VIA Canadian and the Canadians

[greatwestern]

I "studied" French in senior school for 3 years and got my exam pass (UK General Certificate of education, ordinary level) but never actually used the language in anger - good job too as being a Bristolian I often think I struggle with English !!

However bringing this back on track to the Canadian train in 1980 I travelled from Toronto to Calgary with my 7 month old daughter. With our youngster in tow our requirements in the dining car were of necessity somewhat specific - despite this the crew were almost dismissive of us because we could not converse in French.

Once the crew changed in Winnipeg it was a totally different story and they could not have been more helpful.

On subsequent journeys on the Canadian in more recent times I have experienced no problems because of my lack of language skills.

 

[SubwayNut]

I think the main question to ask is how old were the employees in question not wanting to speak in French/English?

I think today to be hired by VIA you have to be fully bilingual, but they can't fire any long-term employees who aren't bilingual. On my one full length trip on the Canadian in Spring (March) I remember this strange, agist and slightly sexist, dynamic between my sleeper attendant who was a relative young woman (and had just been called up from being furlowed for the winter) and the other sleeping car attendant, a much older gentleman who proudly talked about how he had been making beds since 1970. The older gentleman didn't speak French, the younger attendant was bilingual.

I remember in Northern Ontario a gentleman boarded who the crew recognized as a regular who only spoke French, and the dining car attendant went right into speaking French for him at our table. He finished before the other 3 of us had left, and they
attendant discretely asked us if we knew of any passengers who probably spoke French to seat him with at dinner. There was a young family from Montreal (the Dad worked in special projects for VIA, I later found him on YouTube in a promotional video for a new accessible room on the Ocean) who we knew spoke French and sure enough at dinner they sat the francophone passenger with them and I saw them chatting away in French.

 

[jiml]

French is de rigueur for public services in Canada, including the airlines and VIA. However demographics have changed over the years and it is not as widely spoken outside Quebec due to many factors, including immigration from non French-speaking countries. A recent survey projected Chinese (Mandarin/Cantonese) to surpass French as the country's second most-spoken language. This creates a limited hiring pool for the public service since French speakers are far more likely to be bilingual than the other way around. We're all taught French but if you don't use it you lose it. Guilty as charged. French is far less likely to be needed the further west one goes from Quebec, although there are pockets elsewhere as others have noted. The treatment of French speakers in the example given is unacceptable, however these are the cases that get the attention and media coverage. The reverse is seldom discussed, such as Border Services people and airport staff who are rude to English speakers in Quebec. I have had more than one stern lecture about how being Canadian requires being able to speak French. It goes through cycles over the years... in my early days of business travel we were coached to carry and flash American money when working in Quebec to receive English service in hotels, bars and restaurants. Fortunately my French was passable back then, although it did get repetitive ordering the things I knew or could remember.

 

[AmtrakMaineiac]

Ironically I never got any French instruction in 3 years of schooling in Ontario but had 5 years of it once we moved to Boston. This was in the 1950s when there seemed to be less emphasis on being bilingual as there is today

 

[crescent-zephyr]

Just out of curiosity was this in Eastern or Western Canada?

The Candian operates from Toronto to Vancouver but VIA Rail is a Crown corporation so all employees should be able to speak both English and French. Menus are printed in both languages and all train announcements are made in both languages.

 

[jis]

The Candian operates from Toronto to Vancouver but VIA Rail is a Crown corporation so all employees should be able to speak both English and French. Menus are printed in both languages and all train announcements are made in both languages.

IIRC, it does have two OBS crew districts - (Western) Vancouver to Winnipeg and (Eastern) Winnipeg to Toronto. But of course being a Crown Corporation the language requirements are the same irrespective of the district.

 

[Urban Sky]

French is de rigueur for public services in Canada, including the airlines and VIA. However demographics have changed over the years and it is not as widely spoken outside Quebec due to many factors, including immigration from non French-speaking countries. A recent survey projected Chinese (Mandarin/Cantonese) to surpass French as the country's second most-spoken language. This creates a limited hiring pool for the public service since French speakers are far more likely to be bilingual than the other way around. We're all taught French but if you don't use it you lose it. Guilty as charged. French is far less likely to be needed the further west one goes from Quebec, although there are pockets elsewhere as others have noted.

I recall that VIA opened a base for On-Train Staff in Ottawa maybe 5 years ago, given their struggle to attract enough candidates in Toronto which would be sufficiently fluent in both official languages and willing to work on the salary of a public-sector service job. I don’t want to know how much more challenging this is in Winnipeg and Vancouver (where all OTS for the Canadian are based), especially when recruiting for a job where you are away from your family for multiple days and have no realistic chance of year-round employment until you’ve gathered many years of seniority…

 

[zephyr17]

IIRC, it does have two OBS crew districts - (Western) Vancouver to Winnipeg and (Eastern) Winnipeg to Toronto. But of course being a Crown Corporation the language requirements are the same irrespective of the district.

The OBS crew base is in Winnipeg, and crews work both directions, just not on the same trip. A couple of times, some crew members working Vancouver-Winnipeg have been asked to stay on Winnipeg-Toronto due to staff shortages, usually working in a different capacity. On recent trip the Prestige Park Concierge/Lounge Steward Vancouver-Winnipeg stayed on Winnipeg-Toronto as a Sleeper Plus car attendant.

They used to have a small OBS base in Vancouver pre-COVID, but I don't think it came back. I don't think the Canadian ever had crews based in Toronto.

Winnipeg is not a big Francophone area

 

[Gemuser]

The Candian operates from Toronto to Vancouver but VIA Rail is a Crown corporation so all employees should be able to speak both English and French. Menus are printed in both languages and all train announcements are made in both languages.

Thank you for your answer, but that was NOT my question! Which was where did the incident described happen. I am fully aware of the requirement but I am also aware that it is often honored in the breach even in our equivalent to your Crown Corporation.

 

[Urban Sky]

Thank you for your answer, but that was NOT my question! Which was where did the incident described happen. I am fully aware of the requirement but I am also aware that it is often honored in the breach even in our equivalent to your Crown Corporation.

Even though everything East of Manitoba is commonly referred to as “Eastern Canada”, the on-train crew members (OTS) are the same which work the entire route from Toronto to Vancouver (though they are replaced by a fresh crew at Winnipeg), just like the overwhelming majority of Sleeper Plus passengers travels the entire distance (though often with a stopover at Jasper). I therefore struggle to see the relevance of your question, as I regard the Canadian as “Western Canadian” in its entire route…

 

[mcropod]

Just out of curiosity was this in Eastern or Western Canada?

My recollection is that it was on day two on my eastbound trip, so likely before Winnipeg, which is where I understand there's a crew change. Either way, as VIA is a national service, I expected that national policies would apply nationally. It'd be different here in Oz, as there's no national passenger rail provider, so it's State provisions which apply.

My antennae are sensitive to and aware of the social and political ramifications of using language as markers of either unity or separation, so the incident I referred to was a surprise to me when I encountered it.

As a traveller with a basic ability in Spanish (Castillian) I thought it best not to travel to the places within Spain where Castillian is a marker of cultural and political oppression, and so I decided to not be a participant in that.

 

[zephyr17]

My recollection is that it was on day two on my eastbound trip, so likely before Winnipeg, which is where I understand there's a crew change. Either way, as VIA is a national service, I expected that national policies would apply nationally. It'd be different here in Oz, as there's no national passenger rail provider, so it's State provisions which apply.

My antennae are sensitive to and aware of the social and political ramifications of using language as markers of either unity or separation, so the incident I referred to was a surprise to me when I encountered it.

As a traveller with a basic ability in Spanish (Castillian) I thought it best not to travel to the places within Spain where Castillian is a marker of cultural and political oppression, and so I decided to not be a participant in that.

While the OBS crews change at Winnipeg, they are based in Winnipeg and work out and back in both directions, so the crew will be made up folks currently residing in or near Winnipeg. That is not to say that just because they are now in Winnipeg, they didn't originally come from somewhere else, like Quebec. I have met many native French speakers on the OBS crew, but they are generally outnumbered by those for whom English is their native tongue. There are also many immigrants working for whom neither is their native tongue. But there really is no different in the crews on the eastern half versus western half of the trip.

With that said, there is no excuse for what you witnessed, just that whether it was east or west of Winnipeg doesn't make a difference of where the crew is from. They got on in Winnipeg.