Official Languages Committee on May 29th, 2008

[Denis Lebel, Conservative, Roberval—Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Earlier Mr. Blais said it couldn't be done in a strictly platonic way by means of an announcement. There obviously has to be a discussion in advance. We need to know the context in order to explain the reasons. I don't know whether corrective action was taken, but it will clearly have to be done that way: it's too important.

You told us about the Joint Rescue Centre, and there are Canadian Forces people on the committee. We summoned the Canadian Coast Guard people, but we see that we had to hear other witnesses as well.

I'd like you to explain to me how the centre works. The call was received by a Canadian Forces person. However, I thought that was more the role of the Coast Guard people. How does that kind of centre, in which partners are involved, operate?

[LGen Marc Dumais]

Mr. Chairman, it's an operations centre comprising a number of offices, some of which belong to the Canadian Forces and others to the Coast Guard. There is a very close connection between the two organizations, but they each have their own chain of command.

As Ms. d'Auray explained, the person who answers the call is the one who is nearest the telephone and on duty at that particular time. The person responsible for the centre is normally a military member on duty. These are essentially Canadian Forces centres housing representatives of the two partner groups taking part in the search and rescue mission.

Does that answer your question?

[Denis Lebel, Conservative, Roberval—Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Yes, in part. However, I would like to know, because it is that coordination centre that received the call, what percentage of employees come respectively from the Coast Guard and the Canadian Forces.

[LGen Marc Dumais]

I believe that the centres are staffed by approximately 20 persons, a dozen of which are military members. The others are Coast Guard employees. As I said, this partnership works particularly well. The same model is in use on the west coast. All the centres receive more than 900,000 calls a year. The three search and rescue centres in the country receive more than 9,000 a year.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you very much, Mr. Lebel. Your time is up.

We'll now begin the second round with Mr. D'Amours.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for being with us this morning. I'm going to put my questions specifically to two persons, Mr. Dumais and Mr. Da Pont.

Mr. Dumais, with all due respect, the next time you submit documents to the Standing Committee on Official Languages, you should make sure they are presentable. The problem is not simply that they are incomprehensible; they are full of mistakes. With a level of language of this kind, a school student would fail grade 6. We're talking about the federal government, and you are here in the Standing Committee on Official Languages. This document that you have submitted to us is shameful. I hope that, next time, the message will finally get through. I may not be good in French, but this document is very poor.

It was said that the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre met the needs. They're dealing with francophones, but, in the west, I'm not convinced the percentage of francophones and unilingual francophones is that high.

Mr. Da Pont, you said that it met the needs.

Mr. Dumais, you say that it meets the needs of the office, but tell me, you who are a francophone, without going into details, whether you managed to make some sense of this exchange. Despite all the good will that your officer was able to show, were you able to understand the slightest comment that could help that person, who was relatively calm, despite the extremely difficult situation? Did you understand anything?

[LGen Marc Dumais]

My answer is yes. I understood the exchange that took place in the context of that communication, as well as the intention of the captain in question.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

I hope you didn't understand the text as such because it's full of errors of French. I can't read the text. It nevertheless concerns the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre. During a rescue operation, the people aren't underground; they're at sea, and people try to find ways to help them, not only those who have disappeared, but also their families.

Take the example of the 911 system. People will try to assist the person until help arrives, knowing that the person may be in distress, in crisis, but that's not what was done in this case. They tried to get rid of the people. From what I heard, that's what the people felt.

Once again, you'll tell me that errors occurred. At one point, do people realize on their own that they aren't able to provide adequate assistance to those who are in distress and to their families, or to tell them that they're handling the situation, that they will find the person? All they do is give them a telephone number. Even though they are in distress, they tell these people to dial a telephone number and hope they will be served and get some answers. In these kinds of situations, the Government of Canada, the Coast Guard and National Defence are unable to assist people from start to finish.

Let's suppose that the call to your centre came from a person in great distress. This is the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre. How would the communication have taken place? Would it have resembled this one?

[LGen Marc Dumais]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First, I take responsibility for the documents in question. They come from my office.

Second, with respect to the coordination centres and bilingualism needs, it must be clearly understood that these are rescue centres. Their primary responsibility is to save lives. That's their mission. Of course, under the Official Languages Act, services must be provided in both official languages.

As Mr. Da Pont indicated, to our knowledge, there have been no cases in which an inability to communicate in the first language had a negative impact on the outcome of the mission.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Dumais.

We'll now go over to the government side and Mr. Daniel Petit.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Good morning to the three of you.

You have a joint committee of the Armed Forces and the Coast Guard; you work in the same buildings. Earlier you said that your employees had level B and could speak English and French equally well, in accordance with the requirements of their positions. You also said that there had been no complaints. However, according to a newspaper article that I have in front of me, Mr. Gilles Rhéaume filed a complaint concerning bilingualism.

Do you remember receiving that complaint?

[Michelle d'Auray]

Mr. Chairman, to our knowledge, that complaint was filed with the Commissioner of Official Languages, not with the department.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

But you were aware of that complaint.

[Michelle d'Auray]

We were informed of it. We were also told that the Commissioner's office was examining the document to determine how it was going to handle it.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

I'm going to read you what's written in the May 27 issue of L'Acadie Nouvelle:

He also wants to know whether the act that requires the Coast Guard to offer search and rescue services in both official languages at all times was complied with.

You see that we've turned around this question from the outset. Following these events, you no doubt searched your conscience to see what had happened.

I'm speaking to Mr. Dumais or Mr. Da Pont. Perhaps Mr. Da Pont can give me a better answer. It's not that I don't want Mr. Dumais to answer me. You have to prepare for distress cases. Do you consider bilingualism adequate in these cases? I say “adequate” from a rescue and distress perspective. It may be adequate to determine whether a boat is coming, but we don't care about that; that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about distress and rescue cases.

How do you see that, Mr. Da Pont?

[George Da Pont]

Thank you for the question.

My view is that so far it has proven to be adequate. The basis I would put that on is as I indicated, and as General Dumais indicated: to the best of our knowledge, we've never had a situation, a search and rescue case itself, where linguistic issues were seen as contributing in any fashion to the case. So from the perspective of the actual search and rescue operation, no.

I would also say that as with any other organization, the level of our service is reviewed and audited from time to time on a regular basis to determine whether the level in which the service is being provided is adequate. Generally, that has been sustained in the reviews in the past.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Now I'm going to ask Mr. Dumais a slightly more specific question.

You are responsible for the offices there, what's called the joint centre. The Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean was reopened so that there can now be a lot more francophones, so they can work in French and also have access to the positions you have today.

Have you yourself detected any weaknesses? Now is the time to tell the committee. From a rescue and distress perspective, have you seen anything in the language area? Are you considering any improvements that, based on your experience, could be made? Naturally, one can always say that there is a personnel shortage, that it isn't paid well enough and that there isn't enough vacation, but have you sensed any weaknesses? All that must have made you search your conscience. Did a connection fail? We know a connection failed at Sûreté du Québec, but we won't talk about that. Quebec will handle its own problems. But I want to know whether there was a problem.

[LGen Marc Dumais]

From my point of view, absolutely not. I can only talk about the coordination centre in general and for the Canadian Forces. As I said earlier, all the positions are filled. As regards the staffing of positions, search and rescue organizations are the priority. So the positions are filled and people are well paid. There's no problem in that regard.

As I said, the search and rescue program is an outright success for the Canadian Forces, and I believe the same is true for the Coast Guard. The system has been in place for years; it has proven itself and works extremely well. It saves thousands of lives every year.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Dumais.

As Mr. Petit has used much of the time that was allotted to him to ask his question, I must reduce the time allotted to you to answer it.

We'll continue with Mr. Blais.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Thank you very much.

The first point I would like to discuss with you is the testimony of Ms. Aucoin, who showed her disappointment and frustration with the degree of communication she had with the people in authority. I find it hard to understand what you're telling us. I get the impression you're telling us the level of quality of communication is adequate. However, when I spoke to her by telephone on Sunday afternoon, Ms. Aucoin was clearly distressed after speaking to the people. She wasn't satisfied. She was disappointed and frustrated.

Are you as well?

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Chairman, I have a point of order.

Mr. Blais is speaking as a witness. According to him, he was told certain things. Then let him be a witness and perhaps I'll ask him whether Ms. Aucoin actually spoke to him. He cannot report those remarks indirectly. Earlier Mr. Coderre introduced a motion that we adopted. We can't go any further. In saying things like “she told me that...”, Mr. Blais alludes to facts that we cannot talk about. He should be careful, Mr. Chairman. The spirit of the document cannot even be discussed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Petit. I can't allow your point of order, since Mr. Blais represents this riding as a member. He is referring to exchanges he had with his electors. So I'm going to ask Mr. Blais to continue.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

I'll let you answer my question, Mr. Da Pont.

[George Da Pont]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I indicated that I really deeply regret the way that Madame Aucoin heard the news. That should not have happened. I accept fully that this is not the way anyone should hear that type of news. I would never pretend that this was the case.

When I indicated that I was confident that the level met the requirements, I was talking about the actual search and rescue case itself, the actual operation. Here, obviously, we're talking about communication after the event. As we indicated, it was very regrettable. We have already explained how that happened. Obviously, when Madame Aucoin called the joint rescue coordination centre, they were unaware, in taking the call, that communications with the Sûreté had not in fact taken place.

So there were a number of factors, and obviously the individual dealing with the call didn't have that information at their fingertips.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Allow me to interrupt you. The question doesn't concern that, but rather the exchange between Ms. Aucoin and the authorities responsible. She wasn't satisfied. That's what she told me. Are you satisfied with the quality of that exchange?