RT787,
Your instructor is talking bollocks. Hand flying is encouraged at Air Canada, when appropriate. As a matter of fact, some of us occasionally hand fly the whole flight (as long as it's fairly short...an hour or so).
I recall hand flying a DC-8 freighter across the Atlantic when we couldn't get the auto-pilot to engage. No auto-thrust either. This was back in the 1980's before RVSM. Wouldn't be allowed to do it now. There were 3 of us on the flight deck and we took turns flying. Pretty exhausted when we got to LHR though. The beer went down well on that layover.
Air Canada pilots have had a ton of experience in some of the worst weather mother nature can through at them before they get hired. Hand flying is not a problem.