LANG Committee Report

If the Official Languages Act takes precedence over collective agreements, certain employees of Air Canada will be affected. In my view, this will result in layoffs of unilingual employees.

Since it is currently seniority that takes precedence, employees with the greatest seniority generally have priority, to the detriment of the Official Languages Act. If the Official Languages Act were applied, unilingual employees would no longer be protected by the collective agreement to the extent they were in the past. Therefore, I invite Air Canada to negotiate with the unions involved a voluntary early retirement package for these employees, to help reduce the number of unilingual employees who may potentially be laid off.

With regard to unilingual employees with less seniority, I suggest that Air Canada provide greater access to language courses, and increase the number of weeks a year available for language training. By mastering a second official language, these employees will be in a better position to carry out Air Canada’s linguistic obligations.