Official Languages Committee on Feb. 26th, 2009

[Graham Fraser]

If I've correctly understood, it's partly for that reason that, through parliamentarians' work, the act was strengthened three years ago. I believe that you, in Parliament, are very much aware of—

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

In the past three years, we haven't really seen any extraordinary changes. With respect to the Roadmap for Canada's Linguistic Duality, I believe that the government has taken the wrong road; we haven't seen it. I don't know whether it took Highway 20 or the 401, but we're not seeing any results. I'm going to talk to you about some actual situations that have occurred. Minister Verner was supposed to report on official languages to the House of Commons in 2007. This month I was forced to ask when the 2006-2007 report would be tabled in the House of Commons, and when we would be receiving the 2007-2008 report. The 2006-2007 report was finally tabled. Where is the 2007-2008 report? Where does the government stand on its responsibilities under the act? The Canada Public Service Agency hasn't tabled a report since 2005. If things were going well... I don't think things have been going that well in the past three years. There is a lack of transparency, a lack of will to tell us what is going on and whether things are going well or not. I'm making that comment to you.

I'd be interested in having you examine the matter, as Commissioner of Official Languages, the “official languages watchdog” as the jargon goes. The fact is that there is the act and that Part VII is being violated, even with respect to the report that should be tabled in the House of Commons.

[Graham Fraser]

I'm taking note of that, Mr. Chairman, and my colleagues as well. We'll therefore be carefully examining the situation with regard to the tabling of those documents by the departments the member referred to.

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

As regards the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, which will be built in Winnipeg—we know it's coming—will there be any recommendation that the head of that organization be bilingual? Will the workers be able to speak the language of their choice? And will service be provided in both languages?

[Graham Fraser]

When it was announced that the museum would be established, I wrote a letter to the chair of the board of directors, recalling that a national museum has obligations under the Official Languages Act. Not only is it important that service be provided in both languages, but the official languages issue must be handled like a human rights issue. I believe that concerns not only service, but also the subject matter addressed at the museum. I think that's very important, and I've already sent a letter. I intend to have other conversations as soon as the museum planning starts. I haven't received any formal announcement about the composition of management, and that's very important, but, from what I know, the museum is located in a region that is not designated bilingual. Consequently, with respect to the regulations, I believe there are certain problems, as in the case of the Canadian Tourism Commission in Vancouver. That's one of the problems, relating to the location of national institutions outside the National Capital, when you want to ensure that employees' language rights are respected. I've previously spoken here, before the committee, I believe, about the problem of transferring institutions from designated bilingual regions to unilingual regions, even the transfer of employees from New Brunswick to Halifax, for example. That's a comparable situation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you, Mr. Commissioner, and thank you, Mr. Godin.

We'll now go to the parliamentary secretary, Mrs. Shelly Glover.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Mr. Commissioner, welcome to you and your team. It's a pleasure for me to see you again.

As parliamentary secretary for official languages, I am very proud of our government and its Roadmap for Linguistic Duality, which we're discussing this morning. In addition to its Roadmap, our government offers regular programs. It is spending approximately $350 million for that purpose. We're continuing to meet our official languages commitments and we will definitely uphold those commitments. At the end of the 2008-2009 period, we will have invested approximately $180 million. I want to assure you that the money is already flowing and will continue to do so.

I would like to hear what you have to say about the Roadmap. It's very important for me, coming from Saint-Boniface, and for my fellow citizens to continue developing programs in French to acknowledge linguistic duality. I'm very proud of the Chartier Report, which was prepared in Saint-Boniface, under a provincial Conservative government. That's something of great interest to me.

With regard to our Roadmap, funding will be allocated to two sectors. Funding is being allocated in a balanced manner between essential services, education and health. Other amounts will also be allocated to other sectors, such as culture and economic development.

We've conducted a lot of consultations, as you have. Are we headed in the right direction, particularly with regard to the offer of essential services in the communities? Do you believe we're meeting our communities' priorities?

[Graham Fraser]

I was very relieved to see that the investments in the health field have been renewed. That's a success of the action plan that was renewed under the Roadmap. I was also relieved to see that a cultural component was introduced in the Roadmap for the first time.

Without knowing the details—they'll no doubt be coming—I'm concerned by the fact that very little funding is slated for the public service. As you can see, there is always a certain concern about linguistic capacity in the public service.

I've often observed something that is not directly related to the action plan. Other funding has been terminated. Some public servants who do not live in a bilingual region have trouble getting government funding to learn the other language. They're told they don't need the training because they don't live in a designated bilingual region. It's precisely because they aren't in a bilingual region that they have a greater need of bilingual training; otherwise, they will spend their entire career in their region and won't have the opportunity to be promoted to key positions in the National Capital.

I'm not opposed to the idea of making the departments accountable and enabling public servants to receive individual language training as part of their training plan. That has to be done, and this has to be said clearly and openly. The Roadmap would've been an opportunity to do that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Mrs. Glover, you used exactly the time that was allotted to you. So we'll begin the second round and continue with Mr. D'Amours.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Commissioner. Thanks as well to the members of your team.

Mr. Commissioner, as I remember, you have previously taken an interest in certain situations at the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, the port of entry at the airports. I must tell you that it's extremely frustrating, from a security standpoint, for a francophone to go into a designated bilingual Canadian airport.

At some point, we have to ask ourselves whether people take us seriously—parliamentarians and the government—when we tell them that the act has to be enforced. It's all well and good to post a notice stating that service is offered in English and in French—you can also put up a plastic plaque, like the one I'm showing you, with “bilingual” written above the machine used to do the checking—but if you don't enforce that policy... I think that the failure to obey that rule stems simply from the organization's cavalier attitude. They should simply remove the notice, and we at least wouldn't expect to receive service in our language.

I have two examples of experiences I have had at two airports that I'm going to name: Ottawa International Airport and Winnipeg Airport. In Ottawa, I was asked for my “boarding pass”. All right, I'm from New Brunswick, and I know what a boarding pass is, and I can speak English. However, I decided to speak French. But the person continued to speak to me in English. Then I spoke French again, but that person continued to speak to me in English. I saw that I was understood because the person was able to answer me, but not in my language.

So I asked to speak to a supervisor. The supervisor enquired as to whether I had in fact asked to be served in French. Did I have to fax the Ottawa Airport in advance to tell them that I was coming, that I was going to go through security and that I wanted to be served in French? These kinds of situations are not normal.

He asked whether I had asked to be served in French! I didn't know what more I could tell him. That's the first example.

The second example—and my colleague opposite is from the Winnipeg region—occurred at Winnipeg Airport. There are various gates for the security checks. I step up, and I'm one of the lucky people they ask to search...

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

With my clothes on; let's get that straight. But when you read the little folder on searches, it states that I'm one of the lucky ones to be selected as part of a normal rotation. But there too, there was a little plaque stating that they offered bilingual service. I spoke in French, and they answered me in English. I understood that they understood me, but they were unable to speak to me in my language.

When the search issue arose, I wondered what was going on. That was the first time it happened to me. They spoke to me in English, and I said I wanted to be served in French. I wanted to be sure I understood what they were going to tell me, because, at that stage, I didn't know why they were making me undergo the search. Ultimately, they found a nice man on staff, the only one able to speak a little French. He asked me if I wanted a massage.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

Mr. Commissioner, I understand that, at times, it can be difficult to translate certain words. I nevertheless understood, and the gentleman made an effort. But can you imagine the situation? The man then left. Once again I had to face another unilingual anglophone. My wife, who was ahead of me, then told me we were going to miss our plane. We were with our older daughter, who was three years old at the time. Imagine! The process required us to follow the line and to move forward.

Those are two examples of abnormal situations. It makes you wonder. At Winnipeg Airport, I asked them to provide me with documents so I could file a complaint. Do you know what they gave me? An information guide for travellers! I asked for the name of the person in charge that day, and they refused to give me his surname. That person, who said he was in charge—and I have his contact information—refused to inform me. How do you know if two people have the same name? So I don't have any evidence. I was denied that.

As Canadian citizens, we have rights when we enter bilingual airports. I don't use designated bilingual airports every day, but, at some point, the situation becomes frustrating, and you say to yourself it may be better to speak English since, one way or another, you'll never win. Let them remove the plaques or let them respect us!

Perhaps you don't have much time left, but I've described to you some situations that occur every day.

It's like the Air Canada story I was telling, where the sign on the washroom door said: “Don't smoke the toilet.” I imagine the interpreters will be able to give a good rendering of that image. These examples make us wonder about federal institutions. Why do we encounter these kinds of problems when we are supposed to be respected?

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Do you want to make any brief comments, Mr. Fraser?

[Graham Fraser]

I could tell you some stories too, although they aren't as striking. I've never been offered a massage. What you're describing is cause for complaint. I recommend that you file a complaint with our commission, which can conduct an investigation. That's why we're here.

I would like to say something else very briefly, Mr. Chairman. One of the people you dealt with had no understanding of one of the basic concepts of the act, the concept of active offer. It is up to the public servant to offer the citizen the choice, not to the citizen to request it. That's also included in the act. It isn't a regulation or a policy or a directive; it's an act.

[The Chair, Conservative, Steven Blaney]

Thank you very much, Mr. Commissioner.

Thank you, Mr. D'Amours, for sharing those slices of life with us.

Now we'll continue with Ms. Guay.

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

Good morning, Mr. Fraser. Thanks to the entire team for being here.

Mr. D'Amours had some quite colourful stories, but those things are actually true.

I'll proceed very quickly. I have two questions for you, Mr. Fraser.

I personally filed a complaint after receiving certain letters. Among other things, Canada Economic Development sent us a letter in English to announce that services would now be provided from Ottawa only, whereas we used to have regional offices. We gave the Agency a chance; we wrote them a letter asking them to send us a letter in French. As we never received an answer, I filed a complaint. I sent a copy to you and to CED. This kind of incident occurs regularly.

What is worse, it also happens to our colleagues. The House offers us a completely free translation service. You only have to have the documents translated in both languages. When I introduce a bill, I have it translated in both languages, as well as the covering letter, which I send to all my colleagues in order to respect each one's mother tongue.

I would like to know how much time it takes to receive an answer.

[Graham Fraser]

An answer from us?

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

Yes. Where do these complaints go? When do we get an answer? Do you contact the agency at fault, in this case CED, to lecture it? What exactly is the process?

This kind of incident appears to be increasingly frequent. I find it nonsensical. It's very disappointing for us who make an effort to respect our anglophone friends. We'd like to be respected in the same way.

[Graham Fraser]

As the annual report states, problems do exist. Air Canada is one of the institutions concerning which we receive the largest number of complaints. We're assessing our complaints handling process in order to try to put more pressure on institutions.

Pierre, perhaps you could talk about the process as such, what happens when a complaint is filed with us.

[Pierre Coulombe, Acting Assistant Commissioner, Compliance Assurance Branch, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages]

When we receive a complaint, we contact the institution to see what happened and to talk about the complainant's allegation. Once the discussion has started, we sometimes realize that certain complaints are recurring. Some complaints can obviously be resolved through our investigation process, but sometimes we see there are recurring complaints that show there is a systemic problem within the institution. That's when we try to use tools other than the investigation.

For example, earlier someone mentioned problems with services at airports. We've taken note of observations at some of the major airports in the country, Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver and Halifax. The results of those observations enable us to assess the travelling public's experience, whether it be with the Canada Border Services Agency, the airport authority, concession holders, Air Canada or the Canadian Air Transport Security Administration.

In fact, I want to say that the investigation process enables us to resolve specific cases, but also to reveal the existence of systemic problems that we can try to evaluate, through our report cards, for example, which detail the observations, as in the case I just cited.

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

When do we get an answer? Will we get an answer? Do you answer us? How much time does that take? Do you at least send an acknowledgement of receipt so that we know you're handling our files? Is that a priority?

[Pierre Coulombe]

In the complaint resolution process, we talk to complainants and to representatives of the institution concerned by the complaint.

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

I haven't had any news yet. I'm still waiting.