Official Languages Committee on Oct. 27th, 2009

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank Air Canada for appearing in front of us today to talk about their official language policies.

I have two points to make. The first point is that the reason we're here today is that the Canadian education system isn't producing bilingual graduates. It's interesting for me to note this from your opening remarks: to paraphrase what you stated, it's an unfortunate reality that you can't hire 100% bilingual graduates. Last summer, in the height of a recession, you could not find bilingual candidates, even despite publicity campaigns to hire those bilingual candidates. Your target was 100% bilingual capacity, and you could only hire 67% bilingual capacity. You had to transfer 575 flight attendants from Montreal to centres like Toronto and Vancouver because of a lack of qualified applicants in those two cities.

I think this all supports a long-standing point that I've been making at this committee. The Canadian education system is failing us in not producing the kinds of bilingual graduates that we need, not just to staff federal institutions but also to staff federally regulated private sector companies like Air Canada.

Unless governments are willing to address this fundamental problem, my view is that it's only going to get worse. Demographics is destiny. The rapidly changing demographic makeup of Canada is going to exacerbate this problem unless the Government of Canada, the federal government, using its powers, encourages provinces to produce more bilingual graduates. Until that happens, the long-term trend in this regard is not good, despite your efforts.

That's the first point I wanted to make. The second point I wanted to make is that in your February 2007 linguistic action plan, you have a mistake in the second paragraph of your introduction. You state that Canada is a bilingual and bicultural country. It is not. It is a bilingual and multicultural country, as protected by the Constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

As you state later in your plan, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects English and French as Canada's official languages and they have equality of status. The charter also protects the multicultural nature of the country, and it mandates the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians.

So I would suggest that when you're rewriting this plan, you remove the word “bicultural” and replace it with the word “multicultural”.

Thank you very much for your testimony today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Chong.

Anything to add, members?

Do you have anything to add?

Mr. Galipeau, you have two minutes left.

[Royal Galipeau, Conservative, Ottawa—Orléans, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, I would like to thank the witnesses for being here today.

We operate, in society in general and in this Parliament in particular, on the presumption of good faith. Mr. Chairman, I must admit to you that, in Air Canada's case, that presumption is very much in doubt.

The Official Languages Act has been in existence for more than 40 years and, for more than 40 years, Air Canada has been subject to the Official Languages Act. That obligation was continued when it was privatized. Hearing a litany of excuses from year to year to explain why the carrier can't comply with the act, an act that it accepted at the time of privatization, I admit to you makes me very impatient. Blaming the government doesn't work. It's not the fault of the governments of Trudeau, Clark, Turner, Mulroney, Campbell, Chrétien, Martin or Harper that Air Canada doesn't comply with the act; it's Air Canada's fault.

There is a man in Orleans named Michel Thibodeau, to whom Mr. Godin referred. Mr. Thibodeau simply requested a 7UP in French and he was told in a haughty manner, “I don't speak French.” It was not enough just to answer, “I don't speak French,” but it was done in a haughty manner. He won his case with... I know Michel Thibodeau, and he's an aggressive guy, an intimidating guy, but police officers were called because he had dared to assert his rights.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Galipeau.

[Royal Galipeau, Conservative, Ottawa—Orléans, ON]

Mr. Chairman, I would like to request the unanimous consent of the committee to be able to continue speaking.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Do we have unanimous consent?

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

I'll give Mr. Galipeau the five minutes of speaking time allocated to me.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

If there is unanimous consent, that won't be necessary, Mr. D'Amours.

Go ahead, Mr. Galipeau; you have the consent of committee members.

[Royal Galipeau, Conservative, Ottawa—Orléans, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The case of Mr. Thibodeau is particularly flagrant. First, Mr. Thibodeau won all down the line. Second, Air Canada dragged him into court so it would not have to admit its responsibility. This morning, Air Canada has come crying, saying that the company doesn't have enough money. However, it has enough money to pay lawyers to interfere with the language rights of its own customers.

I want to be able to restore that presumption of good faith in Air Canada's case. I will do so when it stops interfering with the rights of Michel Thibodeau. There is a court case going on right now, and it must be settled without creating others. Every year, as is provided by the act, the Commissioner of Official Languages reports to Parliament on the complaints he has received. Air Canada always wins that contest and responds that things will be better next year. We hope it will disappear from the rankings.

With respect to recruitment, there are more francophones in Toronto than in Ottawa. In percentage terms, there are not as many, but in absolute terms, there are more than in Ottawa. If you want, I'll send you statistics on the number of bilingual anglophones and francophones in Vancouver.

Let's talk about the card for complaining about service in either language. Mr. Godin was here when Robert Milton, the former president of Air Canada, appeared before this committee in 2002. I still remember that Mr. Milton said he had come of his own free will. And yet the sheriff was just two steps behind him. The card was a good instrument. That initiative was presented to our committee by a former MP, the lamented Benoît Sauvageau. Personally, I'll never forget Benoît Sauvageau or his card. It might be a good idea for you not to forget it either.

I think I've said enough. Take Mr. Godin's remarks about Michel Thibodeau to heart because they were presented by an opposition member and they are now approved by a member from the government party.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

[Louise McEvoy]

I must say that every complaint is taken very seriously. I'm not aware of that complaint. If Mr. Thibodeau filed it, I don't think we've received it at our office. However, we're going to investigate.

[Royal Galipeau, Conservative, Ottawa—Orléans, ON]

He isn't an aggressive man.

[Louise McEvoy]

I know him, I've crossed paths with him, and what you say is true.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

It's the committee members who must be thanked, Mr. Galipeau.

We'll now go to Mr. Nadeau.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

You should meet the Commissioner of Official Languages one day to learn the extent of the complaints filed against Air Canada. I'm troubled to learn that you aren't aware of Mr. Thibodeau's complaint, and I wonder if you're aware of the other complaints.

You said in your introduction that the situation was improving and that there were fewer and fewer complaints, but you still have to know about the ones there are. You know as well as I do that, for a person who complains, there are perhaps 10 more who don't. That results in stress and a process.

It's unacceptable to come here boasting in this matter. It's worth the trouble to read the report of the Commissioner of Official Languages because there is a section devoted to Air Canada; there's one in every report. As Mr. Galipeau said, it would be nice if we no longer saw you there, but you are at the top of the list; you're offender number one. Active offer by an employee is when he says: “Hello, bonjour.” I know that's complicated and it takes a Ph.D. thesis, but everyone should pass the thesis and say the word.

At Robert L. Stanfield International Airport in Halifax, it's 0%, none from Air Canada. And I'm not talking about the other offender, CATSA; I'm talking about Air Canada. In Montreal, it's 46%. I won't say everything I think about Canada when these kinds of things occur, but I will say that it's 4.7% in Ottawa, which is the federal capital of Canada; 4% in Toronto and a big 0% in Vancouver. That's here at home. Don't come and tell me things are going well and that there are fewer complaints. There should have been a complaint every time. People are so used to hearing the same old unacceptable things from Air Canada.

In 2007 and 2009, which is recent, only 41% of employees in bilingual positions met the language requirements of their positions. You see the extent of the situation. You give them a bilingual position, and only 41% meet the job criteria. Only 39% of Air Canada's francophone employees said they were satisfied with the opportunity to work in their language in the National Capital Region, in New Brunswick and in the designated bilingual regions of Ontario. That's in the report of the Commissioner of Official Languages. You should read a little bit of it every evening before you go to bed, if only to remind yourself that there are things that have to be improved.

I have a letter here dated October 26, 2006. That too is recent in the history of humanity. It talks about a situation that occurred on October 9, 2009 on board Air Canada flight 189 that left Ottawa at 5:30 p.m. and landed in Vancouver at 7:45 p.m., local time. A passenger asked the flight attendant for earphones to watch a movie. She answered him: “I don't speak French,” and went away without even offering to go find a co-worker who spoke French. That leads me to say that there were probably no flight attendants on board who spoke French. This is particularly unusual since, on a route, you can read that the service is to be provided in French. I was the complainant, and I'm going to give you a copy of the letter.

It's these kinds of situations that lead me to say that you've come here to put on a masquerade today, instead of presenting us with an action plan to improve the situation. I didn't have to dig for long to find those figures. You should have them on your desk every year and know where improvements have to be made. It's your job.

It's insidious that parliamentarians should be told to stop complaining because your company has improved. In a classroom, you'd be given detention every evening and you'd hear me repeat to you that you have homework and you have to do your work. This is the school teacher talking to you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

The Chair reminds Mr. Nadeau that his time is up.

Ms. McEvoy.

[Louise McEvoy]

I simply wanted to go back to this. Active officer and “Sorry, I don't speak French,” are the two departure points of the Air Canada course designed for its employees. The course is called, “Un moment s'il vous plaît.”

We read the Commissioner's report. They may not be on our bedside tables, but we definitely read them at the office. We take this very seriously. We see that the challenge is very great, but, one day at a time, we're managing to convince a number of employees, through that course, that they should do what's necessary to honour Canadians' rights.

Some employees haven't taken the course yet, but once our 10,000 employees have taken it, I dare hope you'll no longer see this kind of behaviour.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you very much.

We're now going to go to the committee members who asked to speak in the fourth round.

We'll go on right away with Ms. O'Neill-Gordon.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome, witnesses. It's nice to have you here this morning.

As we all know, the games are going to be here in the wintertime. I wonder if you can explain what you consider to be your responsibility in getting us ready so that both languages will be available.

[Louise McEvoy]

Thank you.

This is why we started to give this course, called “Un moment, s'il vous plaît!”, to our Vancouver airport employees. We wanted to give it early enough. In September, all the employees went to that workshop, and we will do reminders until the games.

We have also published a new edition of a booklet called “The Aero-Vocabularies”. It's English-French vocabulary for our employees, with a cheat sheet to help them immediately address the clients in the language of their choice.

In Vancouver, as well as in Toronto where many passengers will connect for Vancouver, we have a class for airport employees and also two or three classes this fall for flight attendants to qualify; they have a basis in French, and they will qualify.

We are also working with our call centres to put in place a kind of interpreter by phone. The employee who has taken all those courses and still cannot help the client can have an interpreter within a few minutes. We're working also with the airport authorities, who offer similar services, but we want to make sure that we can offer it ourselves as well.

So we are communicating with employees on a daily and weekly basis through all the different bulletins we have in place.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

Thank you.

It's nice to see all that you are putting forth in a great effort to make it possible for our visitors.

When we spoke to VIA Rail the other day, they said something about giving promotions to employees who are bilingual. Is that one of your policies as well?

[Louise McEvoy]

Some positions are bilingual, so they will only be given to bilingual employees—that's for sure.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

Is there any other incentive for your employees?

[Louise McEvoy]

The incentive is to be eligible for that position. That's the main incentive.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

Yes, before they get there.

Can you give us an outline as to what cost Air Canada incurs in order to maintain bilingualism under the Official Languages Act?

[Louise McEvoy]

Well, I'm not talking about translation, but for language training it's $1.5 million per year. That's not only the cost of the teachers but also the cost of taking someone from operations and putting them in class for half a day, a day, a month, and so on.