collaboration among the members of our networks and pride in the role played by 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 create a climate that encourages colleagues to express themselves in their official language of choice, those who share the love of their language, and those who make the riches of the OLMCs’ cultural heritage accessible. And also, the curious who want to understand the context or develop concepts that transform our perspective of what sustains an OLMC (I am talking about you, Alain Roy, a LAC researcher who has been an invaluable partner without whom our 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!