Official Languages Committee on June 1st, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

I call this meeting to order.

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to meeting number 24 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Official Languages.

Today's meeting is in a hybrid format. Members will attend in person or with the Zoom application.

In light of the recommendations from health authorities regarding the pandemic, all those attending the meeting in person should follow the directives of the Board of Internal Economy.

I thank the members in advance for their cooperation.

Should any technical challenges arise, please advise me. Please note that we may need to suspend for a few minutes as we need to ensure that all members are able to participate fully.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(f) and the motions adopted by the committee on Monday, April 25 and Monday, May 2, 2022, the committee is resuming its study on the importance of official languages at Canadian National.

I would now like to welcome the witnesses.

Welcome to Ms. Tracy Robinson, president and chief executive officer for Canadian National Railway Company; and Mr. Sean Finn, executive vice-president, corporate services and chief legal officer.

Before turning the floor over to the witnesses, I would like to apologize to them: we are starting the meeting late because there were a number of votes in the House, which is not a frequent occurrence. We were supposed to adjourn at 5:30 p.m., but the members have agreed to continue until 6:00 p.m.

Ms. Robinson and Mr. Finn, since you are attending virtually, I would like to outline a few rules to follow.

You may speak in the official language of your choice. Interpretation services are available for this meeting. You have the choice, at the bottom of your screen, of either Floor, English or French. If interpretation is lost, please inform me immediately, and we will ensure interpretation is properly restored before resuming the proceedings.

Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. Please click on the microphone icon to unmute yourself. When speaking, do as I do and speak slowly and clearly. When you are not speaking, your mic should be on mute.

Ms. Robinson, you will be given a maximum of five minutes for your remarks, after which we will proceed to our rounds of questions.

I will signal when you have approximately one minute left.

Ms. Robinson, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Tracy Robinson, President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian National Railway Company]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, honourable members of the committee.

My name is Tracy Robinson, and I am president of Canadian National, or CN. I am accompanied by Sean Finn.

Thank you for inviting us to take part in this important discussion before the Standing Committee on Official Languages.

I've been taking courses to improve my French since joining CN three months ago. This is one of my priorities. I'm eager to become an active member of the Montreal community.

CN is an important facilitator of trade, being the only North American railway to connect the east and west coasts of Canada to the southern United States. We're proud to have had our head office in Montreal for more than a hundred years and proud of the fact that, since our privatization in 1995, CN continues to be governed by the Official Languages Act.

We are proud of the rich history of Quebec, where the official and common language is French.

We take our responsibility towards French very seriously and strive to provide our employees, our customers and our stakeholders with the ability to communicate with us in both official languages. We understand both the responsibility and the opportunity in supporting the French language. We appreciate the feedback that we receive on areas where we may fall short. It gives us the opportunity to continue to improve.

In this spirit, I've asked Mr. Finn to carry out a detailed review of our language practices and policies, and I've retained the services of the Lavery de Billy law firm to conduct an independent, third party assessment of our practices and provide me with recommendations for improvement. This advice will inform our ongoing work to ensure that we continue to fulfill our responsibilities.

While CN has operations across the continent, I am located in Montreal, and I've moved here from western Canada. My senior executive team is located in Montreal as well. Nearly two-thirds of the CN executives across our North American network and 90% of our executives in Quebec speak French.

Since Canadian National was privatized, we have had several francophone CEOs: Paul Tellier, Claude Mongeau, Luc Jobin and Jean‑Jacques Ruest.

At CN, all employees may use the official language of their choice and receive all communications from CN in that language.

The public can access our information line, where bilingual representatives will answer their questions and respond to their concerns.

For us, engaging with our customers and the communities across our network in the official language of their choice is not a burden but a competitive advantage

CN's board of directors respects the company's rich history in Quebec and views it with great pride.

CN has a long history of Quebec-based francophone representation on our board of directors. On January 25 we announced the appointment of the Honourable Jean Charest as a director. Monsieur Charest resigned on April 1. We regret that these timelines did not allow for a process to select a French-speaking candidate from Quebec in time for our May AGM. However, at the first meeting of CN's board of directors following the resignation of Monsieur Charest, the board announced that it had taken steps to appoint a French-speaking director from Quebec.

The board will appoint that person as soon as possible.

The search for a candidate is ongoing, and we are determined to deliver on our commitment.

Members of the committee, I am firmly committed to promoting a place of business and work in which the French language is strong and respected.

We are committed to meeting all of our obligations with respect to Canada's official languages. CN is very proud of our rich history in Quebec. We welcome and embrace our responsibility towards our employees and the community.

Thank you for your attention.

Mr. Finn and I will be pleased to answer your questions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Ms. Robinson.

We will begin the first round of questions with the first vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Official Languages, Joël Godin.

Mr. Godin, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Robinson, thank you for being with us today. We apologize for our late start.

I want to congratulate you on your efforts to learn French. You are clearly more capable of adapting and learning than some CEOs we have met here.

Ms. Robinson, I understand you've been in your position for only a few months. So we can understand why you haven't necessarily established your philosophy throughout the business. However, I'd like to remind you that, in November 1962, 60 years ago this year, a federal parliamentary committee on railways asked Donald Gordon, then president of Canadian National, to explain why there were no francophones among the Crown corporation's 17 vice-presidents.

Sixty years later, why do you think CN is back at square one? Actually, why do you think the company is making the same mistake? The official languages are of course English and French. Why do you think we're seeing a repeat of that same situation?

Admittedly, we're probably more sensitive to the cause of French as a result of current events because we're studying the official languages modernization bill.

I'd like to hear what you have to say about CN past and present.

[Tracy Robinson]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the member for his question.

Although I cannot speak to the CN of many years ago, I can say that, as I come into this company now, I observe a great deal of respect and support for the French language, both here in Quebec and across our system. I don't know about the French-speaking nature or the ability of members of the past in CN to speak French. I can tell you that, as I come into this company, as I said, 90% of the executives here in Quebec who sit around me every day speak French, and they do so quite actively in the office around me every day, which I appreciate. Almost two-thirds of our executives across North America speak French as well. I think this is a strong statement about the importance our company places in supporting the French language.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thank you, Ms. Robinson.

You said in your opening statement that you were going to take steps to appoint a francophone director to your board as soon as possible.

What do you mean by “as soon as possible”?

[Tracy Robinson]

Immediately upon the resignation of Monsieur Charest from our board of directors, the board announced its intention to initiate a process to evaluate what has turned out to be a great number of qualified francophone director candidates located in Quebec and to choose the appropriate candidate to join us on our board.

That process is under way. They are reviewing the large number of candidates that have been brought forth. I believe that very shortly, within the next very short period of time, we will be making an announcement around the addition to our board of a francophone, Quebec-based representative.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thank you, Ms. Robinson.

I'd like to hear a more precise timeline.

Are you planning to do so in the next month, the next six months or the next year?

[Tracy Robinson]

I expect a meeting with the search firm on Monday. This is a priority for me. It's a priority for our board. I would expect that this will be weeks, not years.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thank you, Ms. Robinson.

I have a question about CN's governance manual. Does your manual state that the board has adopted a target of at least 50% of independent directors from a broad range of diverse groups, such as women, indigenous people, visible minorities and persons with disabilities? It says nothing about the percentage of francophones relative to that of anglophones.

I hope that francophones aren't considered one of the diverse communities or a minority.

I'd like to hear what you have to say on the subject.

[Tracy Robinson]

CN has a long history of having francophone representation on our board of directors. It is a practice that's important to us. It's important to our board of directors. It's important to me and it's one where I think we have established a long track record.

We find ourselves in a position now that, for a very short period of time, we are without a francophone, Quebec-based member of the board. We've taken some action to rectify that very quickly.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Will you make a commitment to this committee that you will change CN's policy to ensure the presence of French?

[Tracy Robinson]

French is a part of our practice under the Official Languages Act in this company every day. We are one of a rare number of federal, private companies that are subject to the Official Languages Act, so this is a commitment we take very seriously and observe very closely. It's an active part of the way that we do business every day.

As I've said, when it comes to the board of directors, we've had a long history of francophone representation. We're in a very brief period of time where we don't have a member, and we are very actively addressing that now as a priority.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thank you, Ms. Robinson.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Thank you, Ms. Robinson.

That's all the time we have, Mr. Godin. I know six minutes go by quickly.

Francis Drouin and Patricia Lattanzio will share the next six minutes. We will begin with Mr. Drouin.

Mr. Drouin, the floor is yours.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses who are with us.

I won't be asking any questions, but I will be sharing my time with Ms. Lattanzio. Very briefly, I want to get the lay of the land because I'm not physically present. I wonder if my colleagues would agree with me that we should instruct our whips to see if we can add a little more time to our schedule over the next few weeks since it's voting time. I just want us to have more time to spend on our studies so we don't wind up in the same situation we're in today. I'll side with them if they don't agree. I'm not trying to start a debate today.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

You mean the whips of the respective parties.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Yes, exactly.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Does the committee authorize our whips to add more hours before the end of the session?

Is that correct?

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Chair, as we all remember, in a recent discussion, all the members of this committee were willing to add hours to their schedule. We did so again today by adding half an hour, but we're planning to add more time in order to consider Bill C‑13.

Consequently, I don't understand my colleague's remarks.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

Having previously discussed this, I think the committee has to authorize the whips to do so when it wants to add more hours to the schedule.

Do we have unanimous consent for the whips to see if this can be done?

Shall we authorize them to sit down and see if it's possible?

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

We can take a look at what's possible. At the same time, I don't think there's any reason to precipitate matters. We have to take the time to conduct our study properly.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

If we add more hours for our study, is that fine with you?

All right. Thank you.

Mr. Drouin, as I understand it…

Yes, Mr. Godin, you wanted to add a comment.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

With regard to additional hours, Mr. Chair, as you know, as parliamentarians, we're caught up in the end-of-session whirlwind. We all have responsibilities and we have commitments outside this committee. Consequently, I want to explore the possibility of extending our schedule, but I'm not prepared to add 10 hours a week.

I think it's premature to establish that mandate. Perhaps we should determine a clearer mandate.

[The Chair, Liberal, René Arseneault]

The whips will probably agree amongst themselves and come back to us with an answer after sounding out their parties.

Do we agree that we have consent on this matter, that our whips may get together and determine whether it's possible to add some hours between now and the end of this session?

Yes? Then we have unanimous consent.