I had never met Michael Rousseau, new CEO of Air Canada, before hearing him deliver a speech entirely in English at the forum of the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal, Wednesday noon. An event that blew up social networks because of the obvious lack of sensitivity of the CEO, who added during a press briefing by affirming that he had lived very well for 14 years in Montreal without speaking French.
Michael Rousseau, former president of the very Toronto-based Hudson’s Bay Company, joined Air Canada in 2007 as Chief Financial Officer, a position he held until April 2021. succeeded Calin Rovinescu as CEO of the airline.
When he was appointed, I requested an interview with the new CEO, but my request was declined, explaining to me that Mr. Rousseau first wanted to cut his teeth in his new position.
A month ago, I was offered to meet Michael Rousseau, on the sidelines of a speech he was going to give at the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal. It was Wednesday noon.
In the wake of a lively press scrum that lasted a few minutes with a dozen journalists, I followed Michael Rousseau in an adjoining room at the Palais des congrès to conduct the interview, requested six months earlier.
How do you deal with all this pressure surrounding your inability to express yourself in French? Even Prime Minister François Legault finds it unacceptable that a CEO whose head office is in Montreal does not speak French.
Until today, it was not an issue. There are people who want to make it an issue, it is their business. I am not an anti-francophone. My wife is French-speaking, my mother is French-speaking, I live in Saint-Lambert in a predominantly French-speaking environment. I just didn’t have time to learn it.
Michael Rousseau, CEO of Air Canada
“On my mother’s side, all my ancestors are French-speaking, but unfortunately, on my father’s side, French has been lost for three generations. Of course I would like to speak it.
“I would rather people focus their attention on Air Canada than on me. We have a senior management team where all the people are bilingual, except me. Air Canada has a deep commitment to French, ”defended the CEO.
Yet, year after year, Air Canada has been dragging a heavy toll of complaints from the Commissioner of Official Languages for decades regarding non-respect for French in its daily activities. How do you explain it?
“When we put them into perspective on the basis of the number of passengers we carry each year, the number of complaints is very low. We spend tens of millions a year to train our flight attendants and crews in both languages.
“We have become an air carrier of such stature that we cannot hire as many francophone agents as we would like. We continually invest to meet the needs of our customers, ”retorts Michael Rousseau.
The language deficiencies of the CEO of Air Canada are indeed deplorable when we know that the foundations of the air carrier are solidly established in Montreal, and they are all the more surprising as the CEO has bathed all his life in an environment that should have him allow them to acquire skills, from their childhood with their mother and after their marriage to a “native” Quebecer.
However, many observers have short memories. For years and more recently, Air Canada has been managed by unilingual English speakers, notably Robert Milton from 1999 to 2004, American CEO of Air Canada and subsequently of the holding company ACE, owner of the airline from 2004 to 2008, and Marty Brewer, another American who served as CEO of Air Canada from 2004 to 2009.
It is the passage of Calin Rovinescu at the top management of Air Canada, from 2009 to 2021, which made us believe that this Montreal company had found its French-speaking base at the time of Pierre Jeanniot, who directed it from 1984 to 1990. Originally Romanian and perfectly bilingual, Calin Rovinescu was Michael Rousseau’s boss and mentor for 12 years.
Like other Quebec multinationals who have also appointed unilingual Anglophones as CEOs, whether Brian Hannasch at Couche-Tard, George Schindler at CGI or Ian Edward at SNC-Lavalin, Air Canada has judged that usage of French was no longer a fundamental identity criterion to ensure the growth of its business.
Unlike CGI and Couche-Tard, where the controlling shareholders Serge Godin and Alain Bouchard still occupy the positions of executive chairman of the board, Air Canada has only one Montreal home to embody its much more Canadian identity … Quebecois, it should be remembered.