I will not say that Canadian airspace is unsafe. It is one of the safest.
But as a pilot that goes into YQB on a regular basis, ie weelky.
I find that my situational awareness is greatly reduced in the YQB
control zone because of the mix in languages. I am usually the lone
english speaking aircraft with 4 or 5 others speaking french, and I have
no idea where they are or what they are doing.
And the guys in the YQB tower are preloaded to be pissed off if you
make an issue of it.
Waiting in position to T/O, the tower guy finally came back to us after a
very long french transmission, and cleared us for T/O.
My partner asked about the position of the A/C that the tower guy had just
spoken with in french.
He was told, "you worry about flying your plane, and I will worry about controlling the aircraft"
Totally unprofessional, but quite typical of the French and their language
attitude. It was more important to him to try and make the language
not appear to be a safety issue, than to provide information to a requesting
flight crew.
But hey......that's why we love Quebec
