French Language Liberal Leadership Debates

[jsburbidge]

Freeland is painful, Carney awkward, Gould sounded as though she could actually survive on the streets of a French city (she did her B.A. at McGill), and Baylis sounded as though he has (he better have, as he was born in Montreal, even if he is an Anglo), although he was not displaying full formal facility with formal eloquent standard French, being rather more colloquial. I think that we deserve an Anglophone leader who speaks French as well as Lucien Bouchard spoke English.

Comments

[graydon]

That seems like a rather nuanced version of "deserve".

French in Canada

[ionelv]

I think Canada deserves a leader whose French is commensurate with exactly how much Quebec "supports" the English language. Aside from Quebec and New Brunswick, French is a minor language in all other provinces and territories (less than 5%), so IMO, French does not really qualify for federal support (e.g. funding/hiring requirements) outside those two provinces. https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/official-languages-bilingualism/publications/statistics.html

Re: French in Canada

[jsburbidge]

I'm selfish. I want a leader whose French doesn't make me wince. Of course, I also want news reports covering people speaking in French not to provide translation via voice-over but only by subtitle, so that I can hear what's really bring said.