A Federal Court in Montreal has ordered Air Canada to pay $21,000 to a French-speaking couple in Quebec for violating their language rights.
Lynda and Michel Thibodeau filed 22 complaints against Air Canada in 2016, alleging violations under the Official Languages Act, which established French and English as equal official languages in Canada.
Among the complaints:
- Emergency exit signs are either exclusively in English or the English text is larger than the French text.
- Seatbelts are engraved with the word “lift” but not the French equivalent
- Airport announcements in French are not as detailed as those in English
Thus, the lawsuit alleged Air Canada violated the linguistic rights of francophones.
Air Canada argued the law only requires it treat the two languages in a “substantially similar” way, not identically. On the seatbelt latch, for example, it offers full instructions on how to use it in French during the preflight safety briefing.
But Federal Court Justice Martine St-Louis, a francophone herself, did not buy Air Canada’s argument. Siding with the Thibodeaus, she ordered Air Canada to pay them $21,000 and offer them a written apology.
Air Canada has battled the Thibodeaus before—all the way up to Supreme Court of Canada—and prevailed. Expect an appeal in this case as well.
CONCLUSION
Admittedly, I’m tempted to snicker at the absurdity of this story. But I know there are Canadian lawyers and law students who read this blog, so instead of mocking, I’m curious: is this a proxy battle for the waning French identity of greater Canada? Or is there actually genuine confusion over how to detach a seatbelt or the location of the onboard exit?
image: Air Canada
Stupid entitled “frogs”. They’re just picking a fight. They fully understand English.
Lunacy. I hope AC appeals and wins. Surely plain, old fashioned common sense must apply in the implementation of the languages policy?
Try flying from Ontario to Quebec and you may notice that when taking off they start with English and follow with French, but when landing they start with French and English comes second.
One of those little canadianisms.
In reality though, most Quebecers are bilingual and can at least get by with simple English (not talking about Montreal here since just about everybody is fully bilingual or better), this couple just found an opportunity and took it.
Why won’t anyone just let Quebec leave Canada? I’m an Ontarian, and if it means we don’t have to have this bilingual bullshhit then I’m all for it
Try going to Quebec and the lack of English anywhere outside of Montreal makes his hypocritical case so amusing
I don’t get your point. I’ve been to BC and not seen French anywhere either–not even in Vancouver. What does this have to do with the case in point?
So did you steal the headline, or did he steal it from you?
I wrote the story yesterday and have been offline all day, but his published first, so I can only say “great minds think alike”! 😉
Isn’t this the same toolbag who sued AC a few years ago because the check-in agents in ATL couldn’t speak French?
This is why the bulk of Canada hates the French-speakers. No one likes them. French speakers from other countries hate them too, and say their French is awful.
And these two are professional victims. Go Air Canada!
Our northern neighbors are so sensible about most things that I suppose they have to be nutcases about something. Canada needs one national language. The people should just hold a national referendum and go with the majority.
Isn’t this the same couple who some time back sued a restaurant for not translating pasta?
Even in Paris, pasta is pasta.
French speakers can keep this up as long as they like. The reality is that English is becoming the dominant ‘second’ language everywhere. French?
Travelling on Asian carriers, plenty of English is used. It’s not seen as a cultural violation.
Comments on here are ignorant. French is not the “second” language of Canada. It’s one of two primary languages. This was part of the foundational agreement that created Canada.
And as a result of that agreement, Canadians anywhere in the country have a right to federal services in English or French. That applies to Air Canada, as part of their privatization.
Americans who have no national language in their constiution and didn’t negotiate a confederation don’t really understand the history here.
1 in 5 Canadians has french as their first language. And I don’t want them being treated any differently than I am as an anglophone. I fully support AC being held to account on treating French as a second class language. I wish there were stricter standards on other national airlines like Westjet too.
Really?!?!?!?! How did they know that the English version of the safety instructions was more detailed than the French version? If someone could not fully understand English they would not have known this information. Also common sense!!!! All seatbelts in a vehicle or on an airplane, function exactly the same. Do they have difficulties with the seatbelts in their vehicles? Have they also sued the car manufactures for not providing the seatbelt latch in French? F***ing privileged snowflakes!!!! Pardon my French!!