Official Languages Committee on Oct. 8th, 2009

[Paul Côté]

The next day and the following days, as soon as things became clear, that the complaint and feedback was received, we issued both an internal and an external memo. Afterwards, we sent out more specific information to staff to remind them of their obligations with respect to official languages.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

After you had sent out this memo, why is it that you sent out letters of apology in English only?

[Paul Côté]

An apology has to do with the choice of official language people mark down. For instance, when members of our VIA Preference program register, they may indicate English instead of French. If so, correspondence with them is in that language.

The same type of thing happened to me with—

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Do you mean to say by that that all passengers on board train number 46 on August 16 were registered in English?

[Paul Côté]

No.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

That is what you're telling me. If the letter sent to passengers was strictly in English, when its purpose was to apologize for having spoken to them strictly in English—

[Paul Côté]

You are right to raise the point. I thought you were asking the question in terms of policy. That was an error in the system: the letter went out in English only and it was sent out as such.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

A memo had been sent out a few days earlier. Did someone ignore it? What happened? Given the scandal it provoked, the person who sent out the apology should have been more vigilant.

[Paul Côté]

You are right.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Why did this happen?

[Paul Côté]

I do not know, I cannot explain it.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Did you carry out an investigation on this?

[Paul Côté]

We asked the person who carried out the investigation what had happened. The answer was that it was up to them to send out a letter, but that they had completely forgotten to check the choice of language.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Is this person bilingual?

[Paul Côté]

Yes, absolutely.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

And this person forgot.

[Paul Côté]

That's correct. Mr. Vincent, human errors occur, and it's unfortunate.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

I understand, Mr. Côté, but it would seem to me that given what happened on August 16—

[Paul Côté]

You are right.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

—and that people had been warned through a memo, that there should be another mistake—

[Christena Keon Sirsly]

The apology was sent practically at the same time as the statement—

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

What was the date on the apology letter?

[Christena Keon Sirsly]

The day after the incident.

There is one other thing. Our reservation data system had a browser problem. If an individual makes a reservation and uses an English-language browser, our system classifies the person as an anglophone. That is a common problem it does not only occur at VIA. In fact, there was a recent article in the papers about this type of incident.

Since the incident, we have asked people to specify a language, so we may be sure to communicate with them in that language.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Vincent.

We'll now go back to Ms. Glover: who had asked a question of our champion.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

I have a number of questions to ask, but I'll start with the complaint, Ms. Sirsly.