Official Languages Committee on June 15th, 2016

[David Rheault]

Your question refers to attitude, which is of course a matter of individual behaviour. Institutionally, we try to instill a culture of service in our employees. That is one of our four main priorities. Now we have to reinforce the message, and we do that. After the meeting, I can show you various tools we use. You spoke about photos. We have produced an air-lexicon for our employees in order to teach them simple things. We are in the process of making cards with easy words on them which we are going to place in the airports to encourage our employees to use them.

All of the new managers at Air Canada—

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Could you table those with the committee?

[David Rheault]

Yes, certainly.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Nevertheless, some of them don't seem to have received them. It seemed difficult during the flight between Montreal and Vancouver.

[David Rheault]

When you have thousands of employees that deal with the public, you always have to reinforce the message and you need to make sustained efforts. That is why I said earlier that there is no status quo. We keep trying.

We also understood that it is important that this be top-down, that it come from management. I'll give you an example. Every six months, we hold a meeting with all of the new managers at Air Canada. We make a presentation to them that is strictly about official languages. Even if these people are not necessarily in contact with the public, we let them know that bilingualism is important in our organization, that they must apply it in their sections and that they must be aware of it. We give them three or four simple things to do on a daily basis.

Of course, that is not a magic recipe. We have to repeat simple messages, and that is what we do.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you.

We encourage you to continue to improve things.

[David Rheault]

We are very open to that.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

I am from a client service environment, and believe me, if an employee did not answer one of my clients properly, it did not take a year for that person to hear about it. He knew in less than an hour.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Nor 30 years.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

He or she was made aware very quickly that our clients were our livelihood. The clients who board your planes are those who pay all of your salaries. Please keep that in mind.

I read somewhere that the language complaints came mostly from the employees. Some of the complaints came from the clientele, but according to what I read, they were mostly filed by employees who wanted to work in French but had trouble doing so.

[Arielle Meloul]

On average we receive three to five complaints a year on language of work.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Okay, but it seemed to be more than that.

[Arielle Meloul]

That is not at all one of our internal problems.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Fine.

Earlier I talked about complaints, such as the ones from the clients. How does the complaint submission process work? I spoke briefly about a link on the website. When someone uses your services, either for a reservation on the website or something else, is there some way of informing them of their right to submit a complaint? If so, where is the information on how to submit a complain?

[David Rheault]

It is in our enRoute magazine.

[Louise-Hélène Sénécal]

It is in the enRoute magazine that people can look at during their flight. There are also online services that are completely bilingual. Our services, be it on the web, web applications or at our kiosks, are all offered in both official languages. You choose the language of your choice at the beginning.

When you call our services, you choose your language and are directed toward the appropriate call service. An agent can then take your call in the language of your choice. That is already there. Moreover, on our website and—

[Arielle Meloul]

It is in our enRoute magazine which is on all of the seats.

[Louise-Hélène Sénécal]

The enRoute magazine is there at every seat.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

So it is in the enRoute magazine. Fine.

[David Rheault]

I would like to add something.

You spoke about the client service aspect, which is very important.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

It's fundamental.

[David Rheault]

It is fundamental. We are a service industry.

However, you must keep in mind that insofar as official languages are concerned, it is sometimes very difficult for the industry, operationally speaking, because the employees move around a lot. In an airport, employees move a lot. There are gate changes and all of that.

There have been no complaints about the call centres. It's an environment that is quite easy for us because 60% of our employees in call centres are bilingual. So it is very easy to redirect the calls.

However, in an extremely dynamic environment like an airport, it is sometimes more difficult. The recipe is to inform the employees, and the other recipe is to recruit them. We have to hire bilingual people as much as possible. We are determined to do so.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Thank you very much, Mr. Rheault.

Mr. Arseneault, you have the floor.

[René Arseneault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to obtain some information on the Air Canada brief presented in the context of the review of the Canada Transportation Act in February 2015. That is quite recent.

In paragraph 418, it says that a sum of $2 million is in the budget, for handling complaints among other things. You stated that it was only for language training. However, this paragraph specifies that the $2 million committed to comply with the provisions of the Official Languages Act comprises the following elements as well: teachers' salaries, language tests, recruitment programs, and the salaries of the employees who handle complaints relating to the Official Languages Act.