While apologizing for having made “insensitive” remarks towards Francophones, the big boss of Air Canada, Michael Rousseau, failed Monday to reassure federal elected officials to whom he presented his company as being the more respectful of French.
“I apologize again here and I take responsibility for my words,” the leader dropped during a virtual testimony before the federal committee on official languages, Monday, in Ottawa.
Mr. Rousseau created controversy in November, on the sidelines of a speech delivered in English to the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal. He had notably affirmed when he left to have “always been able to live in Montreal without speaking French”. He now laments the impact the whole affair has had “on [ses] employees, who serve customers every day in both official languages”.
Even though he now claims to take French lessons every day – he said in the fall of 2021 that his schedule was too busy for him to afford it – the Montrealer only managed to read a few sentences in this language during the meeting, not without laborious effort. He then responded exclusively in English to questions from federal elected officials.
“Not only his declaration [d’ouverture] is not half in French, as it should be, but none of his answers” either, complained to him the deputy Niki Ashton, of the New Democratic Party, dissatisfied with the progress made.
French Champion
According to the vision of the CEO, French is respected within Air Canada. The language is already spoken by almost half of the employees, he estimates, but an internal language program would also allow everyone to learn a second language. Only the difficulty of finding bilingual people to hire would hamper his efforts.
“Air Canada is the champion of complaints to the Commissioner of Official Languages. Do you find that a believable answer? said Bloc Québécois MP Mario Beaulieu in front of the head of the country’s main airline.
Not only his statement [d’ouverture] is not half in French, as she should be, but none of her answers [non plus]
A vice-president of the company, David Rheault, praised the 130,000 hours of French lessons given by Air Canada to its 10,000 employees. He later clarified to Conservative MP Jacques Gourde that this number actually represented the total hours given since 2015, or less than two hours per year per employee on average, calculated the Quebec elected official.
“There is none, language training at Air Canada! I’m really flabbergasted! […] It’s a lottery [suivre] language courses at Air Canada! launched Mr. Gourde, unleashed, before taking a short break to recover from his emotions.
More bite to the law
Michael Rousseau welcomes the fact that competing airlines are being imposed bilingualism obligations by the latest version of the Official Languages Act, presented by the Trudeau government in March. He also expressed regret that this same bill could also expose his company to fines of $25,000. “We believe in a culture of continuous improvement and not in penalties,” explained the senior executive.
Air Canada is periodically slapped on the knuckles by Canada’s Commissioner of Official Languages, who does not currently have the power to impose financial penalties. Even though Air Canada’s head office is in Montreal, only 4 of the 12 members of the board of directors can understand or speak French, admitted Michael Rousseau on Monday.