{"id":175742,"date":"2026-03-26T09:30:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T09:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/175742\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T09:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T09:30:11","slug":"canadian-prime-minister-mark-carney-slams-air-canada-ceo-for-english-only-remarks-after-laguardia-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/175742\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney\u00a0slams\u00a0Air\u00a0Canada\u00a0CEO for English-only remarks after LaGuardia crash"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Prime Minister Mark\u00a0Carney\u00a0on Wednesday criticized\u00a0Air\u00a0Canada\u00a0CEO Michael Rousseau for expressing condolences <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/03\/23\/us-news\/video-captures-deadly-laguardia-airport-crash-as-plane-collides-with-fire-truck\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">after a fatal crash <\/a>in English and not in French,\u00a0Canada\u2019s second official language.<\/p>\n<p>Carney\u00a0told reporters that Rousseau had shown a lack of judgment and said he expected the\u00a0airline\u2019s board to make a statement. <\/p>\n<p>An\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/03\/25\/opinion\/true-cause-of-deadly-laguardia-plane-crash-horror-is-hiding-in-plain-sight\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Air\u00a0Canada\u00a0jet\u00a0struck a fire truck\u00a0on Sunday night<\/a> as it landed at New York\u2019s LaGuardia\u00a0airport, killing both pilots.<\/p>\n<p>Investigators examine the wreckage of an Air Canada Express jet at LaGuardia Airport in Queens on March 24, 2026. Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Post<\/p>\n<p>Although\u00a0Air\u00a0Canada\u00a0is officially bilingual, Rousseau \u2013 a native English-speaker \u2013 issued a four-minute video that only featured two words in French. Parliament\u2019s language committee voted on Tuesday to summon him to Ottawa to discuss the matter.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m very disappointed \u2013 as others are, rightly so \u2013 in this unilingual message of the CEO of\u00a0Air\u00a0Canada\u00a0\u2026 (it shows) a lack of judgment, a lack of compassion,\u201d\u00a0Carney\u00a0said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI will follow his comments (to committee) closely, and comments which I would expect in due course from the board of directors,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n<p>Canada\u2019s Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, March 25, 2026.  REUTERS<\/p>\n<p>Air\u00a0Canada\u00a0CEO Michael Rousseau expressed condolences after the fatal crash at LaGuardia Airport in English and not in French,\u00a0Canada\u2019s second official language. Toronto Star via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Air\u00a0Canada\u00a0was not immediately available for comment.<\/p>\n<p>Language is a sensitive issue in\u00a0Canada, particularly in predominantly French-speaking Quebec, the second-most populous of the 10 provinces.<\/p>\n<p>Unhappiness over the dominance of English helped the rise of the separatist Parti Quebecois in the 1970s, and the party has a commanding poll lead ahead of a provincial election due this year. <\/p>\n<p>It is promising to hold another referendum on independence if it wins. PQ governments held two such votes in 1980 and 1995.<\/p>\n<p>This is not the first time Rousseau has found himself in trouble over language. In 2021,\u00a0Canada\u2019s government said he should\u00a0improve\u00a0his French as part of his annual board review, prompting him to promise to do better.<\/p>\n<p>As part of a COVID-19 pandemic bailout package, Ottawa took a 6% stake in the\u00a0airline in 2021. It\u00a0sold\u00a0the holding last December.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prime Minister Mark\u00a0Carney\u00a0on Wednesday criticized\u00a0Air\u00a0Canada\u00a0CEO Michael Rousseau for expressing condolences after a fatal crash in English and not&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[30278,7960,1087,57,9,11,10,6649,58],"class_list":["post-175742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-air-canada","tag-airplanes","tag-laguardia-airport","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-plane-crashes","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}