Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Saturday, November 05, 2011

Tories sending signals they don't care about bilingualism

On Nov. 6, 1867, in first the speech of the first sitting of the House of Commons, John A. Macdonald called on MPs to elect MP James Cockburn as Speaker.

Joseph Dufresne, the Conservative MP for Montcalm, Que., rose to object.

Hansard reports: "Mr. Dufresne addressed the house in French, expressing his dissatisfaction at the nomination of Mr. Cockburn, on the grounds that that gentleman could not speak the French language. He thought it was to be regretted that, at the inauguration of a new system, greater respect was not shown to Lower Canada in this matter. He looked upon this as a matter of national feeling."

MPs ignored the national feelings of French Canadians that day, and picked Cockburn, which meant that unilingual MPs from backwoods Quebec could not communicate with the Speaker.

On Thursday, Conservative MPs voted to appoint Michael Ferguson, a unilingual New Brunswick accountant, as auditor general, ignoring the national feeling of French Canadians. The NDP and Bloc voted against and the Liberals walked out, a distressing departure from the tradition that the House unites behind the appointment of officers of Parliament.

A lot of commentators in English Canada don't see what the big deal is.

On CBC TV Thursday night, Kevin O'Leary put it this way: "The only language that matters with the auditor general is finance. Bring out the numbers. I don't care if he speaks English, French or Japanese." A lot of English Canadians agree with O'Leary, but almost no French Canadians would, and neither would many people who understand the job, a group that likely does not include O'Leary.

It is no knock on Ferguson, who is said to be a talented and tough-minded auditor, but the auditor general must speak both languages.

First, he must manage his office. In Ottawa, that means dealing with French and English Canadians in their own language. He must report to Parliament at committees, which means speaking to MPs in their own languages. He must check the translations of his reports to make sure that the very carefully worded observations are correct. And he must communicate effectively with the media in both languages, which is more important and more challenging than most people likely realize.

The government is defending this appointment, saying that a lack of language ability shouldn't stop the best person from being appointed. It's hard to know how serious they are about that, but I think we'll be waiting a long time before they appoint a unilingual francophone to a job like this.

They may now think that language shouldn't be an issue, but when they hired headhunting firm Odgers-Berndtson (for $180,000!) to find a replacement for Sheila Fraser, bilingualism was a requirement. The firm approached 400 accountants. Because the job pays only $322,900 a year - which apparently is not good money for a top accountant - only 30 qualified applicants applied. The firm whittled the long list down to nine.

A committee chaired by Stockwell Day cut the list to four, including Ferguson and Quebec's auditor general, Renaud Lachance.
Lachance, who is bilingual, was offered the job, and was interested, but somehow or other, nobody bothered to follow up with him for months, and when they did, he had changed his mind, so they offered Ferguson the job.

Somehow, nobody noticed that Ferguson couldn't parlez, and he took the job and came to Ottawa, where, at his first appearance at a Commons committee, he was unable to speak or understand French. Whoopsie.

This does not seem to be part of a calculated effort to show disrespect to French Canadians, but it does so all the same, and fits with a pattern. When the prime minister replaced his bilingual director of communications recently, he appointed a Torontonian who can't speak French. The opposition is complaining that the government's two most recent appointments to the Supreme Court were Anglos from Ontario. I'm not sure it would be wise to insist that the Supremes be bilingual, because the government would be severely narrowing its range of western candidates, but this government is sending signals that it doesn't care about bilingualism, which is worrying.

In 2005, at the newly merged Conservatives' first policy convention, I watched delegates from across the country vote overwhelmingly in support of bilingualism. The old Reformers didn't do that out of their passion for the langue de Moliere, but because they wanted their party to appeal to French Canadians.

French Canadians have rewarded them by electing eight Conservative MPs in this Parliament, which is less than the Tories wanted, but better than nothing.

And whatever the vagaries of individual elections, bilingualism is the basis of the awkward marriage between our founding nations.

English Canadians often seem to feel like it's the result of some subtle French treachery, but if anyone else has a better idea for a way to organize a country with two large language groups, they should tell us what it is, put it in their platform and run an election on it.

Origin
Source: Edmonton Journal 

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