Official Languages Committee on March 23rd, 2017

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

This brings me to my next question.

How can you manage to explain to your unions, Unifor or CUPE, that a legal obligation supersedes the traditions of operating by the principle of seniority? Who advises the unions? What do you tell them? How do they respond?

[Arielle Meloul-Wechsler]

It is a legal obligation that we must respect, which is also set out in collective agreements, as I mentioned in my presentation. Unions understand the requirement and accept it.

[David Rheault]

Allow me to add that the allocation system requires that flight attendants must "bid"; I can only think of the English word.

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

Soumettre.

[David Rheault]

I'm looking for another word in French.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

(Soumissionner)?

[David Rheault]

Yes, thank you.

Flight attendants must ask for blocks of hours, and the system assigns them to them on the basis of seniority. However, the system also includes criteria related to bilingualism requirements. For example, bilingual attendants will have their request processed on a priority basis, until a certain threshold is reached on the number of employees per plane. This threshold may be determined by the size of the aircraft: of the six flight attendants that a given plane should have, two must be bilingual. You will find the exact numbers in the presentation.

[Arielle Meloul-Wechsler]

It depends on the size of the aircraft.

[David Rheault]

The requirements actually depend on the size of the aircraft, the flight, and so on. In the case of Montreal, there are clearly more flights.

We implemented this allocation system for the specific purpose of meeting our legal obligations, and this is done with the agreement of the unions. Without such a system, it would be impossible to achieve. There is a system that deals with assignment in our organization and another at Jazz.

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

Do I still have time, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

No, that's it.

The light is on again, indicating a vote in the House.

I must ask your permission, members of the committee, to continue for a few more minutes. We'll see if the bell continues to ring.

Can we continue for about 10 minutes?

[A voice]

Let’s continue for 15 minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

These are situations that we do not control.

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

Mr. Chair, if we are going to continue the meeting for 10 minutes, let's divide the speaking time in half.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Of course. I will use the time I have, and we will see later.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Oh, oh! You are going to use your time while we…

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

We will share the available time. There's no problem.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Do we have unanimous consent to continue the discussion?

[Voices]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

I will try to shorten each person's speaking time so that everyone can have a say.

So, you have the floor for three minutes, Mr. Choquette.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

You know that bad news is going around regarding services in French at airports, not necessarily with Air Canada, but with security screening officers. It was included in the report by the Commissioner of Official Languages.

Bills have been proposed—you probably are aware of them—C-47, C-29, C-36, C-17. These are bills designed to clarify Air Canada's obligations. There have been changes to the way things work in the area of transportation.

Could you tell me what you think about legislation possibly being passed? Four times, in 2005, 2007, 2008, 2011, there have been attempts to clarify your obligations. What did you say in this regard, when you were consulted?

[David Rheault]

I will talk about two items: first, the report tabled by the Commissioner about the situation in the airports, which specifically affects CATSA; second, the legislative measures that have been proposed in the past.

As for the report tabled this week, we will not comment on the situation of other stakeholders. On the other hand, we note the challenge for federal institutions in recruiting bilingual staff across the country. We also share this challenge. So I think that this shows that the situation requires effort.

As for appropriate measures to help federal institutions to hire more bilingual employees and have a more bilingual labour force, we do not believe that the answer should be to pass legislation. The answer is to invest in official languages programs, in official language minority communities. For example, in yesterday's budget, measures were announced in that regard. It is not about a legislative solution, but, as a bilingual country, it is about facing the issue, taking up the challenge to expand the pool of bilingual employees. It is about cause and effect. The consequence will be that federal institutions, Air Canada, the government and others, will have a larger bilingual labour force. In that way, all organizations will improve their statistics.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Have you invested more money in training since we last met?

[David Rheault]

In 2016, we increased our hours of language training by 22%.

[The Chair, Liberal, Denis Paradis]

Mr. Samson, you have the floor for two minutes.

Afterwards, I would like to make a comment.