Under pressure for several days, the Canadian National says that a “rigorous” process is underway to find a French-speaking director who will sit on its board of directors.
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“We intend to appoint this person in the coming months. CN, whose head office has been located in Montreal for more than 100 years, and its Board of Directors respect the rich history of the company in Quebec, where the official language is French, and take great pride in it”, underlined the president. of the board, Robert Pace, in a press release.
This announcement could alleviate some of the controversy surrounding CN, which has just experienced a semana horribilis.
Last Thursday, La Presse revealed that the railway company had decided to dismiss the candidacies of French-speaking administrators from its board, ignoring the warnings of the CAQ government and the linguistic crisis created by the words of the Air Canada leader, Michael Rousseau, last fall.
The decision was denounced from all sides; Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he was “blown away”, while his counterpart in Quebec, François Legault, described the situation as “unacceptable”.
Departures of Francophones
Tuesday was the first meeting of the board of directors since the resignation of former Premier Jean Charest. The latter had been appointed last January, but he gave up his post in order to embark on the race for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada.
Mr. Charest would have been the only francophone on the board of directors of the railway company.
Previously, former CN executive Jean-Jacques Ruest and Julie Godin, executive at CGI, were the only two French speakers to sit on the board. Mr. Ruest left in recent weeks, Ms. Godin, last fall.
Like Air Canada, CN is also subject to the Official Languages Act, which has just been modernized by Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor.