OTTAWA - The country's official languages commissioner says Canada has a lot of work to do if it's going to impress the world during next year's Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
Graham Fraser said Tuesday it is even difficult to be served in the language of one's choice at airports across the country except at Montreal's Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport.
Fraser, who was releasing his annual report, noted that Vancouver's airport scored an overall mark of only 30.2 per cent in a study of various services that are available.
The other ratings were Toronto, 39 per cent; Halifax, 41.7 per cent; Ottawa, 55.6 per cent; and Montreal, 87.2 per cent.
"I think it's pretty awful," Fraser said at a news conference.
"One of the reasons we did this survey on the services available at airports was with the Olympics in mind. And one-half of foreign travellers who go to Vancouver will go through Toronto.
"I think this is a necessary reminder to airport authorities that there is a wide gap between what they are currently doing and what is needed to be done to make sure foreigners - be they athletes, their relatives or just tourists - have access to services to which they're entitled."
Fraser said Canada has yet to reach its objectives 40 years after its linguistic policies were adopted and he urged Ottawa not to use the global economic crisis as a reason to cut funding for official languages.
The commissioner is also calling on the Transport Department to enact laws that would protect the language rights of Air Canada passengers.
Air Canada is often cited as one of the worst offenders in the commission's annual reports. The carrier recently took the top spot among the 10 worst federal organizations in terms of meeting official language standards.
According to the report, 60 per cent of francophone employees surveyed in New Brunswick, Ontario and in the national capital region were satisfied with the language situation in their workplace, while 75 per cent of anglophones surveyed in Quebec said the same.
The commission said it received 785 complaints this past year. Of those, 606 were deemed legitimate - a four per cent jump over the previous year.
