Originally Posted by yulred

Its true that he could have said he wasn’t comfortable expressing himself in French, but I would counsel against that if he doesn’t know any French (which i suspect is the case). There were gaffes to be sure, but again, I think it was unfair to pose those questions to him at a scrum about an aviation event. I may be wrong, but I think it’s fair to say that nobody would go after the non-QC based CEO of X bank or Y telco if they came to Montreal and gave a speech in English. Which suggests to me that he was being targeted. Makes it that much more challenging to navigate these kinds of minefields.

I’m reluctant to get into the broader political debate on the issue, but I equally feel that he’s become a scapegoat in a confrontation that he never sought a role in, which is fundamentally unfair.

It depends on what the role of the CEO is. If you want them running the business, get the candidate best suited for the job. If you want them to be the public face of the organization - the one you expect to navigate the political minefields of the day (and let’s be clear - there are many, many PR minefields these days, not just language-related ones) appoint the best candidate for that.

Investors currently seem to be focusing on the former more than the latter so, short of nationalizing the airline, the likelihood of bilingualism being a requirement is pretty low.