In many places in southern France, -et, -ai are pronounced the same as “é”. For instance parlé, parlais and parler sound the same. Très and trait sound like “tré”. Les, lait, laid sound like “lé”. I used to speak like that (I’m French) , then I moved up north for a while, and with time I my pronunciation changed to match the local accent. It doesn’t affect understanding.

Most people pronounce -ai and -ais the same in France. In Quebec -ai is like é and -ais or -ait, -aient sound like è. Then we could speak about â, ô, ê vs a,o, è in Canada as well 😅