Evidence of meeting #8 for Official Languages in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was bilingual.
A recording is available from Parliament.
General Manager , Languages and Diversity, Employee Relations, Air Canada
The percentage is exactly the same.
Bloc
Monique Guay Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
I have serious concerns about the fact that bilingual services are not offered on board your aircraft. My concerns are around safety. I would not wish this on anybody, but imagine that something goes wrong, that there is a problem on board a plane and it must make an emergency landing. Imagine that one of the passengers on board speaks no English because his first language is French, but no one is able to give him instructions in his language. That is a completely unacceptable situation in this day and age.
What are you going to do resolve that? Do you have any plans? You have not suggested anything new to us today. You have presented a status report about where you were, but does it contain anything new?
I also see that you received 355 complaints over a five-year period. How many people did not file a complaint because they did not know who to address it to, how to file it or because it did not go to the right place? I am sure that those complaints were not necessarily settled properly.
Please answer my question. I want to hear something concrete. We have been talking about this for years, and each time, we are told that the situation is at a standstill, that you are waiting, and that you do not really have any obligations. You do have obligations. You have a bilingual population. You have people to serve here in Canada, in Quebec in particular and also in New Brunswick, where people are often francophone. What are you going to do to improve the situation?
General Manager , Languages and Diversity, Employee Relations, Air Canada
There is always a bilingual flight attendant on board our airplanes. On board the Jazz airplanes, where there is significant demand and the service is mandatory, that is also the case. They have trained quite a few because 57% of their flight attendants are bilingual. Safety is certainly the most important part of the training, both at Jazz and at Air Canada.
Assistant General Counsel, Law Branch, Air Canada
If you don't mind, I would like to add something in this respect. The regulations on aviation oblige all Canadian carriers to provide safety instructions in both official languages. You will notice that all information folders and the announcement at the beginning—in certain planes, it's recorded—are in both languages.
Bloc
Assistant General Counsel, Law Branch, Air Canada
Yes, but some announcements are also made by a flight attendant.
Bloc
Monique Guay Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
Ms. Sénécal, I take the plane often enough to be able to tell you that it is recorded.
Assistant General Counsel, Law Branch, Air Canada
Yes.
In case of emergency, the instructions are given concisely and in a way that is easy to understand. It is not always possible for passengers to hear, so it is often done visually.
Bloc
Monique Guay Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
Mr. Chair, with your permission, I will speak to you. On today's agenda, it says that Minister John Baird was supposed to be here. Will we be meeting with him or has this been postponed?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Steven Blaney
In fact, your question is about the agenda. The minister is scheduled to come next Thursday.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Steven Blaney
It's really the people from Air Canada who were [Inaudible—Editor].
Bloc
Conservative
Bloc
Monique Guay Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
All right then, I will continue, given that I still have some time.
Ms. McEvoy, you told us that you went to Vancouver during the Olympic Games. You even observed that it was impossible to obtain bilingual service in shops and restaurants. So you can see that the delivery of services in both official languages was not a total success, even during our Olympic Games, which should have been a proud moment for us.
General Manager , Languages and Diversity, Employee Relations, Air Canada
On the other hand, I must say that for the Olympic Games, we had bilingual volunteers. There were many of them at the airport. I don't want to speak on behalf of the Vancouver airport authorities, but I must say that they also had many volunteers.
I personally did not ask for an interpreter when I went to buy myself some juice.
Bloc
Monique Guay Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
And you would not ask for an interpreter to help you buy a pack of chewing gum in a smoke shop.
General Manager , Languages and Diversity, Employee Relations, Air Canada
No.
Bloc
Monique Guay Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
But the fact remains that some people have to because they don't speak any English at all.
General Manager , Languages and Diversity, Employee Relations, Air Canada
That's very true.
Bloc
General Manager , Languages and Diversity, Employee Relations, Air Canada
No, in the case of Air Canada, it is not.
Bloc
Monique Guay Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
I just hope that we will continue to see improvements. As for us, we will have to study this in committee in order to crack down and make it a legal obligation for you to have fluently bilingual employees.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Steven Blaney
Thank you very much, Madam.
Speaking of the act, I had a copy distributed, in both official languages, of section 25 that we are referring to in these conversations.
We will now go to Mr. Généreux.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ladies, gentlemen.
As concerns the complaints filed with Air Canada and the commissioner, we have seen in past years that there has been, I would say, an improvement, to the extent that the number of complaints is decreasing. Three months of 2010 have already elapsed. So if we look at an annual ratio, it's about 50 complaints. That number could be decreased further.
What exactly do you do to follow up on each of these complaints? We understand that they are confidential. What exact procedure is followed with regard to the complainant and the commissioner? What exactly are the steps followed?