Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau is seen in an undated handout photo. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Handout - Air Canada (Mandatory Credit)

By The Canadian Press

Carney says Air Canada CEO’s English-only condolences lacked compassion

Mar 25, 2026 | 6:56 AM

OTTAWA — Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau was heavily criticized on Wednesday, including by Prime Minister Mark Carney, for delivering an English-only message of condolence after Sunday’s deadly plane crash in New York.

Rousseau is being summoned to testify at the House of Commons official languages committee after he shared a four-minute condolence video online that only included two French words — “bonjour” and “merci.”

The Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages had received 84 complaints about Rousseau’s video as of Tuesday afternoon.

Carney, speaking to reporters before the weekly Liberal caucus meeting in Ottawa, said the decision to release the video message only in English lacked compassion.

“We proudly live in a bilingual country, and companies like Air Canada particularly have a responsibility to always communicate in both official languages, regardless of the situation,” Carney said.

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“I’m very disappointed in, as others are, rightly so, in this unilingual message of the CEO of Air Canada. It doesn’t matter the circumstances, but particularly in these circumstances.”

Carney said it showed a “lack of judgment and lack of compassion.”

The flight was carrying passengers from Montreal to LaGuardia airport, and many of the travellers and crew were French-speaking Canadians.

That includes Antoine Forest, one of the two pilots killed.

Forest and Mackenzie Gunther died when the Air Canada Jazz flight they were landing at LaGuardia collided with a fire truck on the runway Sunday evening.

This isn’t the first time Rousseau has got into trouble over his grasp of French. After he delivered a speech to a business crowd in Montreal in late 2021 that was almost entirely in English, he offended many by pointing out that he’d lived in the city for 14 years without having to speak its majority language.

Conservative MP Joel Godin, the party’s official languages critic, said Wednesday the Air Canada CEO promised to learn French after he took the job.

“Don’t forget this company … must respect the official languages (law),” he said.

Carney said Canadian officials continue to work in close collaboration with their American counterparts to determine how this crash happened.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 25, 2025.

— With files from Michel Saba.

David Baxter, The Canadian Press