Evidence of meeting #35 for Official Languages in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was games.
A recording is available from Parliament.
October 22nd, 2009 / 9:40 a.m.
Liberal
Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages
That's right.
Liberal
Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC
On my concern around, for example, the Richmond Olympic oval, where there has been some negative press, how are we on that file? I'm not up on all the details of it, obviously, but has there been a little openness towards...?
Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages
The discussions are ongoing. There are discussions going on this week with the engineers, and I think at the end of the day the signage issue will be addressed.
Again, I think there was a slowness to recognize that if you're going to be hosting an Olympic building in which the two official languages of the games and of Canada are English and French....
There isn't that automatic sense that this is not just a local arena we're talking about here; this is an Olympic and national institution that's being created.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Steven Blaney
Thank you very much, Mr. Trudeau.
We'll continue with Ms. Guay.
Bloc
Monique Guay Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, Mr. Fraser, Ms. Tremblay and Ms. Charlebois.
I have a lot of questions, and, now that we're 16 weeks away from the Olympic Games, I would like us to be able to talk as quickly as possible.
Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages
We aren't five weeks away from the Olympic Games. I think there's more time left than that.
Bloc
Monique Guay Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
I said there were 16 weeks left, not five weeks.
The fact remains, Mr. Fraser, that we have to consider the fact that we won't be here from mid-December until the end of January. That's why we'll have to move very quickly; it's almost the end of October.
On Tuesday, we heard from some witnesses with whom we spoke about airport services. When you arrive in a country, the first contact you make is obviously at the airport, whether it be in Toronto, Vancouver or elsewhere. In Montreal, I'm not concerned: service is bilingual. However, in the rest of Canada, it's disturbing. If you are poorly welcomed on arrival, I can tell you that you don't have a good stay.
They couldn't even give us any figures on the number of bilingual persons working in the customs service at Pearson Airport or Vancouver Airport. It's very troubling that no one could answer us with figures at their fingertips. I don't know whether you've done any research in this regard, but I would like to know whether you have an answer to give us on that subject. It now has to be 24/7.
Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages
We don't have exact figures, but CATSA is one of the institutions that we'll target for our report card. So we'll be able to take a special look at that.
Ghislaine, do you want to say a little more about that?
Bloc
Ghislaine Charlebois Assistant Commissioner, Compliance Assurance Branch, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages
More specifically, the Border Services Agency will be the focus of a report card this year. We're still talking with it, of course.
Bloc
Monique Guay Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
I can tell you that the report its representatives gave us is very troubling.
Assistant Commissioner, Compliance Assurance Branch, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages
Yes. I think we share that concern as well.
Bloc
Monique Guay Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
Can you exercise pressure so that service is really offered in both official languages?
Assistant Commissioner, Compliance Assurance Branch, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages
We constantly remind them they have an obligation to provide that service. That's what's troubling.
Bloc
Monique Guay Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
I understand you don't really have the power to make them act.
Mr. Fraser, earlier my colleague asked you what the $7.7 million had produced. We don't know where that $7.7 million has been distributed or what it's been used for. Do you know? Can you give us any information on that?
Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages
I can't do that contract by contract.
Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages
We can nevertheless say that it's $5.3 million for translation, $1.5 million for signage and $900,000 for the medal ceremonies.
Bloc
Monique Guay Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
In your first report, you said that VANOC was considering the possibility of translating only a part of the athlete biographies into French. That's very troubling. You also said that the information on the Info 2010 media website would only be available in English at first.
I don't understand. Has that been corrected? Will there be improvements so that we have that information in both languages? We haven't been informed of that change.
Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages
We're still discussing the terms for solving that problem. Yesterday I was told that, with regard to the delivery of services, they will ensure that, in certain places where there are dealings with the public and the media, 30% to 55% of staff on hand will be bilingual. There will therefore be a strategic effort in the organization of volunteers, which is a response to one of our concerns. It's all well and good to have 12,000 bilingual people; if the right person isn't in the right place, that doesn't solve the problem. We're monitoring the application of our recommendations as closely as possible.
Bloc
Monique Guay Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
It takes really bilingual people at customs. There's also a matter of security around this problem. If people only know a few key phrases, there's reason to be concerned about security because they won't necessarily understand what will happen.
Conservative
Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages
A distinction has to be drawn between border services and security services. Border services are offered by government employees, whereas CATSA operates through third parties, private companies that hire the staff. This raises certain additional challenges with regard to linguistic obligations.
However, as I emphasized in my statement, they've organized a special day on the Olympics for all their employees. I myself spoke about the importance of active offer and of having a system for bringing in people. This is precisely the experience Mr. Nadeau had in Vancouver, where it seems that the system worked well and that, ultimately, the service can be provided.