This past week highlighted the sort of emotional ambivalence around language issues that has become all too familiar to many English-speaking Quebecers.

The moment I saw Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau delivering a unilingual condolence video message, after the LaGuardia tragedy that killed two pilots, I groaned — because I (so obviously) knew what was about to unfold.

The cognitive dissonance of understanding the outrage that was to come, while also dreading the crisis — and pre-resenting how anglo Quebecers would be deemed guilty by association — is a recurring, familiar state for many of us.

Rousseau has been in Quebecers’ bad books since delivering an English-only address five years ago to the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal. Despite a promise to learn French, he clearly didn’t. Francophones resent him for that failure. Anglophones resent him for giving the rest of us (who’ve worked hard to learn French) a bad rep.

At times like these, I’m often asked by out-of-province family and friends to explain Quebec’s unique cultural nuances. I’ve........

© Montreal Gazette