Originally Posted by
Stranger
Regardless of the merits of the issue proper, at the very least he showed incredibily poor judgement. Did he never figure out how sensitive this issue can be?
I would go as far as having doubts as to his suitability for his job.
We all know it's not necessarily easy. But people do. ( I learned one totally new additional language at 25, and although I had some knowledge of English back from high school I really started to live in English in my late thirties.)
As I mentioned above, I am amazed at how well Ben Smith is doing, accentwise. Accentwise being the truly hard part of the issue for adults.
In fairness, his job is to run an airline. He was selected solely on the basis of his ability to do that, not on his thoughts on issues that are utterly irrelevant to running an airline. This language issue is a political issue; he is not a politician or a public figure. I don’t think his responses are a reflection of his unsuitability for running AC.
As “sensitive” as this issue is, it’s a reality that Canada has two official languages, and he spoke in one of them. Now, if he’d spoken in, say, Icelandic, it would warrant criticism, but the fact is that he didn’t - he spoke in an official language of Canada, in Canada. If that’s causing heartburn for anyone, that’s their problem, not his.
At some point, we need to be clear about what kind of people we want occupying certain roles: the best candidate, or the best bilingual candidate. I don’t know about y’all but if I’m going in for a surgery or getting onto an airplane, my mind is pretty clear: I want the best surgeon or pilot at the helm, not the best bilingual one. The bilingual bit has no bearing.
As for people leaving AC over this…who’re they going to fly instead? TS?