Official Languages Committee on Oct. 27th, 2009

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Good morning and welcome.

Everyone around the table is always surprised to see that sometimes, even in 2009, there are still failures, even though you've made a lot of effort. We've talked about complaints and other things. What bothers me is that you said you were having trouble finding bilingual people. There are at least one million francophones outside Quebec, across the country.

Are you doing a promotion with the linguistic minorities? In Manitoba, for example, are you advertising to recruit francophones, who are necessarily bilingual, since they live in anglophone environments, unlike the people who live in Quebec?

[Louise McEvoy]

Absolutely.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Since there are one million francophones outside Quebec, I'll never believe that you can't find someone who can work for you.

[Louise McEvoy]

We're doing targeted advertising, whereas we generally don't need to do so. We're doing it with the francophone communities. We also advertise when we recruit and we are a partner in francophone events, not only when we want to recruit, but also to mark our presence in Canada with the francophone minorities. Yes, we are present.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

A number of parliamentarians come from other provinces than Quebec and haven't seen that advertising, in Manitoba or New Brunswick, or in Ontario.

[Louise McEvoy]

Last year, for example, when we posted positions to recruit 100% bilingual airport agents, our recruitment advertising agency really found us the sites, since it's not always newspapers now; there are also sites, depending on the public, where you can find the candidates you're seeking. We placed some advertisements in the cities where we were hiring, since that was the only condition. We knew that hadn't worked in the past. However, it worked a little better this year than last year, but we haven't yet achieved our 100% objective. Ultimately, something like 35% of applicants were bilingual.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

As regards complaints, I'm going to tell you a little story, and you'll tell me what you think of it. I was in Quebec City and I was going to the Magdalen Islands. So I was in Quebec and I was going to Quebec. The person behind me couldn't speak a word of English. She asked an employee for a coffee and was told: “I don't speak French.” And yet the words “café” and “coffee” are similar. As I was a member of Parliament at the time, I pulled out my member's card. I don't know why, but, in the space of a minute, she started speaking French and English.

Is there any bad will on the part of certain people?

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

You gave her a dictionary.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

No, but it's true. She saw my name and... Sometimes people who work, even if they're perfectly bilingual, are embarrassed at speaking French.

[Louise McEvoy]

Yes.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Why? How can you go about telling those people that this is an essential need for francophones?

[Louise McEvoy]

Precisely. That's not just part of the “Un moment s'il vous plaît” course, which is intended for non-bilingual people, but a number of bilingual people who have learned the language since they've been working with us attend our courses to maintain what they've learned. That's what we're trying to do with these employees: we're trying to break down this kind of bubble. They're obviously afraid; they're not comfortable.

We're also trying to correct something else, the attitude of employees when they have to manage a situation in which they're not comfortable. We're trying to show them how to adopt a positive attitude and, with the few words they know, in certain cases, or despite their accent—

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

You follow up on the complaints filed with the Commissioner of Official Languages, but we get the impression that it's always the same things that come up again. Are you doing that kind of follow-up?

[Louise McEvoy]

Yes, in general, we follow up with the Office of the Commissioner and the employee. Since the Office of the Commissioner was established, we receive complaints very quickly. We manage to reach the manager responsible for an employee concerned by a complaint. Very often, we are able to determine who the employee concerned was, even in the case of a crew of four or five or more persons. Employees are contacted by their managers and have to report on what happened, to the best of their knowledge, especially if a situation has occurred recently.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you very much, Ms. Boucher.

We're going to complete our second round with Mr. Godin.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

You said you had placed advertisements in newspapers to recruit people. Honestly, I haven't seen any in the papers back home. L'Acadie Nouvelle is a provincial French-language paper.

[Louise McEvoy]

That's the one that's used most of the time.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Let's go a little further. Is any recruitment or promotion done in the schools? For example, when CIBC opened its call centre in Fredericton, it immediately entered the Bathurst region. It placed advertisements in the newspapers and on radio to tell the public that it had jobs to offer. It did a big advertising campaign and received applications. The Acadian Peninsula is moving to Moncton because bilingual people are going to work in bilingual positions. It's things like this that can be done. Not everything necessarily has to be done in Quebec.

You said you were dealing with a collective agreement. It should be clearly stated in writing that you can't negotiate a collective agreement that contravenes the law of Canada.

[Louise McEvoy]

Absolutely.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

That's an excuse; it's not true. VIA Rail took its case to court and won. I was the union representative and I know you can't negotiate something that contravenes the law. It's not true that the umpire wins his case with the employees. The act is very clear and has to be obeyed.

Do you agree with me?

[Louise McEvoy]

Absolutely.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

All right.

Concerning the sign, complaints have declined because it's hidden somewhere in the magazine. You know that and I won't go back over it. I didn't get an answer from you on that, but I would ask you to look into it again.

You said it was costly. Are you required to spend money to take a case to court when a francophone wants to be respected? You're quite familiar with the case of Mr. Thibeault.

[Louise McEvoy]

Mr. Thibodeau.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

The Thibodeau case. You even brought an appeal concerning the can of 7UP. Air Canada showed that it was not prepared to respect the languages. Rather than apologize to Mr. Thibodeau and say he was right, you fought until the judge found that Air Canada it wasn't right. I have another case to present to you. I'm going to do it very quickly.

I'm going to read this because I put it in writing. I have a new story to tell you about Mr. Thibodeau. From January 23 to February 1, 2009, Mr. Thibodeau was on a trip to Atlanta, Georgia, on Air Canada Jazz. Allow me to give you a list of all the problems Mr. Thibodeau and his family encountered at that time. On the Toronto-Atlanta flight, he received no active offer of service in French. When he asked the flight attendant whether he spoke French, the latter answered: “A little.” Despite that, however, the attendant still served Mr. Thibodeau in English, whereas Mr. Thibodeau had spoken to him in French.

The announcement given by the pilot before take-off was in English only. After asking the flight attendant whether the announcement was going to be made in French as well, he was told that it would not, since the pilot did not speak French and was not required to make the announcement in French in any case, as it was a flight leaving for the United States.

For the Atlanta-Toronto return flight, Mr. Thibodeau was unable to receive service in French at the Air Canada check-in counter. He was not even greeted in French, whereas he spoke that language when he stepped up to the counter.

What is worse, when Mr. Thibodeau asked the counter agent in English whether someone spoke French, she told him: “My boyfriend does.” Not only did he not obtain service in French, they also made fun of him. He obviously asked the question in order to be served in French, not simply to determine whether that agent knew someone who spoke French.

The same thing happened at the gate: no service in French, and no boarding announcements were made in French.

Lastly, when they landed in Ottawa, our national capital—the capital of an officially bilingual country, I remind you—the saga continued. While waiting for his bags at the carousel indicated, passengers were told in an announcement in English only that the baggage would be arriving on another carousel as a result of a mechanical breakdown. Mr. Thibodeau then went to the counter to ask that an announcement be made in French. There was indeed an agent who spoke French, who told him that he was going to make the announcement in French, and he ultimately did not do so.

In your 2008 annual report, you said:

For Air Canada, offering service in the language chosen by its customers is essential. Verbal exchanges with clients, public-address announcements at the airport and on board, briefing of passengers with special needs all constitute the very heart of customer service and call upon our employees' linguistic skills at all times. Our consideration to bilingualism not only makes good sense customer-wise, but also supports our legal obligations to serve the public in the two official languages of Canada.

Trick question: when are you going to serve customers in both languages?

[Louise McEvoy]

Every time a case like the one you're reporting now is reported to us, we follow up with the employees.