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The head of Canada’s largest airline is stepping down after his video tribute to pilots killed in a fatal collision became a public relations nightmare for Air Canada, prompting a wave of mockery and indignation at him from both the public and politicians for not speaking French.
Air Canada’s CEO, Michael Rousseau, will retire by the end of the third quarter of 2026, the company said on Monday. He will continue to lead the company and serve on the board of directors until that time, the carrier said.
Last week, an Air Canada Jazz flight landed at LaGuardia airport in New York and then collided with a fire truck on the runway, killing its two pilots, Antoine Forest and Mackenzie Gunther. The pair were praised by aviation experts for taking actions that saved passengers’ lives.
In response to the tragedy, the company posted a four-minute condolence video in which Rousseau spoke only two French words – bonjour and merci.
Canada’s largest airline is headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, where French is both widely spoken and the official language. Forest, the 30-year-old pilot, was francophone, as were a number of passengers onboard the flight.
Under Canada’s Official Languages Act, which enshrines French as one of the country’s two official languages, the airline is required to provide services in both English and French. Even the company’s own policy requires all communications with the public to be in both languages.
Soon after, the prime minister, Mark Carney, said he was “extremely disappointed” by Rousseau’s unilingual message, which showed a “lack of compassion” towards the victims of the crash.
Days later, Rousseau issued a statement apologizing for the way in which his “inability to speak French” had “diverted attention from the profound grief of the families” and instead placed a sharp focus on his language skills.
“Despite many lessons over several years, unfortunately, I am still unable to express myself adequately in French,” he said. “I sincerely apologize for this, but I am continuing my efforts to improve.”
Both his wife and mother speak French, and in 2021 Rousseau came under fire for giving a high-profile speech in Quebec only in English. He responded to reporters at the time that he had been living in Montreal for 14 years and called it a “testament to the city” that he didn’t need to learn French. He also said at the time that his schedule did not allow him time to take French courses, but promised to do so, and had reportedly spent 300 hours studying the language before his video statement last week where he used only two words of it.
By 27 March, the office of the commissioner of official languages said it had received more than 2,000 complaints. In Quebec, where politicians have taken legislative steps to protect a language they fear is under threat by anglophones, lawmakers overwhelmingly passed a motion calling for Rousseau to step down.
The executive’s inability to string together even a handful of rehearsed sentences in French also prompted disbelief online.
“The Air Canada CEO has lived in Montréal for decades, and he knows less French than a literal POLAR BEAR,” posted one user, referring to a bear that was recently moved from a zoo in Quebec to a facility in Calgary, where staff said a French-speaking trainer had accompanied the bear to help it adjust to his new settings.
