Air Canada's CEO Michael Rousseau is stepping down following blowback from a video statement he gave — almost entirely in English — after an Express plane collided with a fire truck at LaGuardia airport on March 22. Mathieu Dion explains why the CEO's lack of a French apology led to this moment (Source: Bloomberg)

Michael Rousseau took more than 300 hours of French lessons after he became chief executive officer of Air Canada. But when he faced the camera to read a solemn statement after a fatal ground collision in New York last week, he uttered only two words in the language: “bonjour” and “merci.”