Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau to retire later this year following language controversy

Air ‌Canada president and CEO Michael ​Rousseau will retire ​sometime in the fall after nearly ⁠two ⁠decades ‌with the airline, it said on Monday, a week after he made headlines by issuing an English-only message of condolence following the deadly crash of Flight 8646 in New York.

“Mr. Rousseau has reached a natural retirement age. His decision is consistent with the Board’s longstanding focus on CEO executive succession planning,” a process that has been underway for more than two years internally, an airline spokesperson told CBC News in a statement.

In an internal note to employees obtained by Radio-Canada, Rousseau said he was proud to have worn the airline’s emblem over his heart, but that time had come for him to retire. He will lead the company and serve on its board of directors until the end of the third quarter, he said.

Air Canada Flight 8646 departed from Montreal and collided with a fire truck upon landing at LaGuardia airport on March 22, killing two pilots — first officer Mackenzie Gunther and Capt. Antoine Forest — and injuring dozens of others.

Rousseau expressed condolences for the victims’ families in a video the next day. But he was quickly condemned for delivering the subtitled message almost entirely in English (aside from beginning with “bonjour” and ending with “merci”).

One of the pilots, Forest, was a francophone from Coteau-du-Lac, Que. Air Canada itself is headquartered in Montreal and the company’s own policy requires employees to be able to communicate in both of Canada’s official languages.

CEO’s lack of French sparked debate

Politicians of all stripes at both the federal and provincial level quickly weighed in.

Prime Minister Mark Carney said Rousseau’s message showed “a lack of judgment” and “compassion,” while Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet said it demonstrated a “sad and gross lack of respect” for Forest’s family. Quebec Premier François Legault called for Rousseau’s resignation.

Meanwhile, former Alberta premier Jason Kenney was among those who defended Rousseau, saying the executive’s time would be better spent on safety and reliability of services than language training.

Rousseau followed up with an apology on Thursday, saying he was “deeply saddened” that his “inability to speak French” had distracted from the mourning families’ grief. He added that, despite many years of lessons, he is still unable to “adequately” express himself in French — an apology that many said missed the mark.

By the end of the week, Rousseau had been summoned to Ottawa for an appearance in front of the Official Languages ​​Committee; Quebec’s National Assembly introduced a motion calling for his resignation; and the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages had received nearly 2,200 complaints about his remarks.

It wasn’t the first time that Rousseau came under fire for not speaking French.

Back in 2021, the executive delivered a speech almost entirely in English to a business crowd in Montreal. When pressed on the speech by the Quebec media, Rousseau struggled to answer in French and said he had lived in Montreal for 14 years without having to speak the language.

At the time, then-deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland wrote a letter to Air Canada’s board urging them that Rousseau should improve his French-language skills, and that his knowledge of French be included as part of his annual performance review.

John Gradek, a lecturer and co-ordinator of the aviation management program at McGill University, said he wasn’t surprised to hear that Rousseau was retiring — and that the company’s criteria for its next CEO will almost certainly include the ability to speak French.

That the prime minister and transport minister weighed in on the remarks “was the straw that broke the camel’s back on this one, even though [Rousseau] basically said on Thursday that he’s not leaving. Well, he’s done,” said Gradek.

As for the timing of the announcement, “I think it was a question of when Mr. Rousseau was going to leave, and the political pressure put on Air Canada both provincially as well as federally was really something that pushed him to make a decision fairly quickly.”