Parlez vous le 'spy talk'?

[palebird]

Only in Canada

[mijbil]

I note that on many job applications for federal positions or federally regulated companies there is often a box about French and the ability to speak it (or not). It gets you more points from the HR people. Clearly it really isn't a requirement after all. I know I only used mine 3 times in the RCAF. Once for a test and twice on vacation in France, where they actually do speak French instead of the 16th century variant called 'joual' that is practised in QC.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal ... -1.6236356

U mad bébé?ink

Good morning C&P. No I'm not mad at all. I find the latest QC language tempest in a teapot somewhat amusing watching the "pure woolies" (thanks Mordechai Richler) get wound so tight when their 16th century dialect is not spoken when they think it should be and they are somewhat tyrannical about making their desires known. They also fail to see the long term effects which is businesses continuing to decamp to more welcoming environments. Observe the exodus from YUL to YYZ in the 70s and 80s. What's even funnier is watching these QC language peacocks suddenly fold like a house of cards when they try to speak their dialect in France and the French look at them with disdain and disgust at these "savages" attempting to communicate. They like to be snooty and outraged when in QC but when on the continent, they get 'out-snooted' by the French.
I learned my French in St Jean sur Richelieu, got level 3's = CBC for reading writing and spoken but in the real world it's useless other when on vacation in France. I did give it the college try during my 8 months in St Jean. I even went as far as Tadoussac to try and find somewhere that they would speak to me in the local French rather than reverting to English. I recall trying to have a conversation with a clerk at a depanneur in Quebec (city). He switched to English and told me "It's more important that I learn how to speak English, than you learn to speak French". He understood economic reality.
Don't get mad "baby" but the reality is that QC joual is a dying language despite the efforts of the QC language police to try and keep back the tide of English and despite the money cannon being fired repeatedly by Ottawa in it's defense.
Back to studying. I think the 20 month 'holiday' is about to end.

[digits_]

Only in Canada

Not at all. Pretty much every country with multiple official languages has perpetual language discussions and the resulting sometimes weird legislation.

[Chips&Pops]

Good morning C&P. No I'm not mad at all. I find the latest QC language tempest in a teapot somewhat amusing watching the "pure woolies" (thanks Mordechai Richler) get wound so tight when their 16th century dialect is not spoken when they think it should be and they are somewhat tyrannical about making their desires known. They also fail to see the long term effects which is businesses continuing to decamp to more welcoming environments. Observe the exodus from YUL to YYZ in the 70s and 80s. What's even funnier is watching these QC language peacocks suddenly fold like a house of cards when they try to speak their dialect in France and the French look at them with disdain and disgust at these "savages" attempting to communicate. They like to be snooty and outraged when in QC but when on the continent, they get 'out-snooted' by the French.
I learned my French in St Jean sur Richelieu, got level 3's = CBC for reading writing and spoken but in the real world it's useless other when on vacation in France. I did give it the college try during my 8 months in St Jean. I even went as far as Tadoussac to try and find somewhere that they would speak to me in the local French rather than reverting to English. I recall trying to have a conversation with a clerk at a depanneur in Quebec (city). He switched to English and told me "It's more important that I learn how to speak English, than you learn to speak French". He understood economic reality.
Don't get mad "baby" but the reality is that QC joual is a dying language despite the efforts of the QC language police to try and keep back the tide of English and despite the money cannon being fired repeatedly by Ottawa in it's defense.
Back to studying. I think the 20 month 'holiday' is about to end.
[/quote]

Some French girl definitely hurt you and broke your heart when you were here, I feel sorry for that mate. Maybe she would've preferred someone that had a better grasp of the language than some "level 3" stuff you know. I'll teach you it's really easy, you just gotta put some effort of course. I love all my anglos, even the francophobes ones <3

[alkaseltzer]

Who setup this speech? What was their motive? Do they work for Air France?

[rudder]

It gets worse…..

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/freeland-ch ... -1.1678820

[alkaseltzer]

It gets worse…..

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/freeland-ch ... -1.1678820

How bad is Air Transat hurting for cash?

[rudder]

https://financialpost.com/opinion/teren ... oplay=true

[mijbil]

https://financialpost.com/opinion/teren ... oplay=true

Thanks for the link rudder. Some of the comments below are gold. The best one IMO was this from a Todd Pick :Crustyia (sic?) Freeload commenting on being disappointed by his lack of French skills is funny when you realize they appointed a non french speaking Governor General....I mean if were going to start making that a skill requirement why not competency too?
Too true - we didn't hear a peep from the commissars over at the "Mothercorp" https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mary-s ... -1.6114622

Some French girl definitely hurt you and broke your heart when you were here, I feel sorry for that mate. Maybe she would've preferred someone that had a better grasp of the language than some "level 3" stuff you know. I'll teach you it's really easy, you just gotta put some effort of course. I love all my anglos, even the francophobes ones <3

For my new friend C&P, you should realize that I look at QC in much the same way as I do the US. There are individuals in each location that I know and am friends with, but the government of each is at times beyond the pale. For the US it's often the "ugly American" stereotype on display yet again. In QC, it's the eternally whiny 'take my ball and go sulk' mentality that we despise. Your province needs to grow up and realize that in the real world, or at least in North America, apart from a few minor enclaves like parts of Louisiana, East Winnipeg (St Vital), a small section of western Nova Scotia and of course "French Immersion" teachers, NO ONE CARES ABOUT FRENCH. We don't. It's largely irrelevant except in the few places I've mentioned and in backwoods backwater QC. I learned it (sort of) because Justin's daddy (step daddy?? - was Pierre cuckolded by Castro? ) Pierre brought in the official languages act to, I guess, resurrect and try to preserve a dying dialect. All we really wanted to do was get to flight school but nooooo we had to do 8 months in the "Mega" in St Jean. The Mega is yet another of the white elephants grazing on the QC political landscape - like Mirabel. It is apparently a failed jail - not good enough for prisoners - so they gave it to the military to deal with. We spent 8 long months there but we would often head south to New England for the weekends. I did travel around QC a bit and in the main, the people were nice enough, but except in deepest darkest Tadoussac, English was always available if required.
Nowadays when I go to QC, I speak VISA. It is clearly understood. If I wanted to really learn French to the point of being able to think in it, instead of doing the continuous translations back and forth, then I would do like another pilot I know who took holidays and went to France to a village where they spoke zero English. Total immersion in a current version of French. In reality, I don't care and part of me would be happy to see QC go their own way. It would certainly be better for us as it would be the end of interprovincial pogey aka transfer payments which I understand QC uses to "balance' their provincial budget. In that regard QC is as much of a basket case as Greece and Spain over in Europe.

As for your Sherlock Holmes deduction about some imaginary French girl, well trust a frenchman to turn it to sex. In reality, I was at the time and still am married. But nice try. I did like how the QC girls dressed....well as long as they didn't discover pasta and balloon to the size of an Italian grandmother...but that's another subject.

I'll close with this thought dear C&P: You asking me to learn joual, a 16th century dialect from France, unhindered by progress, makes as much sense as me asking you to learn medieval English from when William Shakespeare was alive. It just doesn't make sense.

[mijbil]

https://financialpost.com/opinion/teren ... oplay=true

Thanks for the link rudder. Some of the comments below are gold. The best one IMO was this from a Todd Pick :Crustyia (sic?) Freeload commenting on being disappointed by his lack of French skills is funny when you realize they appointed a non french speaking Governor General....I mean if were going to start making that a skill requirement why not competency too?
Too true - we didn't hear a peep from the commissars over at the "Mothercorp" https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mary-s ... -1.6114622

Some French girl definitely hurt you and broke your heart when you were here, I feel sorry for that mate. Maybe she would've preferred someone that had a better grasp of the language than some "level 3" stuff you know. I'll teach you it's really easy, you just gotta put some effort of course. I love all my anglos, even the francophobes ones <3

For my new friend C&P, you should realize that I look at QC in much the same way as I do the US. There are individuals in each location that I know and am friends with, but the government of each is at times beyond the pale. For the US it's often the "ugly American" stereotype on display yet again. In QC, it's the eternally whiny 'take my ball and go sulk' mentality that we despise. Your province needs to grow up and realize that in the real world, or at least in North America, apart from a few minor enclaves like parts of Louisiana, East Winnipeg (St Vital), a small section of western Nova Scotia and of course "French Immersion" teachers, NO ONE CARES ABOUT FRENCH. We don't. It's largely irrelevant except in the few places I've mentioned and in backwoods backwater QC. I learned it (sort of) because Justin's daddy (step daddy?? - was Pierre cuckolded by Castro? ) Pierre brought in the official languages act to, I guess, resurrect and try to preserve a dying dialect. All we really wanted to do was get to flight school but nooooo we had to do 8 months in the "Mega" in St Jean. The Mega is yet another of the white elephants grazing on the QC political landscape - like Mirabel. It is apparently a failed jail - not good enough for prisoners - so they gave it to the military to deal with. We spent 8 long months there but we would often head south to New England for the weekends. I did travel around QC a bit and in the main, the people were nice enough, but except in deepest darkest Tadoussac, English was always available if required.
Nowadays when I go to QC, I speak VISA. It is clearly understood. If I wanted to really learn French to the point of being able to think in it, instead of doing the continuous translations back and forth, then I would do like another pilot I know who took holidays and went to France to a village where they spoke zero English. Total immersion in a current version of French. In reality, I don't care and part of me would be happy to see QC go their own way. It would certainly be better for us as it would be the end of interprovincial pogey aka transfer payments which I understand QC uses to "balance' their provincial budget. In that regard QC is as much of a basket case as Greece and Spain over in Europe.

As for your Sherlock Holmes deduction about some imaginary French girl, well trust a frenchman to turn it to sex. In reality, I was at the time and still am married. But nice try. I did like how the QC girls dressed....well as long as they didn't discover pasta and balloon to the size of an Italian grandmother...but that's another subject.

I'll close with this thought dear C&P: You asking me to learn joual, a 16th century dialect from France, unhindered by progress, makes as much sense as me asking you to learn medieval English from when William Shakespeare was alive. It just doesn't make sense.

[TheStig]

I didn't know Terence Corcoran was that old. Here's a similar opinion from the NP's Millennial editorialist:

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/sabrin ... -overreach

[TeePeeCreeper]

https://financialpost.com/opinion/teren ... oplay=true

Thanks for the link rudder. Some of the comments below are gold. The best one IMO was this from a Todd Pick :Crustyia (sic?) Freeload commenting on being disappointed by his lack of French skills is funny when you realize they appointed a non french speaking Governor General....I mean if were going to start making that a skill requirement why not competency too?
Too true - we didn't hear a peep from the commissars over at the "Mothercorp" https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mary-s ... -1.6114622

Some French girl definitely hurt you and broke your heart when you were here, I feel sorry for that mate. Maybe she would've preferred someone that had a better grasp of the language than some "level 3" stuff you know. I'll teach you it's really easy, you just gotta put some effort of course. I love all my anglos, even the francophobes ones <3

For my new friend C&P, you should realize that I look at QC in much the same way as I do the US. There are individuals in each location that I know and am friends with, but the government of each is at times beyond the pale. For the US it's often the "ugly American" stereotype on display yet again. In QC, it's the eternally whiny 'take my ball and go sulk' mentality that we despise. Your province needs to grow up and realize that in the real world, or at least in North America, apart from a few minor enclaves like parts of Louisiana, East Winnipeg (St Vital), a small section of western Nova Scotia and of course "French Immersion" teachers, NO ONE CARES ABOUT FRENCH. We don't. It's largely irrelevant except in the few places I've mentioned and in backwoods backwater QC. I learned it (sort of) because Justin's daddy (step daddy?? - was Pierre cuckolded by Castro? ) Pierre brought in the official languages act to, I guess, resurrect and try to preserve a dying dialect. All we really wanted to do was get to flight school but nooooo we had to do 8 months in the "Mega" in St Jean. The Mega is yet another of the white elephants grazing on the QC political landscape - like Mirabel. It is apparently a failed jail - not good enough for prisoners - so they gave it to the military to deal with. We spent 8 long months there but we would often head south to New England for the weekends. I did travel around QC a bit and in the main, the people were nice enough, but except in deepest darkest Tadoussac, English was always available if required.
Nowadays when I go to QC, I speak VISA. It is clearly understood. If I wanted to really learn French to the point of being able to think in it, instead of doing the continuous translations back and forth, then I would do like another pilot I know who took holidays and went to France to a village where they spoke zero English. Total immersion in a current version of French. In reality, I don't care and part of me would be happy to see QC go their own way. It would certainly be better for us as it would be the end of interprovincial pogey aka transfer payments which I understand QC uses to "balance' their provincial budget. In that regard QC is as much of a basket case as Greece and Spain over in Europe.

As for your Sherlock Holmes deduction about some imaginary French girl, well trust a frenchman to turn it to sex. In reality, I was at the time and still am married. But nice try. I did like how the QC girls dressed....well as long as they didn't discover pasta and balloon to the size of an Italian grandmother...but that's another subject.

I'll close with this thought dear C&P: You asking me to learn joual, a 16th century dialect from France, unhindered by progress, makes as much sense as me asking you to learn medieval English from when William Shakespeare was alive. It just doesn't make sense.

Nice write up but…. You left out the fact that there are far more Francophone communities than you listed and also neglected to mention that there are more Francophones living outside of Quebec in Canada than reside in that one province.

Whomever wrote that the French language was a dying one is obviously a unilingual WASP from Westmount!

As my grandfather used to say “L’union fait la force!” It’s only because French speaking Canadians are so damn spread out across the country that some forget that we exist outside of Quebec. We also tend to revert to speaking in English (to accommodate the Anglophones). Funny notion really, as francophones we try to accommodate unilingual English Canadians but they seldom act in kind.

Regards,

TPC (had no issues conversing in France in “a foreign dialect” of French as a mere colonial!)

PS: re: “Transfer payments” (The proper term is actually “Equalization payments” but what would I know as English isn’t my first language!) The irony is that it is now the province of Quebec and Ontario whom are bailing out Alberta out of a financial quagmire! Guess it’s easy to forget that as well…

['97 Tercel]

[Latitude]

https://financialpost.com/opinion/teren ... oplay=true

Thanks for the link rudder. Some of the comments below are gold. The best one IMO was this from a Todd Pick :Crustyia (sic?) Freeload commenting on being disappointed by his lack of French skills is funny when you realize they appointed a non french speaking Governor General....I mean if were going to start making that a skill requirement why not competency too?
Too true - we didn't hear a peep from the commissars over at the "Mothercorp" https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mary-s ... -1.6114622

Some French girl definitely hurt you and broke your heart when you were here, I feel sorry for that mate. Maybe she would've preferred someone that had a better grasp of the language than some "level 3" stuff you know. I'll teach you it's really easy, you just gotta put some effort of course. I love all my anglos, even the francophobes ones <3

For my new friend C&P, you should realize that I look at QC in much the same way as I do the US. There are individuals in each location that I know and am friends with, but the government of each is at times beyond the pale. For the US it's often the "ugly American" stereotype on display yet again. In QC, it's the eternally whiny 'take my ball and go sulk' mentality that we despise. Your province needs to grow up and realize that in the real world, or at least in North America, apart from a few minor enclaves like parts of Louisiana, East Winnipeg (St Vital), a small section of western Nova Scotia and of course "French Immersion" teachers, NO ONE CARES ABOUT FRENCH. We don't. It's largely irrelevant except in the few places I've mentioned and in backwoods backwater QC. I learned it (sort of) because Justin's daddy (step daddy?? - was Pierre cuckolded by Castro? ) Pierre brought in the official languages act to, I guess, resurrect and try to preserve a dying dialect. All we really wanted to do was get to flight school but nooooo we had to do 8 months in the "Mega" in St Jean. The Mega is yet another of the white elephants grazing on the QC political landscape - like Mirabel. It is apparently a failed jail - not good enough for prisoners - so they gave it to the military to deal with. We spent 8 long months there but we would often head south to New England for the weekends. I did travel around QC a bit and in the main, the people were nice enough, but except in deepest darkest Tadoussac, English was always available if required.
Nowadays when I go to QC, I speak VISA. It is clearly understood. If I wanted to really learn French to the point of being able to think in it, instead of doing the continuous translations back and forth, then I would do like another pilot I know who took holidays and went to France to a village where they spoke zero English. Total immersion in a current version of French. In reality, I don't care and part of me would be happy to see QC go their own way. It would certainly be better for us as it would be the end of interprovincial pogey aka transfer payments which I understand QC uses to "balance' their provincial budget. In that regard QC is as much of a basket case as Greece and Spain over in Europe.

As for your Sherlock Holmes deduction about some imaginary French girl, well trust a frenchman to turn it to sex. In reality, I was at the time and still am married. But nice try. I did like how the QC girls dressed....well as long as they didn't discover pasta and balloon to the size of an Italian grandmother...but that's another subject.

I'll close with this thought dear C&P: You asking me to learn joual, a 16th century dialect from France, unhindered by progress, makes as much sense as me asking you to learn medieval English from when William Shakespeare was alive. It just doesn't make sense.

Nice write up but…. You left out the fact that there are far more Francophone communities than you listed and also neglected to mention that there are more Francophones living outside of Quebec in Canada than reside in that one province.

Whomever wrote that the French language was a dying one is obviously a unilingual WASP from Westmount!

As my grandfather used to say “L’union fait la force!” It’s only because French speaking Canadians are so damn spread out across the country that some forget that we exist outside of Quebec. We also tend to revert to speaking in English (to accommodate the Anglophones). Funny notion really, as francophones we try to accommodate unilingual English Canadians but they seldom act in kind.

Regards,

TPC (had no issues conversing in France in “a foreign dialect” of French as a mere colonial!)

PS: re: “Transfer payments” (The proper term is actually “Equalization payments” but what would I know as English isn’t my first language!) The irony is that it is now the province of Quebec and Ontario whom are bailing out Alberta out of a financial quagmire! Guess it’s easy to forget that as well…

*Apply cold water to burned area*

I'm surprised at the amount of hate english speakers have against French aww

Regarding Air Canada CEO interview after the speech, the whole problem is the arrogance(which ironically suits AC very well) not the fact that he does not speak French. He could have said '' Sorry, my French is basic, I will work on that'' or '' I will learn French'' and no one would be talking about it now.

[rudder]

Regarding Air Canada CEO interview after the speech, the whole problem is the arrogance(which ironically suits AC very well) not the fact that he does not speak French. He could have said '' Sorry, my French is basic, I will work on that'' or '' I will learn French'' and no one would be talking about it now.

Probably true.

Or perhaps “I was busy for the past 14 years helping to grow AC to double its previous size and adding thousands of QC based jobs. And the last 2 years was spent trying to save as many of those jobs as possible.”

Oh well.

[ALPApolicy]

I'm an anglophone who bounced around the country as the child of a military pilot and one of those destinations was Quebec in the early 70's and another was New Brunswick in the early 80's. I didn't really learn to speak and read French until I left high school. I find it very sad that the current AC CEO didn't avail himself of the opportunity to learn French while he lived in Montreal. I'm an avowed francophile and a Quebecophile as well. Although I work for the number 2 airline in Canada that has no bilingual mandate, I do think that The AC CEO should really have done better.

[rudder]

I'm an anglophone who bounced around the country as the child of a military pilot and one of those destinations was Quebec in the early 70's and another was New Brunswick in the early 80's. I didn't really learn to speak and read French until I left high school. I find it very sad that the current AC CEO didn't avail himself of the opportunity to learn French while he lived in Montreal. I'm an avowed francophile and a Quebecophile as well. Although I work for the number 2 airline in Canada that has no bilingual mandate, I do think that The AC CEO should really have done better.

Are you under the impression that the AC CEO is in any way a ‘political’ position?

I have news for you - it is not, regardless of what JT and CF think. The AC CEO is accountable to the AC BOD and no one else. AC has met all of its obligations under the ACPPA and the COVID loan agreement from the Feds. You don’t get to add conditions after the fact.

AC is a private corporation that is owned and controlled by its shareholders. By virtue of the COVID loan agreement, the federal government is a temporary minority shareholder.

[Inverted2]

I'm an anglophone who bounced around the country as the child of a military pilot and one of those destinations was Quebec in the early 70's and another was New Brunswick in the early 80's. I didn't really learn to speak and read French until I left high school. I find it very sad that the current AC CEO didn't avail himself of the opportunity to learn French while he lived in Montreal. I'm an avowed francophile and a Quebecophile as well. Although I work for the number 2 airline in Canada that has no bilingual mandate, I do think that The AC CEO should really have done better.

Are you under the impression that the AC CEO is in any way a ‘political’ position?

I have news for you - it is not, regardless of what JT and CF think. The AC CEO is accountable to the AC BOD and no one else. AC has met all of its obligations under the ACPPA and the COVID loan agreement from the Feds. You don’t get to add conditions after the fact.

AC is a private corporation that is owned and controlled by its shareholders. By virtue of the COVID loan agreement, the federal government is a temporary minority shareholder.

All true in the normal world, but not in the “nation of Quebec” where language politics goes above all the real issues.....

[rudder]

I'm an anglophone who bounced around the country as the child of a military pilot and one of those destinations was Quebec in the early 70's and another was New Brunswick in the early 80's. I didn't really learn to speak and read French until I left high school. I find it very sad that the current AC CEO didn't avail himself of the opportunity to learn French while he lived in Montreal. I'm an avowed francophile and a Quebecophile as well. Although I work for the number 2 airline in Canada that has no bilingual mandate, I do think that The AC CEO should really have done better.

Are you under the impression that the AC CEO is in any way a ‘political’ position?

I have news for you - it is not, regardless of what JT and CF think. The AC CEO is accountable to the AC BOD and no one else. AC has met all of its obligations under the ACPPA and the COVID loan agreement from the Feds. You don’t get to add conditions after the fact.

AC is a private corporation that is owned and controlled by its shareholders. By virtue of the COVID loan agreement, the federal government is a temporary minority shareholder.

All true in the normal world, but not in the “nation of Quebec” where language politics goes above all the real issues.....

Since privatization, AC has had not one, not two, but THREE American CEO’s. The horror!

Just having a CDN as CEO of AC should be seen as good enough.

[ALPApolicy]

I'm an anglophone who bounced around the country as the child of a military pilot and one of those destinations was Quebec in the early 70's and another was New Brunswick in the early 80's. I didn't really learn to speak and read French until I left high school. I find it very sad that the current AC CEO didn't avail himself of the opportunity to learn French while he lived in Montreal. I'm an avowed francophile and a Quebecophile as well. Although I work for the number 2 airline in Canada that has no bilingual mandate, I do think that The AC CEO should really have done better.

Are you under the impression that the AC CEO is in any way a ‘political’ position?

I have news for you - it is not, regardless of what JT and CF think. The AC CEO is accountable to the AC BOD and no one else. AC has met all of its obligations under the ACPPA and the COVID loan agreement from the Feds. You don’t get to add conditions after the fact.

AC is a private corporation that is owned and controlled by its shareholders. By virtue of the COVID loan agreement, the federal government is a temporary minority shareholder.

I think what I said is that it is disappointing that he did not avail himself of the opportunity to learn French. Did you understand something different?

[Transition9er2]

Again, tell me if our new Governor General speaks French.

A federal position appointed by our Prime Minister none the less.

Can’t believe the Liberals are going down this road… hypochondriacal much?

[TeePeeCreeper]

Again, tell me if our new Governor General speaks French.

A federal position appointed by our Prime Minister non the less.

Can’t believe the Liberals are going down this road… hypochondriacal much?

Allow me to leave the above post quoted for posterity.

TPC

[Counterpoint]

This MR answer to a reporter’s question was nothing short of a PR disaster.

It has nothing to do with the GG’s ability or speak French (she has more sense than to have said anything like what MR did) government money or even the French fact in Quebec.

This has to do with the way he answered the question and the actual answer itself. You can’t say you've lived in Montreal for 14 years, never bothered to try to learn French and say you don’t have time (meaning the bother) to learn French. Whether you can live your work/leisure life without French in Montreal is beside the point.

Some things are better left alone if you don’t understand what French means to Quebecers. MR should have just have said something else than arrogantly saying something he shouldn’t have. The fact that he didn't understand how his answer at the time shows a bit of ignorance for someone who Quebecers think should have understood how offensive his answer was. That translates into arrogance which is a PR consultant’s nightmare.

He apologized, but the fire was lit. His legacy is set in Quebec and I’m sure the AC PR consultant will have to manage his image (including some French lessons) to get this image changed.

Think about it for just a moment, would you as a polite Canadian answer the question he was asked the way he did ? I doubt it and as anybody who has lived in Montreal for more than a few days would know, he couldn’t have been more rude if he tried. He embarrassed the board of directors and the event hosts who I’m sure expected more from him. His actual coming out speech was just okay.

It’s an unfortunate misstep from someone who should have known better, particularly after being warned about it.

[Old fella]

This MR answer to a reporter’s question was nothing short of a PR disaster.

It has nothing to do with the GG’s ability or speak French (she has more sense than to have said anything like what MR did) government money or even the French fact in Quebec.

This has to do with the way he answered the question and the actual answer itself. You can’t say you've lived in Montreal for 14 years, never bothered to try to learn French and say you don’t have time (meaning the bother) to learn French. Whether you can live your work/leisure life without French in Montreal is beside the point.

Some things are better left alone if you don’t understand what French means to Quebecers. MR should have just have said something else than arrogantly saying something he shouldn’t have. The fact that he didn't understand how his answer at the time shows a bit of ignorance for someone who Quebecers think should have understood how offensive his answer was. That translates into arrogance which is a PR consultant’s nightmare.

He apologized, but the fire was lit. His legacy is set in Quebec and I’m sure the AC PR consultant will have to manage his image (including some French lessons) to get this image changed.

Think about it for just a moment, would you as a polite Canadian answer the question he was asked the way he did ? I doubt it and as anybody who has lived in Montreal for more than a few days would know, he couldn’t have been more rude if he tried. He embarrassed the board of directors and the event hosts who I’m sure expected more from him. His actual coming out speech was just okay.

It’s an unfortunate misstep from someone who should have known better, particularly after being warned about it.

Good points and in my view, accurate. I am old enough to remember The Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism which started mid’60s and ended ‘69 with The Official Language act making Canada an official bilingual country. The arguments and fallout exists to this very day from certain demographics and political persuasions, yes Quebec had legitimate grievances on language/education/business and still does aka current thread. In my view the AC CEO was insensitive in his commentary as his airline is headquartered in Montreal in a unilingual Province.

[Transition9er2]

I’m sorry, I just don’t get the argument here.

You’re saying that because Air Canada is headquartered in Montreal, and MR lived there for 14 years, he “must” learn to speak French. The Governor General (The Commander-In-Chief of the Canadian Armed Forces) on the other hand gets a pass on speaking French because she can answer questions on “why” she doesn’t speak French a lot better than MR can??

I’m sorry, but I find this entire thread just silly. It’s literally starting an argument for the sake of starting an argument.

Today being Remembrance Day (something that’s actually important) “Thank You” to all our Veterans, past and present. I’ll be putting my thoughts and energy into what the meaning of today is all about.

T.