Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, members.
I would first like to acknowledge my colleague, Marc Barbeau, who is executive vice-president, chief legal officer and corporate secretary of Air Canada in addition to teaching at McGill University's Faculty of Law for the past 30 years. In other words, Mr. Barbeau is a busy man.
I want to thank all the committee members for the invitation to appear today.
Air Canada serves 50 airports in Canada and nearly 150 around the world. We operate approximately 1,000 flights per day on over 400 routes and carry 50 million passengers per year.
We are proud to connect Canada to the world.
Air Canada fulfills its linguistic obligations in the context of a unique, complex operation. On average, each passenger's journey includes five to six points of contact with our staff: buying tickets, checking in, airport reception, boarding, in-flight service and collecting luggage. Each of these stages involves official languages. Using and promoting them is an integral part of our values and priorities. In particular, on each designated bilingual flight, employees are assigned to serve customers in the official language of their choice. In fact, staff on all Air Canada flights are bilingual.
Air Canada is fully committed and has implemented a series of initiatives to improve its service delivery in both official languages. One of them is prioritizing the recruitment of bilingual employees across the country. Today, nearly 50% of our employees who serve the travelling public are recognized as bilingual, and approximately 65% are able to express themselves in both official languages. We have also implemented awareness and training measures for our employees. Lastly, we set up an official languages management committee to integrate our action plan.
The Commissioner of Official Languages regularly reviews Air Canada's activities and also handles passenger complaints. Without downplaying the importance of complaints, their number remains limited given the scope of our operations. In 2024-25, for example, there were 85 complaints against Air Canada when we carried close to 50 million passengers. That figure is a testament to our ongoing commitment and efforts. In total, the commissioner received 1,200 complaints that year. As you know, Air Canada is subject to obligations that do not apply to any other airline or any other private company that serves the general public.
While the regime may have been justified when Air Canada was privatized in 1989 and had over 80% of the domestic market share, the reality today is quite different. Our domestic market share is around 40%.
WestJet serves every province and has close to 35% of the domestic market. Porter Airlines also serves all the provinces and, here in Ottawa, for example, has about 35% of capacity. The Ottawa airport is important for the francophone community. Lastly, nearly 70 foreign carriers serve Canada without being subject to French-language service obligations.
The Use of French in Federally Regulated Private Businesses Act, or UFPBA, provides that the obligations will apply to other carriers. For consistency, the remedies have to be the same.
I will now quote the Commissioner of Official Languages:
This means that the public they serve and the employees who work for them will have different rights, and different remedies, depending on which act applies. Ultimately, Canadians will find themselves in a fragmented and sometimes inconsistent language environment…. Greater harmonization is therefore required.
These regulations will maintain and reinforce an unlevel playing field in which Canadians do not have a guarantee to be served in the language of their choice.
We also note that the government is exempting itself from the penalties, even though a number of its entities play a major role in providing services to travellers, including CATSA, the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, the Canada Border Services Agency and the Canadian Transportation Agency.
However, as the commissioner also pointed out, there are many examples in federal law of monetary penalties that apply directly to the government or its agencies, for example, in environmental or safety matters.
In terms of penalties, I want to assure the committee that our commitment to official languages is real, that it has been part of our culture for a long time and that it is not based on potential financial penalties.
However, the $50,000 per infraction could be a really significant amount for a company that carries 50 million passengers per year on 400,000 flights. I repeat: No other airline will be subject to penalties.
In conclusion, we support any measure aimed at promoting French and ensuring that it thrives. However, monetary penalties will not help overcome issues related to providing services in both languages, such as the availability of bilingual labour across the country.
That said, if this measure were implemented, it would have to apply to all businesses and organizations, including government agencies, that must provide services in French to travellers, either under the Official Languages Act, or OLA, or the Use of French in Federally Regulated Private Businesses Act, or UFBPA.
We thank you for your attention and are available to answer your questions.
Thank you.