Official Languages (OL) Recommendations

For all meetings and events, please consult the Effective practices for chairing bilingual meetings and externally sourced presentations and Bilingual Meetings: Take Action! from the Commissionaire of official languages.

Unilingual meeting or event (recommended)

Small meetings with a known language profile of the audience are recommended to be unilingual.

For example, a team meeting with only English speakers should be held in a single, unilingual meeting. For small events, learning activities and workshops, if possible, plan two sessions with the same content: one in English and one in French in order to accommodate all employees (regardless of disability or not).

• This avoids excluding unilingual participants and simplifies the use of interpretation and captioning services. It is also specifically beneficial for employees with cognitive disabilities.
• In the meeting invite, offer the possibility (if required or requested) to have the session in the other language.
• If you require simultaneous translation, there are options:
• MS Teams: a Teams meeting link and two audio conference lines (one English and one French). The translators would wear headphones and listen in on the Teams meeting while speaking into the conference line providing the translation. Participants would listen in the language of their choice, and the question/response would be heard on the conference line in participant’s official language of choice. Participants, or the host must mute their teleconference lines (if this cannot be done by the host) so as not to interrupt the translator or to create feedback.
• Zoom: Zoom Enterprise and Business accounts have simultaneous translation streams. Translators listen into the main stream while speaking into the English or French audio streams. Participants can chose: the original language, English, or French streams to listen to. This is also advantageous for Sign Language interpreters using Zoom as they can interpret directly from the English or French stream.
• Through PSPC - Events and Conference Management (ECM), you can book their studios and they will host a Teams, WebEx, or Zoom call for you. In this case, you must arrange to provide the translators through one of the service providers.

Bilingual meeting or event (not recommended)

For larger events, or an unknown language profile of the audience, a bilingual meeting is recommended to accommodate all employees (regardless of disability or not).

• Large-scale meetings, events, and conferences need simultaneous translation to best accommodate all participants.
• During the meeting, announce which language the speaker will be using in advance, to allow enough notice for participants to access the appropriate translation.
• If the speaker is switching to a different language, this should also be announced in advance with a pause.
• Avoid switching between languages frequently.
• Add a summary in the other official language after each topic or logical unit, clearly identifying a summary of what was said. This has the advantage to also be a learning opportunity from an OL standpoint and does not add a lot of time.