Official Languages committee  Yes, you have to be able to communicate effectively with people, understand them, carry on a conversation, and so on. Obviously, this ability is assessed in the context of our industry. We do not ask people to give us a philosophical presentation in French, for example.

Official Languages committee  Exactly. As for those employees who are unfortunately unilingual—it is unfortunate, after all, not to be able to enjoy the benefits of being bilingual—because they were hired prior to 1986 and were unilingual at that time, there are some solutions provided in our training progra

Official Languages committee  Mr. Chair, and members of the committee, VIA Rail faces unique challenges with respect to bilingual service, because of the unique relationship we have with our customers. Extended, interpersonal relationships are formed between our employees and travellers, with personal contact

Public Accounts committee  First of all, fundamentally we're not the owners of the infrastructure; we are like a tenant. If any actions are to be taken, they will have to be done by the owner, so CN drives this particular process. Our concern is more on how we deal with the customers. We make sure that ou

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have no further comment. I will remember this forever.

Public Accounts committee  There weren't any specific measures implemented in the way you describe them. We didn't, for instance, specifically give targets to reduce expense accounts and so forth. What we did depended on the responsibility of the managers and the effectiveness of our control processes. The

Public Accounts committee  That's all right.

Public Accounts committee  Yes.

Public Accounts committee  That's a very, very good question, and I appreciate that I have the opportunity to inform this committee. When the New York attacks occurred, it was a shock to everybody. There was an initial reaction that everybody wanted to implement all sorts of measures quickly. My approac

Public Accounts committee  The agreement is for a period of 10 years. It provides for a number of changes, as there had been some problems with the previous agreement, which also was for 10 years. The question came up earlier and we will write to the committee to provide more details. One important thing t

Public Accounts committee  I don't believe that we have systematically held public consultations on the issue. Ms. Sirsly may be able to tell you more, but we have not organized a forum where we invited members of the public to share with us their ideas about service improvements. There was, however, one e

Public Accounts committee  We do not hold formal public consultations as you know them, but we often receive telephone calls and meet with mayors. The mayor of Casselman comes to see us frequently. Our consultation process is more informal, but our customers who travel on our trains raise these same issues

Public Accounts committee  Indeed.

Public Accounts committee  That's a very wide question. I have to say to you that under the current system.... Let me rephrase that. I have been exposed to rail networks across the world. I have never come across any system that is profitable. Qingzang, and TGVs in France, in Italy, Spain, and so forth ar

Public Accounts committee  It's indeed a very difficult task. It's a fine line, you know, between keeping your product competitive with other modes of competition and the responsibility we have as a crown corporation to manage efficiently the resources we have at our disposal. We could fill trains selling