After stirring a French language controversy, Air Canada’s CEO is retiring
Kids, pay attention in French class
Less than a week after causing a national controversy over bilingualism, the head of Air Canada has decided to retire.
The airline’s CEO, Michael Rousseau, landed in hot water last week after releasing a four-minute video expressing his condolences for those affected by a plane crash the week prior, in which an Air Canada flight collided with a fire truck at LaGuardia Airport in New York. Two pilots were killed, and scores of passengers were sent to the hospital.
Many of those on the plane—including one of the pilots killed, Antoine Forest—were French-speaking Canadians, but in the video Rousseau posted, only two of his words were in the language: bonjour to start and merci to end. That generated a storm of controversy, and today the airline announced that Rousseau will retire by this fall.
Related: The Air Canada pilots who were killed at LaGuardia Airport have been identified
Rousseau posted the video on March 23, and the backlash was swift. The federal languages watchdog received more than 1,800 complaints about it, and editorials in Quebec and national media expressed deep offence. All it would have taken, said one in the Montreal Gazette, was a simple statement in French read off a page. Prime Minister Mark Carney said Rousseau’s moves “lacked compassion,” and politicians in Quebec quickly passed a motion calling for the CEO to resign. Parliament, meanwhile, summoned him to appear before a committee for questioning by May 1.
Initially, Air Canada stood firm: on March 25, a spokesperson said Rousseau wasn’t going anywhere and that it was “important he’s at the helm” in the aftermath of the tragedy, reports the Globe and Mail. The next day, the company released a statement from Rousseau, in both languages, where he apologized for his poor grasp of the language. “Despite many lessons over several years, unfortunately, I am still unable to express myself adequately in French,” he wrote.
Related: What we know about the fatal Air Canada plane crash at LaGuardia Airport
Rousseau had been dodging complaints about his lack of French for as long as he’d been at the helm. Air Canada has to obey the same bilingual rules as the federal public service, a quirk of its heritage as a former Crown corporation. Shortly after being made CEO in 2021, Rousseau was asked why he hadn’t learned the language despite 14 years in Montreal. He said he’d managed fine without it—a faux pas that earned him a rebuke from then–prime minister Justin Trudeau. In 2024, having made little progress in his lessons, he told a Parliament committee that learning French was “difficult” at his age, according to the Globe.
Quebec has had enough of Rousseau, and now Rousseau seems to be done with Air Canada. In the statement announcing his plans to retire, the airline said it was engaged in an “extensive global search” for candidates.
Anthony Milton is a freelance journalist based in Toronto specializing in long-form magazine writing. He previously worked as an assistant editor at Toronto Life, where he launched the Front Row newsletter. He regularly contributes all sorts of stories to the magazine, including deep dives on sports, business and housing as well as short-form commentary on our ever-changing city, from its obsession with cherry blossoms to its maddening NIMBYism. His work has also appeared in Maclean’s, Ricochet, TVO, the Trillium and more.
