00:00Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau will retire later this year after sparking a
00:05backlash when he failed to offer condolences in French for a crash that
00:10killed two pilots. French is one of Canada's two official languages. The
00:16faux pas occurred in a video Rousseau released in which he spoke only English
00:20after an Air Canada Express jet collided with a fire truck on March 22nd at New
00:26York's LaGuardia Airport. Days later Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney
00:32criticized Rousseau for showing a lack of judgment and compassion. Rousseau later
00:37apologized for the lapse in judgment saying he was deeply saddened that his
00:42inability to speak French had diverted attention from the profound grief of the
00:47victims families. Language remains a sensitive issue in mostly French-speaking
00:52Quebec, the country's second most populous province, dating back to the rise in the
00:571970s of the Parti Quebecois, a French-Canadian separatist party. The Air
01:03Canada Express jet had departed from Montreal and one of the pilots killed
01:08was reported to have been from Quebec. Rousseau took over as Air Canada's CEO in
01:14February 2021 and helped the airline recover after the pandemic. At the same
01:20time, he pledged to improve his French after then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
01:26criticized him for giving a speech almost entirely in English in Montreal where the
01:31airline is headquartered. Air Canada said candidates to replace Rousseau would be
01:36judged in part on their ability to speak French.
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