Official Languages Committee on Oct. 28th, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Fraser. Thank you, Madam Crockatt.

We will now take a five-minute break.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

We are continuing the 31st meeting of the Standing Committee on Official Languages.

Ms. Turmel, you have the floor.

[Nycole Turmel, NDP, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Fraser, thank you for your presentation.

I would like to begin by speaking to your comments on cuts in transfers to the departments for training. Those cuts were a disaster. That is the point to be made because it happened at the same time as cuts to departmental budgets. That's what happens when training budgets are cut, be it for language training or any other training. That was, in all respects, a monumental mistake.

I would like to speak about third-party services. With respect to the question that was asked on surveys, we know that there was another problem in relation to cuts to Statistics Canada and to the fact that official statistics are no longer collected to determine the situation across Canada, whether it has to do with language training or not.

There were also other problems related to the services provided by third parties. In fact, third parties are currently not necessarily subject to all the policies. Departments automatically say it isn't their problem, but someone else's. That also happens in other cases, whether it involves harassment or something else.

You made some recommendations in 2009-2010. We are seeing that the improvement you'd hoped for hasn't happened. Could you expand on that?

What recommendation could be made or what action could be taken to ensure that third parties meet their linguistic obligations?

[Graham Fraser]

The federal departments and institutions that are responsible need to be more vigilent. For example, the port authorities or rental agencies in airports have certain responsibilities. For the airport authorities to be able to apply the policy, they must receive a very clear message from Treasury Board.

Treasury Board has often been slow, particularly in sending a message to airport authorities when the threshold of one million passengers annually has been exceeded. They then have language obligations. It is more difficult when a third party is accountable to an institution that has some amount of autonomy from a department—as is the case for the airport authority, which has an important connection with Transport Canada, but remains independent. However, there needs to a commitment.

Service at the Macdonald-Cartier International Airport in Ottawa has greatly improved after some intervention, which I mentioned. For example, restaurants post their menus in both official languages. You can even find books in French there. Television screens alternate between French and English. So institutions that have a responsibility toward a third party need to make an extra effort.

Some airports say that they are doing renovations and that it will have to wait until the renovations are done. However, others have difficulty acknowledging their responsibilities or making announcements to passengers. We would have hoped that there would have been an information campaign for passengers on the language rights of travellers, but the airports refused our announcements. So we had to use the Internet to inform travellers of their language rights.

[Nycole Turmel, NDP, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Don't you think that fines or penalties should be imposed on third parties that don't meet their language requirements or who are found over and over again to be in breach of their obligations? I don't necessarily think that it should be the Office of the Commissioner that imposes fines or penalties, but rather the department would include in the contract that, unless the third party meets the obligations set out in the contract, fines will be imposed or the contract will be terminated.

[Graham Fraser]

I know that the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, CATSA, introduced in its contracts evaluation measures for the use of both official languages by security companies that do airline passenger security screening. CATSA made it clear to the company that this evaluation will be used in the decision about whether to renew the contract. However, I don't know if the contract sets out penalties. In third-party leases or contracts, it is important to include a language clause and a process for evaluating whether that obligation is met.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Okay, thank you.

Mr. Norlock, you have the floor.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Through you I thank the witnesses for attending today.

I had a couple of questions written down, but I feel I must ask the question that's first on my mind as a result of some of the questions you received regarding Radio-Canada and the CBC.

Mr. Fraser, you are aware that the president of the CBC said that one of the reasons there were employee job losses was declining revenues, specifically because of a reduction in viewership related to such things as losing the contract for Hockey Night in Canada. Having some knowledge, if we're talking about newspapers or anything in the media, that there are huge losses on newspapers because of changes of ownership and reduction in readership, we know that when there's a reduction in viewership, advertisers are less likely to pay as much for their minute on television or to decide whether to advertise.

Does the language commissioner take into account the economic realities of a crown corporation that has a substantial numbert of taxpayer dollars going to it, but also an obligation to raise revenues commercially.

[Graham Fraser]

Of some twenty-odd public broadcasters in the western world, Canada is 17th in terms of its funding for public broadcasters. I think the key question is, do we consider CBC/Radio-Canada to be a public service, or do we consider that it has to play by the rules of the private market?

CBC was created as a public service and created to serve Canadians as citizens rather than as consumers. You've introduced a consumer and a market logic concerning how a public service should operate.

My conception of public broadcasting is that this is a public asset that should be considered as such, that it is now a public asset that is in deep financial problems because of a loss of what was a revenue source, and that the government refuses to acknowledge that this is damaging a public asset.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you. Using that logic, you would therefore say that it doesn't matter whether there are one million viewers or 100,000 viewers; you must continue to have the same revenue stream from the taxpayer for that service.

[Graham Fraser]

I think there is a concern, but in the same way that the nature of democracy and the legitimacy of public representatives are not affected by turnout, whether you were elected in a by-election in which there was a very small turnout or whether you were elected with an overwhelming turnout, there is a public legitimacy of public assets. If you view Canadians as citizens rather than consumers and public broadcasting as being a public asset, that is an entirely different frame for evaluating the importance of CBC/Radio-Canada.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

So reducing that rhetoric to the simplest terms, you would say, yes, it really doesn't matter. Or would you agree with me that perhaps various governments, whether they be Liberal or Conservative, over the years have demanded to a certain extent that some of the revenue should be gleaned through the commercial sector? That's not something new to this government; it has happened in other governments of a different political stripe.

Would you not agree that, because of the historical nature of funding for CBC, governments should always.... I don't think anyone is saying that there should be no government contribution towards CBC, but it needs to be balanced with regard to viewership, and we need to continue to maintain that service. But it doesn't make much sense to continue to treat CBC as a sacred cow vis-à-vis reductions in the numbers of other departments within the federal government. Every single political party in the last election promised to balance the budget by about the same date, so is there not a responsibility for government to live up to their promise, to treat all services that they provide, whether they be CBC, the military, or delivery of service in other ways, and look for ways in which to balance the budget?

Because in the end a healthy economic climate would therefore very well go towards making sure that we have sufficient funds to ensure that bilingualism, over which you are the overseer, and to continue to provide those services. An impoverished country cannot do that, would you not agree?

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Norlock.

Mr. Fraser.

[Graham Fraser]

Mr. Chairman, my responsibility in particular is the vitality and the needs of minority language communities, whether they be anglophones in the Îles de la Madeleine, Trois-Rivières, or scattered around Quebec, or francophone minorities in western Canada. One of the extraordinary achievements of CBC and Radio-Canada is not only in terms of the official language communities, but also broadcasting in the Arctic in a variety of aboriginal languages. This is not to use a market rationale for how the vitality of those communities is sustained by broadcasting to those communities, whether it's the francophones in Saskatchewan or the anglophones in Quebec.

If you start getting into the criteria of evaluating, it is similar to the use of statistics or percentages to decide whether a community has language rights or not. I think that approach undermines the vitality and the sustainability of minority language communities in which CBC and Radio-Canada both play critical roles.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you very much.

Monsieur Godin.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank Mr. Norlock for beginning the discussion on CBC.

I agree with the hon. member when he says that the two other political parties who governed previously made cuts to CBC. If I remember correctly, the Liberal government made $250 million in cuts to CBC. And the current Conservative government made $115 million in cuts to CBC's budget.

All these cuts can do nothing but affect CBC's services in official language minority communities. When CBC is working to get money from private-sector sponsors, it has to do so based on audience ratings. However, the programs that will be broadcast will come from Montreal rather than Moncton, Caraquet or Shippagan.

That's one of the problems with our public broadcaster, which is a Crown corporation. In our democractic country, I think that we are moving away from CBC's mandate. Any good democracy anywhere in the world has public radio and television, which does not get funding from large companies supported by certain governments.

The federal government is not ashamed of giving large companies tax cuts to the tune of $40 billion. Nor is it ashamed of giving tax cuts to banks, when their profits in recent years have been over $22 billion and their presidents have received bonuses of $11 billion.

However, the government is cutting $105 million from a public agency. It scares me to see what the government wants to do to our public broadcaster. I would like to hear what you have to say about that, because I believe that you are passionate about CBC. You even addressed the courts to have the power to investigate CBC.

My question is this: Are you going to go forward and force the government to invest in CBC so that the corporation is better able to serve all Canadians across the country, and not just the people in big cities like Toronto and Montreal?

[Graham Fraser]

Mr. Chair, we have before us the Federal Court ruling on CBC/Radio-Canada that confirms our shared jurisdiction with the CRTC. CBC/Radio-Canada will appeal this ruling.

There have also been recent cuts that are the other side of the coin. Can we expect CBC/Radio-Canada to maintain the same level of service after these drastic cuts and the loss of revenue that the hon. member mentioned? We are considering it. What is the best way to proceed? Personally, I am trying to use all the tools available to me.

We are already before the courts with CBC/Radio-Canada about one aspect of the act. We are considering the best way to move forward with this other aspect, which is fundamentally tied to CBC/Radio-Canada's ability to maintain equitable services to official language minority communities. We are still thinking about this, but I will take note of the member's comments.

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

Furthermore, the Supreme Court ruled today that Air Canada does not have to pay any fines or damages.

I tip my hat to Mr. Thibodeau, who flew Air Canada between Montreal and Ottawa. When he asked for a can of 7UP, he was told "I don't speak French". He was then arrested by police. This is the same man who was not served in his official language, which is in contravention of the act. He won his case in the Federal Court, but the Court of Appeal reversed the result of the first proceeding.

Aren't you concerned? Shouldn't the government amend the act to ensure that a violation results in compensation or a fine? Otherwise, it's just an "I'm sorry". This can't go on. Otherwise, we'll be sending the message that people can continue to violate the act as long as they apologize afterwards.

[Graham Fraser]

I'm reluctant to say too much about the implications of this ruling, which I haven't had time to read yet. It was made this morning at 10:00 a.m., so an hour before I appeared before the committee.

If I understand correctly, the court did recognize the quasi-constitutional nature of the Official Languages Act.

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

Indeed, Mr. Chair, the court recognized the quasi-constitutional nature of the act, but it's enough to say that you are sorry and then continue in the same way.

Mr. Commissioner, it's the same as for your reports. You present reports like the one on co-operatives, you say there has been a breach of the act and that they are ready for later.

What do we need to do to solve the problem, go back and tell these institutions that they have to make the changes, and not just later on? I'm concerned about this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

We have a point of order from Mr. Williamson.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

I would like the commissioner to answer, not the answer that Mr. Godin wants him to give.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Mr. Williamson, thank you for your intervention, but the chair is ruling that is not a point of order. Mr. Godin can use his time as he wishes, whether for questions or commentary.

I will now give the floor to Mr. Fraser to briefly respond before I give the floor to Monsieur Gourde.

Mr. Fraser.

[Graham Fraser]

If I've understood correctly, the ruling is fairly specific about damages during international flights. It's the convergence or contradiction between the Official Languages Act and the Montreal Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules Relating to International Carriages By Air.

If I've understood correctly, the 120-page ruling is based on international jurisprudence. It was decided that, in the case of international flights, the court does not have the authority to award damages because of the Montreal convention, which is an international convention.

I do not want to invent a capacity for my office, the government or the court to legislate in a context of international jurisprudence. It would be an inappropriate improvisation on my part.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you.

Mr. Gourde, you have the floor.