It was bad enough for Quebec’s language and culture hawks when Air Canada president and CEO Michael Rousseau gave an English-only speech on Wednesday at the Montreal Chamber of Commerce. It was worse still when he revealed to reporters that it was no mere oversight: He doesn’t speak French. But then Rousseau really twisted the knife. “I’ve been able to live in Montreal without speaking French, and I think that’s a testament to the city,” he told reporters.
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Rousseau’s words were splashed across the Québecor papers’ front pages on Thursday. The federal NDP demanded his resignation, and did not spare the rhetoric: “Mr. Rousseau is spitting in the face of Quebecers and all members of French-speaking communities across the country,” deputy NDP leader Alexandre Boulerice said in a press release, adding that he should be “ashamed.” By noon Thursday, only 24 hours after Rousseau’s speech, Official Languages Commissioner Raymond Théberge told La Presse he had received 60 official complaints.
Air Canada is an objectively absurd creature. The Mulroney government privatized the operation in the 1980s not so much as one might go about trying to create a lean, efficient, popular company, but more in the way prime ministers go about building their cabinets: Everywhere important gets a cookie. Thus, under the Air Canada Public Participation Act, the former flag carrier is the only Canadian airline subject to the Official Languages Act. It is also the only Canadian airline obliged to maintain its head office in a certain jurisdiction (i.e., Montreal) or to conduct its maintenance activities in certain places (i.e., Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba — Winnipeg having been headquarters for the predecessor Trans-Canada Airlines and its maintenance hub thereafter).
Other than the most committed of language obsessives, there can’t be anyone in Quebec — or anywhere else in the world — who would pick a flight based on the crew’s linguistic competencies.
(Meanwhile there’s Europe, which proves how completely unnecessary all this is. Europe proves that “small” languages — indeed, much smaller and less globally useful languages than French — can survive and thrive when surrounded by “large” languages. By the logic of Quebec’s language debates, Flemish, Irish, Welsh, Basque and Catalan wouldn’t have been heard for hundreds of years. Yet there they are.)
Now it will be even more difficult to push back: Quebec’s hyperactive language hawks have a real-live bogeyman they can use to justify ever-more infringements upon minority language rights. That’s the most galling thing about it: The collateral damage.
Air Canada chief executive officer Michael Rousseau on Thursday apologized for remarks suggesting he did not need to speak French, Canada’s second language, even though this airline is the only one in Canada that is “officially” bilingual.
Chris Selley: Air Canada's CEO just made Quebec's French-language crusade even weirder — National Post
The fracas over the airline’s unilingual CEO is so Canadian, it should be a Heritage Minute
Air Canada is an objectively absurd creature. The Mulroney government privatized the operation in the 1980s not so much as one might go about trying to create a lean, efficient, popular company, but more in the way prime ministers go about building their cabinets: Everywhere important gets a cookie. Thus, under the Air Canada Public Participation Act, the former flag carrier is the only Canadian airline subject to the Official Languages Act. It is also the only Canadian airline obliged to maintain its head office in a certain jurisdiction (i.e., Montreal) or to conduct its maintenance activities in certain places (i.e., Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba — Winnipeg having been headquarters for the predecessor Trans-Canada Airlines and its maintenance hub thereafter).
Other than the most committed of language obsessives, there can’t be anyone in Quebec — or anywhere else in the world — who would pick a flight based on the crew’s linguistic competencies.
(Meanwhile there’s Europe, which proves how completely unnecessary all this is. Europe proves that “small” languages — indeed, much smaller and less globally useful languages than French — can survive and thrive when surrounded by “large” languages. By the logic of Quebec’s language debates, Flemish, Irish, Welsh, Basque and Catalan wouldn’t have been heard for hundreds of years. Yet there they are.)
Now it will be even more difficult to push back: Quebec’s hyperactive language hawks have a real-live bogeyman they can use to justify ever-more infringements upon minority language rights. That’s the most galling thing about it: The collateral damage.
Air Canada chief executive officer Michael Rousseau on Thursday apologized for remarks suggesting he did not need to speak French, Canada’s second language, even though this airline is the only one in Canada that is “officially” bilingual.
