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Monday May 22 2006 |
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THE
GLOBE, BILINGUALISM, AND MULTICULTURALISM
by Angelo Persichilli
THE HILL TIMES
Some
journalists say our profession may not be the most exciting at times, but
it’s much better than real work.
I thought of this last week when I was reading some stories
about the federal Liberal leadership race. I was particularly interested by
the funny stories on the front page of the Canadian national newspaper,
The
Globe and Mail,
about
bilingualism and the ability to run this country. This is some very funny
stuff.
Last Monday, there was a column by Lysiane Gagnon who told us
that in Quebec it’s only a two-man Liberal leadership race between Bob Rae
and Michael Ignatieff.
Wow, the last time I counted there were more than 10
candidates.The source of the scoop? French-speaking Parliamentary
correspondents, says Ms. Gagnon. “Since they are the only fluently bilingual
candidates other than Stéphane Dion—the sole Quebecer in the ranks and quite
unpopular in the province—either Michael Ignatieff or Bob Rae is more than
likely to be the first choice of Quebec delegates to the Liberal leadership
convention. “Furthermore she said that “Joe Volpe pretends to be bilingual,
but the French-speaking Parliamentary correspondents don’t think so. “ Well,
if the Parliamentary correspondents say so, it must be true. Nonetheless, I
hope you’ll forgive me for asking a few questions: Why is Stéphane Dion
considered bilingual when his English-speaking ability is about the same as
Mr.Volpe’s French-speaking skills? From that, is one to conclude that
speaking the French language is enough to lead a bilingual country but it’s
not as good to speak English? Can we trust the “French-speaking
Parliamentary correspondents “? I don’t think so. And some at
The
Globe and Mail
must
be of the same opinion.
In fact, the front page of the same paper, the same day, said:
“Six Liberal contenders don’t pass as bilingual. “And, according to the
same story, “only five give adequate replies to questions in the second
language. “ So, according to the same paper, the headline of Gagnon’s story
is not correct: we have, following her criteria, a five-way race.
In fact the story goes on saying that “only five of the 11
candidates now running for the Liberal leadership were given passing grades
when rated against the scale for a bilingualism certificate by University of
Ottawa professor Hélène Knoerr. Bob Rae topped the list, followed closely by
Michael Ignatieff, but Stéphane Dion (who was tested on his English
fluency), Joe Volpe and Martha Hall Findlay also made the grade. “ So, now
we know that an academic from the Ottawa University disagrees with the
French-speaking Parliamentary journalists on the Hill. Maybe, just maybe,
they need to upgrade their French-speaking abilities at the University of
Ottawa.
But it doesn’t end there.
Back to the Monday 15
Globe
issue,
the national newspaper goes back to the same subject telling us that “A
front-page story on Saturday said Liberal leadership candidates Maurizio
Bevilacqua and Gerard Kennedy do not speak French well enough to pass the
test for a bilingualism certificate. Both were rated by a language expert as
scoring a 2- minus in a scale of four. The story said a score of 2 was
necessary to pass in fact, a 2- minus is also considered a pass. “ In other
words: While the newspaper said on a Saturday that only five candidates were
bilingual, on the following Monday, it said sorry, we goofed, and boosted
the number to seven. In the same paper, and in the same issue, meanwhile,
Ms. Gagnon narrowed it down to two.The criteria? Who’s the real bilingual
candidate.
Considering the confusion, I’m wondering if the report they were
referring to was written in ancient Latin.
So the question is: How many are bilingual for
The
Globe?
Two? Five? Seven? ...Whatever.
However, the importance of this exercise is not who speaks what
and how well
(in
questo caso possiamo eleggere primo ministro del Canada il portiere di un
grande albergo che parla almeno cinque lingue).
The
importance of this creative and important exercise from The
Globe
and Mail
(it
was the front page headline, wasn’t it?) is a hidden suggestion to all
political organizations: why waste so much money asking members of their
party who they want as a leader when they can have a report card prepared by
the Parliamentary Press Gallery and some academics choose the next leader of
the Liberal Party or the Prime Minister of Canada? If that’s what ends up
happening, I have a suggestion to make.
Given that Canada is a bilingual and multicultural country, (at
least, that’s what we like to say),why don’t we conduct the same test to see
who has adequate “multicultural skills “as well? In fact, the test should
be done not just with the candidates, but also with some of the journalists
on the Hill.
I think the test would demonstrate that some of them definitely
need some upgrading: they have the same journalistic skills as their
colleagues sending reports from the Plains of Abrahams.
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