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Monday June
1,
2009 BACK NEXT
As
an Italian immigrant, I’m
always sympathetic, for obvious reasons, to the linguistic
challenges of others. I
have neither the professional nor the moral authority to scoff at
people’s
knowledge of the English language. And, for the record, I have no
desire to do so. However,
after reading last week’s
Canadian Broadcast Standards Council’s
deliberations on the infamous interview between CTV Atlantic and the
then-leader of the Liberal Party, Stéphane
Dion, I feel obligated to venture into this debate, as a journalist
and a language-challenged Canadian. The
interview was taped on Oct. 9, five days before the federal election
in a CTV studio in Halifax. CTV
news anchor Steve Murphy, someone I enjoy watching, asked a question
Dion did not understand three times. The Liberal leader asked to
stop the taping and start over again. Dion’s
assistants asked CTV not to air that first take and CTV accepted the
request. Murphy
started the interview again and still Dion didn’t
understand the question. One of Dion’s
advisers then explained the question to the leader. Still he
didn’t
understand and the taping was stopped again. If I remember
correctly, the third take was the charm. Last
week, the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council ruled that CTV was
unfair with Dion after asking a “poorly
framed”
question, later failed to clarify it, and acted “unethically”
because they aired the outtakes despite promising not to do
so. Well,
let’s
see what the question was: “If
you were Prime Minister now, what would you have done about the
economy and this crisis that Mr. Harper has not done?”
As I said at the beginning, my background doesn’t
give me the authority to scrutinize other’s
people language skills, so can somebody, please, explain to me
what’s
not clear about Murphy’s
question? Can the council explain why this question is “poorly
framed?”
The council also writes that the interviewer failed to clarify the
question after Dion’s
request to give more details. I sincerely don’t
see which part of the question Dion would have been unable to
understand, even because, as we could hear on the background, even
one of his handlers explained the question to
him. Still
he did not understand. And
there is nothing wrong with that. So,
why is it so hard for some to accept the fact that Dion’s
English was not good enough? Is that because many immigrants are at
best tolerated when they look for jobs and have trouble expressing
themselves in one of the official languages? Lately they have also
been told that if they don’t
speak the language to not even bother trying to come to
Canada. Furthermore,
there are millions of unilingual Canadian citizens (namely Canadians
that don’t
speak French) who, on a daily basis, are discriminated and barred
from many less important federal jobs because they are not
bilingual, yet we are now re-writing the entire English language to
fit the political aspiration of someone who wants to become Prime
Minister of Canada because he only speaks French? Let me be clear. I
believe that no Canadian should be barred from becoming Prime
Minister because he or she doesn’t
speak English (or French) and no Canadian citizen should be barred
from a federal position because they don’t
speak French. In
fact, I am also sure that Dion did not fail to become Prime Minister
because of his language, but because he was not a good leader and
did not have good policies. Jean
Chrétien
was no Shakespeare in English, but still he became one of the best
Prime Ministers in recent history. So,
why are we afraid to say that Dion’s
English skills were not good? Why are we all hypersensitive if a
political leader doesn’t
speak perfect French language, while we try to change the English
language to accommodate anyone else? One
last point. I
understand that when you make a commitment not to air the outtakes
you should honour it. It is also understood that the commitment was
made at the beginning, when a mistake can be accepted as just that.
When, however, you keep making the same mistake over and over,
it’s
not a mistake anymore. |