Ousted Air Canada CEO failed to speak French—and forgot the basics of crisis leadership

In today’s CEO Daily: Diane Brady on the downfall of Air Canada’s English-speaking CEO

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Bonjour. After five years as CEO of Air Canada, Michael Rousseau announced his retirement from the Montreal-based airline yesterday after being pilloried for speaking almost no French in a video statement about last week’s deadly crash at LaGuardia Airport. The mind boggles: Did Rousseau not know how to say something other than “hello” and “thank you” in both of Canada’s two official languages? Were others unaware? What’s clear is that this backlash is about more than linguistic ability. Some takeaways:

He didn’t even try. If ever there’s a time to add a few French sentences to the teleprompter, it’s when discussing the tragic death of a francophone employee, pilot Antoine Forest. (Pilot Mackenzie Gunther of Ontario also died.) And Rousseau had promised to learn French back in 2021 after facing a similar backlash. Five years and 300 hours of language classes later, this was the best he could do? No wonder critics questioned his empathy, commitment and, frankly, his ability to learn. As one CEO put it: “He brought this on himself.”

French is the official language of Quebec. My dad wanted to live in Montreal when we left Scotland, but the........

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