Nope not in the ROC, only in Quebec. You can barely be understood in English and you can be PM just look at Jean Chretien, but heavens forbid you can't be understood in Quebecois. As I said before Dion's liability, which will be overlooked, is that he is not fluently bilingual.
Dion's English, like Kennedy's French in Quebec, became hard to comprehend when subjects got complicated.
As for the candidates, they came to rumble. Stéphane Dion picked a fight with Rae over fiscal responsibility. Rae pushed back — switching into French to demonstrate that he's more comfortable in his second language than Dion is in his —
So can we drop this crap about bilingualism when what we are really talking about is whether political candidates are fluent in Quebecois patois.
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Congrats Eugene, you just completely disproved your point by linking to two articles showing evidence that Dion's English does matter!
ReplyDeleteOh, sorry, by your definitions, if he wants to talk to English Canadians, it should be "American patois", not English. And just so you know, Rae and Ignatieff's French is very much Standard French, which is looked up to in Quebec. I haven't heard any of them go "Mon p'tit calisse de tabarnac', m'a t'en crisser une" yet.
His English is irrelevant, which is my point. His English is accented, which is the same for the majority of speakers of ESL. Myu point is that there is NO such a creature as Bilingualism in Canada, ever since Quebec passed its Language Law. There is a unilingualism, that is you must speak French. Ones ability to speak English is of no importance. As Dion shows.
ReplyDeleteAnd you are right none of the Candidates other than Dion could order a plate of poutine if they tried. in Canada;'s "official" language.