Official Languages committee  Consumer protection applies there too. Those are activities involving direct contact with the consumer and are thus protected by the province.

Official Languages committee  Yes, we are working on it.

Official Languages committee  Yes, because amending the Official Languages Act has an impact on the regulations. We are painstakingly working on sound proposals to review the regulations.

Official Languages committee  Yes, we have sheets that employees fill out after a trip. I don't know who is responsible for the training.

Official Languages committee  That is one of the reasons why we don't just use the complaint mechanism in talking about compliance with the legislation. The audit process is another approach. We also publish performance bulletins each year in the annual report. We have a range of means at our disposal to help us understand how things really are on the ground.

Official Languages committee  You're talking about Air Canada.

Official Languages committee  The third question dealt with imposing the Official Languages Act on other companies.

Official Languages committee  First of all, allow me to say that I was impressed when Minister Cannon announced the bill and stated that his government felt that linguistic duality was one of the foundations of Canadian society. I was reassured and impressed by the clarity of that statement, and I wanted to point that out before this committee.

Official Languages committee  I will give you an off-the-cuff response, then ask Ms. Tremblay to comment. In principle, the notion of flexibility in a regulation might appear useful, but I fear that flexibility might be the equivalent of letting things slip by. We must always find the balance between openness and flexibility on one hand, and excessively stringent and bureaucratic regulation on the other hand.

Official Languages committee  You raised a very good point regarding the language of work, especially in technological areas. That's always a challenge. In my opinion, it's particularly important that these employees don't lose the right to work in French in workshops or other Air Canada work places which, because of restructuring, belong to Jazz.

Official Languages committee  At the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages, employees use Air Canada and travel a lot. We've asked all the employees, during their travel, to do a personal evaluation. It's not a matter of acting as investigators but just as ordinary travellers. I really can't tell you the results of this evaluation.

Official Languages committee  Mr. Dussault has just explained that we established a working relationship with Air Canada to discuss these issues. There is the official evaluation of complaints, and, as I've just said, a less official evaluation when employees travel by Air Canada. I think that this is in a way a holistic approach that enables us to assess the linguistic environment for the travelling public.

Official Languages committee  You are raising quite an important point that warrants further explanation. Commissioner Adam has written reports on the use of French over the Internet. That made me think. Indeed, to a certain extent, online services constitute a very good opportunity for francophones in Canada to have access to information in their language.

Official Languages committee  I do not want to say too much about the limitations. I will ask Ms. Tremblay to provide a little bit of explanation regarding the limitations.

Official Languages committee  That's a very good question. I must say that I've been on this job for five weeks and I'm still in learning mode. I don't have as specific an answer as I would have liked to have given you on this particular issue, but I think that it is important to establish positive links, to explore how a company like Air Canada can play a role and how we can create a new positive relationship.