Air Canada has been ordered to pay an Ottawa French-language rights crusader and his wife $12,000 and formally apologize for failing to offer them services in French.
Among several complaints to the Federal Court of Canada, Michel Thibodeau described how when he asked a unilingual anglophone flight attendant in French for a 7-Up, she gave him a Sprite.
Thibodeau characterized the incident and others as “malicious, oppressive and reprehensible,” conduct by Air Canada employees that only aggravated the violation of the couple’s linguistic rights.
The court agreed in part, and ruled the airline breached the Official Languages Act on four occasions in 2009 involving Thibodeau and his wife, Lynda, of Orléans.
It is Michel Thibodeau’s second successful legal action against the airline and its subsidiaries. In 2000, he was refused service in French when he tried to order a 7-Up from a unilingual English flight attendant on an Air Ontario flight from Montreal to Ottawa.
Thibodeau filed suit in Federal Court for $525,000 in damages. The court upheld his complaint, ordered the airline to make a formal apology and pay him $5,375.95. Thibodeau was later honoured by the French-language rights group, Imperatif français.
In 2007, he filed a complaint against the City of Ottawa, accusing it of not providing sufficient bilingual services on its buses.
What a racket this guy has going. Had I known the ability to speak French could make you this kind of money I would have taken French longer in school. The mental anguish that you would suffer if brought white bread instead of whole wheat. That has to be worth $150,000. If you get directed to the ladies' room instead of the men's room that could easily be $1 million.
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