Air Canada is not the Quebecois airline its critics take it to be — if the CEO’s French isn’t good enough, it might be time to move

From the Toronto Star – link to source story

By David Olive, Star Business Columnist | Sat., Nov. 13, 2021

Air France-KLM’s Canadian CEO Benjamin Smith and Air France CEO Anne Rigail board the airline’s first Airbus A220-300 in Roissy, France on Sept. 29, 2021. Smith doesn’t speak French but he’s getting things done at the Paris head office, writes David Olive.  ERIC PIERMONT / AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

How odd that any group of people in this country is subjected to linguistic intolerance and there is no outrage.

The governments of Canada and of Quebec have excoriated Michael Rousseau, the CEO of Air Canada, for a Montreal speech he gave on Nov. 3 almost entirely in English.

For that faux pas, Rousseau has been accused by some of Canada’s highest-ranking politicians in Ottawa and Quebec City of an “unacceptable,” contemptuous regard for Quebec’s French-language majority.

The CEO of SNC-Lavalin Group Inc., also headquartered in Montreal, got the message. On Thursday, Ian Edwards cancelled a largely English-language speech he planned to give soon at the Canadian Club of Montreal.

Don’t be surprised if similar slanders are directed at the CEOs of CGI Inc., Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc., and Laurentian Bank of Canada.

They too are anglophones, already targeted for abuse by some Quebecois nationalists for their French-language deficiencies. And they now know better than to publicly share observations about their companies and the Canadian and global economies.

Quebec already prohibits public servants from wearing religious symbols, though there have been no reports of anyone stripped of a crucifix in majority-Catholic Quebec.

The province’s nationalist government is preparing stricter language laws to prohibit employers from seeking to hire workers with knowledge of languages other than French unless they can prove the absolute necessity of that qualification.

How many high-calibre business executives will pass on a career in a Quebec flirting with linguistic-ghetto status, where the state’s linguistic micromanagement of business extends to recruitment practices?

And when is a Quebec head office an absolute necessity?

Except for the head of Laurentian Bank, each of the CEOs on the list above runs an enterprise that does most of its business outside of Quebec. To that list can be added BCE Inc., CAE Inc., Dollarama Inc., Canadian National Railway Co., and Saputo Inc.

Their Montreal head offices often owe more to historical legacy than 21st-century convenience, though in Air Canada’s case, the airline is required by 1988 federal legislation to maintain its headquarters in Quebec. That concession to Quebec nationalists put politics ahead of sound business practices. It can also be revoked by a future Parliament.

Continued business commitment to Montreal is not assured.

Sun Life Financial Inc. set a worrisome example in 1978, moving its headquarters from Montreal to Toronto two years after Quebec elected its first separatist government. It did so without losing its Quebec clientele.

Whether based in Montreal or Frankfurt, CAE would also maintain its client roster. It is, after all, one of the world’s very few makers of flight simulators.

The current re-evaluation of Montreal’s suitability as a head-office location was triggered by Rousseau’s ill-fated speech to the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal.

Rousseau, 61, a Cornwall, Ont. native, is Air Canada’s first Canadian-born CEO in 22 years.

In his 14 years at Air Canada, as its chief financial officer until he became CEO in February, Rousseau steered the airline through the Great Recession to successive years of record profits, in partnership with then-CEO Calin Rovinescu.

And the massive cash reserves Rousseau built at the airline enabled it to enter the pandemic with one of the strongest balance sheets of any airline its size in the global industry. Air Canada shared in the emergency government assistance provided to most businesses during the pandemic — the surprise is that the $6.8 billion in fully refundable federal loans for Air Canada announced in April amounts to just 25 per cent of the airline’s carefully managed liquidity.

And Air Canada hasn’t touched that money — or “insurance,” as Rousseau calls it — and likely won’t have to, apart from a slice used to provide cash refunds rather than vouchers to customers whose flights were cancelled by the pandemic.

As irony would have it, Rousseau’s Nov. 3 speech was something of a love letter to Montreal. After all, Rousseau has spent the best years of his career in that great city.

In praising Air Canada’s large Montreal workforce and supplier contingent, Rousseau made the airline and Montreal seem to be one and the same.

That isn’t the case. Only about 30 per cent of Air Canada’s total operating expenses of almost $13 billion in 2019 were spent in Quebec. The airline’s biggest hub is Toronto, not Montreal.

Asked by a reporter after his speech why despite 14 years of living in Quebec his French proficiency is lacking, Rousseau fatefully said, “I’ve been able to live in Montreal without speaking French, and I think that’s a testament to the city.”

Many Quebecois felt as though someone had just stuck a pin in their eye. Rousseau’s poorly worded comment — suggesting that he is proud of his unilingual status when in fact he is adept at conversational French — recalled the generations of Quebecois humiliation prior to the achievement of maître chez nous.

Within 24 hours, Rousseau had expressed his regret over the comment in what stands as model of a thoughtful, genuine apology. He also pledged to improve his French.

But the apology was rejected by, among others, the Quebec premier, the federal finance minister, and the Canadian prime minister, who appointed as our latest governor-general a woman who is not fluent in French.

The allegations against Rousseau include that he is “not worthy of his duties.” The sole NDP MP from Quebec has called for his resignation.

Here are some points of order for those who wish to maintain the vitality of “Quebec Inc.”

• Montreal has cultivated an image as a community of francophones, anglophones, and allophones, each with equal status. Occasionally, as now, that image is revealed as a myth.

• Air Canada is not the Quebecois airline many of its language critics take it to be, mistaking its head-office location for its nationality.

• Business hates uncertainty, and sudden public floggings of competent CEOs to score cheap political points are beyond the pale.

• Corporate CEOs are hired to manage commercial enterprises. They are no more suited to ethnic nation-building than critics in this controversy are at planning air routes to Cairo and Reykjavik — destinations a revitalized Air Canada will soon add to its network.

• The international language of business is English.

• The international language of civil aviation is English. In 2018, Air France-KLM SA appointed a Canadian, Benjamin Smith, as CEO of the combined flagship airlines of France and the Netherlands. Smith is fluent in neither French nor Dutch.

Smith settled his Paris-based airline’s crippling union disputes and restored its profit margins. And now, like Rousseau, he is managing his airline’s pandemic recovery.

Parisians are satisfied with their airline turnaround CEO.

Paris is a sophisticated place.

So is Montreal, when an opportunistic political class knows its place.

Be well and keep safe.