OTTAWA | The Air Canada airline does not intend to enroll in the Office Québécois de la Langue Française’s franking program, preferring instead to wait for the accelerated adoption of the federal reform of official languages, which will allow it to circumvent Law 101.
• Also read: The OQLF is concerned about the decline of French
• Also read: Air Canada: More than 2,000 complaints over Michael Rousseau’s speech
• Also read: The Caisse de Depot et Placement wants the bosses to speak French
Large companies with 50 or more federal employees have until December 1 To with the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF) under the new requirements resulting from the French language reform.
However, according to their spokesman, Air Canada, but also the Canadian Pacific, the Canadian National or VIA Rail are not yet registered with the OQLF.
Quebec and Ottawa are locked in a long dispute over official languages, forcing companies under federal jurisdiction to choose sides.
The Legault government wants to subject them to the new Law 101 so that it applies to everyone in Quebec. For its part, the Trudeau government wants to prevent Quebec from getting its way by keeping it in the fold of the federal government.
Air Canada and the others seem to have chosen their camp: that of Ottawa.
For Bloc Québécois Mario Beaulieu, Quebec’s language regime should take precedence, as liberal reform “enhances bilingualism” rather than French.
“The Official Languages Act is one of the main factors behind the Anglicization of Quebec. I don’t think we can go on like this,” he said in an interview.
For its part, Air Canada states that it is “subject to the Official Languages Act by its incorporation act and is responsible for ensuring the application of its language obligations on a daily basis”.
The same for everyone
The Canadian airline also wants “a unified and coherent system” so that its language commitments are shared with all airlines, according to its lobbyists.
It is not the first time that the wearer has been spoken about in language. Recall that on November 3, 2021, Air Canada President and CEO Michael Rousseau caused an outcry in Quebec when he said he had never felt compelled to learn French to communicate, even if lived in Quebec for 14 years.
As of last Friday, only about a hundred companies have signed up for the franking process before the deadline set by the OQLF.
A dozen others have said they prefer to wait for federal reform to pass before proceeding.
Do you have any information about this story that you would like to share with us?
Do you have a scoop that might be of interest to our readers?