Good morning.
Of course, it is the responsibility of parliamentarians to table a bill amending the Air Canada Public Participation Act. However, we are afraid that there remains some doubt with regard to Air Canada's obligations under the current legal framework.
Perhaps you remember that the amendments made in August 2000 to the Air Canada Public Participation Act effectively imposed on Air Canada the obligation of making sure that any client of any branch of the company can communicate with that branch regarding airline services, and also obtain these services from the company, in either official language, when the demand is great.
A great deal of importance was given to the issue of finding out whether Jazz, which is a limited partnership, doing business under the name of Air Canada Jazz, is an affiliate company or a branch of Air Canada.
Indeed, under section 25 of the Official Languages Act, Air Canada has the duty to ensure that where services are provided or made available by a third party on its behalf, any member of the public in Canada or elsewhere can communicate with and obtain those services from that third party in either official language, in any case when there is significant demand.
The current arrangement with Jazz Air LP is a capacity purchase agreement under which they provide services on behalf of Air Canada. The agreement clearly spells out the expected level of service, and we share with Jazz our obligations in terms of bilingual service where it is mandatory or related to the volume of passengers.
When a complaint relates to service offered on our behalf by Jazz, we immediately pass on the information to Jazz and expect corrections to the problem. Jazz has never stopped training its front-line employees since the modifications to the OLA, and even afterwards, with their obligations under section 25, which are distinct, for their service to the public provided on behalf of Air Canada. In fact, they have been able in this way to increase their bilingual workforce from less than 5% as it existed in 2000 to over 55% today.
Consequently, the public gets the benefit of adequate protection under the Official Languages Act, because the obligation stated in section 25 applies to the services offered by Jazz, whether or not it be a branch of Air Canada.