Official Languages Committee on Oct. 27th, 2009

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Look, I'm going—

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you very much, Mr. Nadeau.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

The Olympic Games will be held in Vancouver. The act has been in existence since 1969!

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Nadeau.

Now we're going to Mr. Godin.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'd like to welcome you. Hearing you speak from the start, it's as though there were no more problems at Air Canada. There are a million travellers in Toronto.

[Louise McEvoy]

And more.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

There are still problems, and not just a few. There's something that I'm finding hard to accept this morning. I've been sitting on this committee since 1998. I am one of those people who recommended that the government should help Air Canada as a result of the transaction that was conducted between it and Canadian Airlines. However, today I can't accept the fact, for example, that Air Canada comes here and tells us that it would like to be viewed in the same way as other carriers.

When the private sector decided to buy Air Canada, which is a Crown corporation, it knew very well that it was subject to an act. When you buy the bag, the little pig is in the bag. Don't come and cry on our shoulder today. You're not moving us at all. You knew very well that Air Canada was subject to the Official Languages Act because it's a national carrier which has a mandate to cover the entire country. The private sector said it could carry out that mandate, that it was able to comply with the Official Languages Act, that it was going to make profits, that it was going to take care of Air Canada and Canadians, and today you've come to cry on our shoulders. I don't accept that at all. That excuse doesn't work with me, in any case, and I really want you to know it.

With respect to the card, the only people who can answer you are perhaps those leaving Halifax for Vancouver and who have read enRoute magazine. Although we look for it, we can't find it; we have trouble finding it. I made a recommendation in the letter I sent to Air Canada: why not insert it at the page of the president's report? That way, we would stop having to look for it everywhere in the magazine. We can't even find it. It used to be that, when you opened the pocket, there it was. Today it's hidden in enRoute magazine.

Even though you want congratulations from me, madam, you won't get any. I think the card has been hidden in a magazine that not everyone reads. As Mr. Nadeau was saying, when the flight attendant pointed out the seat pocket during the safety demonstration, at least the card was there and people saw it.

In St. John's, Newfoundland, I believe there are now a million passengers, but no service in French. Last weekend, I met with the francophone community in Labrador City—Mr. Nadeau was there as well. There was the parents committee, the arts committee and the artists. The entire francophone community had its annual meeting, and the answer to the question whether St. John's had had any service in French was no.

How can you tell us today that you are improving, whereas we know it's hard to get service in French even in Ottawa, the National Capital?

A few weeks ago, we congratulated VIA Rail. Why can that corporation find bilingual people to work for it? You said earlier, madam, that Air Canada only had Quebec to find those people? Have you tried looking in New Brunswick? One-third of the population there is francophone. What are you doing for promotion? I mean individually; I never heard you say anything about promotion in New Brunswick. What promotion are you doing in the communities—perhaps booths or something like that—to encourage young people to go to work for Air Canada? I'd like to know your point of view on that subject.

[Louise McEvoy]

Thank you. I'm taking note of everything you said.

To go back to the moment when the corporation was privatized or merged, I can't go back in time and tell you what happened. However, I think that, by being subject to the Official Languages Act, I imagine the business thought it was entitled to the same thing as all the other businesses that were subject to that act. That's what I can imagine happened at the time.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

That's what you can imagine, but—

[Louise McEvoy]

I want to talk about financial assistance. As I said, although we did not receive that assistance, we are offering an enormous number of awareness courses and sessions to our employees. As we saw that the bilingualism ratio had stopped rising and we had lost those 20 percentage points since our merger with Canadian, we decided to give courses to people who had a base but who were not completely qualified.

We have to increase our capacity. We are completely aware of this major problem. We're trying to find solutions for these employees whom we want to keep, even though they are not bilingual. We have to help them serve clients in both official languages. We have programs and projects to enable employees to find an interpreter, in one way or another, to assist customers. We can't replace all unilingual employees overnight. That's also the problem in St. John's.

We are doing promotion at the hiring stage. All we need to do is post the position on our website. That attracts a lot of people. However, to attract francophones, we are engaging in promotion with them in the francophone newspapers and media.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you very much, Mr. Godin.

Thank you, Ms. McEvoy.

Now we'll go to Ms. Glover.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to welcome all our witnesses.

I was really pleased to read your Linguistic Action Plan 2001-2010. However, as we just heard, you forgot to review it. That troubles me a little. All parliamentarians here are obviously somewhat surprised. I hope you'll be able to review your plan and that you'll continue using the scales you've put in place.

The next time you publish a report, I would really like to see it. I'm sure there have been advances in the past two years. In your plan, you talk about your progress and accomplishments. That's quite encouraging. I hope that information will be reviewed soon.

[Louise McEvoy]

Thank you for pointing out that situation. It was an administrative oversight that will be corrected. The fact that we haven't done an update does not mean that we haven't accomplished much. Moreover, every time we submit our annual official languages plan, we report all the measures we've taken.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Then what have you done in the past two years to increase service in French at Air Canada?

[Louise McEvoy]

As I said a little earlier, we are offering courses to our employees who are not bilingual or who have a base.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

But you've been doing that for a long time. What's new?

[Louise McEvoy]

But we can't stop doing it. We're training employees and we have to maintain their knowledge. So we're offering them courses that enable them to maintain what they've learned. We have to administer tests to them to ensure they haven't lost their knowledge.

Obviously, we saw that our ratio of bilingual employees wasn't increasing, that we had a serious capacity problem and that it was not being corrected with time. We decided to provide language courses, not work-based language courses, which concern how to serve a customer, but basic courses, the ABCs of French. We're offering those courses to flight attendants and airport agents. In this way, we'll gradually increase our capacity since we can't do it through recruitment.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

You mentioned the unions in your report. I know you have a relationship with a union that is quite strong. In fact, all your employees who are in contact with the public are members of it. Is the union helping you? I would like to know what your relations with it are like. Are you encountering any obstacles in those relations? I'd like to know a little more on that subject.

[Louise McEvoy]

With respect to languages, training and language tests, we don't have any problems. We're obviously providing courses based on seniority because that's the normal way of doing things on the union side. We keep the unions up to date on what we want to do and we have a very good understanding with them in that regard. Obviously, and this is a subject that we've often raised with the unions, in the event of staff cuts, we would want to keep people who have linguistic qualifications. That's one thing the unions don't tolerate, or the umpires either, when cases go to arbitration. To date, we haven't had that kind of agreement or partnership with our unions.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

All right, thank you.

Yesterday, I took a flight from Montreal and was completely satisfied: all employees spoke French. One thing surprised me somewhat, however—and this is a suggestion on my part—and that is that I wanted to see a movie. I usually do it in English because I'm more comfortable in that language, but I know that you offer a choice, French, Spanish, and so on. So I decided to watch it in French. I pressed the button to select French for each of the movies offered, but none was available in French. That's not an essential service, but it's really something that could improve the perception of your francophone customers. I wonder whether that's normal. That was the first time I had tried, but is that the way it is on all flights?

[Louise McEvoy]

No, no, it's no doubt a technical problem that has to be reported, obviously. I always watch movies in French, I listen to francophones songs, and I've never had a problem.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

I'll try again.

Thank you very much.

[Louise McEvoy]

I encourage you to do so.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Ms. Glover.

We'll begin our second round with Ms. Zarac.

[Lise Zarac, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good morning, and thank you for being here.

You mentioned language training sessions and, among other things, a mandatory session called “Un moment s'il vous plaît”. I don't know when it was offered to Vancouver employees. I went to Vancouver in July. I took a plane back to Montreal, which must be a bilingual route, I imagine. I didn't experience this personally. A number of people—I say “a number” because it happened more than once—went to see the flight attendant and asked for information in French. I heard the attendant answer: “I don't speak French.” I didn't' hear, “Un moment, s'il vous plaît.” I don't know whether the training hadn't yet been given at that point or whether it's a mandatory session.

Is it mandatory because there is a reluctance on the part of flight attendants to improve their knowledge of their second language?