Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm going to read you an article by Paul Gaboury from the newspaper Le Droit. I don't know whether you've read it.
A group of five French-speaking travellers from the National Capital Region feels that they were treated like second-class citizens when they were dealt with by CBSA customs officers, who were unable to serve them in their mother tongue upon their return to Canada. Pierre Lauzière of Gatineau arrived at the Ottawa airport on December 1, 2008, after a visit to Las Vegas with his wife and son, as well as with a couple of friends. But to their great astonishment, none of the customs officers present at the three customs counters who were working at around noon that day were able to serve them in French. “The customs officers on duty were all unilingual anglophones. They asked me whether there was a problem if they served me in English. We replied that it was not ideal, but that we did not feel like waiting to obtain French services,” says Mr. Lauzière. Another member of the group went to a counter where the sign stated that bilingual service was available. After having been greeted by a customs officer who wished him “Bienvenue au Canada”, he was surprised to find out that this officer did not understand anything he said in French. He was certainly not bilingual to the extent that the sign posted would seem to indicate. Considering this situation “absurd, disrespectful and contemptuous,” Mr. Lauzière decided to file a complaint with the official languages commissioner, even though he was sure that he would become just another statistic. But he did not stop there. And that is why he decided to go public with his mishap. “Why did the other anglophone Canadian citizens, who were on the same flight as us, receive service in their mother tongue whereas we did not? I felt like a second-class citizen. Isn't it only normal that we receive service in our mother tongue? We live in a bilingual country and we should be entitled to such service especially in the airport of our national capital. It is a very embarrassing and degrading situation,” he pointed out. “It's extremely unpleasant to come back to Canada and to be greeted in this fashion. I felt more at home when I arrived in the United States. We were treated better as tourists.”
This article is dated December 16, 2008.
I know you have a job to do, that you represent an agency and so forth, but all is not well. I understand the theory, but in practice, there are problems. Whether there is one complaint submitted to you or 10, that doesn't change the fact that there are problems. I have serious doubts about your ability, as an agency representing Canada, to ensure that a foreigner, a Quebecker or a Canadian who arrives at the airport or at a border crossing feels at home or feels that he is coming to a country where French has the same value as English.
You answered several questions a bit earlier, but there is much to be done, and I hope that when it comes time to offer your courses, whether it be in Rigaud or elsewhere, you will not announce that “This bilingual course will be given in English,” which is something that I have already heard.
When a doctor needs to be called, we ensure that he has the required training, but the same is not true for people who are responsible for greeting people who come from abroad or from another region of the country. These people should be able to answer travellers in both official languages and know what to do if they have difficulty understanding the language used by the people addressing them. You tell us that good work is being done, but I would like to know whether these problem situations can be avoided and whether there are improvements that will be made.