DO WE NEED BILINGUAL SEATBELT BUCKLES?

DO WE NEED BILINGUAL SEATBELT BUCKLES?

One of the many groups of people who really aggravate me are those who try to take advantage of a situation for their own profit. Conmen and their get-rich-schemes seem to be reported regularly. Seniors and the aged are often targeted with schemes to get them to invest their money or pay for fabricated income tax claims. Recently a couple from Ontario tried to repeatedly charge Air Canada with violations of Canada’s  Official Languages Act.

Air Canada has been ordered to pay a French-speaking couple 21,000 Canadian dollars and write them a letter of apology for violating their linguistic rights. The couple complained that some signs on a domestic flight they took were only in English, while others gave the French version less prominence. A judge ruled that the airline had breached Canada's bilingualism laws.

I don’t know about you but I have several thoughts on the decision. First of all, I don’t know where the figure of $21,000 came from. Did the judge just pick it out of the air? Secondly, what difference would the absence of the French version make to the couple? Is the Official Languages Act designed as a national policy or a chance for people, who have too much time on their hands, to look for loopholes?

I became even more indignant when I read that the couple argued that the word "lift" was engraved on the buckles of their seatbelts in English, but not in French, and French translations of words such as "exit" were in smaller characters. They also said the English-language boarding announcement for their Montreal-bound flight was more thorough than the French version. If that is not the definition of “picky”, I don’t know what is.

My ire continued to escalate when I read the Ontario couple, Michel and Lynda Thibodeau, (and I think their names should be plastered everywhere) filed 22 complaints against the airline in 2016. These people are not concerned with an Official Languages Act violation, they are the equivalent of ambulance chasing lawyers. They are playing a game and it appears that so far they have won $21,000 for their efforts.

They are the equivalent of the telephone conmen who scare the elderly with threats of facing a criminal charge unless the comply with the caller’s demands. In fact, it is not the first time the couple have accused the airline of violating their linguistic rights. In 2014, the Supreme Court ruled that they could not sue Air Canada over a mistaken drink order on an international flight and would have to settle for an apology.

How much court time has been consumed and wasted by these two individuals? I would suggest that a court order be issued so that if either party again applies for settlement against the Act, that they be charged and fined with being a public nuisance. Or preferably, sent to Devil’s Island, where I understand all of the signage is in French!