Having moved over to Canada from NL last year, I agree wholeheartedly with the comments about the AC cabin crew or the 'hounds of hell' as we christened them after our last horrific flight ex-LHR.
The explanation I was given was the downsizing of AC admin and head office functions over recent years resulted in many (strongly unionised) long serving personnel facing either a job on the front line or redundancy. Those who took up the front line jobs don't really want to be there; have zero interest in customer service and are merely serving out their time 'til pension.
My personal choice of carrier is now domestically WestJet, who are a breath of fresh air and internationally Air Transat Business Class which is usually cheaper than AC economy.
AC should have been allowed to go to the wall. It is time to bury this dinosaur once and for all.