Official Languages Committee on March 21st, 2022

[Patricia Lattanzio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question will be addressed to Mr. Rousseau.

Thank you so much for being here this afternoon. More importantly, we note that you've improved your French. We salute you for that and encourage you to carry on, as we want as many of our heads and directors as possible to be fluently bilingual in the very near future.

Mr. Rousseau, I'm interested in the services that are being offered to Canadians. There was a linguistic plan that was filed prior to 2020, because it covers the years 2020-23. Have you considered updates since that plan was filed? If so, what are they? If you have not, what are you planning to improve, or what are you planning to add to your next plan as we move forward?

[Michael Rousseau]

We filed the 2020-23 comprehensive plan built on three pillars: governance, service delivery and people. However, in November, I tasked two of our executive vice-presidents—one of whom was the official languages sponsor, our champion for Air Canada—to speak to our employees about what else we could do. Just recently, we sent a note out to all employees, indicating that we were going to put in three additional recommendations effective immediately.

First, from a focus perspective, we created a new official languages department. We think this will provide more focus. This department will report to the executive committee of the company—made up of me and five executive vice-presidents—on a regular basis on the progress that's being made in improving our performance.

Second, we've allocated more funds and more resources to more training.

Third, we created an incentive program. We created the dialogue award, which will be given to the person in the company who best promotes bilingualism. This will be on par with our service excellence, and it's the highest reward that we have at Air Canada. In addition to that, we are going to start paying our employees a special bonus if they refer a bilingual employee to Air Canada.

Again, those three measures have been put in place in the last week or two.

[Patricia Lattanzio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Will you be able to verify the benchmarks that are set in your plan? What are your indicators? How will you be able to verify that you've met those benchmarks of having both French and English bilingual services given to Canadians?

[Michael Rousseau]

We get feedback from customers and from the commissioner's office. The number of complaints dropping would be a key indicator for our going forward.

We also do our own audits and tests. We have bilingual ambassadors at each of our major airports to reinforce the—

[Patricia Lattanzio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

I'm sorry, Mr. Rousseau. I don't mean to cut you off.

I want to know how often you do those verifications, and then I'm going to ask a quick question of your colleague David Rheault.

[Michael Rousseau]

I'll save you some time and I'll defer that question to David, as well, because he has a better understanding of the details on the frequency.

Go ahead, David.

[David Rheault]

We verify personnel assignments and compliance with our obligations at the flight service bases and airports across the country on a very regular basis.

[Patricia Lattanzio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Rheault.

This time, I'd like to give you a chance to expand on the operations in Quebec that you discussed earlier. You said that, despite your efforts, they might be partly bilingual, but we understand that your Quebec operations may be slightly more concentrated.

So this time I'm giving you an opportunity to respond.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

You have 20 seconds left.

[David Rheault]

All right.

You mean our efforts to meet our obligations under the Official Languages Act. Is that correct?

[Patricia Lattanzio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Yes, that's correct. Earlier you didn't have time to answer the question. So I'd like to give you a chance to do so.

[David Rheault]

Oh, yes, that was the question about the Charter of the French Language.

[Patricia Lattanzio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

That's correct.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

I'm sorry, but, once again, you'll have to come back to that later.

Mr. Beaulieu, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Rousseau, earlier you told us that you preferred the Official Languages Act. So you understand that there's a distinction between the two. You confirmed the view of the Bloc Québécois, which condemns the fact that application of the Charter of the French Language would be optional under Bill C‑13. Our understanding is that, if you had to choose between the two, you would choose the Official Languages Act.

In 1976, the first commissioner of official languages, Keith Spicer, wrote this about Air Canada: "Seven years, roughly 371 complaints and some 232 recommendations later, one hardly knows what else to suggest for improvement."

That was also the view of Graham Fraser and all other commissioners of official languages. Complaints filed against Air Canada by francophones have constantly accumulated since 1969.

How do you explain that?

[Michael Rousseau]

Mr. Chairman, complaints may be slightly higher in 2019 versus previous years because our traffic levels more than doubled over that period of time. The service that we provide on our routes to all of the destinations we fly to around the world has increased, so it's just a matter of larger numbers of people we're serving. We are one of the largest airlines in the world, and our traffic levels, our customer levels—

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Thank you.

I think you're dragging in a red herring here. Air Canada hasn't responded from the start. There really seems to be resistance on its part. You don't acknowledge the problem, and that doesn't look good for the future. You say there's one bilingual flight attendant per aircraft, but I'm not sure that's enough. If there are 200 passengers and a flight attendant who isn't bilingual, there will definitely be some problems.

Are you aware that French isn't just one of the two official languages in Quebec; it's the only official and common language.

[Michael Rousseau]

Mr. Chairman, I'm well aware that French is the official language of Quebec.

Air Canada works very, very hard—

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Pardon me for interrupting, Mr. Rousseau. Two and a half minutes fly by very quickly.

Ms. Ashton, go ahead for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Rousseau, first I want to say that it's disappointing that you haven't learned French after nearly 15 years in Montreal. It's also very troubling that you answer the committee only in English.

I also want to outline our position. The federal government is obviously responsible for administering the Official Languages Act, and that's also part of the modernization of the act.

We discussed the fact that the act applies to Air Canada, but do you think the federal government should provide programs to support workers in the industry?

Also, if the Commissioner of Official Languages can impose monetary administrative sanctions on Air Canada, do you think it should have the authority to penalize other businesses in your sector as well?

[Michael Rousseau]

Mr. Chairman, we're still reviewing the draft act, but there are certain areas that we take note of. Certainly the government's commitment to improve immigration and education is key to us. Our biggest challenge is finding enough people, enough bilingual people outside the province of Quebec to hire. We would love to hire more bilingual employees. The supply, unfortunately, is just not sufficient, so the government's commitment to both immigration and education is key to our performing better in the future.

In regard to other airlines being subject to Official Languages Act, we think that is also a good idea. We only represent about 50% of the customers flying within Canada. The other 50% of customers flying within Canada, of course, do not receive our level of service. We think that all Canadians should receive the level of service we provide.

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

Thank you for your answers. I have another question—

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

You have five seconds, Ms. Ashton, which is a little too short.

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

Will you use bonuses to encourage workers to learn French?

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you very much.

Perhaps Mr. Rousseau can respond in his answers to further questions.

Now it's the turn of a former member of the standing committee who has come back for a visit, Bernard Généreux.

Mr. Généreux, you have five minutes.