I have flown Air Canada and Canadian airlines several times in the last 10 years. Air Canada is certainly the better of the two.
In North America - US and Canada, after a while it’s hard to tell the difference between airlines. They all stink unless you can afford costly and mind-numbingly expensive business or first class. In fact, barring legal liability to not kill you due to an accident or what is legally defined as recklessness, I have come to believe that these airlines wouldn’t care if someone died due to no shrinking leg room and abso bekar food. They want their money and they want you to be legally alive upon arrival.
Having said that - and since they are all brothers in a dirty business - I should say that the thing I like the best about Air Canada is their website. It makes the pain of being packed as sardines somewhat bearable if the pain doesn’t start from the moment you imagine the trip. There are few well-designed sites and Air Canada is one of them (take note all you web designing geeks).
Since I mentioned something I like about them - I must say something I don’t much enjoy about most things Canadian - the everything BILINGUAL bugs me. I mean I understand the need and the rational side in me is ok. But given I speak both french and english, I get terribly annoyed having to hear the same announcement three times - once in french and once in English. Yes, I flunked my math classes :)
Happy flying and bienvenu aubord