Air Canada to review French policies as CEO begins private training

MONTREAL – It’s back to school for the CEO of Air Canada.

The country’s largest airline said chief executive Michael Rousseau had started French lessons just days after public remarks sparked an uproar over his inability to speak the common language of Quebec.

In a letter to Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, Air Canada President Vagn Sorensen said Rousseau had now started what the chairman of the board called “intensive French learning”.

“It is not only a personal commitment on his part, but an element that will be an integral part of his performance evaluation,” Sorensen wrote in French.

Rousseau also indicated in a letter – in French – to employees that he had started lessons with a private tutor.

Following a speech almost entirely in English at the Montreal Chamber of Commerce last Wednesday, the CEO told reporters he did not need to learn French to get by in Montreal, remarks that have triggered an immediate and widespread reaction and for which he apologized the next day.

He reiterated his apologies to the 27,000 Air Canada employees on Tuesday, saying his words should have shown “more sensitivity about the importance of speaking French in Quebec” and that they do not reflect his values.

He also announced that he had given the company’s head of commercial affairs and its head of human resources a “mandate to review and strengthen” its official languages ​​practices.

On Monday, Freeland asked Air Canada’s board of directors to make communication in French an “important criterion” for senior management and to incorporate the improvement of Rousseau’s French skills into its annual assessment.

In his response, the president said he accepts Freeland’s recommendations, agreeing to review French proficiency requirements for a wider range of managerial positions and assess company policies regarding the use of the French at the next meeting of the governance committee of the board of directors.

Executive headhunter Roger Duguay says stricter French-language standards in large Quebec companies would not significantly reduce their slate of candidates or hurt performance.

“It would have almost no effect on the pool of candidates who go there or refuse to come forward if we asked them:” So, would you mind coming to take some French lessons, improve it and show you care? ‘Duguay, a managing partner at Boyden Canada, said in an interview.

“They all want to speak a little bit of the local language. “

Requiring top management to be proficient in French – but not fluent – is an achievable threshold for large companies headquartered in the Montreal area, he said. But for large companies with an international presence, English is the global language of business.

“If you’re the CEO of Royal Bank, you couldn’t just speak a few words of English. Of course not, “he said.” And we should never expect it to be both ways in a symmetrical direction. “

As a former federal Crown corporation, Air Canada is subject to the Official Languages ​​Act, which requires it to provide services in French for routes that include airports in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick. -Brunswick. But there is no precise rule that the CEO is bilingual.

However, last June, the Liberal government tabled legislation to guarantee the right to be served and to work in French in federally regulated businesses in Quebec, as well as in predominantly French-speaking regions.

Bill 32 died on the Order Paper when the election was called in August, but the government has pledged to reintroduce a law strengthening the protection of French in the first 100 days.

A demonstration is scheduled for next Saturday in front of Air Canada’s head office near Montreal airport.

“We are going to Air Canada to remind them that they have not respected their own 2020-2023 linguistic action plan,” said Marie-Anne Alepin, president of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal, in a statement. interview in French.

The plan states that Air Canada is “proud to offer services in both official languages ​​and to show real leadership among large Canadian companies in the promotion of bilingualism”.

Nita Chhinzer, associate professor of human resources management at the University of Guelph, said learning a new language can seem intimidating for unilingual adults, but workers, from executives to factory workers, face the challenge on a daily basis. .

“The beauty is that the language can be learned. There are many tools or systems to train you in languages, which is very useful for the more current conversation about diversity, inclusion and equity, ”she said in a telephone interview.

Rousseau is not the only CEO of a large Quebec company who speaks little or no French.

Rania Llewellyn, who joined Banque Laurentienne Groupe Financier in October 2020, is multilingual but did not speak French when she arrived.

However, she reached out to employees at the 175-year-old company in French for video messages and started working with a private tutor, spokeswoman Merick Seguin said.

Brian Hannasch, raised in Iowa, CEO of Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. in Quebec, spoke only English when he joined the company in 2001 and when he was appointed CEO in 2014 , although he is committed to learning French.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on November 9, 2021.

Companies in this story: (TSX: AC, TSX: RY)

– With files from Lia Levesque