Evidence of meeting #44 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.
10:10 a.m.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
No, but my question is, even if the website you have right now is so bad, is it bad in both languages?
10:10 a.m.
Vice-President, Corporate Affairs and Communications, Greater Toronto Airports Authority
It's bad in both languages. But--
10:10 a.m.
NDP
10:10 a.m.
Vice-President, Corporate Affairs and Communications, Greater Toronto Airports Authority
Our website, unfortunately, is bad in both languages; that's what I'm telling you. So right now we are taking the opportunity to rebuild the website to work it further. I make no apologies that it's going to take some time.
10:10 a.m.
NDP
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
But is it going to be built in one language and then translated two years from now?
10:10 a.m.
Vice-President, Corporate Affairs and Communications, Greater Toronto Airports Authority
No. What we would be doing is building it as we do with all of our publications. We use it as a publication tool and we do it in both languages.
10:10 a.m.
Vice-President, Planning 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Vancouver Airport Authority
The Olympic Games are offering us a great opportunity, as Mr. Lennox pointed out—
10:10 a.m.
Vice-President, Planning 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Vancouver Airport Authority
—to raise awareness. We're using the games as an opportunity to raise the bar for us at Vancouver International in all the things we do, including our website, and we'll continue to work on that. We recognize that there are some challenges and things we need to work on.
10:10 a.m.
Vice-President, Planning 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Vancouver Airport Authority
We're working on that and we're going to continue to make sure that the people there can provide an active offer of service in both official languages.
10:10 a.m.
Conservative
10:10 a.m.
Liberal
Pablo Rodriguez Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning and welcome. Each of your airports plays an important role in the country and, in particular, with respect to the Olympic Games.
In your case, Mr. Benoit, you represent the airport of the national capital. The official and formal face of Canada is Parliament, where we are right now, and that's your airport.
In your case, Mr. Lennox, you said that, roughly one-third of passengers transited through Toronto, the economic capital, which is of major importance.
In Vancouver, there's the airport that is welcoming the Olympic Games. We obviously realize that a lot of work remains to be done in each case. In the case of Vancouver, there's quite a bit. I read the memo that you submitted, where it states:
Ever since Vancouver won the bid to host the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, the Vancouver Airport Authority has been working hard to ensure that every passenger who comes through our airport has a great experience, whether they are part of the Olympic family or a member of the regular travelling public.
When you say that Vancouver won the bid to host the Olympics, you're referring to the decision that was made six years ago. That's not entirely true in the case of the official languages. I get the impression you're skating a bit in order to catch up, particularly as regards the somewhat late appointment of Ms. Moore.
Was the official languages issue addressed right at the outset, or did someone say, at some point, that you had to do something about it?
10:10 a.m.
Vice-President, Planning 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Vancouver Airport Authority
As I was saying earlier, we've been working at it for six years. You're correct in that we've known for six years that the games were coming, and we've been working on making sure our facilities are up to what we need to have for the games and beyond.
That includes making sure that those new facilities meet all the bilingual requirements. The signage in there is not coming down after the games. Signage has gone in there, whether it be static signage or dynamic signage; they're the signs that you can change to multiple languages. The bilingual signage will be there and that will continue after the games.
We're making sure as we go through to put Language Line at all of our information counters. So on the earlier question, if you go up to any of our information counters and the people there are not able to provide service in French, they actually have Language Line, whereby they can connect to someone there who can provide translation services. That's something we put in place in 2007 in preparation for the games.
10:15 a.m.
Liberal
10:15 a.m.
An hon. member
It's always bilingual.
10:15 a.m.
Liberal
Pablo Rodriguez Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
It's always bilingual.
As for recruitment, you mentioned 25% of front-line staff. That's extremely low. It's even troubling because the games are about to begin.
First, do you have a plan to get there? And you don't have eight weeks to get there; it's now. Second, if there is one, does that plan involve you talking, for example, with francophone associations? Are you speaking with them? Are you meeting with them? Are you cooperating with them? Because those networks have access to a large labour pool.
10:15 a.m.
Vice-President, Planning 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Vancouver Airport Authority
We've been engaging and working with the francophone community in British Columbia over the past year. We're working with them to recruit additional volunteers and paid staff. We have reached out to the school board for the francophone community and they are keen to have students or teachers, or other family and friends, assisting us. We will bring them in either as volunteers or as paid staff as part of the Olympic Games.
We also have our green coat program, which is our volunteer program. We're recruiting to that group. Specifically, we have gone out to the francophone community and we've put advertisements in local papers in French to make sure we're reaching out and are able to draw into that program. That's a legacy opportunity. These aren't just people who we're going to hire for the games--
10:15 a.m.
Liberal
Pablo Rodriguez Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
Well, what's your objective for the beginning of the Olympics? Do you want 100% of the people being able to speak both official languages?
10:15 a.m.
Vice-President, Planning 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Vancouver Airport Authority
My objective is that we want to get an additional hundred people out on the floor who can actually provide completely bilingual service--
10:15 a.m.
Liberal
Pablo Rodriguez Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
That would bring you up to what percentage of people being bilingual?
10:15 a.m.
Vice-President, Planning 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Vancouver Airport Authority
That's a hard question to answer, because when you look at the airport, there are 26,000 people who work at Vancouver International Airport--
10:15 a.m.
Liberal
Pablo Rodriguez Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
Those who are on the front line, those who are in direct contact with—
How do you say that in English? The première ligne, the first line? What about those who are in contact with the people coming to the airport?
10:15 a.m.
Vice-President, Planning 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Vancouver Airport Authority
Again, for the people directly under the control of the airport authority, we are getting as many as we can out on the floor to provide those translation services.
But there are many others, including the agencies, the car rentals, and the airlines. All of them have a responsibility because they ultimately--
