Being part of Air Canada is to become part of an iconic Canadian symbol, recently ranked the best Airline in North America. Let your career take flight by joining our diverse and vibrant team at the leading edge of passenger aviation.

Air Canada is Canada's largest airline, the country’s flag carrier and a founding member of Star Alliance, the world's most comprehensive air transportation network. Air Canada provides scheduled service directly to more than 180 airports in Canada, the United States and Internationally on six continents. It holds a Four-Star ranking from Skytrax. Air Canada’s Aeroplan program is Canada’s premier travel loyalty program, where members can earn or redeem points on the world’s largest airline partner network of 45 airlines, plus through an extensive range of merchandise, hotel and car rental partners. Through Air Canada Vacations, it offers more travel choices than any other Canadian tour operator to hundreds of destinations worldwide, with a wide selection of hotels, flights, cruises, day tours, and car rentals. Its freight division, Air Canada Cargo, provides air freight lift and connectivity to hundreds of destinations across six continents using Air Canada’s passenger and freighter aircraft. Air Canada’s climate-related ambition includes a long-term aspirational goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

We have an innovative legal team that continues to earn the respect and confidence of our internal colleagues, participating as true business partners to support Air Canada’s strategic objectives. When you join Air Canada and its Legal Department, you’ll become a vital part of a team of driven professionals that fly the flag every day, sharing the best of Canada with the world.  

Key Responsibilities:

Privacy matters to our customers, our employees, our business and our brand.  Air Canada operates around the globe and is subject to a wide variety of privacy and related laws, including data protection, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and anti-spam laws.  To help meet the growing complexities and challenges, we are seeking an innovative and passionate Counsel, Privacy to join our team of professionals in Montreal. This is an unrivaled opportunity for counsel seeking a challenging and rewarding practice with a strong international flavour.  

Reporting to the Senior Counsel, Privacy, the Counsel, Privacy will be an integral member of a growing team of professionals. The Counsel, Privacy’s responsibilities will include:

• Advising and representing Air Canada in a wide range of privacy, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence matters, across multiple jurisdictions, including in relation to:
  • regulatory complaints and investigations and related proceedings;
  • passenger and employee notices/policies;
  • access, deletion and other data-subject requests;
  • privacy by design, including privacy impact assessment, risk assessment for artificial intelligence systems; and 
    incident preparedness/response, breach notification and reporting.
• Keeping abreast of developments in privacy, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and anti-spam laws in Canada and internationally (particularly the European Union) to ensure, along with our Compliance team, the continuing lawfulness of Air Canada privacy policies and practices;
• Working closely with various branches including Customer Experience, Cybersecurity, Procurement, People, Culture and Communications, Loyalty, IT, E-commerce, and Sales, to help drive company initiatives, including online or electronic-messaging marketing campaigns, contests and social media practices, advising on compliance with privacy and anti-spam laws;
• Assisting commercial counsel and clients in analyzing the nature of the parties to vendor contracts (i.e., whether they are “controllers” or “processors” of personal data) and trans-border data flows necessary to determine and advise on the appropriate data-protection provisions, on automated decision-making system (AI); and
• Representing and advising Air Canada in all matters pertaining to CASL and other applicable anti-spam laws.

• Minimum of three and up to five years of experience in a leading law firm or an established in-house legal/privacy department (candidates with more than five years’ experience will be considered on an exceptional basis); privacy certification (CIPP/E, CIPP/C, AIGP, CIPM) an asset;
• Membership in the Bar of a province essential; training in both common and civil law an asset;  
• Demonstrable, solid academic credentials and track record;
• Solid understanding of and practical experience with PIPEDA and CASL, as well familiarity with the common law and civil law of privacy and provincial privacy laws, particularly Québec’s Private Sector Act;
• Experience before the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, and the Federal Courts strong assets; and
• Knowledge of the GDPR, other international privacy laws, cybersecurity laws, AI laws.
• Strong analytical, negotiation, advocacy, written and oral communication skills.
• Ability to understand, anticipate and meet client needs, effectively communicating and always remaining cognizant of related risks;
• Be a leader, self-motivated and thrive on challenges and having responsibility and enjoy working in a dynamic and constantly evolving environment alongside a very cohesive team of professionals.  
• Drive for results and urgency and motivation towards achievement of goals; 
  Good business judgment and be strategic, pragmatic, and thorough with a solid ability to assess legal and business risk;  
• Creativity and analytical ability to consider, refine and merge different approaches to achieve workable solutions;  
• Capacity to work autonomously and under pressure, displaying composure in challenging situations.
• Inclination to take initiative and be proactive and resourceful;
• Have a passion for learning and gaining a deep understanding of the business to more effectively support strategies and objectives;
• Strong desire to participate as part of a team and initiative to empower and guide the team (when appropriate), with an ability to contribute to a shared sense of direction;
• Facility in managing shifting priorities;
• Be supportive of innovation, and adaptable and flexible to work effectively in a context of rapid change and to grasp opportunities to learn and build knowledge;
• Demonstrate punctuality and dependability to support overall team success in a fast-paced environment.

Intangible Benefits:

The selected candidate will often be required to work autonomously but will have the benefit of working closely and exchanging with senior counsel and internal clients who have acquired a broad and deep understanding of all commercial aspects of the business.  While demands are often as high as in private practice, workflow tends to be more predictable. The work is diverse and challenging and not monotonous.  There are regular opportunities for exposure to new mandates; the range of available work is wide and quality is typically high.   

Conditions of Employment:

Candidates must be eligible to work in the country of interest, at the time any offer of employment is made and seeking any required work permits/visas or other authorizations which may be required is the sole responsibility of the candidates applying for this position.

Linguistic Requirements

Bilingual (English and French)

Diversity and Inclusion

Air Canada is strongly committed to Diversity and Inclusion and aims to create a healthy, accessible and rewarding work environment which highlights employees’ unique contributions to our company’s success.

As an equal opportunity employer, we welcome applications from all to help us build a diverse workforce which reflects the diversity of our customers, and communities, in which we live and serve.

Air Canada thanks all candidates for their interest; however only those selected to continue in the process will be contacted.