When it comes to OOH, the government of Ontario needs to improve how it speaks to francophones.

That’s according to French language services commissioner Carl Bouchard, who released a report today urging the Ontario government to make all of its out-of-home advertising bilingual. Bouchard’s latest investigation found the government systematically failed to meet its obligations under the French Language Services Act (FLSA) – even when communicating important public health information.

To come to this conclusion, the French Language Services Unit of the Office of the Ombudsman studied 17 advertising campaigns by or on behalf of the Ministry of Health between April 2020 to March 31, 2023. Only three of these OOH campaigns included French.

“The result was that the majority of messages in public spaces about issues of critical importance for Ontarians over three years of COVID-19 – including information about how to stay safe and healthy during the crisis – were in English only, leaving Francophones without access to information critical to their health,” the Commissioner wrote in the report, entitled Missed Messages.

The investigation found that at no point in the advertising campaign development process were the French Language Services Act obligations (and how to meet them) considered. In fact, it found that only a few people involved in the process were aware of the government’s Communications in French Directive or Communications in French Guidelines.

The report found that cabinet office followed an unwritten rule that only 5% of each campaign’s budget needed to be spent on advertising in French.

Bouchard makes several recommendations in his report, including that the government adopt a bilingual format for all OOH ads. According to a statement, he also recommends that the government’s Directive and Guidelines for advertising in French be updated to include instructions for out-of-home advertising, and made public; that the Ministry of Francophone Affairs train public servants involved in developing such advertising on the updated Directive and Guidelines; and that the Ministry of Health actively ensure that its out-of-home advertising is compliant with the requirements of the FLSA.

Cabinet Office, the Ministry of Health, and the Ministry of Francophone Affairs were all given an opportunity to review the Commissioner’s findings and recommendations, as is the normal practice of the Ombudsman’s Office. All three ministries have agreed to report back to the Commissioner regularly on their progress in implementing the recommendations.