Language politics shame Air Canada to cancel CEO and the crazy NDP convention...

Plus Doug Ford asks if drinking water will make him a Liberal.

When Michael Rosseau took over as President and CEO of Air Canada in 2021 the company’s annual revenue was just $6.4 billion. The good news was this was an increase from $5.8 billion in 2020, the year the world shut down but a long way from the $19.1 billion the company had booked in 2019 pre-pandemic.

On February 12, 2026 the company released their financials for 2025 revealing $22.4 billion in operating revenues and a record $5.8 billion in the fourth quarter.

The company had also picked up accolades for customer service and was recognized as Best Airline in North America at the 2025 Skytrax World Airline Awards.

Today, Michael Rosseau was cancelled by the Air Canada board of directors.

Officially, the claim is that the company was looking to replace Rousseau for sometime. They want us to believe this has nothing to do with the language controversy that has now overshadowed the tragedy that was the crash of Flight AC 8646 and the death of two young pilots.

As I write in my column for the Toronto Sun, this is all about language zealots making this an issue over Rousseau’s unilingual video message of condolence. Politicians in Quebec, and I’ll include Prime Minister Mark Carney in this, are playing a dark and sick game of trying to whip up the mob over language issues for their own political gain.

Carney is using this issue to the advantage of the Liberal Party due to the by-election in Terrebonne, just outside of Montreal. That by-election is a race between the Liberals and the Bloc Quebecois.

Last week, Carney jumped on this issue effectively warning the board of Air Canada that he was watching what they would do. Given that Air Canada is a highly regulated industry that has to work closely with the federal government, the board realized they had no choice.

On Monday in Toronto, Carney was asked about Rousseau moving on and he couldn’t resist jumping on this.

“It is essential that the next CEO of Air Canada is bilingual,” Carney said. “That should have gone without saying to begin with, but recent events have underscored the importance of that.”

The thing is, there is no legal requirement that the CEO be bilingual. Air Canada is no longer a government owned airline and the PM should have no say in this, he should zip it.

Instead, he kept going.

“And with respect to his decision to retire, in my judgment, it’s appropriate. He was an effective operator of the of the airline, and did many things, and I salute him for that. But being a leader has many responsibilities, and the second part of your question alludes to some of the responsibilities of the CEO of Air Canada, and so it’s the right decision at the right time.”

Right decision at the right time.

Air Canada made clear that language politics was what is behind this. They put it right in the statement announcing Rousseau’s retirement.

“The Board will consider a number of performance criteria in assessing candidates including the ability to communicate in French,” the statement reads.

There you have it, language politics is more important that competence or performance. It’s also more important apparently than the lives of the two young pilots killed in that crash, two you men who acted in a way that saved the lives of their passengers.

Antoine Forest and Mackenzie Gunther, rest in peace.

The NDP elects a radical leftist and it just might work…

I’ve been writing off Avi Lewis and the entire NDP leadership race since it started. I didn’t see anything that I felt would grab voters, but now that they’ve chosen radical socialist Avi Lewis as their next leader, I think I might have been wrong.

I think Lewis’ policies are crazy, I think they are economically illiterate.

That said, the idea of cheaper groceries and cellphone bills may appeal to some people. Affordability is one of the top issues on the minds of Canadian voters and the Liberal government has done nothing to deal with it.

The Conservatives have definitely attracted plenty of voters struggling to make ends meet and now the NDP will try and do the same.

The policies Lewis is putting forward on the economic front are straight up left-wing populism, and that’s why it might work. He’s appealing to people’s basic needs and offering them a simple solution, he’s telling them he will fix their problems.

His solutions are unworkable, but he’s never going to win government, he just wants and needs to win more seats.

Did you see those NDP delegates…

There were some great clips of the craziness at the NDP convention being shared on social media over the weekend. They show what happens when identity politics runs amok.

Sadly, it’s not just Canadians who are noticing, lots of Americans have noticed as well and they are mocking the whole country.

On Fox News they were playing the clips and laughing.

Same with Glenn Beck on his radio show.

If you don’t know Glenn, he’s got a big audience and he actually knows Canada well. His main producer, content Queen or whatever they call Rikki now used to live here and I worked with her at Sun News Network.

Little doubt that it was her that brought all this to Glenn’s attention.

He not only took issue with all the identity politics at the NDP convention, he, like many outside of this country has taken note of how deeply we have embraced MAID - Medical Assistance in Dying.

Doug Ford turning Liberal from drinking water…

For some of you, Doug Ford is already a Liberal and he knows people say that about him. So Ford turned it into a joke while he was at a news conference with Carney, went to take a sip of water and asked if it would turn him Liberal.