Evidence of meeting #58 for Official Languages in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was catsa.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:20 p.m.
Interim Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages
There are 17 in all.
May 4th, 2017 / 12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Dan Vandal Liberal Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB
Seventeen? All right.
It seems to me that there should be a big difference in the results, for example between Edmonton and Montréal. In Edmonton, 15% to 20% of the population is francophone. Did you study the diversity of the results in the airports selected?
12:20 p.m.
Interim Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages
Yes. In addition, we inserted a table in our audit report that shows the percentage of bilingual employees from one region to another. It is clear that in Montréal and in Ottawa, among others, there are not many issues. In fact, there are practically none related to Edmonton, for example.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Dan Vandal Liberal Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB
Which regions received the highest number of complaints?
12:20 p.m.
Interim Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages
I do not think we have the numbers by region.
Do we have them?
12:20 p.m.
Jean Marleau Acting Assistant Commissioner, Compliance Assurance Branch, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages
It is Toronto.
12:20 p.m.
Interim Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages
Yes, it is in Toronto.
It concerns big airports. In Toronto, it is fairly problematic.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Dan Vandal Liberal Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB
You mentioned a number when you spoke to Mr. Généreux. I think that there were 30 complaints out of a certain number of flights, correct?
12:20 p.m.
Interim Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages
There were 30 complaints during the last year, while there were 60 million passenger screenings. There are several steps in a screening. I imagine that the count is done whenever there is a screening.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Dan Vandal Liberal Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB
We are not talking about employees of companies like Air Canada or WestJet, we are talking about people who are involved at the very beginning, who handle security, correct?
12:20 p.m.
Interim Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages
These are indeed the people who examine luggage and who make travelers go through the metal detector.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Dan Vandal Liberal Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB
How did you obtain this information? Did you observe this visually? Does this come from surveys?
12:20 p.m.
Interim Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages
Are you talking about when we conduct the audit?
12:20 p.m.
Interim Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages
We use several methods. We can analyze the documents CATSA has provided to us, for example.
Our auditors also go on site, they make a lot of observations and they conduct interviews with the employees. In this case, we did interviews with community association members.
So we use a range of tools when we conduct an audit.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
Dan Vandal Liberal Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB
You mentioned that this is the third audit conducted in this regard. Is that correct?
12:25 p.m.
Interim Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages
This is the first audit. However, in 2012 we conducted an observation exercise in several airports. At that time, we also audited CATSA's activities, although it was simply an observation exercise.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
12:25 p.m.
Interim Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
Dan Vandal Liberal Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB
Between 2012 and 2016, were there other observations?
12:25 p.m.
Interim Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages
The Office of the Commissioner has certainly investigated the complaints received each year. They come from different regions. This shows that there continue to be issues.
I can tell you that when our employees travel, they have the opportunity to make observations that they may report to the office. They may mention, for example, that they took such and such a flight and that there was no active offer, nor even service in French or in English. This is part of the information we may use during this type of exercise.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
12:25 p.m.
Interim Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages
It is CATSA in English and ACSTA in French.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
Dan Vandal Liberal Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB
Apparently, CATSA reports to Canadian Heritage every three years. Is it actually to Canadian Heritage, or is to Public Services and Procurement Canada?