Official Languages Committee on Oct. 8th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Good morning and welcome to the 33^rd meeting of the Standing Committee on Official Languages.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we will proceed with a study of services in French on board VIA Rail trains. It is our pleasure to welcome the Chairman of the Board, Mr. Donald Wright.

Welcome to our committee, Mr. Wright.

We also welcome the President and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Paul Côté. He is accompanied by Ms. Christena Keon Sirsly, who is VIA Rail official languages champion and Chief Strategy Officer.

Without further ado, I invite you to make your opening statement. We will then move on to questions from committee members.

[Donald Wright, Chairman of the Board , VIA Rail Canada Inc.]

Merci. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, for this opportunity to speak about VIA Rail's record with respect to the official languages.

In light of the incident on train 46 in August, I think it's important to affirm VIA's wholehearted commitment to the principles of the Official Languages Act. The corporation has a clear record in this regard. VIA not only supports the letter of the law, but is an energetic supporter of the fundamental goals of the law, providing quality fully bilingual service to the public, promoting the advancement of French and English as the official languages of the country in all parts of the country.

When concerns were raised about bilingual service following the incident, VIA acted very quickly to investigate the matter and to dispel any confusion about where the corporation stands on bilingual service, both with the travelling public and throughout our own corporation. I am confident that the corporation is taking whatever action is necessary to address the concerns raised about the provision of bilingual service during the incident and to maintain its record of supporting federal official language policies.

My colleague Mr. Côté would like to speak briefly about that record and VIA's support for official languages.

Thank you.

[Paul Côté, President and Chief Executive Officer, VIA Rail Canada Inc.]

Mr. Chair, and members of the committee, VIA Rail faces unique challenges with respect to bilingual service, because of the unique relationship we have with our customers. Extended, interpersonal relationships are formed between our employees and travellers, with personal contact over the course of a trip that may last hours or even days on our transcontinental trains.

We are proud of ourselves on providing excellent, personal customer service, and we recognize that quality service in both official languages is essential.

I have been personally involved in developing VIA's policies and programs supporting bilingual service for over 20 years. We adopted our first bilingual hiring policies in the early 1980s, setting specific bilingualism requirements for all front-line personal hired throughout the system. This provided the foundation for providing bilingual services throughout the VIA network in the years thereafter.

A train crewing initiative in 1986 designated the position of assistant service coordinator as a bilingual position; it thereby ceased to be staffed solely on the basis of seniority. In the 1990s, we continued working with VIA's unions to establish additional bilingually designated positions, including service managers, which became enshrined in our collective agreements

In 1998, we established a new framework for hiring, training, and staffing bilingual positions with our new era passenger operations initiative. We consolidated the conductor's duties with those of a bilingually designated service manager position, ensuring a minimum level of bilingual service on all VIA trains. Since then we have continued to develop and refine policies and training programs to ensure that employees have the skills and the understanding necessary to serve customers in the language of their choice.

We have developed a very positive, constructive working relationship with the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages. I personally meet the commissioner on a regular basis to provide updates on our initiatives and to exchange ideas on best practices and opportunities for improving service. Everyone at VIA takes great pride in the continuous improvements in service that we have achieved as a result.

The Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages issues a “Report card” measuring VIA's performance with respect to language policies each year. Those reports demonstrate the progress we have achieved, with significant improvements in the past few years regarding service to the public.

We get very few complaints from customers regarding bilingual service—only one in 2008. In fact, in our own customers' survey completed last year, 99% of customers surveyed confirmed that they were served in the language of their choice, whether it was on the telephone, in a station, or on board our trains.

Today, VIA's policy with respect to official languages is clear and unequivocal.

Any person applying to work at VIA Rail Canada in a front-line service position must pass a language test to show they are functionally bilingual in both official languages. Candidates who do not pass this test are not hired.

There are employees on every VIA train and every VIA station and call centre who are capable of providing service to customers in both official languages. All on-train and station announcements are made in both official languages. All other communications to customers are either bilingual or in the customers' language of choice.

That being said, it is also clear that we are not perfect—and we take the concerns raised following the incident on train number 46 last August very seriously.

As you know, these concerns stamped from the evacuation of the train following a fire—a stressful situation where human shortcomings regarding the use of official languages may be understandable, but are not acceptable.

Our investigation of the incident included a debriefing with all employees on board the train.

I can confirm that all employees were indeed bilingual, and we have confirmed that all announcements made over the public address system were made in each official language.

However, we recognize that communications from individual employees may not have been made in a consistent manner, particularly with respect to making an active offer of communicating in the language of preference for each customer. This is difficult to determine with certainty because there were many other people on the scene--emergency response personnel from local fire departments, for example, and police--which may have caused some confusion about this issue.

However, all VIA employees involved—indeed, all VIA employees throughout the corporation—have been reminded that they must always offer service in the language of choice for every customer.

I would also like to state that unfortunate public comments made subsequent to the onboard incident do not, in any way, reflect the position of VIA Rail with respect to our commitment to bilingual services throughout our network.

The corporation remains fully and actively committed to supporting and implementing that principle, and we will do everything possible to reinforce this point in the future.

I and my colleagues will be happy to discuss details of this incident further, or to answer any question you might have regarding VIA's policy with respect to Canada's official languages.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you very much, Mr. Côté.

Without further ado, we will begin our first round of questioning with Mr. Rodriguez.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for coming to be with us here today. Could you give some more details about the incident itself? What exactly happened during the incident with train 46?

[Paul Côté]

The incident occurred as a result of a fire in the locomotive, requiring the train to be immobilized.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Could you explain a little more?

[Paul Côté]

The train was moving and a mechanical breakdown occurred in the locomotive's motor. A bolt worked loose and diesel fuel spilled. The heat of the motor caused a fire in the locomotive. When the engineers saw this, they stopped the train. As there were flames coming from the locomotive, it was clear that the train had to be evacuated.

The problem was that they were in a very isolated location, as is often the case. You do not choose where a train breaks down, of course. In this particular case, the incident occurred at night, in an isolated place. It was hot and the people had to get off the train. You saw the same videos I did. That is what happened.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Do you have evacuation drills from time to time?

[Paul Côté]

Yes, our employee training program includes train evacuation simulations, where they are presented with certain scenarios.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

But is there an official language component? During these drills, do you ensure that there are people who speak French?

[Paul Côté]

Absolutely.

Mr. Rodriguez, as I told you in my opening statement, all of the employees on board the trains are bilingual.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Yes, and that struck me. You are really saying all employees?

[Paul Côté]

All employees are bilingual. We have not hired anyone who did not speak both official languages since 1986. I was there then. I have worked for this company for 38 years. I started with CN in 1972. I have seen the way that this company, which at first did not give any priority to French, has evolved over time. I can attest to that. In 1985, I participated, with VIA Rail's executive committee, in the decision to hire only bilingual personnel from then on. This applies right across the country.

Recently, in the West, VIA Rail employees took us to court because we did not want to allow unilingual anglophone employees to have access to better paying jobs in order to improve their retirement. The issue was a services manager position on board trains in northern Manitoba. The problem is that this territory has not been designated bilingual. The employees said that, given those circumstances, we were not obliged to provide bilingual service, and that therefore they were entitled to apply for these positions. We refused and told them that that would jeopardize the safety of passengers. If the people on board this train had not been bilingual, in fact, the consequences would have been exactly the same as if the staff were unilingual.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

I am not sure that I understand. It is as though those people saw an option, the option being that they perhaps could have got the job without being bilingual. Are you telling us that it is impossible to obtain a position on the trains if you are not bilingual?

[Paul Côté]

Hiring is done in the context of bilingualism. Two positions on board trains require an individual to be absolutely bilingual. These are the positions of service manager and service coordinator. Let us not forget that we have people on staff who have been working for us for a long time. I began working in 1970, for example. I am 58 years old. A unilingual anglophone service attendant is still working on the trains. Do you understand what I am saying? If I were a unilingual anglophone, I could not apply for the position of service manager, because I would not be bilingual.

Some employees have been working for us since before 1985. We did not lay them off because they were unilingual. We are not unreasonable. However, they are limited with respect to promotions and access to certain positions. They cannot be service managers or service coordinators.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

How do you establish whether or not a person is bilingual? Is this done by a test?

[Paul Côté]

Yes, applicants do a test as part of the hiring process.

I would say that I consider myself to be completely bilingual. That is not meant to sound conceited. An employee does not have to qualify at that level of bilingualism. You have to have...

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

... the ability to communicate.

[Paul Côté]

Yes, you have to be able to communicate effectively with people, understand them, carry on a conversation, and so on. Obviously, this ability is assessed in the context of our industry. We do not ask people to give us a philosophical presentation in French, for example.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

So the people also have to be able to speak the other language, not simply understand it.

[Paul Côté]

Exactly.

As for those employees who are unfortunately unilingual—it is unfortunate, after all, not to be able to enjoy the benefits of being bilingual—because they were hired prior to 1986 and were unilingual at that time, there are some solutions provided in our training programs. For example, if you are in a dining car and a unilingual employee serves you but you would like to be served in French, the employee will say “just a moment”. Someone will then go and find a bilingual employee working on board the train so that he can serve you.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Rodriguez.

Mr. Nadeau.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Do you operate the same way as the Public Service does; that is, do you require a CBC level, for instance? Is there a set level?