It's pretty important for party leaders to be able to make themselves understood in both official languages here. Being bad in English is more likely to cost you an election than being bad in French, but Québec is often the swing vote that means the difference between a minority and a majority government, so more than a minimum of French is required.
In the past thirty years, there have been no unilingual prime ministers, and an even smaller percentage who weren't fluent in both tongues. Trudeau, Mulroney, Chrétien and Martin were all completely bilingual. Unsurprisingly, they were all from Québec.
Chrétien spoke both languages atrociously, but with so much panache that everyone forgave him his blunders. ;)
Harper isn't fluent in French, but he's scored major points by increasing his competence a hundredfold. I agree with none of his policies, but admire the effort to learn French and speak directly to his constituents in Québec.
Dion is a joke in the language department. He came out earlier this year with a press release about having some sort of disability that prevented him from learning English properly, which came off as whining. If Jean Chrétien could mangle the English language with aplomb, then so can you. Same party, same tactics. Don't apologize or explain, just try your hardest and make sure people can see it. Come on!
So in answer to your question, any leader who can't at least manage to make themselves understood in both languages will lose points with the people and get lambasted by the press, generally speaking.
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branchandroot
Re: English v. French
Date: 2008-10-04 02:56 pm (UTC)In the past thirty years, there have been no unilingual prime ministers, and an even smaller percentage who weren't fluent in both tongues. Trudeau, Mulroney, Chrétien and Martin were all completely bilingual. Unsurprisingly, they were all from Québec.
Chrétien spoke both languages atrociously, but with so much panache that everyone forgave him his blunders. ;)
Harper isn't fluent in French, but he's scored major points by increasing his competence a hundredfold. I agree with none of his policies, but admire the effort to learn French and speak directly to his constituents in Québec.
Dion is a joke in the language department. He came out earlier this year with a press release about having some sort of disability that prevented him from learning English properly, which came off as whining. If Jean Chrétien could mangle the English language with aplomb, then so can you. Same party, same tactics. Don't apologize or explain, just try your hardest and make sure people can see it. Come on!
So in answer to your question, any leader who can't at least manage to make themselves understood in both languages will lose points with the people and get lambasted by the press, generally speaking.