The challenges for Air Canada have been partly.... Their enthusiasm, shall we say, has been muted somewhat.
I talked to the president of Air Canada and told him that we would be making a special report. He reiterated his position that they feel it is unfair that they have obligations that other private carriers do not have in Canada. He feels that Air Canada is the most bilingual private company in Canada and that we do not give sufficient recognition to this.
I think there are other private corporations—I am thinking of Bell Canada, for example—that are exemplary in their use of both official languages. We have previously recognized Rogers as also being exemplary in its service to Canadians in both official languages, so I wouldn't necessarily accept his claim that Air Canada is the most bilingual private corporation.
One of the things I have noted is that sometimes the best intentions of the executives of Air Canada do not get translated down to the employees.
We did an audit of services to the public in 2010-2011, just after the Olympics, and in the preparation for the Olympics, Air Canada did extremely well in ensuring that all travellers to Vancouver would be served in both official languages, as did the 17 other federal institutions that had any contact with the Vancouver Olympics.
However, in the interviews we did for our audit, we discovered that employees were under the impression that this extra effort that Air Canada made was just for the Olympics. Rather than there being a ratcheted effect of Air Canada managing to up its performance and then maintaining that performance at cruising speed and cruising level, the employees all felt, “Well, that was just a special deal for the Olympics, and we'll go back to doing it the way we've always done it before.” When I made the presentation of these audit results to the Air Canada executive, they were shocked and said, “We never said that.”
It wasn't a matter of what they had said; it was a matter of what they didn't say.
I think the unfortunate part about our relationship with Air Canada and Air Canada's view of official languages is that they continue to view this as a burden rather than as a value. I think there are all kinds of ways in which Air Canada could embrace official languages and view it as a source of pride, as a marketing tool, and as a key to their identity, but for whatever bundle of reasons, they tend to resist that and are resentful of those responsibilities that were part of the agreement of sale. They feel that they are saddled with this burden only because the agreement of sale wasn't negotiated properly 30 years ago, and if it had only been negotiated properly, they wouldn't have to do this stuff.
I think this is particularly unfortunate when you fly internationally and see how linguistically proficient other airlines are in serving their passengers. I spoke to somebody in Barcelona who told me that he had taken a flight from Barcelona to Miami and there was on-board service in Catalan.
Other airlines see their ability to serve their passengers in their language of choice as a value rather than as a burden, and I think it's unfortunate that Air Canada is as resistant as it is to our attempts to help them achieve their obligations under the act.