Official Languages Committee on May 28th, 2026

[Tristan Joanette]

You'd have to ask the bankers.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yvan Baker]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu.

I now give the floor to Mr. Bélanger for five minutes.

[Jim Belanger, Conservative, Sudbury East—Manitoulin—Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am pleased to see that you are making efforts regarding language. How does WestJet ensure compliance with official language obligations in its customer service? I see that you are making significant efforts in the province of Quebec under your language policy, but I would like to compare that to what you are doing outside of Quebec.

[Tristan Joanette]

I was born a Franco-Ontarian and am now a Franco-Albertan by adoption. Issues concerning the francophone community outside Quebec are obviously very important to me. This new law and its regulations will impose new obligations on us outside Quebec. The law will now apply to certain flights. I gave some examples of this earlier. We will be subject to the obligation to provide services in French and English.

Now, all of this represents obligations. However, WestJet likes to go above and beyond its obligations. We already offer service in French on many of our flights. We didn't wait for the obligations to take effect to do so, because for us, it's an added value. We want to serve our French-speaking customers in French. It's important and it's fundamental. At WestJet, we understand the importance of this all the way up to the highest levels.

[Lyne Chayer]

We've talked a lot about Quebec, because that's where the largest French-speaking population is. So, it's certainly been our priority, and we want to ensure we serve our customers well. However, French-speaking customers outside Quebec can already benefit from all the efforts we've made over the course of the year, whether it's inflight announcements, pre-recorded messages, messages delivered by our flight attendants, or content on the website or mobile app.

So, the only small missing piece of the puzzle is bilingual inflight service across all the regions that have now been defined.

[Jim Belanger, Conservative, Sudbury East—Manitoulin—Nickel Belt, ON]

I'm from northern Ontario, in the Sudbury area. We have Sudbury Airport there. For us, the competition for longer-haul flights is between Air Canada and WestJet. Are French-language services the same? If not, what challenges do you face in making French-language services in Sudbury comparable to those in Quebec? Sudbury is, after all, a region with a fairly significant francophone presence.

[Lyne Chayer]

Indeed.

That will in fact be part of the new regulatory requirements. We now have two years to comply in order to offer French-language service on flights departing from or arriving at Sudbury Airport. It is clear that, at this time, this service is not currently available. The flight crew assigned to these flights is based in Toronto and is not predominantly bilingual at this time. This will be one of our challenges. As we mentioned earlier, the biggest challenge with this regulation, for all companies—at least for WestJet—will be recruiting bilingual employees and providing French-language training within the company.

[Jim Belanger, Conservative, Sudbury East—Manitoulin—Nickel Belt, ON]

Okay.

How do you respond to the complaints you receive? Do you get many regarding French? It's only in Quebec right now, isn't it?

[Lyne Chayer]

We do have bilingual flight attendants outside of Quebec. I'm always talking about the Montreal base, which is the largest base. However, in Calgary and Toronto, we also have flight attendants who are bilingual. So, we're able to offer bilingual service when there are flight crew members who can do so.

As for complaints, we don't get a huge number of them. I don't have any figures to share with you today, but we haven't received many complaints regarding the fact that our services aren't offered in French. It can happen. We won't deny that it can happen on a flight where there's been a change of aircraft, where a crew from a different base has come to work, or where a flight attendant is sick that day. Whatever the reason, there are sometimes difficulties. So, it can happen that we are unable to provide service in French, but this is very rare, and there are very few complaints as well.

At WestJet, after every flight, we send a survey to our passengers. This survey allows us to measure passenger satisfaction. We then analyze the results by looking at the most critical issues and the positive aspects, and we take action to find solutions when certain issues come up in the survey. However, the number of complaints about service in French is really minimal.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yvan Baker]

Your time is up.

Thank you, Mr. Bélanger.

We now go to Mr. Deschênes‑Thériault for five minutes.

[Guillaume Deschênes-Thériault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Chayer, I gather that you welcome the new use of French obligations you will be subject to under the Use of French in Federally Regulated Private Businesses Act. I also gather you see the two-year time frame for businesses to comply as reasonable, given your readiness. Is that correct?

[Lyne Chayer]

Yes. We definitely welcome the regulations. As my colleague said, for us, it's not an obligation per se, because it's really a process that was under way. We want to provide bilingual service because we know there are francophone communities all over Canada. It gives us an advantage as well.

[Guillaume Deschênes-Thériault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

To your mind, is the two-year time frame reasonable?

[Lyne Chayer]

The two-year time frame is reasonable, but it's going to fly by. As with anything on the horizon, when you have x amount of time, you always think there's still time, but it goes by faster than you think. It will be necessary to adapt and put measures in place fairly quickly, because staff need to be hired and training programs need to be established. It takes quite a while just to recruit, hire, train and certify flight attendants. There's a process in place.

[Guillaume Deschênes-Thériault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Now I'd like to ask you a few questions about your readiness. You said you had a base in Calgary, which isn't a designated region under the Use of French in Federally Regulated Private Businesses Act, and a base in Montreal, which is of course a designated region, meaning a region with a strong francophone presence. That means the right to be supervised in French won't necessarily apply to WestJet employees in Calgary but will apply to those in Montreal.

How will that play out, and how are you getting ready?

[Lyne Chayer]

The base is operational already. For example, for flight attendants, we have three francophones at the base here. They also speak English, and they supervise all our flight attendants here. That option is already available to our staff. Our staff in Quebec are supervised by someone who speaks English or French. It's important to note that the employee decides which language they want to communicate in. All that to say we really have French-speaking staff supervising our teams.

[Guillaume Deschênes-Thériault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

The Use of French in Federally Regulated Private Businesses Act brings something new: the rights will apply at the door. For instance, in the case of a flight from Calgary to Ottawa, obligations will apply because Ottawa is a region with a strong francophone presence. As soon as passengers enter the airport in Calgary, they will have the right to be served in French, since their destination is a region with a strong francophone presence.

In that respect, how ready are you to satisfy the obligations in the act?

[Lyne Chayer]

I'm going to let my colleague answer that. He takes that flight every week. He can talk about it.

[Tristan Joanette]

I'm very familiar with the Calgary-Ottawa flight.

Basically, the obligation to provide service in French at the airport already exists under the Official Languages Act. When the passenger arrives at the check-in counter, they have the right to be served in French. Airport announcements also have to be made in French.

What's new under the act and regulations is the service aboard the aircraft. The safety briefing is already given in French. That obligation already exists. What's more, all on-board announcements are already delivered in both languages. The service on board the aircraft is what's changing. Passengers will have the right to be served in French on that flight, for instance, when ordering food or beverages. That means we'll need crew members able to serve people in French. For us, that means making sure we have enough staff in Calgary to cover those flights and provide service in French.

[Guillaume Deschênes-Thériault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

You said the federal and provincial governments have a role to play in French language learning to, of course, advance bilingualism in Canadian society. As a federally regulated business, you have the specific obligation of making sure that you have the necessary staff. Part of that is recruiting new employees, but the other part is ensuring that your current personnel meet the requirement.

Given your new obligations, I'd like to hear a bit more about your plans for language training in house. As you pointed out, the two years are going to fly by.

[Lyne Chayer]

Yes, the two years are going to fly by.

As I said, it's part of phase 2, which just started. Phase 2 involves the training plan. The question is how are we going to make sure we provide that training, knowing we have staff all over the country. It will probably be online training, but we haven't made any progress in that area yet. I can't tell you now what exactly our training program will look like.

[Guillaume Deschênes-Thériault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

I have 30 seconds.

As I understand it, you've made some technical recommendations, regarding the contracts of adhesion and union obligations. I didn't hear you propose any substantial amendments to the meat of the draft regulations.

Do you recommend that the draft regulations be adopted as they are?

[Tristan Joanette]

We don't recommend that the draft regulations be adopted in their current form.

Obviously, there are always things we would like to see improved or clarified. As for the content or substance of the regulations, the obligations are very similar to those in Quebec's Charter of the French Language. The charter has basically been a guide for WestJet's efforts and activities this past year. The fact that they were similar in substance made our job easier, so we don't have any recommendations regarding the substance of the draft regulations.

Our recommendations have more to do with the procedure, in terms of defining or clarifying certain terms. Those are things we'd like to see.

[Guillaume Deschênes-Thériault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yvan Baker]

Thank you, Mr. Deschênes‑Thériault.

Ms. Chayer and Mr. Joanette, on behalf of the committee, I'd like to thank you for being with us today. As you know, when we hear from witnesses, it is up to the members from all the parties to consider what the witnesses have told us and reflect those comments in the committee's work and reports.

However, as chair of the committee, I want to thank you for being ready to appear, for replying to the committee's invitation so quickly, for providing straight answers to members' questions and for being so professional today. That is what I would expect of airline representatives appearing before the Standing Committee on Official Languages. On behalf of the committee and my colleagues, I would like to thank you.

Honourable members, before I let you go, we have some quick housekeeping to discuss.

The clerk sent out the additional budget for meals during the study on the Use of French in Federally Regulated Private Businesses Act. Has everyone seen it? Are we ready to approve it?

Seeing that you all agree, I declare the budget carried.

Thank you. The meeting is adjourned.