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==<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt">Regarding the rule ensuring that an office is bilingual if there is a school in its service area, what happens if a school closes or a new school opens?</span>==
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==<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt">The amendments include a rule protecting the bilingual designation of some offices. What does that mean?</span>==
 
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*The rule would certainly apply to any new office subject to service area rules, and at each Regulations Re-Application Exercise (OLRE) for offices subject to service area rules.  
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*With this amendment, an office will remain bilingual when the official language minority population that it serves has remained the same or has increased, even if its proportion of the general population has declined.
*When a school opens or closes between two censuses, the implementation of the vitality mechanism – and its update – is still to be confirmed by other stakeholders affected, including Heritage Canada, which manages the list of minority schools, and with the communities themselves.
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*This rule will protect the bilingual designation of offices that no longer meet the percentage threshold because the linguistic minority, although flourishing, doesn’t increase as fast as the majority population of the locality.
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==<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt">If the rule protecting the bilingual designation of some offices only affects offices that are already bilingual, what will happen with new offices opening in that community?</span>==
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*This provision aims to maintain obligations that have already been acquired to avoid losses where only the proportion of the minority population has changed. This is a concept of acquired bilingual designation.
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*The Regulations will continue to set forth the circumstances in which there is significant demand and where an office must offer services in both official languages.
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*New offices opening in the community will need to apply the Regulations to determine their language designation and implement new language obligations where required.
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==<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt">What will be the impact of the regulatory amendments?</span>==
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*Approximately 700 federal offices will become bilingual following the implementation of the new provisions of the Regulations.
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*Currently, more than 3, 800 (34%) of the some 11, 330 federal offices are designated bilingual. The amendments will increase this number to more than 4, 600 (41%) bilingual offices.
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*This could change depending on the total number of federal offices and the 2021 decennial Census linguistic data.
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*The changes are expected to result in an estimated $91.4 million in costs over a 15-year period, based on a phased implementation approach.
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*Institutions will absorb these costs as part of their usual operations.
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==<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt">In the Fall of 2018, it was mentioned that the regulatory amendments would impact approximately 600 offices. Why do we now say they will impact approximately 700 offices?</span>==
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*After they were tabled before Parliament on October 24, 2018, the Draft Regulations were published in the Canada Gazette, Part I on January 12, 2019 with a public comment period of 30 sitting days of both Houses of Parliament.
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*Stakeholders’ feedback resulted in some adjustments to the Draft Regulations. Some changes resulted in new provisions being added to the amendments which impact more offices.
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*Moreover, the simulations were revised and refined to have a better estimate of the amended Regulations’ impact on federal institutions.
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*The simulations revised to include the additional changes and refined for a better estimate revealed that approximately 700 offices could become bilingual following the implementation of the new provisions of the Regulations.
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*This estimate could change depending on the total number of federal offices and the 2021 decennial Census linguistic data.
 
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