Accountability and Coordination Framework of the Roadmap for Canada’s Linguistic Duality - Justice Canada Component Evaluation

3. METHODOLOGY

Given the relatively small amount of resources allocated to this initiative, a modest methodological approach has been developed for the evaluation. The methodology used was based on two main sources of information: a literature review and a series of interviews.

3.1. Literature Review

A list of documents likely to help answer the evaluation questions was prepared. All those documents were carefully and systematically reviewed to extract the relevant information. These documents can be grouped under the following categories:

3.2. Interviews with Key Informants

A list of key informants targeted for the evaluation was prepared. This list contains three categories of contact people:

It was possible to interview 21 individuals. The interviews were conducted using previously prepared interview guides. Those guides are found in Appendix B. Approximately half of the interviews were conducted in person and the other half by telephone. The answers were aggregated by question and recorded into a results matrix.

3.3. Methodological Challenges

Two main methodological challenges arose in connection with this evaluation: the limited number of lines of evidence and the difficulty to differentiate OLLS’s activities under and outside the Roadmap.

Limited number of lines of evidence

The evaluation relies on findings from available documents and the interviews. The limited number of individuals involved in the implementation of the Accountability and Coordination Framework could not justify the use of a survey or other tools aiming to a large audience. Also, since the cases related to litigation and to legal opinions provided contain confidential information, it has not been possible to analyze individual legal cases. However, the documents reviewed and the interviews with key informants have provided valuable information to adequately address the evaluation questions.

Difficulty to differentiate the OLLS’s activities under and outside the Roadmap

The OLLS existed within the Department before the creation of the 2003 Action Plan and the 2008 Roadmap. These two strategies have added responsibilities to the OLLS in order to implement the Accountability and Coordination Framework. However, the OLLS’s activities are based on a single commitment. Since this evaluation is intended to report on the activities under the Roadmap, it was not possible to easily differentiate the activities aiming at the objectives of its traditional mandate to the ones under the Framework. Therefore, this evaluation presents the results pertaining to all the activities carried out by the OLLS, while highlighting its support to the horizontal coordination of the Roadmap.