:
Good morning to all. Welcome.
Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3), we are resuming our study of Air Canada’s Implementation of the Official Languages Act.
We are pleased to have with us this morning representatives of Air Canada, including Mrs. Chantal Dugas, General Manager, Linguistic Affairs and Diversity, Mr. Serge Corbeil, Director, Government Relations, Western Region, Mrs. Arielle Meloul-Wechsler, Vice President, Human Resources, and Mr. David Rheault, Senior Director, Government Affairs and Community Relations.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome.
We will give you the floor for about 10 minutes so that you can make your presentation, and then members of the committee will ask questions and express their comments.
Who will be making the presentation? Is it you, Mr. Rheault?
:
Yes. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I will start.
On behalf of Air Canada, I thank you for the invitation to appear before the committee today.
[English]
We are pleased to be here today and to have the opportunity to speak to the committee on behalf of Air Canada.
[Translation]
We are here today to present to you the concrete measures that were taken by Air Canada in recent months to improve the delivery of bilingual services across its global network, as well as to reaffirm our commitment to Canadian bilingualism and to share our pride in this regard.
Today, I am joined by colleagues who all have an important role to play in Air Canada’s implementation of its language policy.
Since our last appearance before the committee, we have met with a number of stakeholders, elected officials, members of francophone communities from across the country, representatives of the government and, of course, our employees, people who are all working to promote bilingualism.
We have also increased our efforts to improve the delivery of services.
We have prepared a short presentation today to give you an overview of our training programs, of our language tools and the efforts we are making to promote official languages at Air Canada.
I now give the floor to Mrs. Arielle Meloul-Wechsler, Vice President, Human Resources and Labour Relations, who, as a member of Air Canada’s senior management, is in charge of our official languages policy.
:
Thank you, my dear colleague.
Mr. Chair, thank you for the invitation.
[English]
Thank you for the opportunity for us to provide this update.
[Translation]
My presentation does not appear on a screen. I invite you all to follow my presentation on the hard copy, which is in front of you.
Let’s go to page 2 to see the chart. As you can see, we have a complete linguistic services team. Let’s start with me: I am the Vice-President, Human Resources and in charge of labour relations. I report directly to the CEO, Mr. Rovinescu. Below, you can see my team which is responsible for linguistic services and for the implementation of linguistic services. You can also see to the right that we have close ties with union committees on bilingualism. We work closely with them.
Now, let’s move to page 3, in order to give you a little context and to relate to our last meeting. We are proud to be the national carrier, a leader in promoting bilingualism for all Canadian businesses. We have a legal obligation, but it is also our philosophy to offer the best services to the customers. Our obligations are therefore part of our policies and our programs.
Let's go to page 4. Our mission is to be a champion on a global scale. Our goal is to serve the travelling public in both official languages; to communicate with the general public in both official languages; to offer real opportunities to all of our employees in both official languages; and to ensure the engagement of our employees in each official language.
Let's go to page 5. It deals with our tools, both the existing ones and those that we have developed or improved since our last appearance. We have a linguistic policy, basically, to explain the why. We also have procedures to explain the how, the measures to be taken.
You can also see a few of our tools on page 6. You also have them in the folders in front of us and you can refer to them at your leisure. We have a brochure that explains everything, the why and the how. We distribute this brochure to new employees during all annual training, at all open houses, at every opportunity. We also have Aerovocab. It is a small dictionary available to our employees, and within easy reach. It is divided based on the operations, it contains terms for airports, terms for in-flight services, general air transport vocabulary and a small section on anglicisms to avoid, for example.
Let's go to page 7. You can see a small picture of the quick reference card that we created following our last appearance. We created this small laminated reminder that our agents at the airport can put in the pocket of their uniform. It contains short sentences that they often have to use during operations. There is also a phone number. If they are stuck, they can call colleagues who can help them and provide them with certain terms.
Let's go to page 8 and let me tell you a little about language training. You will notice that there is a menu of courses we offer. These are advanced courses for our employees who are already bilingual, but who want to improve their skills. They can take these courses as they see fit. You will see that, from 2015 to 2016, we provided 4,000 more hours to our employees. This means that our employees have had 4,000 additional hours to develop their language skills.
Let's now go to page 9. I want to talk to you about our awareness module. This video is on our portal. So all our employees have access to this video. Since we last appeared in the fall, we conducted an extensive campaign to make a larger number of our employees aware that this video is available. We are very proud to say that, in the fall, 4,000 more employees took this training.
On page 10, you see the percentage of all employees of the company who have completed this module. For airport baggage agents, the percentage is 95%. For airport agents, it is at 97%, and almost 90% of our flight attendants have completed this awareness module.
Page 11 is about communications. We have also increased our efforts in this area. Indeed, it is well known that, despite everything that we do, it is sometimes difficult to reach our employees because 85% of them are not office employees. It is not always easy for them to have access to our messages. We know that we must repeat them very often. What you see before you—also in your folders—is an example. This is our magazine Horizon, a monthly magazine that we distribute to all our employees, either online or in hard copy. In the fall, there was an article that spoke specifically of our linguistic obligations. We published it to ensure that our employees are aware of them.
Let's go to page 12. I wanted to talk a little about our partnership efforts. We also renewed our partnerships within communities to increase our pool of bilingual candidates. For example, we had booths at Seneca College in Toronto, at the Université de Saint-Boniface and we participated in the bilingual jobs exploration day in Halifax in November.
Let's go to page 13. I also wanted to point out that we are proud sponsors of certain events that encourage bilingualism, such as the Rendez-vous de la Francophonie, for example. Here you can see several other examples.
On page 14, there are more examples that you can look at at your leisure.
Let's go to page 15. I would like to share some numbers with you. You will see that more than 50% of our employees across the country who are in contact with the public are bilingual. The majority of people we hire throughout the country are also bilingual. There is only one exception, that of aboriginal people. Diversity and the hiring of Aboriginal people are important to us. So there are cases where we are hiring English-speaking Aboriginal persons who speak an Aboriginal language, but who do not necessarily speak French or another language used during our many routes. However, we believe that this is a worthwhile exception.
Let's go to page 16. I'd like to show you the progression in the number of bilingual employees in our operations from 2010 to today. You will see that rates have increased by 50% to 80%, depending on the type of operation.
On page 17, you can see the progression in the number of bilingual employees between 2010 and 2017. Once again, the data is distributed by region or airport in our case. Of course, in Montreal, we remain committed to 100%.
Let's go to page 18. I wanted to show you briefly that our linguistic obligations are part of our collective agreements, as they should be. Here you see an excerpt from the collective agreement with our airport agents.
On page 19, you see an excerpt from the collective agreement with our flight attendants. Please understand that it is important to have the support of unions in an industry where seniority prevails.
Let's go to page 20. I wanted to share with you a few more creative measures we put in place to promote bilingualism this past summer and fall, since we last met. We have created a network of ambassadors. They are champions in the field, passionate people who act as ambassadors for our programs. They help us communicate our obligations and our programs. They also conduct informal audits in the field from time to time.
On page 21, there are other creative methods. This is already part of our culture, a culture of cooperation and encouragement. We have incentive programs that are dedicated to the recognition of bilingualism. For example, we held an internal competition in the fall and early winter to encourage our employees to recognize their peers who are making an effort in terms of bilingualism.
I will conclude by saying that Air Canada is proud to be the most bilingual company in Canada. There is no doubt that we have obligations and we take them very seriously.
Since our appearance in June, we have really doubled our efforts to mobilize, to recognize our employees, to communicate and to recruit. We have developed new tools, for example reference cards. We have improved our tools, which you can view in the folder that we have provided.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
:
Mrs. Boucher, I would also like to answer your question.
We are making efforts to increase the percentage of bilingual employees across the country, as are several government institutions.
Here is the difficulty with regard to service at airports. Call centres, for example, are located mainly in Montreal and New Brunswick. It is easier to recruit bilingual workers in those regions. As for flight attendants, we do a lot of recruiting in francophone regions of the country and we assign them to bases in the west. Because of their function, this is a category of employees who are very mobile. We can recruit across the country and assign these people to our bases in the west to improve the numbers with regard to bilingualism.
As for airports, we need to recruit more people within the communities. We have entered into many partnerships to increase these numbers. It is also why we have designed tools. Not everyone is bilingual.
I agree with you that, ideally, all employees should be bilingual. With the tools, they know they can consult a colleague or call someone as needed. Even if they are not bilingual, we provide them with the tools so that they can provide the service in French to passengers who request it.
Further, we are strategically deploying bilingual employees on flights where there is a greater concentration of passengers who prefer French. We try to organize shifts according to the demographic realities and the needs of our customers.
:
To follow up on what my New Brunswick colleague said, your subcontractors have a responsibility, just as you do. In fact, there are several issues I would like to raise.
I will read a letter to you that was sent to the employees of Jazz, of which I received a copy. First of all, the letter is in English, which is a problem for francophones.
Moreover, the French version of the message says this: “Air Canada advised the CFAU [the union] that as of March 1, 2017, it must restore the levels of bilingual services that were in effect in 2006”.
Someone is in fact admitting that service clearly had diminished, and that the service that was offered previously had to be restored.
The message continues as follows: “This is due to complaints received [...]” and “As a result, you will notice an increase in routes [...]” and then “The union is in discussions with the company on the effects [...]”.
The subcontractor is thus admitting that the services being offered are at a lower level than those in 2006, and that they will have to go back up to the 2006 levels. In my opinion, there was clearly a lapse, and the negotiations are intended to allow you to reach that objective.
I'm going to continue where my Acadian colleague Darrell Samson left off.
Before we went to vote, we were looking at a letter written by a Jazz union representative. The last sentence in the correspondence you have before you is extremely strong, I would even say humiliating, for a francophone, and I quote:
[English]
The Union is in discussions with the company on the effects this will have on the membership and the language training requirements needed to mitigate the negative impact.
[Translation]
That was said after a reference to the need to comply with the Official Languages Act and to the use of French by the company.
It's humiliating, there is no other way of looking at that. When a union representative sends a letter to the members to tell them that complying with a linguistic obligation creates a negative impact and that the union has to hold talks with Air Canada to see how to minimize that impact, there is good reason to find this somewhat bizarre.
First, were you aware of this correspondence? Secondly, what is the negative impact in question? Third, how did the negotiations go, and who took part in them on behalf of Air Canada?
:
Mr. Arseneault, I'm going to answer your question.
I am going to read the letter before you. It refers to the need “to mitigate the negative impact”; that is how the letter is drafted in French. You have to look at the entire letter. Of course I cannot interpret the intention of those who wrote it, since it came from the union. What I can say, however, is that from a union point of view, when you assign bilingual employees to certain routes, you bypass seniority. Some members can see that as being a negative effect. If they don't have the qualifications to be assigned to a bilingual route, they cannot be on that flight.
The letter says that people will be working together to mitigate the impact, that is to say by providing more training to people to bring them up to level and to allow them to work on those flights. We don't leave our employees and the union alone in this. We intend to work with them so that they can be given appropriate training.
The letter talks about mitigating the negative impact. For people who do not speak a second language, of course it is more difficult because they cannot fly certain routes. That is how people perceive this. We work with everyone to improve the provision of bilingual services. That was for your first question.
Secondly, you asked if we had taken part in the negotiations. When we make routes bilingual, it is to comply with the regulations and the law. We don't negotiate that.
:
Mr. Chair and honourable members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. This is a tremendous experience for me.
My name is Marie-Josée Pagé, and I have been a flight attendant since 1986. I was initially based out of Toronto but am now based out of Montreal. The year 2017 marks my 31st year of flying.
During that time, I have had many firsts, met numerous people, and experienced the highs and lows typical of an ever-changing industry. I have flown 21,700 hours, had five different uniforms, worn 60 pairs of shoes, and crossed paths with a wide array of passengers, from rock stars, movie stars, race-car drivers, and sports personalities to prime ministers, presidents, politicians, and the Dalai Lama.
Along the way, I have felt the impact of AIDS, the avian flu, SARS, the Ebola virus, and 9/11, not to mention put my self-defence training to the test.
It is with a positive attitude and all of that baggage that I appear before you in my new capacity as the head of Air Canada's francization committee, as well as a Montreal-based flight attendant. I will do my best to answer any questions you have.
Thank you.