Bilingual workers a phone call away: Lisée
Transit authority hasn’t sought Bill 101 clarification, Lisée says
Jean-François Lisée, the minister responsible for the anglophone community, says the Société de Transport de Montréal never asked the Office Québécoise de la langue française for help interpreting Bill 101 and how it applies to hiring bilingual employees. “Simply call ... and you will be able to hire bilingual employees,” Lisée told CJAD. Andy Riga reports.
All it would take is a phone call to Quebec’s language watchdog for Montreal’s bus and métro authority to be able to require bilingualism among more employees, Jean-François Lisée says.
Contradicting statements by the Société de transport de Montréal, Lisée, the provincial minister responsible for the anglophone community, said the STM has never actually asked for help from the Office québécois de la langue française in interpreting Bill 101.
The Gazette recently revealed that the STM’s policy of not requiring bilingualism among bus drivers and métro ticket takers is in sharp contrast to language requirements at Montreal’s commuter train authority.
The Agence métropolitaine de transport, a separate, provincial body, compels all employees who deal with the public to be bilingual, including fare inspectors and ticket counter and call-centre workers.
On CJAD’s Tommy Schnurmacher Show on Friday, Lisée was asked to tell the STM to follow the AMT’s lead and make bilingualism a re- quirement for bus drivers and métro ticket takers.
“STM, are you listening?” Lisée said. “It’s okay, when you make the case that you have employees in areas where part of the clientele will be anglophone, (where) they are in contact with anglophones.
“Simply call the (OQLF) and you will be able to hire bilingual employees in some of these places.”
Christine Fréchette, a spokesperson for Lisée, said the minister was not available to speak to The Gazette on Friday. She said he stood by his statements.
The STM requires only a small number of employees to be bilingual, including those working at its information booths and call centre.
In response to a Gazette accessto-information request after the STM-AMT contradiction emerged, the STM this month said it had not sought legal advice internally or from outside lawyers on how to interpret Article 46 of Bill 101.
Article 46 says an employer cannot require employees to have knowledge of a language other than French. However, the law provides for exceptions.
Article 46 states: “An employer is prohibited from making the obtaining of an employment or office dependent upon the knowledge or a specific level of knowledge of a language other than the official language, unless the nature of the duties requires such knowledge.”
After The Gazette published an article about the STM’s access re- sponse, the STM backtracked, saying it had internal legal opinions based on jurisprudence and exchanges with the OQLF. Lisée said that’s not true. “I discussed that with Diane De Courcy, who is the minister in charge of language, and I said you know the difference is real between the two (the STM and the AMT), what gives here?” Lisée said. “And she said, they never asked. The STM never made a request.
“Now, it seems that (the STM has) internal legal advice that tells them
“Simply call the (OQLF) and you will be able to hire bilingual employees.” JEAN-FRANçOIS LISéE, MINISTER RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ANGLOPHONE COMMUNITY
that they can’t, but they never tested that with (OQLF).
Lisée went on: “Obviously, the general rule is you have to make the demonstration that bilingualism is needed but it’s needed in very many cases in Montreal both for the clientele — local (anglophones) and tourists — and for the fact that suppliers in the rest of North America and a number of clients are anglophones.”
Last year, there were several highprofile altercations between English-speaking passengers and STM employees, including a métro ticket taker who allegedly assaulted a customer in October.
After the CJAD interview aired, the STM took exception to Lisée’s remarks.
Marvin Rotrand, vice-chairman of the STM, said he welcomed Lisée’s remarks “but I do note some misapprehensions. He seems to be under the impression there are no posts at the STM where a knowledge of English is a hiring requirement.”
As well, “the interview seems to suggest that the STM has no contact with the OQLF. That’s not at all the case. We’ve had extensive contact with them over the decades, including various ententes we’ve reached with them over grievances filed against us by employees and the unions.” Some were related to language-hiring requirements, Rotrand said.
He said in the wake of the controversy, the STM’s customer-service committee will meet with STM lawyers at the end of January to discuss “the obligations Bill 101 has for the STM.”
That committee will report its findings at a Feb. 6 STM board of directors’ meeting, Rotrand said.
Both those meetings will be closed to the public.
Rotrand has said the STM will not make public any of its Bill 101 documentation, noting the agency has a policy against disclosing internal legal opinions.