<div dir="ltr"><br clear="all"><br><br><br><br><div id="storyheader"><div class=""><h1>STM language review stalled</h1></div><div class=""> </div><div class=""> </div><div class="">
<span class="">By Andy Riga, GAZETTE TRANSPORTATION REPORTER</span>
<span class="">January 10, 2014</span>
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<p>MONTREAL
— Like a bus stuck in traffic, Montreal’s transit agency is moving
slowly as it reviews its language policy, which has been a source of
friction between some transit workers and English-speaking riders.</p>
<p>The Société de transport de Montréal, which requires only a small
number of employees to speak English, set up an internal working group
on the issue in late 2012. Recommendations on possible policy changes
were to be ready by the spring of 2013.</p>
<p>This week, the authority admitted it’s still looking into the issue and can’t say when the review will be completed.</p>
<p>A series of Gazette articles in 2012 and 2013 showed the STM may be
misinterpreting Bill 101, that it was not tracking language complaints
and that it could not say how many of its employees are required to be
bilingual.</p>
<p>Jean-François Lisée, the Parti Québécois minister responsible for
anglophone issues, has suggested the STM could use an exemption clause
in Bill 101 to require “basic English” among métro ticket-booth workers
“in downtown Montreal, where hundreds of thousands of anglophone
tourists go, where there are tens of thousands of McGill and Concordia
students.”</p>
<p>The STM has not reviewed its language policy since 1999.</p>
<p>The working group includes experts from the STM’s legal,
customer-service and labour-relations departments. They looked at
employee language requirements and the types of complaints received
regarding language of service.</p>
<p>The group studied the issue “for much of 2013,” STM spokesperson
Odile Paradis told The Gazette this week. But she said the group did not
submit conclusions because a new STM board was to be named.</p>
<p>That new board met for the first time last month, but it will only
consider the language issue at some point in 2014, Paradis said.</p>
<p>In 2012, the STM was rocked by several confrontations between its employees and English-speaking customers.</p>
<p>In one case, a commuter said a métro ticket-taker attacked her. A
former Montreal Impact player said another STM employee refused to sell
him a ticket because he spoke English. Another rider said an STM
employee told him: “We don’t serve English people.”</p>
<p>An STM employee made headlines when he posted a sign in a métro
station that read: “Au Québec c’est en français que ça se passe.”
(Roughly translated: “In Quebec, we do things in French.”)</p>
<p>The STM has 9,400 employees. It has said bilingualism is a
prerequisite for some workers, including at its information booths and
call centres.</p>
<p>But when The Gazette asked for specifics in an access-to-information
request, the STM could not say which job categories and how many
employees were involved. It said it would provide answers by spring
2013, but never followed up with details.</p>
<p>In response to the same access request, the STM said it could not say
how many complaints lodged with the authority were language-related.</p>
<p>Under Bill 101, an employer can require workers to have a knowledge
of a language other than French if “the nature of the duties requires
such knowledge.”</p>
<p>Another transit agency, the Agence métropolitaine de transport,
requires all employees who deal with the public to be bilingual. The AMT
has said the workers fall under the Bill 101 exemption.</p>
<p>Lisée has said he is puzzled by the differences between how the STM
and AMT interpret Bill 101. He said the STM never sought the advice of
the Office québécois de la langue française, which oversees application
of Bill 101.</p>
<p>But STM vice-chair Marvin Rotrand has said that the STM has had
“extensive contact” with the OQLF over the years, including over union
grievances involving language hiring requirements.</p>
<p>Montreal civil-rights lawyer Julius Grey has suggested the STM is
“completely misinterpreting” Bill 101. He said the STM has an obligation
to “have a sufficient number of people who can (serve customers) in
English.”</p><p><a href="http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/language+review+stalled/9373669/story.html">http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/language+review+stalled/9373669/story.html</a><br></p><p><br></p><br>**************************************<br>
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