We now know that Air Canada had been warned of the problems, if not the outcry, over a speech given only in English in Montreal by its president and CEO, Michael Rousseau. And twice rather than once: both the Commissioner of Official Languages, Raymond Théberge, and the cabinet of François Legault issued alarm signals at the beginning of the week.
Since it is impossible to believe that Michael Rousseau was not made aware, one can only assume that he himself made the decision to ignore these warnings. This shows to what extent Air Canada does not respect the Official Languages Act, to which it is subject.
This law requires it to simultaneously broadcast all of its corporate communications in English and French and to ensure that the information transmitted to the public is of equal quality in both languages. At the time of writing, the Commissioner had received more than 1,000 complaints relating to this unilingual communication. He is expected to slap Air Canada on the fingers, but that is all he can do, scold him, since he has no ordering power. This is in particular what the former Minister of Official Languages, Mélanie Joly, wanted to correct with the revision of the law on which she was planking. Ottawa had also resigned itself to imposing on companies incorporated under the federal regime obligations similar to those of Bill 101 instead of the CAQ government taking care of them.
Air Canada has a long tradition of breaches of the Official Languages Act, whether in relation to its customer service or the language of work.
To the chagrin of the Trudeau government, the unilingual Michael Rousseau comes to give ammunition to the Legault government which, as enacted by Bill 96, intends to subject companies incorporated under the federal regime to the Charter of the French language and to the supervision of the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF). Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette jumped at the opportunity to firmly reiterate his determination to move forward while ignoring Ottawa’s objections.
This affair, because it has become one, has several dimensions. While affirming that he had lived 14 years in the Montreal area without having had to speak French, Michael Rousseau said that it was to the credit of the metropolis. He recalls a reality that the anglicization of Montreal only reinforces: that it is possible to live and work there without speaking French. It is quite ironic to learn at the same time that Immigration Canada wants to hire unilingual anglophones at its Montreal offices because it supposedly cannot find enough bilingual candidates, which Radio-Canada reports. Even the federal government is getting involved in providing work for unilingual anglophones in Montreal. Is this a sign that knowledge of French among young Anglophones is on the decline and that Montreal needs to become bilingual to accommodate them, as mayoral candidate Balarama Holness wishes? While it is true that the Ontarian Rousseau is not representative of English-speaking Montrealers, who say they are overwhelmingly bilingual, it would be good to look at their actual level of proficiency in French and to know to what extent they use their second language.
Another dimension of the affair: Michael Rousseau is the incarnation of the bankruptcy of the language policy introduced by Pierre Elliott Trudeau at the end of the 1960s, this dream which wanted Francophones to be able to maintain themselves everywhere in Canada, but which denied the assimilation force of English. The mother tongue of the president of Air Canada is French, but he does not speak it and his father comes from a line of French Canadians who have been assimilated for several generations.
In April 2021, two months after Michael Rousseau assumed the presidency of Air Canada, he who was in charge of its finances, the company obtained $ 6 billion in assistance from the federal government. The unilingual person is at the head of a company which drinks from the udders of the state, which enjoys a virtual monopoly to provide a public service and which must in principle comply with an official languages law. Obviously, this multimillionaire president lives in his ivory tower and has only a vague idea of the society around him. It is clear that Michael Rousseau has reached his level of incompetence and that he is unfit to lead Air Canada. The federal government, which is now a major shareholder in the carrier, must see to it and convince Air Canada’s board of directors to correct the mistake it made by appointing a leader without judgment and without any political sensitivity.