Originally Posted by
yulred
I’ll bite: how would you respond to “how have you managed to live in Montreal for 14 years without learning French?”
There is IMHO no answer that would have not caused offence.
His response - that it was a testament to Montreal that an Anglo can live here without speaking French - basically amounted to calling it a global metropolitan city, which was the only avenue left open to him.
Not that it needs to be said, but Montreal’s global status is directly attributable to its ability to accommodate transitory anglos from the world over for years on end.
Perhaps Rousseau should invest in a “Just Visiting” t-shirt :P. Might not help with those calling for his resignation though.
We really are not that far apart and I agree wholeheartedly with much of what you and others here say (this is why this will blow over), it really was the tone in which it was said that struck a nerve. He was even previously warned by Legault's cabinet to be careful that day so not like AC PR did not have time to prepare a much better sound bite to a question they knew would be asked. It came across as "I live in Westmount and never leave, I don't get this French thing here in Montreal". Yes, Montreal caters to 'world-class' workers in global industries that do not need to learn french but they ones that stay here seem to appreciate that the french language does give Montreal a je-ne-sais-quoi that is different than the anglo cities on the continent. It is this nuance that he singularly failed to provide for in his tone deaf answer.
"I don't feel comfortable expressing myself in public in French" would have been the best answer to give, the radical PQ nutjobs would have still screeched about it but the broader francophone population (especially in Montreal) would not have reacted as strongly than in this case.
As I said, I was intimately involved in the asinine language battles of the 70s (fédéraliste vs séparatiste), it impacted my life in very personal and negative ways (my father killed himself in 1978 burned out by the politics when I was 8 years old) so I am very aware of the real costs of these populist battles, unlike a lot of the media commenters that have no skin in the game except keeping their names in the news. No one wins from these battles but people in positions of leadership such as the CEO of a bilingual nations airline should have more common sense expected from them than this person.