The federal government has underestimated by a huge margin the costs needed to extend French-language rights to federally regulated businesses in its proposed changes to the Official Languages Act, according to a report by the parliamentary budget officer (PBO).
Bill C-13 seeks to strengthen the state of French in federal public institutions and expand the use of the language in the federally regulated private sector.
Published on June 2, the PBO report found that the government’s push to promote “substantive equality” between French and English will incur costs far beyond what their finance ministry had budgeted last year.
“We expect private compliance costs to implement these rights to be $240 million in one-time costs plus $20 million each year in ongoing costs,” the report said. “These costs arise primarily from language training and bilingualism wage premiums for managers in designated bilingual regions outside Quebec.”…