Canadian CEOs scramble to brush up on French after Air Canada PR blunder

The Air Canada incident cast a spotlight on how some top executives of prominent companies got away without speaking the language, driving calls for improving French.

A language furor rattling corporate Quebec has left some companies scrambling to improve the French-speaking skills of their C-suite executives to avoid the kind of public relations nightmare that engulfed Air Canada earlier this month.

Language remains a sensitive issue in Quebec, the only Canadian province whose sole official language is French and where the dominance of English in the 1970s sparked the rise of the separatist Parti Quebecois (PQ).

The Air Canada incident cast a spotlight on how some top executives of prominent companies got away without speaking the language, driving calls for improving French, and raising questions about Quebec’s ability to attract talent.

“There are a number of entities that have spoken to us about that consideration being heightened in light of these comments that have been put forth by Air Canada,” said Adam Dean, founding partner at Dean Executive Search over the need for French.

Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau caused an uproar with comments suggesting that he did not need to speak French, which along with English is one of Canada’s two official languages, even though the Montreal-based airline is officially bilingual. Rousseau later apologized and pledged to improve his French.

“It’s important that the presidents of Quebec companies speak French,” Quebec Premier François Legault said on Friday.

Air Canada, which took federal government aid during the pandemic, faced criticism from both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland.

The backlash could complicate the search for a new head of Montreal-headquartered Canadian National Railway Co, whose current CEO is bilingual but has hired uni-lingual English-executives in the past.