Air Canada CEO Out After Crash — For Not Offering Condolences in Second Language

In the wake of a major airline crash, it’s not unusual for the carrier’s CEO to resign, especially if there were signs that corporate culture may have played a hand in it.

In the case of Air Canada Express Flight 8646, that’s not the case. In fact, it’s pretty much clear at this point that the Air Canada jet had no role in the accident and that some concatenation of events led to a fire truck given clearance to cross a runway as the jet was landing.

Rather, Michael Rousseau is out of a job because he didn’t offer an apology in French as well as English.

The March 22 crash killed both the captain and first officer on board the Bombardier CRJ900, although all 72 passengers and two other crew members survived the flight from Montreal to New York’s LaGuardia Airport.

And while Rousseau put out a four-minute video apology, saying he had the “deepest sorrow for everyone affected,” the Financial Times reported that wasn’t what got people upset.

Instead, it was the fact that the only French words he used were “bonjour” and “merci.”

“Air Canada, the country’s largest airline, is based in majority French-speaking Quebec,” the Financial Times noted.

“Canada is officially a bilingual nation and his message sparked condemnation from senior political leaders, while also stirring longstanding tensions that led Quebec to attempt to become an independent state via referendums in 1980 and 1995.”

And Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney weighed in, because of course he did, and in the worst way possible.

“Companies like Air Canada particularly have a responsibility to always communicate in both official languages regardless of the situation,” he said, according to The Associated Press.

“I’m very disappointed in, as others are, rightly so, in this unilingual message of the CEO of Air Canada, it doesn’t matter the circumstances, but particularly in these circumstances — a lack of judgment and lack of compassion.”

Meanwhile, the leader of the separatist-friendly Bloc Québécois, Yves-François Blanchet, called it a “sad and gross lack of respect for the loved ones and family” and said Rousseau should step down.

So, he did:

Air Canada CEO to step down over failure to speak French https://t.co/r8StMENF0H

— Financial Times (@FT) March 30, 2026

Rousseau, who said that “despite many lessons over several years, unfortunately, I am still unable to express myself adequately in French,” will be leaving the company in September, the airline announced Monday.

The carrier added that it would “consider a number of performance criteria in assessing candidates including the ability to communicate in French.”

Now, did his lack of proficiency in French affect his ability to run the company? Not in the least. Canada, as you heard Prime Minister Carney say, is a bilingual country. The important thing should be his ability to run an airline. And he ran an airline whose pilots arguably saved lives — passengers told the AP that their quick braking action likely made the accident less catastrophic than it would have been — in the collision at LaGuardia.

But because he couldn’t speak a minority language that the government keeps because of identity politics, he’ll be replaced by someone who knows better French but may not know better airline management. Hope that makes you feel safer, Air Canada fliers!

And despite the fact that this has no operational impact whatsoever, a McGill University political science professor still said this was the right thing to do.

“Language is a highly political issue in Canada and the Air Canada leadership has been aware of that for a very long time,” Daniel Béland told the AP.

“The fact that Rousseau had promised to learn French back in 2021 but failed to deliver amidst his sky-high level of compensation did not help him in the court of public opinion.”

If you think this won’t come here, think again. Remember, the American left has been pandering to Hispanics by trying to make Spanish a de facto second official language down here. When it comes to CEOs 10 years down the line, will it be the most qualified individual, or the person who can properly conjugate both ser and estar in all of their irregular tenses?

Because when that day comes, if you think air travel is bad in America now, let me tell you: You ain’t visto nothing yet. This is the end of the primrose path identitarian ideologies lead down. It never gets better. It never does. Only worse.

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.

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