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<h1 class="entry-title">Celine Cooper: Bilingualism and the Conservative leadership race</h1>
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<a class="gmail-author" href="http://montrealgazette.com/author/celine-cooper-special-to-the-gazette"><img src="http://wpmedia.montrealgazette.com/2014/10/celine-cooper1.jpg?quality=55&strip=all&w=33" class="gmail-avatar gmail-avatar-33 gmail-photo gmail-wp-post-image" alt="Celine Cooper" width="33" height="33"> <span class="gmail-name">Celine Cooper, Special to Montreal Gazette</span><br> <span class="gmail-author-more">More from Celine Cooper, Special to Montreal Gazette</span></a> </div>
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Published on: December 18, 2016 | Last Updated: December 18, 2016 2:00 PM EST </div>
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<img class="gmail-wp-post-image" alt="Andrew Scheer, Kellie Leitch and Brad Trost, left to right, participate in the Conservative leadership candidates' bilingual debate in Moncton, N.B. on Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016. Conservatives vote for a new party leader on May 27, 2017." src="http://wpmedia.montrealgazette.com/2016/12/andrew-scheer-kellie-leitch-brad-trost.jpeg?quality=55&strip=all&w=840&h=630&crop=1" width="840" height="630">
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<p><span class="gmail-img-caption">Andrew Scheer, Kellie Leitch and Brad
Trost, left to right, participate in the Conservative leadership
candidates' bilingual debate in Moncton, N.B. on Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016.
Conservatives vote for a new party leader on May 27, 2017.</span>
<span class="gmail-img-author"><span>Andrew Vaughan</span> / <span>THE CANADIAN PRESS</span></span> </p>
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<p>Do Canada’s federal party leaders still need to speak both official languages? </p>
<p>Of the 14 candidates currently vying to replace Stephen Harper as
leader of the Conservative Party, only a handful — Maxime Bernier, Chris
Alexander, Rick Peterson and Steven Blaney — would generally be
considered fluently bilingual. The others (Michael Chong, Andrew
Scheer, Erin O’Toole, Andrew Saxton, Pierre Lemieux, Kellie Leitch, Lisa
Raitt, Brad Trost, Dan Lindsay and Deepak Obhrai) speak French with
varying degrees of aptitude and wobbliness. All of this was on display
at the bilingual leadership debate in Moncton earlier this month.</p>
<p>The reappearance of Kevin O’Leary on the scene as a potential
candidate is likely to shine a spotlight on the issue once
again. O’Leary — an investor and businessman best known for his turn as a
Dragon on CBC’s The Dragon’s Den — was once dismissed as an unserious
and unlikely candidate. In this post-Trump era, that may no longer be
the case. A Montreal-born anglophone, he once <a href="http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/kevin-oleary-doesnt-speak-french-but-says-he-could-still-be-prime-minister/">said</a> he
saw no need to speak French, saying his DNA was in Quebec, that he
speaks the language of jobs, and that young Quebecers are all bilingual
anyway. (On this last point: Quebec is indeed home to the most <a href="http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/75-006-x/2013001/article/11795-eng.htm">bilingual</a> residents
in Canada, at about 43 per cent, but O’Leary shouldn’t assume Quebec
francophones are all bilingual. If you break the numbers down, you’ll <a href="http://canada.pch.gc.ca/eng/1464889083186/1464889278540">see</a> that while 69 per cent of Quebec’s English-speakers are bilingual, only 38.6 per cent of Quebec francophones are.)</p>
<p>Last week, in something of an about-face, O’Leary said that if he
does make the leap into the race — he’s waiting for the crowded field of
contenders to thin out first before deciding — he will “<a href="http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/kevin-o-leary-surprises-with-potential-campaign-team-assembled-1.3200056">attempt</a>” to learn French. Bernier, who is from Quebec and considered a frontrunner, has likened O’Leary to a “tourist” in the province.</p>
<p>It’s true that the Conservatives need a leader who is electable in
the province, particularly given the losses the party suffered
in Atlantic Canada and Ontario during the 2015 federal election. But we
need not make this all about Quebec. There are more than a million
francophones who live outside Quebec: 54 per cent of them live in
Ontario; 23 per cent of them reside in New Brunswick. Approximately 7.7
million Canadians have French as their first official language spoken.</p>
<p class="gmail-p1">Is it important for Canada’s federal party leaders to be at least competent in both official languages? I think so. </p>
<p>But Canadians should show each other a little more courtesy on this
score. Just as I cringed every time former Liberal leaders Stéphane Dion
or Jean Chrétien were ridiculed for their imperfect English, I have a
problem with the way many Conservative leadership candidates have been
publicly mocked for their struggles with French. It’s difficult to learn
a new language, never mind master it, particularly as an adult. For
what it’s worth, Canada’s language policy was never intended to ensure
all Canadians would achieve high levels of bilingualism; it was designed
to ensure that English and French speakers would be able to operate in
the official language of their choice. This not-so-small detail needs to
be taken into consideration. </p>
<p>In 2011, Statistics Canada shows that only 17.5 per cent of Canadians
identified as bilingual in English and French. The biggest problem — if
you want to think of it that way (and not everyone does) — is that
education falls under the purview of the provinces who tailor
curriculums and requirements to their own priorities. Achieving a
pan-Canadian English-French bilingualism would necessarily require an
ambitious national languages strategy. That, in turn, would require a
synchronicity between federal and provincial governments on matters of
shared goals.</p>
<p>At any rate, the question of whether federal party leaders in Canada
must speak French remains a relevant — though ever changing — debate. </p>
<p>And while we’re on the subject of debates, the next Conservative
leadership debate will take place in Quebec City on Jan. 17. It will be
in French.</p><p><a href="http://montrealgazette.com/opinion/columnists/celine-cooper-bilingualism-and-the-conservative-leadership-race">http://montrealgazette.com/opinion/columnists/celine-cooper-bilingualism-and-the-conservative-leadership-race</a><br></p><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">**************************************<br>N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members<br>and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal, and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message. A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)<br><br>For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to <a href="https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/" target="_blank">https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/</a><br>listinfo/lgpolicy-list<br>*******************************************</div>
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