MPs Summon Air Canada CEO Over English-Only Condolence Message Following Plane Crash

Aircraft maintenance workers position a front loader under debris hanging from the wreckage of an Air Canada Express jet, March 24, 2026, just off the runway where it had collided with a Port Authority fire truck on March 23 at LaGuardia Airport in New York. AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura

Air Canada’s CEO has been summoned to Ottawa to answer questions from MPs on why he issued condolences only in English to the families of two pilots killed in a plane collision at a New York airport this week, one of whom was from Quebec.

A motion tabled in the House of Commons and adopted nearly unanimously by MPs said CEO Michael Rousseau will need to appear at the House of Commons official languages committee to “explain himself” before May 1. The motion said Rousseau’s statement was “incompatible with the obligations set out in the Official Languages Act and the expectations of the Canadian public.”