aznfreak007

yes, it's pretty black and white in the air canada public participation actMandatory provisions in articles of continuance

• 6 (1) The articles of continuance of the Corporation shall contain
  
  • (a) [Repealed, 2001, c. 35, s. 1]
    
  • (b) and (c) [Repealed, 2018, c. 10, s. 90]
    
  • (d) provisions requiring the Corporation to carry out or cause to be carried out aircraft maintenance activities, including maintenance of any type relating to airframes, engines, components, equipment or parts, in Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba; and
    
  • (e) provisions specifying that the head office of the Corporation is to be situated in the Montreal Urban Community.
    

24left

Further to the info in @aznfreak007's post above, I was amused at this bit in another article I was reading:

QUOTE:

"Air Canada is an objectively absurd creature. The Mulroney government privatized the operation in the 1980s not so much as one might go about trying to create a lean, efficient, popular company, but more in the way prime ministers go about building their cabinets: Everywhere important gets a cookie. Thus, under the Air Canada Public Participation Act , the former flag carrier is the only Canadian airline subject to the Official Languages Act. It is also the only Canadian airline obliged to maintain its head office in a certain jurisdiction (i.e., Montreal) or to conduct its maintenance activities in certain places (i.e., Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba — Winnipeg having been headquarters for the predecessor Trans-Canada Airlines and its maintenance hub thereafter)."

Full article
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/chr...e-even-weirder

Jagboi

Is "Head Office" defined anywhere in the Air Canada Public Participation Act? Does it only need to be the nominal mailing address for the corporation? Does it necessary mean that all the executive functions need to be in Montreal? I could see a scenario where there is simply a skeleton number of employees in "head office" to receive mail and all of the other functions of the company are located elsewhere. Or could the Board decide to dissolve the corporation and then start Air Canada (2021) Ltd. which would then not be subject to the Act?

yyztozag

Should he speak decent French after 14 years in Montreal? Yes, and frankly I’d feel pretty embarrassed if I wasn’t able to answer such basic questions in French. Does that impact his role in any way whatsoever? No, it doesn’t. It only impacts his personal life and has nothing to do with AC. He is not in a customer facing role. This is like getting mad at a YUL baggage handler for his lack of English comprehension. This reminds me of the Franco-Ontarien couple that IIRC sued AC for their exit signs/Pepsi cans/whatever. Speaking both languages would be ideal, but going off on someone for not being able to do so is zealoted and obsessive.

And for the idiots boycotting AC, who are they going to fly with? TS? Westjet, the Calgary-based airline that oh-so-perfectly represents their firm beliefs? Ridiculous.

NordsFan

Self-inflicted.

thenoflyzone

I suggest you look at the number of daily departures and the number of destinations served at each of those airports before making ignorant comments.

Yes, YYZ is very much in a league of its own, but thinking YUL isn't important to AC is pretty ignorant, especially considering all the new routes they've added there in the last 10-15 years, most of which are international. AC didn't add YUL-FCO/VCE/ATH/BCN/NCE/MRS/TLS/NRT/PVG/GRU/TLV/BOG/CMN/ALG/MXP/CAI/DEL/HNL in the last decade or so because of the ACPPA.

Had you said "Calgary isn't an important customer base for AC", then maybe you would have had a point.

yulred

This article is well worth reading, although I think we’re taking different things away from it:

- 1000 complaints to the official languages commission? While a nice, big number, its likely a meaningless stat. I somehow doubt he’s broken any law or rule, so it’s not clear what his offence is, and what they’re supposed to rule on. As far as I know, there is no rule that stops him (or anyone) from giving speeches entirely in English anywhere in QC, apart from the prevailing political sentiment.

- Think it’s a bit odd that the PM has weighed in on this. I’m not convinced that nationalizing this speech issue is a good idea. The last time this was in the national limelight (very recently), it provoked polar opposite responses from not one, but two demographics. For AC, on the other hand, it might not be too bad. It might make AC more popular with that growing LH/ULH segment across Canada. But broadly speaking, probably best if they’d kept this local.

- Lots of claims now that warnings were issued in advance. Makes it look like AC has taken a position on this debate. Alternatively, a bureaucratic kerfuffle that probably meant the warning didn’t make it to where it needed to. Which wouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s flown AC, but that’s beside the point. I still think he waded into this unintentionally, but perhaps this is part of an AC strategy to show Ottawa the chaos they can cause - perhaps to get the latter to water down the ACPPA. I’m familiar enough with AC’s corporate mindset to not discount it anyway. What’s more bizarre is the fact that the people who warned that it will cause a firestorm, are now actively pouring fuel on it.

YUL

Well, I liked how candid he was in answering. I did not detect any bad intentions either; he was just frank. It was just normal for him to not bother speaking french in Montréal. And it sure reflects the thinking of most that works at AC's HQ. (I actually know a few)

What I find most interesting is Mr Rousseau's comment that you could perfectly live and work for 14 years in Montréal - without speaking any words in french.

Somehow when reading anglo medias here, I was under the impression that Quebec's anglos were oppressed, persecuted, could not be served in english and what not. Some even used words like "ethnic cleansing".
We all knew this rhetoric was all pure BS. But anglo medias just kept repeating it.
Quebec bashing sells newspapers / readership it seems.

Now Mr Rousseau just comfirmed how welcoming Montréal actually is to anglos.
(Kudo to Mr Rousseau for this reality check).

FWIW, in my 35 years of service in the federal public service (including 13 in the Cdn Forces), I often had bosses simillar to Mr Rousseau. They somehow were holding positions designated as bilangual - but could not really speak any words in french.

But we were not offended as we understood that we (francos) were the one that had to be actually bilangual, not the other way around - even in Quebec...
(Were we ever submitted back then).

I thought things had improved a bit in Montreal - but not so, it seems.

Anyways, that won't change my flying habits.
I appreciate all those non-stop destinations AC offers from Montreal.

Sopwith

My grandmother lived in Verdun for 50 years and spoke two words in French: bonjour and merci.

Fiordland

Clearly it is a pointless statistic. This is a government agency responsible for investigating the case where services are not provided in one of the official language. It is unclear what service was not provided in French. Giving a talk at a business lunch is not a service that is part of the mandate of Air Canada.

Bravada04

Honestly. This language police thing makes me sick!
Who cares if he can speak French or not in the grand scheme of things. Nobody cared or could have gave 2 $%R$ until this interview - now he is being run out of Quebec.

TravellingSalesman

That's true for any big city around the world. those who call for this to be impossible are asking for Montréal to lose its role as an international city.

yeah because its just the anglo media with the OTT BS, right? Not like Lagacé in La Presse (!) called him a Rhodesian today and said AC is Speak White airlines. Somehow, not learning French in Montreal is comparable to one of the worst excesses of colonialism.
This goes both ways. Some Anglos talk about ethnic cleansing and some francos consider themselves victims of colonialism.

A shame because there are genuine issues with French language representation in Canada. But by pulling this kind of stunt, the blowhards make it easy to paint the whole issue as an overreaction of some sulking provincialists.

This story is an unnecessary own goal by AC. If their CEO is that bad at PR he should not be in an outward facing role.

hoipolloi

The gist is that in QC, many of us have an inferiority complex linked to recent history, and we don't like to see people who are not like us (nous autres) descendants of French colonizers, be in a position of economic or power dominance in our province of Quebec. Hence the various language and religious signs laws aimed at making people who aren't like us less visible.

I'm not talking about myself

YUL

Well, those extremist media talks from the two sollitudes are more crude / more prevalent in the anglo medias.
(Worst, those versions are often re-used as is in US medias. Surprising we still have US tourists coming over...)

Up to the point that a majority of Canadians are convinced that anglos in Quebec are way more badly treated (and have less services) than francos outside Quebec.

FWIW, in my 35 years career I worked all accross Canada.

I personnally withnessed what services are actually available to francos... 🙄
Let's say that anglos in Quebec are really lucky - whatever comparaison metrics you want to use.

I just wish Canadians could be more aware of the actual anglo Québécois situation versus francos outside Quebec.

Again, I'll keep flying Air Canada as usual. I really appreciate their business from Montréal. And I just love the A220s - will be flying it to LAX soon. (Hoping it won't get swapped to a 7M8...)

Mr Rousseau was just frankly illustrating the situation in Montréal. Which is no big news, most of us here at FT knew it all along.

Best regards.

yulred

Not wading into the politics of this, but it’s a statement of fact that the vast majority of Montreal-based folk who use routes like YUL-DEL and YUL-CAI and others have less rights in QC than they would if they lived outside QC, and they may lose even more soon. These are rights they can regain by moving to other parts of Canada. Whether it’s sufficient to get enough of them to leave to change the considerations around those flights is unknown. On the flip side, maybe it’ll change immigration patterns and open up more flights to North Africa and other Francophonie nations.