Official Languages Committee on March 21st, 2022

[David Rheault]

Mr. Beaulieu, At every step of the recruitment process, we take the available bilingual applicants into consideration. All bilingual applicants who successfully complete the recruitment tests, who have the ability to serve customers, and who meet the security clearance requirements, are offered a job.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Mr. Rheault.

Ms. Ashton gets to ask the next question.

Ms. Ashton, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

My question goes back to what I asked at the end of the first round of questions with respect to bonuses. Are you going to offer bonuses to encourage workers to become bilingual if you can't find applicants who are already bilingual?

As you were saying, there don't seem to be enough bilingual applicants available.

[David Rheault]

We announced that we intend to start paying our employees a special bonus if they refer bilingual employees to us, with a view to increasing the number of bilingual employees at Air Canada.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

All right.

In view of the picture you've given us, there seems to be a serious problem in finding bilingual applicants. This needs to be acknowledged and more far-reaching options need to be found, such as offering direct bonuses.

I'm also concerned about the fact that Air Canada intends to wait until the passage of the modernized Official Languages Act before hiring francophone employees, because that's still going to take a while, even though we hope it won't be too long. We are looking forward to being able to welcome francophone immigrants, for example. I think it's irresponsible for Air Canada to say something like that.

[David Rheault]

With respect, Ms. Ashton, that's not what we said. We said that this could help.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

With due respect to you, we heard it several times.

Excuse me, but it's my turn to speak.

What we want to see are initiatives from Air Canada, paid for by Air Canada, to hire francophones not only in Quebec, but in the rest of Canada. Let's look at your brand name. Your airline is called Air Canada. I think that everyone around the world knows that Canada is a bilingual country.

We therefore expect Air Canada to improve its hiring practices and its services in French everywhere in Canada. We would like to see ideas like direct bonuses introduced, and more than the 13 hours of French-language instruction mentioned by Mr. Gourde. Air Canada is clearly going to have to take more forceful action.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Ms. Ashton; that's all the time we have.

The next question will come from Mr. Jacques Gourde.

You have the floor for five minutes, Mr. Gourde.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to return to the issue of language training at Air Canada.

Mr. Rousseau or one of the people with him could answer my question.

Do your teachers give training to one person at a time or to a group?

[David Rheault]

That's a good question, Mr. Gourde. I'd have to check. I believe that different courses are given on the basis of requirements and the bilingualism proficiency level of the various employees.

If you want further details about the bilingual courses we give, we could write to provide the committee with further details about these questions.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Yes, we'd like that.

Carry on, and I'll continue afterwards.

[David Rheault]

As for your question about the number of hours of training in relation to the number of employees, we looked at the number of employees who took courses each year. It's very likely that some employees took courses over several years. That means that some of the same people show up in the numbers twice.

We'll provide you with more details on this.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Excuse me, but were the 130,000 hours of training in one year or over a four- or five-year period?

[David Rheault]

Since 2015.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Okay.

So it's 130,000 hours since 2015 over seven years.

[David Rheault]

That's about 20,000 hours—

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

So that's 20,000 hours of training per year for 10,000 employees.

[David Rheault]

Less—

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Let me finish my question and you can answer afterwards.

For these 130,000 hours of training that you mentioned, is it an hour of training received by one employee or an hour of training given to a group by a teacher?

[David Rheault]

It's an hour of training received by one employee.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

If you have a group of 20 employees with a teacher, that's counted as 20 hours of training received.

[David Rheault]

I'll give you further details on that. I think it depends on the type of course.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Okay.

This means that if we divide these 13 hours by 10, it's approximately 1.3 hours for each of the 10,000 employees. The way you're explaining it makes it even worse than before.

The 130,000 hours amount to approximately 20,000 hours of training spread over seven years. If there are 10 employees in a group, that means 10 hours of training. That leads me to conclude that there is no language training at Air Canada.

I am flabbergasted. I'm truly shocked.

[David Rheault]

No, these are the hours received by the employees.

We'll be providing you with further details to explain the numbers. I'm sorry about the confusion.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

It has nothing to do with confusion. The situation is even worse than I thought.

If a teacher gives an hour of training to a group of 20 employees, it means that an hour of training is calculated as 20 hours of training per employee. That means you can divide the 130,000 hours either by 10 employees or by 20 employees over seven years. You have to admit that doesn't amount to many hours of training per year.

Language courses at Air Canada amount to a lottery. It's really a lottery. There is virtually no language training at Air Canada.

That's it for me. I've had it. I really can't take any more of this.

I'll give the floor to my colleague.