An article published on Canada.com on May 26th, 2009.
OTTAWA — The Harper government must show leadership and intervene with drastic action to ensure that francophone athletes and visitors at the 2010 Vancouver Games will get services in their language, federal Official Languages Commissioner Graham Fraser said Tuesday.
In his annual report to Parliament, Fraser concluded that some of Canada's largest airports were also failing to offer adequate language services for the visitors who will be going through their doors on their way to the Games.
"Unless drastic changes are made, Vancouver's International Airport will be unable to properly welcome, in both official languages of Canada — and of the International Olympic Committee — the thousands of Canadian and foreign visitors and athletes who will be attending the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in less than a year," Fraser wrote in his report.
Transport, Infrastructure and Communities Minister John Baird said in the House of Commons that he spoke with Fraser about the issue and wants to ensure quality services in both languages at the airports.
In Fraser's evaluation of five major airports, only Montreal's Trudeau International Airport made the grade with an 87 per cent rating for bilingual services offered to passengers in areas such as baggage check-in, security, and restaurants or local businesses. Vancouver's airport received the worst rating in the evaluation at 30 per cent, followed by Toronto's Pearson International Airport at 39 per cent.
The Macdonald-Cartier International Airport in Ottawa received a 56 per cent rating for bilingual services followed by the Stanfield International Airport in Halifax which received a 42 per cent rating.
Fraser said he believes the organizers of the Vancouver Olympics failed to anticipate the magnitude of the task of ensuring the event reflects Canada's two official languages, but he said it should be seen as an opportunity for Canada to showcase its linguistic duality.
"A country where 26 million people speak English and nine million speak French should be able to meet, in an exemplary manner, the challenges related to the official languages of the Games — which just happen to be in English and French," Fraser said at a news conference. "Hope isn't enough. There is little time left to resolve the most pressing issues, especially in terms of translation and interpretation."
Fraser, who first raised concerns about the Olympics in a report released in December, said the federal Heritage Department should step in to play a leadership role to promote bilingualism at the event.
Meantime, Fraser said there are some signs that the federal government has made progress in ensuring the equality of English and French across the country, but it needs to take more concrete actions to promote the official languages.
For example, he said a review of federal institutions revealed that the vast majority were still not creating a work environment where employees could feel comfortable or would be encouraged to speak the official language of their choice. He added that a "roadmap" introduced by the Harper government offered few details about how it would address this and other important issues regarding bilingualism.
The commissioner traditionally does not put estimates of the cost of its recommendations, but Fraser said the issues could be resolved with better leadership from the government.
He also reiterated his support for legislation introduced by NDP MP Yvon Godin to require Supreme Court justices to speak English and French is important since Canadian laws can be written separately in the two languages and not translated.
"Part of the responsibility of a Supreme Court justice is to be able to evaluate that grey zone that can exist between the English version of the piece of legislation and the French version of the legislation," said Fraser. "That in itself means that it's extremely important that Supreme Court justices be able to understand the legislation, the pleadings that are made before them without depending on simultaneous (translation.)"
Fraser also said the legislation, which is scheduled for a vote in Parliament on Wednesday, could send "a powerful message" throughout the legal system.
"Once that message was sent, I think as if by magic you would see that all of a sudden, learning the other official language would become more valued in the whole legal education system."
Godin and Liberal MP Pablo Rodriguez both said that Fraser's report shows that the government is failing Canada's official language minority communities.
But Heritage Minister James Moore, who has criticized Godin's legislation on Supreme Court justices, told the Commons that the government is making progress in promoting bilingualism and said that there is a promising future for minority official language communities.
The government adopted the Official Languages Act 40 years ago to promote Canada's bilingualism and protect the rights of English- and French-speaking minority communities across the country.