French – Sheila Copps https://sheilacopps.ca Fri, 25 Apr 2025 17:31:33 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://sheilacopps.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/home-150x150.jpg French – Sheila Copps https://sheilacopps.ca 32 32 Remaining calm, cool, and collected key for Carney https://sheilacopps.ca/remaining-calm-cool-and-collected-key-for-carney/ Wed, 21 May 2025 12:00:00 +0000 https://sheilacopps.ca/?p=1690

If the Liberal leader keeps his cool and avoids attack mode, he can reinforce the impression that he is calm, thoughtful, and fully prepared to deal with future White House bullies. 

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on April 21, 2025.

OTTAWA—Only in Canada would a hockey game trump a federal election debate.

The Montreal Canadiens had one last chance to make the playoffs last week, and their game was in conflict with the national leaders’ debate in French.

The simple solution was to move the debate forward to an earlier time. The move probably helped the front-runner more than anyone else.

Liberal Leader Mark Carney struggles more in French than the rest, but the move may have meant fewer Quebecers watched the debate in person. Some were likely still en route from work, and others were preparing dinner for their families. Six o’clock is probably the worst time for a political debate.

But there’s also a school of thought to say that debates really don’t change much.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre had better hope that they are wrong because he needs a major boost to have any chance of beating the Liberals on April 28.

In reality, there are very few occasions when a knockout punch decides an election.

Most people remember Brian Mulroney’s response when then-prime minister John Turner was asked to defend a series of appointments forced upon him by predecessor Pierre Trudeau.

Turner’s response, “I had no option,” caused Progressive Conservative leader Mulroney to jab him with a pointed finger. “You, sir, had an option.” That knockout punch led the PCs to a historic victory of 211 seats in the September 1984 election.

Many have compared that debate scenario to this year’s campaign. Both campaigns saw unpopular Trudeaus leaving their positions as prime minister.

Both saw a new leader take over who had been outside the previous prime minister’s direct orbit. In Turner’s case, he left government after a disagreement with the prime minister, and returned when the leadership position opened up anew.

In Carney’s case, he is brand new to politics. But his previous work as an adviser to Justin Trudeau meant that he was not completely separated from the previous regime.

He, too, has experienced a post-leadership bump. That would likely have slumped in the rollout of a regular election campaign.

But United States President Donald Trump made sure that this was not an ordinary Canadian election.

He caused a pan-Canadian call to arms with his constant musings about annexing our country, and referring to our prime minister as “governor.”

Carney came out as the leader most likely to defend this country’s interests against American protectionism and against a president who seems to enjoy belittling allies and supporting former enemies.

It has been lost on no-one that the president exempted Russia and North Korea in the global tariff attacks that saw him turn his back on Europe, Canada, and other former allies recently.

The debates in French and English last week permitted Poilievre to exercise his acrid humour in a frontal attack on Carney. But he had to use caution because if he were to be seen as too nasty, that would simply reinforce the animus that Canadian women voters have already identified in him.

There is a reason that he is running 20 points behind when it comes to support from women. His nasty, three-word slogans get the anti-vaxxers motivated, but have the opposite effect on women who are concerned with issues like language and behaviour. They want to provide good examples to their children, and when it gets too nasty, politicians simply lose their support.

I was on the debate preparation team for Trudeau in his first election, and the whole group was encouraging him to hit hard. He refused to do so, saying he wanted to show that politics didn’t have to be dirty.

He was right. Running in third place, Trudeau took a nasty hit from then-NDP leader Thomas Mulcair, and in a calm voice, he reminded Mulcair that debate day was the anniversary of his father’s death. Mulcair melted and Trudeau vaulted to first place in an election victory that no one had seen coming.

All that to say that debates do count. But for the current Liberal momentum to be blunted, it would mean a direct hit from the Conservatives, the Bloc Québécois and the New Democrats. They are all fighting for their lives, so any onlooker can expect a full-frontal attack on the prime minister.

If he keeps his cool and doesn’t fall into attack mode, Carney can reinforce the impression that he is calm, thoughtful, and fully prepared to deal with future White House bullies.

That perception will be important since, if Carney is successful at the end of the month, his anti-bullying days may just be starting.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

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Language politics return to Canada https://sheilacopps.ca/language-politics-return-to-canada/ Fri, 24 Feb 2017 17:00:59 +0000 http://www.sheilacopps.ca/?p=460 Justin Trudeau not speaking English during a town hall in Quebec is less of a political problem than Conservative leadership candidate O’Leary not being able to speak French.

By SHEILA COPPS

Published first on Monday, January 23, 2017 in The Hill Times.

OTTAWA—The politics of language and the language of politics are as Canadian as hockey.

Last week, the Liberals and Conservatives were both facing heat on Quebec’s hot-button language issue.  

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was in trouble for speaking too much French, and Conservative candidate Kevin O’Leary for not speaking enough.

Both were defending their language choices for different reasons. Both faced the wrath that can only be unleashed by the politics of language in Canada.
 
Trudeau, in Sherbrooke, Que., on his cross-country tour, waded into the language issue, by answering all questions during the town hall debate in French, even those that were asked in English.

He prefaced his language switch with a comment in English that “since we’re in Quebec, I’ll respond in French.” Trudeau had obviously decided in advance to stick to the preferred language in every province.  

He spoke mostly English in provinces that are designated as unilingual English, and vice versa in Quebec. The only Canadian province designated bilingual is New Brunswick.

But federal language policy guarantees every Canadian the right to receive federal services in the language of their choice, regardless of where they live.

In pursuit of that right, at least two people have taken the prime minister to task by filing complaints with the official languages commissioner. Those complaints guarantee that this issue is not going to go away any time soon.

It also puts the prime minister in the enviable position of defending his use of the French language in Quebec. This politics of language may actually reinforce support amongst francophones who criticize Trudeau for not being French enough. With a francophone father and an anglophone mother, Trudeau is truly comfortable in both languages but has been denigrated publicly for thinking in English and being less  fluent in his father’s mother tongue.

Holding any political event in Quebec always puts the language issue under the spotlight. Had Trudeau simply responded in the language of the questioner, he might actually have spent more time speaking English, which could have caused a different kind of political flak.

His team obviously calculated that, in the long term, risking the ire of Quebec anglophones was less dangerous than appearing too English in Quebec. He does, however, run the risk of falling short on his avowed support for bilingualism.

If that ever-present language dilemma is all too complicated for politics, Trudeau has a less intractable problem than that of Conservative leadership candidate Kevin O’Leary.

The television host announced his candidacy the day after after the party’s only French-language debate so he could avoid exposing his ineptitude in Canada’s official Gallic tongue. Montreal-born O’Leary professes his love for Quebecers but doesn’t believe fluency in French is a sine quae non for political leadership.

His answer when questioned about the importance of French is that he speaks the language of jobs, and that is what Quebecers want to hear. But fellow Tory candidate and fluent French speaker Maxime Bernier challenged that contention during another recent debate. “Sure, Quebecers are happy to speak English to tourists. But that doesn’t mean you can govern Italy without speaking Italian.”

With one-quarter of the delegates to the Conservative leadership coming from Quebec ridings, mastery of French is a must. Seventeen years older than Trudeau, O’Leary grew up in a different time. But O’Leary attended school in Quebec, and even credits McGill University with curing his dyslexia. The fact that a native son cannot even speak the majority language is puzzling.

And to assume that his inability to speak French is a non-issue reflects a deep  misunderstanding of Quebec and Canadian politics. O’Leary’s refusal to acknowledge the importance of fluency is a political mistake of gargantuan proportions. Perhaps the reality that the candidate has spent most of his adult life living outside the country has distorted his political judgment.

Even before O’Leary entered the race, fellow candidate and former minister Chris Alexander put the issue bluntly. “One cannot understand Canada and one cannot prepare to govern Canada without understanding Quebec,” said Alexander, a former Immigration minister.

Now that O’Leary is officially in the race, language will loom large in Conservative conversations over the next few months.

Trudeau made a mistake in not responding to a question in the town hall participant’s language of choice. But his language problem pales in comparison with that of O’Leary.  

For a native-born Quebecer to speak too much French in his home province is explicable. To speak no French at all is not.
 
Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era Cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

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