Official Languages Committee on Nov. 19th, 2009

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

I'd like you to start with the last part, if that doesn't trouble you.

[Yves Duguay]

If you wish.

You're talking about consistency in service. First, I must tell you that what the employee said wasn't appropriate. However, I'm not prepared to refuse to encourage people to perform in a language that is not theirs and who are making the necessary efforts. Those efforts may not yet be adequate. These people are at least making the necessary effort.

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

Mr. Duguay, in your contract, you guarantee that there will be a bilingual person. There's a difference between learning French and being bilingual. There's a difference between my language profile when I started to learn English and that of a bilingual person. If this is the contract prerequisite, then we're not dealing with a learning model; you're providing the services of a bilingual person.

[Yves Duguay]

Mr. D'Amours and Mr. Blaney, with your permission, I must tell you that I misled you. We're talking about a minimum number of “bilingual screening personnel” and an adapted number of “bilingual screening personnel” depending on the screening point. I gave an example: there were 10 bilingual persons in Ottawa. Pardon me if I misled you. Fortunately, my colleagues corrected me at the last minute.

You asked me an excellent question about the Olympic Games. May I go back to it? The program under which we are transferring 350 persons for the Olympics is a reward program for outstanding screening officers who have done a good job, who have served you in particular, who have served passengers in both official languages.

That said, since we've recruited them—a number of them are from the Maritimes because we have a lot of bilingual staff there—those officers are being replaced by bilingual people. We're going to offer the same adapted service at the screening points, which is greater than the limit of one per screening point. This is a program I'm very attached to. Too often people tend to belittle the work of the screening officers. It's very difficult, and we like to recognize those who—

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you.

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

I'd simply like to get some information, Mr. Chairman.

Is it possible to get the number of bilingual persons working for each designated airport and for each contractor?

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

If possible, Mr. Duguay, you can submit any relevant information you want to the clerk.

However, I would like to give you the chance to clarify one thing. If I correctly understood, there were, for example, six screening lines per screening point.

[Yves Duguay]

And even more.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

And there are four persons on each screening line.

How many bilingual employees are there per screening point?

[Yves Duguay]

There are minimum requirements, but a number of employees are also assigned to bilingual screening, depending on the type of airport and the screening point. I know that the minimum is one, but I'm told that, in Ottawa, there are usually 10 bilingual employees out of 35 or 40 employees at the screening points. However, if you go to a smaller airport, the number of bilingual employees will be less, as madame mentioned earlier.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

I thought there was at least one bilingual employee per screening line. I think you'll be providing us with details on that.

[Yves Duguay]

Perhaps I could give you a document on that with specific details.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

All right. That will clarify the matter.

Ms. Guay.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

As you can see, we're very concerned about the situation here on the official languages committee.

You say there are 10 in Ottawa. How is it that there isn't an employee who is able to go get another one who is supposed to be bilingual? Are the 10 in the washroom at the same time? That makes no sense; it's impossible. Something isn't right in what you're saying.

As for your screening points, it just takes one Air France flight to arrive when there's only one bilingual employee for that employee to have a nervous breakdown. Those people don't speak English. How are you going to operate? This makes no sense. I find this utterly abnormal.

Furthermore, you're not giving us real technical information. You tell us there will be a person. You can't tell us how many screening posts there will be. What you're telling us isn't clear. We would like clear and precise information. Is it possible to give us that, rather than tell us about standards and this and that? We have nothing. Really give us specific information. I can tell you things will take a turn for the worse in a while.

With respect to complaints, I believe Mr. Gravelle is entirely right: foreign travellers who come to the Olympic Games won't complain. They won't even know where to file a complaint. So what will they do if they aren't offered adequate service? I'm very concerned about two or three planes full of francophones landing when there won't be any bilingual service. People will wonder where they are, whereas they thought they were in Canada, in a bilingual country. But they won't have any service in their language.

There's another problem. When a woman enters the screening service, Mr. Duguay, she is entitled to ask to be searched by a woman. Do you offer appropriate services for that as well? I don't want to be searched by a man who also doesn't speak to me in my language. I would ask that it be done by a woman. Is that service available, Mr. Duguay? Has that been considered in your calculations of the staff required?

[Yves Duguay]

I'll start by answering the first part of your question. You're referring to an individual and corporate performance of a service contractor, to compliance and to the oversight aspect. Incidents result in people not following normal operating procedures, as in the case that Mr. Nadeau mentioned. In that case, Mr. Nadeau clearly explained what our procedures are. These people have to refer the passenger to a bilingual colleague.

Will there be incidents in which our service does not meet expectations? As I told you, we've improved our performance from 88% to 94%. It's not over. We have to continue improving. Will we be perfect? We aim for perfection. I can't guarantee that we'll be perfect every day.

As for the possibility for a woman to be searched by a woman, we have planned for that. That's part of our policy. Not only can you be searched by a woman, but you must be searched by a woman. This is an obligation and it can be done in a private place, out of sight of other passengers. So this is a service that we offer and it is one of our normal operating procedures.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Will it be bilingual?

[Yves Duguay]

As to whether the woman in question will be bilingual, I'll tell you that, in most major airports, that will be possible. In the smaller airports, there will be a bilingual person, but it might not be a woman. One thing is certain: the search must be conducted by a person of the same sex; that's an obligation.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Personally, if I arrive at an airport and they can't search me in French, it's really too bad, but I'm going to explode, and you'll have quite a complaint on your hands. That's unacceptable, especially when foreigners come to Canada to attend the Olympic Games, to celebrate and to encourage the Olympians, both from their country and from ours. That's what the first welcome is. If they aren't well received there, I'm sorry, but that will project a very bad image and will leave a bad taste in the mouth of the person who has come here on a trip.

So you have a lot of work to do. I don't think you've at all reached the point we thought you had reached. I don't know how you're going to manage to achieve those objectives for the Olympic Games. And those services have to be maintained after the Olympic Games.

[Yves Duguay]

I can tell you that I'm very confident, that I believe we can meet all the language requirements during the Olympic Games.

You referred to a gateway. Most travellers will be arriving in Toronto, Montreal or directly in Vancouver. There's no problem with our certainty that we can offer bilingual services not only by virtue of the fact that we will be staffing the positions adequately, but also by virtue of the fact that we'll be conducting enhanced oversight of operations, not only with regard to bilingual offer of service, but naturally as regards the fact that we are going to be in a situation in which the security level will be high, since the threat will be higher. Our oversight will therefore be enhanced. Our monitoring will not only be in the security area, but also with regard to customer service. So I have no doubt that we will meet the requirements, that we'll meet this challenge and that we'll do a good job during the Olympic Games.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Ms. Guay.

We'll now turn to Mrs. O'Neill-Gordon.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Duguay, for being with us.

I know, as you said, a lot of work has gone into this and we appreciate all the work that has been done. I know you're not exactly right where you'd want to be right now, but would you say that much progress has been made over the last ten years in this process of having more bilingual service?

[Yves Duguay]

Yes. Thank you very much for your question.

I have to be very honest; there's still some work to be done. But if I look at data and I look at comments and I look at the feedback that we're getting, generally speaking it's becoming more and more positive, and what we're trying to do is something that we cannot change overnight. It's a change in culture. Very often the screening officers who are hired by the service contractors were hired with a mindset of security, and yes, we are a security business, but after all, we're in a people business. We're hiring people to screen people, and that's a big shift in the culture that we're trying to do.

Official languages is one component of that approach for customer service, and I'm very happy to report that I feel we're making some great progress. There's still a lot of work to be done, but we've been focusing on the Olympics and we're trying to train like an Olympian to make sure we deliver the best performance in February and March next year.

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

Thank you.

You also mentioned that when you hire employees they're not always bilingual, that a certain percentage are not bilingual, but are they given an opportunity to take training in the official language of their choice, the language that they're not yet comfortable in, after they've been hired, and in what ways is that done?

[Yves Duguay]

The way we operate at CATSA is that we develop the training programs and we train the screening officers. We train them in the official language of their choice throughout Canada. We have training departments in all the major provinces and we offer that training.

One thing we need to take a look at, to be very honest with you, in the next RFP, is to ensure that there's a governance model and there's a structure in place with the service contractors that would have an adequate human resource department to promote not only the engagement of the screening officers, which I think is essential, but also the development and the training, including language training, and it's something that we will include in the next RFP.

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

Is this training available right in the area where they live or do they have to travel far or anything?