Originally Posted by yulred

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.