4. Conclusion
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During the audit, we assessed the commitment of the Halifax International Airport Authority’s Board of Directors and senior management to complying with their obligations under the Official Languages Act, and we verified whether the Airport Authority’s organizational culture reflected linguistic duality. We also evaluated whether the management framework and the mechanisms in place allow the Airport Authority to fulfill its obligations pertaining to service to the travelling public. We examined how the Airport Authority communicated information on official languages to various stakeholders at the airport. We also verified whether the institution had the structure to effectively monitor the availability and quality of bilingual services given by specific contracted service providers.
Our findings lead us to conclude that the Airport Authority has made progress since the audit began, and that, in some respects, it is heading in the right direction. It has developed an accountability framework and an action plan in response to the report card process and this audit. It has modified its structure with the objective of better managing its official languages program. It also conducts some monitoring and it scored well in our observations on the presence of bilingual signage throughout the airport.
Nonetheless, our audit enabled us to identify a number of areas where the Airport Authority can do more to improve the overall management of its official languages program. In total, the Commissioner is issuing nine recommendations to the Airport Authority to address the gaps mentioned in this report.
On the leadership front (objective 1), the Commissioner is calling upon the Airport Authority to take the following steps:
- Strengthen its accountability framework and action plan for official languages;
- Develop an official languages policy on service to the public and a communications strategy to better disseminate information on official languages to stakeholders throughout the airport;
- Modify its contracts with specific service providers to include either incentives for official languages compliance or consequences of non-compliance; and
- Create a joint working group with other federal institutions at the airport to address official languages issues.
By implementing these recommendations, the Airport Authority will be recognizing the importance of ensuring that all of its employees and specific contracted service providers are well aware of their official languages obligations and the consequences of non-compliance. Moreover, by implementing our recommendations, the Airport Authority will ensure that its corporate documents related to official languages and senior-level commitment become tools to bring forth and sustain real organizational and cultural change. The Airport Authority would also be recognizing the need for horizontal collaboration within the airport in the interest of offering the highest quality customer service possible for travellers passing through the Halifax Stanfield International Airport.
With respect to infrastructure and monitoring (objective 2), the Commissioner is calling upon the Airport Authority to take the following action:
- Review the language designation of its positions to ensure that it has a sufficient number of bilingual staff to meet its obligations;
- Establish and implement formal mechanisms for the effective and efficient monitoring of compliance with the Official Languages Act from all contracted service providers at the Halifax Stanfield International Airport that are required to provide their services in both official languages;
- Put innovative measures in place to encourage contracted service providers to meet their official languages obligations;
- Extend its community consultations and outreach specifically to the official language minority community in order to share concerns and discuss potential solutions with respect to official languages compliance at the airport.
By moving forward on these recommendations, the Airport Authority would be demonstrating its commitment to ensuring that the proper infrastructure and monitoring mechanisms are in place within its organization and within the airport, and that the concerns of the official language minority community are taken into account with the objective of improving customer service to better meet client needs. We believe that implementing these recommendations would be an important step in addressing some of the gaps identified by our observations at the airport, and would lead to better overall compliance results.
Finally, we encourage the Airport Authority to promote linguistic duality in its dealings with all its clients. We believe that this audit will contribute to increasing the institution’s commitment to official languages and ultimately to improving the services that it offers to the public, in both official languages.
