Official Languages committee  The bill will be tabled when the government feels they are ready to--

Official Languages committee  Yes.

Official Languages committee  The Official Languages Act applies to Air Canada. It has been under the Official Languages Act since 1969. When the privatization happened, the Air Canada Public Participation Act also said that Air Canada has to comply with official languages. I think the issue the commissioner raises is not Air Canada itself alone.

Official Languages committee  Well, I can say that the government has made a commitment to this and--

Official Languages committee  Sir, I cannot commit to you which day the bill would be tabled because that is not something that is under my control. It is done by the minister and--

Official Languages committee  I didn't say that. I basically--

Official Languages committee  Yes, there are a number of committees that discuss official languages. The Public Service Commission advisory committee is a deputy ministers' committee advising the Public Service Commission, and official languages get discussed there. As well, the Secretary to the Treasury Board chairs a committee, the public service management advisory committee, again with a large number of deputies.

Official Languages committee  First of all, I hope that nobody will think they will be punished if they use the language of their choice in terms of their writing. There are a number of things that we do. Our official languages website is always updated. We have language tips on our website, and we always put some there every couple of weeks.

Official Languages committee  Yes. My mother tongue is Turkish, my second language is English and my third language is French. I was rated level C a few years ago. I am bilingual, but not perfectly, and I do speak three languages. I came to Canada when I was 21. As an immigrant woman, I believe that I am quite proficient in those three languages, even though I am not exceptionally fluent.

Official Languages committee  Thank you. Before I answer the second part of your question, while I am the Deputy Minister of Transport, I am also the deputy head of the portfolio. However, I don't manage the day-to-day operations of any of our portfolio partners, like Canada Post. But we do always, as part of our portfolio coordination function, encourage our portfolio partners to abide by all the laws they have to abide by, and Canada Post is under the Official Languages Act.

Official Languages committee  I think that's particularly the reason why our grade is not as high as it could be. We were slow in developing our action plan, and it did come in after the commissioner's cut-off date. I cannot really explain to you why it has taken so many years. What I can assure you is that we have a plan.

Official Languages committee  The broad outline of that plan is basically a number of things. First of all, the most important thing in Transport Canada is to make sure that the policies we put into place take into consideration the impact on official language minority communities. Number two, when we're running programs, we have to always think about what the impact is on the official language minority communities.

Official Languages committee  Good morning. Mr. Chair, I believe that all committee members have received our documents, including our action plan and comments. Since we have little more than an hour, we would be open to beginning with members' questions.

Official Languages committee  Our official languages champion chairs the committee, and it has representatives from different branches of our organization. If you want the specific titles, Michel Doiron will explain.

Public Accounts committee  Well, the program funding was allocated per province on a per capita basis, so the strategic view was basically the reality of where the population is and where the needs are. So the rest of it was.... We have an application process. The provinces kept on applying. We already had some applications, so we showed flexibility across the country because we had to expedite the program and the intake.