The Star Editorial Board: Failed By Ontario's Education System, Ignorant of Shakespeare?

Reading the Star's editorial, and other ignorant diatribes, makes me reconsider my frequent criticism of QC's education system. I'm starting to wonder about the accuracy of interprovincial rankings, since apparently the other provinces' education systems have resulted in a terrible epidemic of first language illiteracy and diminished cognitive abilities, judging from the ignorant and illogical comments made by some supposedly educated media. If people would take the time to educate themselves about what the bill actually says and read up on the House debates, they might realise how misplaced their views are. Since I assume that like all serious Canadian commentators of public policy the Star's editorial writers already know of Legisinfo and have taken the time to research the question to the best of their ability before writing, I can only assume that those abilities are extremely limited. Like Carpay, they may be functionally illiterate in their first language, and cognitively-challenged, and of course, this being the case, unaware of their own gibbering imbecility. Of course, the other possibility is that they are closet separatists, and are being dishonest so as to advance the cause, since upholding institutional bilingualism as a sine qua non of Canada's existence in theory, and then refusing to be coherent on the question in fact, can only be a position designed to alienate the most hardened QC federalist.

Surely the Star and others can't be so ignorant as not to know that every other national court, whether Appeal, Federal or Tax, has had bilingual justices for many years now, and in fact the SCC was actually an integral part of this state of affairs. Surely they would then understand that their logic (I use the term loosely) would imply that this should not be the case, as many of these other courts are also the final court of appeal, in certain matters. Surely they would understand that if not a bilingual SCC, and logically, not any bilingual Federal Courts, then it would follow that bilingualism is not essential for all other similarly placed positions of final judgment, whether administrative (clerk of the privy council, deputy ministers, CDS, etc.) or political (PM) or other, etc.. And this would imply, given Canadian demographics and political realities, a preference for QC independence, as well as that of Acadia and parts of Eastern & Northern Ontario too.

Many are overstating the reach of the bill. As pointed out by Max Yalden already, C-232 does NOT require fluency in both Official Languages, only that "In addition, any person referred to in subsection (1), who understands French and English without the assistance of an interpreter, may be appointed a judge." As Yalden remarked, that "is a quite different, and less demanding, criterion." Drastically less demanding. And I'm sure they know that simply understanding speech is quite different from the requirement to be fully bilingual, or be able to speak or write fluently. And are too canny to confuse the difference between interpreters and translators. The bill has the very mild aim that the Supreme Court meet the same basic standard as all other courts, the Federal Court, Tax Court, Court of Appeal, etc., which have all had the same requirement for years now, with no noticeable problem. It is a standard the Supreme Court has itself approved and advanced, for all other Federal courts and institutions. And eight of the nine current Supreme Court justices currently meet that mild criterion of oral understanding, and it was nine of nine until recently, and I know of no-one that has accused those courts' composition as evidence of lower legal standards.

This bill is quite mild in its reach and helpful in ensuring that justice be done and be seen to be done, as no lawyer would wonder if some nuance of his oral arguments had been lost by the interpreters, especially if they lost a close 5-4 vote, and that the justices could have their internal discussions in either official language, neither one nor the other becoming the superior default language; otherwise, for example, if eight justices are bilingual in oral understanding and one is unilingual, inevitably, all discussions will be held in the language of the one unilingual, which is not something any fair-minded Canadian would want.

On the off chance that the Star & others are not functional illiterates and imbeciles, but only lazy journalists, as hard to believe as that might be, I am sure that should they take the time to actually research the question and think deeply on these matters, while reflecting on how best to achieve legal excellence within the context of a fair and officially bilingual society, they will revise their views, following the examples set by by Prime Ministers and leaders of all parties, such as Pearson, Stanfield, Trudeau, Clark, Turner, Mulroney, Campbell, Chrétien, Charest, and Martin, and by numerous groups, legal bodies, the Quebec National Assembly (unanimously) and the Canadian Bar Association: CBA says bilingualism to be considered part of merit criteria.

It makes one wonder whether many supposedly pro-bilingualism anglo federalists are so uneducated or undereducated as not to realise there is a rather well-known expression, from a reasonably well-considered writer, to describe their hypocrisy, namely that in their cases, bilingualism is more to be honoured in the breach than in the observance.

Good Tibbetts Article, But Cdn Bar Assn DOES Support C-232, Effectively

In Tibbett's good, fair piece Merits of making Supreme Court bilingual could be lost in translation, there is one point that needs correcting. Contrary to what she writes, the Canadian Bar Association, representing the country’s lawyers, has already taken a position long ago, back in 2008 when the last appointment came up: Canadian Bar Association Says Bilingualism to be Considered Part of Merit Criteria. Now, some may claim that the CBA seems to only say that bilingualism should be one aspect of merit among many in selecting candidates for appointment to the Supreme Court. However, if you use your noggin for a second, you'll realise, that this effectively stipulates that bilingualism should be a sine qua non for selection. Remember what Comartin noted, that in the last rounds of selection from the Maritimes and the Prairies, "there were more than enough candidates from both of those jurisdictions to meet that high test of bilingualism". Now think: there is never one Platonic Ideal Candidate, far and away better than the rest. There are always a number of excellent candidates, with little to pick between them. If Rothstein had not been selected, and the alternate choice had been bilingual, no-one would have doubted his or her suitability, given their qualifications. So when the CBA says bilingualism should be one of the merit criteria, it is effectively endorsing bilingualism as a pre-requisite, since in the final round there will always be bilingual judges, and with so little to choose between the candidates, that criteria will tip the balance for some over others. C-232 is honest, it makes explicit what the CBA & others would rather keep or make implicit. But it's important to be explicit, and get the word out: y'all want to succeed in national public life in Canada? Then you have to be bilingual. Crucial to that, is, as Fraser says, Canadian youth need more second-language opportunities at university, and that means establishing the standards and allocating the resources to make that happen, with the ripple effects for pre-university education, and post-university continuing education, in the widest sense.

PS. 11 is my lucky number

Tenth Time's a Charm: Sen Chaput & I Educate Gazoo & Clueless re. C-232

1 2 3 4 5 6 !!**7**!! 8 9 Now for no. 10, thanks to Worthington & the Gazoo. First, I came across a free Sun in McDo, and that's how I found out Worthington thinks we're still in 2009, or 1969 maybe, and the bill's still in the House. Poor old dear. 'Nuff said. As for the Gazoo, a paper I always defend against the cool kids, today's editorial is an argument for increased funding for Anglo education from the QC Govt - holà les PQ et PLQ, vous vous rendez compte des effets dévastateurs de vos politiques anti-anglophones maintenant?! Ils ne sont plus capables de lire leur propre langue, encore moins construire des arguments cohérents. Ayez pitié. Lisez ceci, svp. OK, I'm writing this for the Gazoo editorial board, and I'm going to take the calculated risk that they may, if they put all their heads together, collectively, be just about capable of reading me without me resorting to all-CAPS or very very small one syllable words. OK, so here's the Gazoo:

Should bilingualism - real bilingualism, we mean, true fluency in both English and French - be a requirement for membership on the Supreme Court of Canada? At first glance, the idea has some appeal. But in practice, although true bilingualism will we believe become the norm for our high court, imposing a formal rule to that effect would be a mistake. (...) Godin, a New Brunswick francophone, is the author of a private member's bill to require that nominees to Canada's highest court be so bilingual that they do not require a translator or interpreter.

A formal rule imposing "true bilingualism", requiring nominees "be so bilingual that they do not require a translator or interpreter"? Gee, it's lucky THAT'S NOT WHAT C-232 SAYS!!!! As previously stated: "Carpay & the Gazette should work on their first language skills before raving incoherently about bilingualism. As pointed out by Yalden already, C-232 does NOT require fluency in both Official Languages"


I know the real reason behind the Gazoo's silliness, they give the game away with their "coercion" line. They are making a link between this and linguistic coercion in QC. But they could not be more wrong, philosophically, they've got it backwards, as the federation's enemies well know - the logic of bilingualism is one of greater Canadian integration, it is part of a nation-building project that not just was enormously successful, but remains so, in the hearts and minds of the vast majority of Quebeckers and Canadians, despite all of QC nationalism's and other provinces' parochialism. It is the only game in town.  It is why separatists have always put so much effort into trying to make it uncool, or passé, or most cleverly, a noble effort, doomed to defeat (very Economist rhetoric that - can't say they didn't learn from the best propagandists). But to their frustration, and those of the small-minded and narrow-hearted coast to coast to coast, it remains the one viable project in this geopolitical space. 


The cost benefit of separation, with the enormous dislocations involved, is almost incalculably negative, and the dynamic effects as far as increased assimilation for all involved, to American English and culture, are even worse, and that is as true now as it was for Lafontaine & Baldwin, Cartier & Macdonald. Canada is an act of will, yes, BUT SO IS EVERY SOCIETY, EVERY PROJECT. We've made this place work remarkably well since 1774, we're one of the oldest democracies, with only maybe Switzerland and UK as our competition (we basically had universal male suffrage by 1850, without slavery - who else did?). There are two other options. Go "Belgian" - and end up with a completely dysfunctional state, leading to separation, de facto, and then de jure. Or skip straight to separation -  and as noted, that would be a disaster, comparatively. 


The federal bilingual logic is unavoidable. This law would provide a small boost for the incredible success of Trudeau-Marchand-Pelletier's oeuvre, which was so damn hard-fought. So exhausting, that while efforts have been continued by their successors, the next stage, as with medicare, remains to be achieved. Graham Fraser's proposals re. education (notably post-secondary) are essential in that regard. Honestly, how can anyone graduate with a degree in the social sciences in Canada, notably history, poli sci & sociology, and not be at least passively bilingual, ie. able to understand the other official language (read & listen)?


So the Gazoo has seemingly not read the actual bill, and strangely contradicts itself on a raft of previous editorials as regards bilingualism, all out of concern for philosophically supporting coercive language legislation, with Bill 101 in the back of their minds. But C-232, and the logic of bilingualism, is of course the philosophy which best safeguards linguistic communities and represents the nation-building project so feared and hated by separatists and the worst of the narrow-minded and short-sighted nationalists. The Gazoo's position is in fact one that would best please the heart of a Péquiste. "Durham here and Durham there" is their logic. Any sentient, liberal humanist should reply, "no, Bald-Laf-Mac-Cart-Trudeau, everywhere".


Now, for the Tenth Time, your education, via Senator Chaput, notably:

It is scarcely necessary to remind my honourable colleagues, assembled here in this noble chamber, that our Constitution says clearly and unequivocally that French and English "have equality of status and equal rights and privileges as to their use in all institutions of the Parliament and government of Canada."

Our Constitution also provides that real equality between English and French must be advanced, and that Parliament has the powers necessary to do so. We are still far from the laudable goal of true equality. The passage of Bill C-232 would constitute a giant step toward this ideal that we have set for ourselves.

The justices on Canada's Supreme Court are called upon to hear cases in both official languages and to apply the principles of law arising from our two great and separate legal traditions. The court's decisions are final and without appeal, and their consequences are often of the utmost importance.

[English]

How would one explain to a francophone appearing before the court that his or her case was going to be heard by justices who did not understand his or her chosen official language? What if an English-speaking Canadian were required to plead before justices who spoke nothing but French? It seems obvious to me that the second situation would be just as unacceptable as the first one.

[Translation]

Bill C-232 is designed to keep us heading in the right direction. It is based upon the principles of natural justice. The right to be heard constitutes the cornerstone of our justice system. How can someone really be heard if he cannot really be understood?

The Department of Justice explains in one of its publications that:

. . . because of the official bilingualism within the federal jurisdiction and the coexistence of two legal systems in the country, there are four audiences for the law in Canada . . . anglophones and francophones subject to the civil law, on the one hand, and anglophones and francophones subject to the common law, on the other hand.

The nine justices who sit on our country's highest court should at least be able to understand, without an interpreter, counsel from all of these four audiences. In my view, this is the bare minimum.

[English]

Let us be very clear: The bill we are discussing does not aim to impose on our future Supreme Court justices a requirement that they speak both official languages fluently. Perfect bilingualism is not the criteria. What is demanded is the ability to understand the other language without an interpreter. This is a distinction worth making.

[Translation]

In a decision by the Manitoba Court of Appeal in 1984, quoted by the Supreme Court of Canada and dealing with the language skills required for a judge to hear a case, Chief Justice Monnin explained that knowledge of a language has four levels: understanding of the written language, understanding of the spoken language, ability to speak the language, and ability to write the language.

According to Chief Justice Monnin, it is not necessary for judges to achieve the third or fourth levels, but it is indispensable that they understand the language, and I quote:

No burden must be put upon those who ask for a trial in French nor should the evidence of witnesses using one or the other of the two constitutionally recognized languages have to be sifted for the trier of facts through the mind and mouth of an interpreter.

This reasoning applies even more strongly when a matter is before the court of last resort, the highest court in the land.

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms provides that the English and French versions of Canada's statutes "are equally authoritative." This means that there is not one version that takes precedence over the other; there is not an original and a translation; but rather there is just one law, drafted in English and in French, which must be interpreted on the basis of Canadian bilingualism and bijuralism.

Both language versions of Canadian statutes "are equally authoritative." A diligent judge will thus, in order to fully understand the significance of certain provisions, have to read both the French and the English versions, because the two form a single whole.

The two versions of a law may complement each other or clash with each other; in a way, the two versions are a dialogue. An understanding of both of Canada's official languages is thus a sine qua non for a full understanding of the country's laws.

This "equal authenticity rule" applicable to federal legislative texts was formulated by the Supreme Court for the first time in 1891, in C.P.R. v. Robinson, and I quote:

In the case of ambiguity, where there is any possibility to reconcile the two, one must be interpreted by the other. The English version cannot be read out of the law. It was submitted to the legislature, enacted and sanctioned simultaneously with the French one, and is law just as much as the French one.

It was confirmed by the Quebec Court of Appeal that "Canadian courts have not only the right but also the obligation to take into account both official texts and use them to interpret each other." The same obligation is incumbent upon our court of final instance, and with still more reason.

Graham Fraser, the Commissioner of Official Languages, said recently:

. . . when someone comes forward and says . . . about a candidate [for the Supreme Court], that he is very competent, that he has all of this experience, but he doesn't have the ability to hear a case that's presented before the Supreme Court in the language in which that case is presented, then he is missing a critical competence.

Coyne's Imagination Deployed in Attempt to Save Him on C-232

I don't want to give away all of this week's extremely entertaining Coyne column on C-232, full of his rich imaginings, signifying less than nothing, as usual when trapped (all columnists' prerogative, I admit), but it is worth quoting this particular rêverie, which is his last redoubt when routed by reason: "The implications are alarming - not only a general decline in the quality of the judges, but the effective exclusion of the West from consideration." Perhaps my eyes fail me, or the relevant clauses are written in invisible ink, perceptible only to Coyne & his ilk, but try as I might, I can't see where the text of C-232 overturns the ironclad constitutional convention on appointments: "By convention, the remaining six positions are divided in the following manner: three from Ontario, two from the western provinces (typically one from British Columbia and one from the Prairie Provinces, which in turn rotates amongst the three, although Alberta is known to cause skips in the rotation) and one from the Atlantic provinces, alternating between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick." Perhaps Coyne remains unaware of the many perfectly qualified bilingual judges from the West? Allow me enlighten him, and others, once again, via Joe Comartin:

I had better put this on the record. I sat through the last four appointments to the Supreme Court. The last two rounds have been the prairie provinces and then the Maritimes. We're sworn to secrecy in sitting on those panels, but the reality is that there were more than enough candidates—I don't think I'm disclosing any surprises here—from both of those jurisdictions to meet that high test of bilingualism. I don't think I can say anything more than that without going into the specifics of their credentials, but there was not a problem with having a significant number of qualified candidates.

As for diminished quality, my ears must be as poor as my eyes, or I am not reading and listening sufficiently, or such complaints are top secret and Coyne is of one the few to be able to read the invisible ink or hear the otherwise indecipherable secret frequencies through which such things are disclosed, since I am surprised, examining the empirical evidence, to hear of such complaints about the quality of ALL OUR OTHER FEDERAL COURTS which are ALL fully bilingual. Or perhaps, just maybe, Coyne's rich imagination has run away with him again? Or he is unaware there is a large stable of bilingual judges at the highest levels, from all regions of the country, ready and waiting to be appointed to the Supreme Court? Then allow me to quote Senator Tardif, to educate him and the other sadly ignorant:

Parliament has recognized the need for any federal court, including the Tax Court of Canada, the Federal Court and the Federal Court of Appeal, to be able to conduct proceedings in French as well as in English by appointing judges who understand both official languages without the need for an interpreter. Ironically, there is only one exception: the Supreme Court.

The rest of Coyne is an attempt to prove, contrary to all evidence and study, that the simplest passive language skills, to be able to listen, perhaps to read, are exactly equivalent to the more demanding active language skills of talking and writing. Coyne's hypothesis is extremely novel in the field of linguistics, to say the least, and I would encourage one espousing such original thinking to do further research on the matter - if he was right, he would be overturning pretty much all established linguistics and have the opportunity of making a name for himself as an iconoclastic Canadian Chomsky. Go to it, man, make your name in yet another field of endeavour. Far from me to discourage such original thinking and suggest the whole thing is without any basis in reality, is a false premise, and represents the last gasp fabulations of a rhetorician unwilling to admit defeat...

Bugging, hacking, spying, attacks, etc.

14/08/12 12:35am It is now clear that there are further errors in this post. I will make corrections as I can.
14/08/12 01:10am Some of the hacking described and perceived as aggressive may actually have been an effort to help me, in some way, possibly. If so, then it was good, not bad.

[26/07/12 It was scary to write this, given I knew very well how odd much of it would sound, but I thought it was necessary - someone should. As I make clear throughout, it was written in good faith, and I am always willing to correct any mistakes.]


Ce qui suit est entièrement en anglais, par besoin de brièveté.

Following up on this, this and this, I need you to read this piece and to make it as widely known as possible (facebook, email, twitter, blogs, comment boards, conversation, etc.). It is an incredible but true story dealing with government, politics and the media which has immense implications for all our lives, in multiple ways. The only way I can see to try to deal with it is to go public, contrary to all my usual instincts, as anyone who knows me will know. I have to stress now, at the outset, that I have spoken to people like Alex Himelfarb, Paul Champ, James H. Taylor, Trevor Hache, and John Olthuis about different elements of this situation to make it clear that however unbelievable parts of what I am going to describe may seem (and they certainly seemed that way to me, for a long long time), it is real, or much of it is – it needs to be brought into the light to be properly examined and understood. And for various reasons, some of which elude me, it would seem that the only way this situation can be exposed is if citizens like us make it known and make it impossible to ignore. At the very least, it's out there, now. I've done what I could.

I have made public my two facebook accounts, here and here, so all my notes (often addressed to insiders) and occasional use of analogy, allegory, metaphor and misdirection to describe and analyse events may be available to all interested parties, as are my two twitter accounts, here and here.

Here are some bullet points which need to be disseminated as widely as possible, to concentrate the mind. I will then explore the situation as best I can, as I came to know it, chronologically, from the limited perspective of one individual. I am happy to admit any and all errors and apologise for and correct any mistakes – I write in good faith. Many people (mostly in politics and the media) know and understand much more than me, but since no-one else is talking about it, I will do my best. The whole point of this piece is get this situation out there so as much light can be shed as possible, so as to stop some abuses of power and find ways to make things better.

• Legal, legitimate political activity (moderate and mainstream even) – writing and talking – can lead to being placed under 24 hour, all-encompassing electronic surveillance by this Government of Canada - this has been my experience for several months now (perhaps longer, but I was made aware of it last summer, though for a long time I thought it might be something more pedestrian, like a series of individuals taping and hacking me…and even that was hard to conceive).
• As I understand it, this surveillance is only possible through resources shared with the USA under existing agreements, like Echelon.
• It would seem that individuals acting on behalf of the Government of Canada, (political parties and the media?) have at times tried to mess with me in person, whether tailing me or trying to get me to compromise myself in some way (ex: for a few weeks numerous a succession [edited 22/04/12 4:41pm] (10+) of pretty young girls would appear out of the blue wherever I was, sit beside me and try to engage/provoke me, as well as a couple of boys, which, though flattering, seems highly improbable to have been a succession of random coincidences, given their numbers, attractiveness and age difference).

• At times, such individuals have engaged in more direct action, like Dave Merleau and Alan Barber, who seemed to put some effort into physically preventing me from sleeping and trying to get at me through conversation while I stayed with a friend of a friend in Ottawa. On the behalf of whose organisation, I cannot say, though I would guess conservative in nature.

Story as I understand it from my limited perspective in chronological order.

On Sunday October 22, 2006, I started the blog Eugene Forsey Liberal on the spur of the moment, in a fury at Stéphane Dion being shouted down and prevented from saying what he wanted to say, by supposed Liberals and federalists in a public debate in Montreal.

I had not meant to become a blogger, and meant to stop after the Liberal leadership race ended, but one thing led to another, and I continued blogging and writing on comment boards, and over time it became my impression that I was having some effect.

I had quietly joined twitter in July 2009 as “Rummi Negge” to observe its usefulness. I observed it was possible to make things happen through its use, that occasionally a meme could grow out of it and become prominent in everyday discourse, as with “busty hookers” and the Rahim Jaffer case, affecting politics and society in some way. After Greg Weston coined the phrase “fake lake” on June 06, 2010 to describe overspending at the G-8 summit, I saw an opportunity to make his alliteration grow and so commenced a humorous campaign on twitter to make it grow, which it did. (Unfortunately, as previously noted, some unhappy soul(s) has(have) put a lot of effort into trying to erase many traces of my work hither and yon.)  I later engaged in some activity on twitter under the second moniker “EFLib”.

Through blogging, writing on comment boards, and tweeting, it seemed to me that I was able to have a some noteworthy effect on public affairs, as people generally took my anonymity as permission to be influenced by me without attribution, and take my thinking and writing as inspiration, to a more or less obvious extent. I had not anticipated this, thinking the pseudonymous “Eugene Forsey Liberal” as worthy of credit as anyone – who knows anyone online? I have always tried to be scrupulous in giving credit myself, with “one exception”. Since I had wished to remain anonymous to protect any family member from being tagged with the brush of my thinking/writing, as well as out of concern for my own privacy, this was a trade-off to which I was able to reconcile myself, though I found it upsetting at times. I was doing some good, and therefore felt I had the obligation to do what I could. Indeed, this dynamic allowed me to influence affairs more than would normally be the case, as in an analogy used by the Globe and Mail, people ran riot being inspired by my work. This was wrong to do without attribution, and it was wrong of the Globe to lay the blame on the shopkeepers for not better protecting their establishments, when the blame must first always fall on the rioters themselves, as noted by Andrew Coyne. Or as Alex Himelfarb replied when I mentioned it was my impression I had had quite a lot of influence on the media and public affairs, “they rip you off all the time”.  

At least the Globe had been nice enough, whatever its motivations, to respond to my post Entre chien et loup…Exeunt Ghostwriter with In praise of ghostly scribes for scientists.

But not having anticipated that anonymity would lead people to think it OK to being inspired without attribution, and then seeing I was doing some good, from my political perspective, as I say, wrong as I thought it was, queasy as it sometimes made me, I felt that as long as the conditions existed to allow to do good (minority government dynamics), it was my obligation to do so. The common good was more important than my own. But it was that Globe editorial, and the conscious psychology behind it, that led me to this point, as I was appalled not just by the thinking, but that the writer(s) would think it OK to boast of it publicly. That indicates not just an individual problem or vendetta against me, but a collective one, when the political-media climate has degraded to the point where one feels comfortable not just doing wrong, but publicly boasting and laughing about it. Loutishness become the norm is unacceptable, and the only way to stop it is to talk about it and denounce it.

Given the motivation behind my work was firstly political, I had not contemplated the full implications from writers’ perspective, a conflict well described by Kate Taylor. Being closer to academics in perspective, I had been occasionally disappointed by the lack of attribution, though in return I had greater political potency. But when I considered matters from the perspective of writers, I felt/feel a certain obligation not to betray the righteous cause of freelancers and the like, who are looking to make a living from their writing. That was not my initial goal myself, though.

The other side to this situation is the enmity I have incurred from elements of the Conservative party and movement, and from elements of the NDP. I believe the Conservative enmity has its roots in work I did to support Richard Colvin and due process starting in the Fall of 2009. Knowing I was read by a goodly number of opinion-makers, when I saw the Conservative government’s disgraceful treatment of Colvin and attempts to whitewash matters, I felt the need to do what I could, which I was well-placed to do, given my understanding of these matters and the language and tricks attempted/used, which are not always obvious to people unused to the ways of the Foreign Affairs department and official Ottawa. I think I had some success in helping others deconstruct the nonsense and push on with parliamentary orders to produce documents. Though this may hard be for some to credit, given my background, education and analytical predisposition, when the 2009-2010 prorogation was declared, I had already thought that if I could help prominent members of the media stand for the production of documents and parliament, something like the anti-prorogation movement would spring up, and much of what happened (the facebook protest phenomenon, etc.) was much as I anticipated (though not the Opposition’s squeamishness at forcing an election on the issue). [I have long tried to influence matters by careful pressure in the right way, at the right time, in the right place, by creating or pushing/pulling inflection points. It is my belief, rightly or wrongly, that I have had some small success over the years, here and there, mostly unnoticed, which was good given the importance of  privacy to me.] I made targeted contributions on facebook and in person, and through others, to try to keep things together. My second contribution was to try to keep the focus on the issue of the Order of Parliament itself, when the prorogation, more easily understood, threatened to obscure it. I got a then friend to convert his website into a tool to help keep minds focussed on the Order of Parliament (I had learnt just how short are the attention spans of the media and politicos). From there on, the Conservatives seem to have become a special problem for me.

My critiques of the NDP’s post-2003 strategy have also caused me some problems with elements of the NDP, which is a pity, since I was once a member of the party.

So it is my very strong impression that through a combination of blogging, facebooking, tweeting, conversation, and occasional motivation of others, I was able to have an unusually influential role in public affairs given my apparently minor position. Unusual because as while in absolute terms quite a few people know of me, several hundred, concentrated in the media and politics in Canada and elsewhere, almost no-one outside those circles does.

In the summer of 2011, given the majority government, I intended to forget politics for a bit and focus my efforts on my own situation. I wrote a couple of emails under my own name as a last bit of help to the Liberals. Shortly afterward, I observed phrases and themes from one of my personal emails appearing in various media outlets. I had had the impression, on and off, that my email had been hacked, but I could find no physical evidence, and that being so, beyond changing my password, there did not seem much I could do, without acting like a paranoid. But now it was clear that my email had indeed been hacked, and seemingly much of the media was privy to it. Yet no-one said or did anything about it. This concerned me not just for myself, but for interlocutors, family, etc.. I eventually tried to deal with it by inviting all interested parties to meet me and get it out of their system, but no luck.

I then became aware that Dave Duprey, who I had counted as a great friend, was party, in some way, for some reason, to some sort of recording of my conversations, or so it seemed. This seemed so crazy an analysis that I went to the hospital to get checked for signs of schizophrenia and mental illness, and the stress of the mind divided against itself led me to seek counselling to prevent suicide. The hospital found nothing underlying wrong with me, nothing clinical, nor did the therapist. But the stress of a mind trying to cope with two diametrically opposed versions of reality is enormous. Once I had become convinced of the betrayal of trust, despite having asked about it, face to face, in a manner that invited self-exculpation of any type, I felt the need to leave Vancouver out of fear I might lose my temper one day and commit some irreversible act.

I went to Toronto where I spoke to Alex Himelfarb, who confirmed my writing had some influence, and made it plain that such tactics, hacking, bugging, etc., are not unknown in Canada among the politically active; indeed he himself works on the assumption that all he says and does is being observed. This was the same analysis I subsequently received from Paul Champ, who declared one can either live with it, or move abroad, if possible. John Olthuis had already made it clear this was common for native groups and those who work with them, as the Globe had reported on its front page in the late summer of 2011. I had also remarked the Globe front page about the Americans being unhappy with the use of their electronic resources for the targeting of legitimate political adversaries in…Yemen. It can be important to read and listen to the media with great care, I have found.

I still found it hard to credit that I would be the target of such surveillance, and that furthermore, its production would be made available to members of the media, politicos, etc. I still thought it more likely that I was the victim of a succession of hacks and recordings.

I ended up spending Christmas with my parents in Ottawa and while there I observed that the phenomenon was continuing. Since I could be sure my parents would not bug me, then the possibilities were either government or some special technology from some private source. Knowing my parents’ neighbours, and the geography, the first option was almost certain.

Before Christmas I had stayed with one of my oldest friends, Alex Côté, who works for Foreign Affairs, and a couple of days into the visit he suddenly, unexpectedly declared an end to a 20-year friendship, and asked me to leave. Now, given the governmental factor, and the pressure he may suffered, it made more sense, and was more understandable, though still hurtful.

While in Ottawa I visited Trevor Hache, whom I had known from a soccer team, and had always seemed like a decent guy. I asked him about various things, particularly media and political dirty tricks, and he said that while he himself had never observed hacking in the media, given the nature of the business, it was entirely plausible. As for the rest of it, he claimed to know no more than me.

Over the Christmas holiday my mother suffered a broken leg in a car accident, which obliged me to become the chauffeur for my father while she recovered. It was in this period that I had the odd experience of having at least 10 extremely pretty young women appear as if by magic wherever I would go (malls, libraries, bars, etc.) and choose to sit beside me, and then strike up conversation with me, something that also occurred with a couple of young men. Given their attractiveness and age difference, and the prevailing mores of male-female relations, it seems impossible these could all have been mere coincidence. I’m just not that charismatic.

Then when I would go play shinny, young guys who claimed they were from Calgary would strike up conversation with me. People identifying themselves as from Calgary early on in conversations was rather a theme for a while, and made me wonder, given everything, if that not might be some code to indicate they were on the good guys’ side from the point of view of the government, etc.. The same thing happened when I went to the Carleton graduate students’ bar. And there were a couple of fellows with whom I played shinny who showed up after I was there and who seemed somewhat familiar, one vaguely resembling a local Ottawa sports writer, another someone I seemed to recognise from political circles. I had already had the impression of crossing paths with three local writers who exhibited marked behaviour when they saw me, two on two different buses, one on an escalator. One of them left his bus almost as soon as he noticed me noticing him, was my impression. The other guy on the other bus made a general comment regarding a sociological situation I was discussing with some students that seemed most apropos. Sometimes, when the coincidences mount up, well…

Recently I attended a Senators hockey game with my longtime friend Brad Crowe, and it was my impression that there were a number of coincidences that night, from the upgrade of the tickets, to the nature of the conversation to Alfredsson throwing me his stick after being named first star.

I was and am uncomfortable with allowing my parents, or anyone, have their conversations recorded and broadcast (the media’s motives may be noble. They’re a hard bunch to figure, motivation-wise.) As a result I have tried, however badly, to collaborate with this situation as little as possible. And there is no doubt that it has caused and causes me great stress, as it would anyone, I think, unless they were massive extroverts and unconcerned with the morals of the situation.

Friends and family may well be subject to pressure from all sorts of sources, government, political parties, media organisations. Understanding that makes me more understanding of some of their behaviour, though it saddens me.

But when I go to a café and two men, reeking of being political aides, suddenly show up and sit beside me and, talk about progressive-issues, well, trying to take advantage of someone being bugged to advance a (NDP?) political agenda is almost unbelievable.

Having lived in Communist-era Poland as a teenager, when my room and house were bugged, as well as in the GDR, where I would be tailed all the time, these sorts of things are not entirely extraterrestrial to me. But it is extraordinary that in Canada some mostly innocuous political activist like myself (I do not know if I am even worthy of the term, but in this context how else should I describe myself?) should be subject to such treatment. It is not just evil, it is pig-stupid.

Most recently I was staying with a friend of my brother’s, who has two roommates, the aforementioned Dave Merleau and Al Barber (Al was also friendly with my brother in high school). First this Merleau, apparently with a Masters in philosophy, tried to argue a very silly point with me, playing to the "mikes" I believe, and got a drubbing for his trouble. Then he and Al would take shifts, one playing the radio in the kitchen beside my room at crazy levels early in the morning, and then late into the night, or the TV. One night I came home to find no-one downstairs and the TV on at volume "11" – I had left my door closed and my room was dark so I assume it was meant to wake me up/keep me awake. Some nights they would literally hammer on the surroundings all night to keep me awake, and then ask me in the morning how I slept. Luckily, I had earplugs. But it did tire me out.
Shortly before leaving that house I went to the library to write a draft of this message. I have an old Acer 370C laptop which does not have wifi built in, so I like to write things on it in peace, without the temptation of internet browsing. I had tried making a wireless card work, but it doesn’t. But there was an ethernet card in the slot that had never worked, or was it put there? D-Link DFE-650 100Mbps. So there I was at Carleton U., where you need all sorts of protocols to connect to the internet, and I had not tried to connect, not wanting to, not knowing any of the protocols, and not having the right technology, so I thought. But I had written two previous documents under similar conditions and had had the odd sensation that somehow they were being distributed all the same, seeing a phrase or two appear in the public record. I was thinking about this, and mentioned it out loud "to myself" when I removed the Ethernet card to check – only to see the computer immediately die, and stay dead every try. Now I have tried turning it back on and now it’s magically working again. Computers can be up and down, but this is weird. Maybe it was just coincidence, but one gets wary.

I can confirm that the sensation of being under constant electronic surveillance does indeed cause serious physical harm, as well as the expected mental-psychological harm, as has been reported. Every day there are periods when I feel wretched, sick in my stomach, physically and mentally heavy, desiring nothing more than to disappear, and while that sometimes translated into suicidal thoughts, often my only escape is to collapse into an unhappy sleep (more a faint than a nap), whatever my surroundings. I have slept on a bench in rain and hail, slept on a bench beside heavy traffic, etc., because my body just stops, and I feel dead, and at those moments I lack even the agency to cause my own death, seeking only immediate self-negation through sleep. Just thinking about this situation makes me feel sick, heavy, tired, as I do right now, trying to write this note. I feel a sickness in my stomach, a weary-heaviness in my head, and just sitting in front of a computer and thinking-writing feels intolerable. I takes all my effort to do so, and often I just stop abruptly, and afterwards I just collapse. There is at this moment, as I try to reread this paragraph, a bile rising in my mouth, a weary hurt in my head, a deadness in my eyes and face, and of course tension throughout my body, especially in my shoulders, as my body rebels against thinking horrible, "impossible" thoughts of ongoing, neverending, all-encompassing rape of my life by hundreds of people.

Part of that is knowing how impossible this all sounds, and how there are hundreds of people who have known of this for months (years?), and do so now, at this moment, as I write, and just observe and indeed profit from my abuse. Thinking-writing that thought now makes me feel sick in my stomach, or sicker.

The collective evil is so overwhelming it make me want to collapse, to die, to disappear. And knowing that it is unbelievable makes me feel self-negating, occasionally suicidal. It takes everything I have to try to stay alive, and to sit here and write, as my duty to inform the world. By the most minimal standards of decency, there is no justification for this abuse of me over the last months (years?). So I unwittingly became a political actor. I have done nothing illegal that I know of, and I have worked only for the public good as any social-democrat/social liberal/progressive would see it. Is it illegal to be able to think and write? And in so doing, to affect events? No, surely not. I have received as much flotsam and jetsam of information as anyone imbedded within their country's and within the world's politics does, but what has distinguished me is my ability to analyse things, to make connections, as it always has. But who would think this would lead to abusive surveillance, and complicity by all these other actors?

I don't understand this situation. Many people know more about it than I do, they know who hacked my email which they mentioned on twitter. They know about all the rest of it. And yet, no-one is talking. I rarely forget that less than 1% ever actively resist tyranny in any culture, but given the hundreds of people who know and have known for a long time about this situation, we are looking at zero out of several hundred people. Even if there was some legal prohibition (everywhere?!) usually there's someone, somewhere, willing to stand up and denounce such abuses (although I  can't think of any analogous abuses) despite threats, and once one person has spoken out, the rest can and do, if only to repeat the first person's words in news reports. But in this case, not a one, anywhere. And as anyone reading this will acknowledge, what I am describing seems so improbable, not to say impossible, that my own statement seems more likely the product of a mental condition than reality, and if it is true, then it would really need validation by those who know of it - yet, if we accept, for the sake of argument, that I am right, and they are staying silent, then my speaking of it just makes me look crazy and makes it easier for others to continue to observe me, mock me, and use my life as material for their own cultural production.

As I say, I don't understand this, and I don't understand the unanimity of people's behaviour. There seem to be a variety of motives at work, some positive (in their own minds), many malicious, either actively or lazily. Like a person, dislike a person, agree, disagree, some things are so beyond the pale of the most minimal standards of decency that it is unbelievable that so many can be so unanimously a party to such evil, or it would be, if that hadn't been the case for months (years?). Maybe I overestimate my moral fibre, but I find it hard to believe I would be party to such behaviour against my most loathed adversary even for a day. How could one?

Now I have written this, leaving much out, and doubtless making mistakes. But as noted at the very beginning, this seems to be largely true, as admitted by others who would know. So I ask that you redistribute this piece as widely as possible. I do not know if it will do any good, but it is all I can do, and it is all you can do. Anyone who has known me in the past knows that as mad as all this sounds, given what I am like, and given the third parties mentioned, this may just be true. As my cousin Aaron said: “freakier things have happened”.

Addendum – Relationship with media

As a blogging polemicist, I was trying to influence public debate and public affairs, and part of that was using the correct polemical tone to to start and maintain arguments, so as to push and pull debate as best I could. Egalitarian by nature, I was surprised to discover some in the media heavily resent bloggers (do they resent Speakers Corner in Hyde Park too?), which, in addition to the tone required to achieve my political objectives, may explain some of their less noble behavior. To be honest, when I first tried to go public to try to deal with this situation, I was surprised they did not all just admit my existence and role. It is perhaps this combination of general resentment of bloggers as a class, and my sometimes fierce tone in argument that might explain their behavior. But here are two things to give you an idea of what has been going on.

I write: Selfishly, LPC Should Hope PantaloneNDP Delivers a FordCPC Victory in Tranna

A few hours later online, and in next day’s Star: Could a Ford victory help the Liberals?

A few hours later online, and in next day’s Post: Pity the city’s left-wing voter

As for my general role re. the media, this argument with Dan Gardner (one of the few to show some decency re. my role) gives an idea:

From comments to: A bilingual Supreme Court? C'est pas si simple.

EugeneForseyLiberal

Good post. And as point of information, I'd add this:
Justice Committee 30/09/09, Comartin: "I had better put this on the record. I sat through the last four appointments to the Supreme Court. The last two rounds have been the prairie provinces and then the Maritimes. We're sworn to secrecy in sitting on those panels, but the reality is that there were more than enough candidates—I don't think I'm disclosing any surprises here—from both of those jurisdictions to meet that high test of bilingualism. I don't think I can say anything more than that without going into the specifics of their credentials, but there was not a problem with having a significant number of qualified candidates."

Justice Committee 17/06/09, Graham Fraser: "Again, I have a great deal of respect for Judge Major, but I'm not sure that somebody who doesn't speak the other language knows what he doesn't know. Donald Rumsfeld once talked about the known knowns and the unknown knowns. I don't know how a unilingual person can evaluate how important language knowledge is as a professional competence. By its very nature, if you don't speak another language, then you don't understand what you would understand if you did speak that other language."

Dan Gardner

No one, including me, said mandatory bilingualism meant there would be no GOOD candidates. But it will rule out a large portion of those who would otherwise be considered, which means the choice will be made from a much-shrunken pool of candidates -- and simple math says the BEST candidate will often not be in that shrunken pool.

By the way, I want to thank Philippe for providing a model of constructive criticism. So many can't seem to write about this without making ridiculous insults and accusations, eh Eugene?

And who is someone without legal training -- someone like Graham Fraser, par example -- to evaluate the importance of language or anything else to the professional competence of judges?

Careful with this argument, Eugene. You'll wind up telling everyone in Ottawa to shut up and then you'd have no one left to argue with.

"Brushing up"? This is not cocktail party bilingualism we're talking about. It's a level of fluency sufficient for handling complex jurisprudence, a level which, I dare say, many native-speakers would struggle to achieve. It took the chief justice years of hard work to get up to what she describes as "moderate" oral fluency and years more hard work -- in a bilingual work environment -- to finally achieve full fluency.

EugeneForseyLiberal

Hmm, I could swear the Gohier article under discussion contains testimony from someone with all the qualifications, legal and linguistic, not to mention the experience, to make that evaluation. Unless bizarro logic has now led some to claim a unilingual judge like Major is better at evaluating the importance of language than a bilingual one, like L'Heureux-Dubé? Curious. That sounds almost like the anti-factual, anti-empirical arguments so beloved of the Conservatives on crime and drugs matters. Unilinguals like Gardner & Major know better than actual bilingual jurists about the importance of language in legal affairs? Next we'll be privileging the testimony of well-meaning anti-drug hardliners over that of those who actually work on the front lines, who have actually seen things from both sides. I look forward to the expected columns now in favour of hardline anti-drug policies based on the deeply held convictions of the well-meaning ignorant.

I don't know if Google translation will do the trick but you might want to actually read the Le Devoir article: http://www.ledevoir.com/

politique/canada/287807/cour-supreme-le-bilinguisme-des-juges-est-essentiel-dit-claire-l-heureux-dube

Dan Gardner

I wasn't actually taking issue with the observation, necessarily, merely noting the absurdity of someone with no legal training making it.

And what's a "unilingual"? Is that some strange, distasteful species?

EugeneForseyLiberal

"And who is someone without legal training -- someone like Graham Fraser, par example -- to evaluate the importance of language or anything else to the professional competence of judges? "

So I simply pointed out the obvious, that a bilingual former SCC justice is definitely someone with the ultimate qualifications to make that evaluation. An evaluation that is impossible for a unilingual. Just as it's impossible, according to you, for a bilingual without legal training to make such evaluations.

I have nothing against unilinguals - some of my best friends are unilinguals, why, I remember this delightful unilingual I met once, so warm, so free and natural in its self-expression, how sad we bilinguals are so removed from our wild unilingual roots, out of touch with our natural selves, because of our overly intellectualised upbringing. Verily, far from disdain, I admire the noble unilingual savages, in all their primitive glory, etc. etc... ;)

Come now. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Either bilingualism is essential (not simply desirable, but essential) for our highest judges in a bijuridical bilingual country, or it is not. The question comes down to the perceived importance of language as part of culture and the law. It seems hard to see how one can claim someone with no knowledge of the "other" language can more credibly claim bilingualism should be optional than someone with, using your own criteria, legal training, who actually knows both languages and says language skills are so important to the law that bilingualism must be obligatory.

It seems easy enough to resolve the question. We poll all the bilingual lawyers and/or judges and ask them what they think, and abide by the results. We could even require a double majority, anglo bilinguals and franco bilinguals must both agree. I suppose the crucial issue would be to make sure we posed a clear question, so as we could ascertain a clear answer. I would even go so far as to say that the clearer the question, the lower the double majorities required to settle the matter.

Best,

EFL

PS. Next column: "I was wrong on listening to the best experts for making public policy all along, one should go with one's gut"?

EugeneForseyLiberal

Uh I wrote a reply and it seems to have disappeared, or maybe it never appeared - I was (am) out of the house, checking out some gear at the Apple store, checked in and typed away, so who knows what happened. Anyway, if Macleans can find it, good, if not, I'll check back later this evening and try to rewrite it. Basically, one can't have one's cake and eat it too. And some of my best friends are noble unilingual savages... ;)

L'Affaire Doan : La Presse Right, Cherryites Wrong

Everyone should read André Pratte's editorial in La Presse today:
http://www.cyberpresse.ca/article/20070503/CPOPINIONS/705030583/6053/CPOPINIONS
Innocent till proven guilty. But, some questions: Four (four!)
officials heard Doan say it. Are they really going to put their
careers on the line to lie about a popular player? To work in the NHL
they have to be bilingual - probably better spoken than Cherry, given
English proficiency of francophone professionals - would all four
mishear/misunderstand him? Has the noise at the Molson Centre ever
been deafening when Phoenix is in town? Would Cormier frivolously
expose himself to perjury charges by swearing out affadavit? Knowing
reaction and possible damage to career, would he do so unless he was
convinced it was necessary and important? Is it right to have a member
of Team Canada, let alone the the captain, as someone known for
bigoted remarks against a one of the founding peoples, representing a
quarter of the population? Would the reaction from Doan defenders be
the same if it was four black, jewish or native officials who made the
report? Is "Fucking Blacks" or "Fucking Jews" or "Fucking Indians"
worse than "Fucking Frenchmen"? Is it illegitimate for
parliamentarians to ask a Federally funded organisation why they think
it's OK to have an alleged bigot as a member/captain of Team Canada?
And if it was alleged he'd said "Fucking Blacks or Jews or Indians"?
Isn't the protection of minority rights and the fight against racism
worthy of public debate? If so, isn't parliament where society's
debates are supposed to occur? Isn't the angry Cherryite reaction
being adopted as conventional wisdom a reaction to the discomfort of
realising that not even hockey, one of our last unifying symbols, is
free from the heterogeneous realities of Canada? That in alleging
bigotry in the heart of Team Canada, many feel bigotry is alleged in
the heart of Canada, that Canadians are bigots? And isn't frothing
with anger and claiming it's wrong to debate the issue just giving
credence to those who say English Canadians are anti-French bigots?
Isn't it just helping those who most want to to weaken and destroy
Canada? And wouldn't the best response be to stay cool and consider
the issue calmly on its merits and so demonstrate the truth and depth
of Canada's liberalism? Wouldn't it be better if he hadn't be named
captain or even named to the team until the lawsuits have been
settled? Innocent till proven guilty, yes, but isn't there a
difference between legality and legitimacy? Are you comfortable
knowing that a quarter of your fellow citizens will take no joy from
Team Canada's success, that they'll view the whole thing as a slap in
the face, that it'll further alienate them? Don't you believe in a
bilingual Canada that includes Quebec? And doesn't this Cherryite
reaction remind you of the fake debate in Quebec on, symbolically,
"reasonable accomodation", but in practice, the reconciliation of the
majority with minorities, with heterogeneity, and thus, the conflict
between nationalism & liberalism - when the rubber hits the road,
which is more important to us? If so, read on.

Quelques réflexions de quelqu'un qui trouve que le Québec se suicide
en employant le soi-disant débat sur les "accomodements raisonnables"
comme moyen de taper sur les minorités - lisez et vous verrez la
pertinence de la remarque.

L'affaire Doan est drôle et triste en même temps, à plusieurs égards.
Je trouvais que certains, tel Patrick Lagacé, en avait trop fait après
la déclaration de M. Cormier, mais cela dit, maintenant qu'on est dans
la situation actuelle, où des bulletins de nouvelles incomplets et
biaisés incitent les pires éléments "redneck" et cherryesques à
s'insurgir contre toute discussion du dossier, et de ce fait, qu'on
pousse l'opinion anglophone générale à accepter leur jugement extrême
comme faisant consensus... maintenant qu'on y est, il faut y réagir.
La meilleure réponse à date est celle de M. Pratte. Son éditorial est
magistral : pondéré, juste et adulte. En contrepartie, au sujet des
médias anglophones : on ne mentionne jamais que tous les quatre
officiels disent avoir entendus les propos de Doan et on ne suggère
aucune explication de ce qui pourrait motiver ces derniers à mettre
leurs carrières en jeu en racontant des mensonges au sujet d'un
hockeyeur populaire, sauf içi et là, que Cormier et compagnie, étant
francophones, et étant donné le bruit de la foule, auraient pu se
tromper...vu que qu'il y a fort à parier que ces officiels manient
mieux l'anglais que les Cherry de ce monde, c'est évidemment possible,
mais disons, pas la 1re possibilité qui vienne en tête.

Or, je suis frappé et par l'hystérie qui frappe certains dans cette
histoire et par l'ironie que le débat me rappelle celui des
"accomodements raisonnables" (AR) ou devrais-je dire, pour être exact,
le débat sur la symbolique des AR. Examinons la parallèle. Il est
question de la bonne réponse des autorités publiques face à des
frictions majorité-minorité. Des membres de la minorité trouve que la
majorité est insensible à une injustice qui leur est fait. La minorité
demande à ce qu'on examine le comportement des responsables de la
majorité. Les médias de la majorité difforment les faits et la
situation légale pour présenter la demande de la minorité, voir, la
minorité elle-même, comme déraisonnable. Les éléments les plus
conservateurs et réactionnaires de la majorité montent immédiatement
au front pour défendre leur homme, leurs responsables, leurs
"valeurs". Les médias diffusent la réaction des réactionnaires de
manière à ce que le téléspectateur ou le lecteur moyens comprennent
que la minorité, à l'aide de quelques politiciens et intellectuels
"mous", mettent en question et les "valeurs" de la majorité et le gros
bon sens. Une bonne part de la majorité est donc emmené à rejetter des
processus sains et normaux dans une société libérale et ce, à
l'encontre de toutes ces fameuses valeurs libérales et démocratiques
qu'ils prétendent défendre. Résultat : la minorité est plus aliénée
que jamais et la majorité, ayant affaibli les fondations
philosophiques de sa société, est de mauvaise humeur, à cause d'un
vague sentiment de culpabilité, et sans avoir convaincu la minorité
qu'on leur rendait service en leur tapant dessus.

On fera bien de réfléchir sur nos réactions à l'Affaire Doan et de
s'imaginer comment doivent sentir les minorités au Québec lorsqu'il
est question des AR, et de se demander si l'intégration des minorités
passe mieux par la tyrannie de cet infame "gros bon sens" et la
démagogie anti-libérale (on connaît la chanson, Mike Harris nous l'a
appris en 1995) ou en restant fidèle à l'esprit du libéralisme. Poser
la question, c'est y répondre.

Gardner & His Ottawa Ilk Are Orangemen Bigots (Unknowingly?)

What I said to a supposed Liberal who's a fan of Gardner's latest - Bullshit. It's always loser anglos who are too lazy, selfish or stupid who write this shit. As Trudeau said: "Le Canada sera bilingue ou il ne sera pas." Obviously, not everyone, but institutionally, yes. I've spent many long difficult years fighting for Canada, federalism and minorities in QC, but if one thing could make me a separatist, like pretty much everyone else, it would be such a stupid bigoted view taking hold. Bigoted because when there is 3-1 to 4-1 disproportion of majority to minority, and said minority in mostly concentrated in one geo-political space, it is completely obvious that without both rules and ethos that make our institutions and workings bilingual, it will inevitably be the large majority that will win out, and by a margin larger than their proportion of the population, AS WAS THE CASE PRE-TRUDEAU AND THE OFFICIAL LANGUAGES ACT. And the geographically concentrated minority will act logically, protect their interests, and separate, in such a case. When anglos say this, what they are really advocating is affirmative action for their own large majority. So whatever egalitarian fairytale of principles they may tell themselves, they are advocating the advancement of the majority at the expense of the minority, as the real-world outcome.

Very similar to the Reaganite rhetoric and policies that hid anti-black, anti-hispanic anti-minorities policies behind the pretext of simple absolute egalitarianism of opportunity, conveniently ignoring the real-world context and the fact that the minorities, far from having the same equality of opportunity, are heavily disadvantaged and thus such policies could only entrench and worsen the outcome differences between whites and blacks/hispanics, AS THEY DID! What Gardner & you are advocating is that we return to the pre-1967 situation where there was a massive under-representation of francophones in federal institutions, and those few were almost all in the most menial positions, tea ladies, cleaners and the like. Gardner and your position is Orange Order intolerance dressed up for modernity in the robes of imbecilic decontextualised egalitarianism. Which should come as no surprise from a Carleton student as Carleton was founded so anglo protestants from the Valley could avoid having to mingle with all those Frogs and Papists at the University of Ottawa (ever ask yourself why Carleton wasn't just a 2nd UofO campus?).

And Gardner, Ottawan, in this column, is redolent of that Orangeman bigotry that has been and continues to be the blight of the Ottawa Valley: see Cheryl Gallant's contributions to the House debate during the Coalition "crisis". A question: 40 years after the Official Languages Act, in a country close to 1/4 francophone, what percentage of the Anglo Press Gallery are bilingual? And how does that affect their coverage? Poser la question, c'est y répondre. Finally, if these are your views, are you sure you're a Liberal? Randy Hillier's Ontario Landowners Association is always looking for more cranks, kooks and bigots - maybe you should check them out.

C-232: Senators Nolin (CPC) & Robichaud on Substance, Tardif on Process

Business of the Senate

Hon. Claudette Tardif (Deputy Leader of the Opposition): Honourable senators, I have a question for Senator Comeau. Bill C-232 has been before the Senate since April 13, for 70 days now. A number of senators on both sides of the chamber have spoken eloquently as part of this debate. The Leader of the Government in the Senate even said, in a La Presse article on May 21, 2010, that she thought Bill C-232 should be sent to committee, and I quote, "probably before the summer."
Could Senator Comeau tell us when the government plans on moving forward with this bill, especially since it was passed by a majority of parliamentarians in the other place?

Supreme Court Act

Bill to Amend—Second Reading—Debate Continued

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Tardif, seconded by the Honourable Senator Rivest, for the second reading of Bill C-232, An Act to amend the Supreme Court Act (understanding the official languages).

Hon. Pierre Claude Nolin: Honourable senators, I am very excited to have this opportunity to speak to Bill C-232 today.
At the outset, I want to say how impressed I am by the quality of the debates that have taken place with respect to this bill. Clearly this house can be reasonable, effective and thorough in holding productive debates in the interest of all Canadians.
I particularly admired Senator Carignan's speech. Unfortunately, I do not have 45 minutes, as he did, so I will be much briefer. Nevertheless, I want to pick up on some of the main points of his speech.
First, he provided a lot of specifics in his discussion of Supreme Court decisions relating to section 133 of the Constitution Act, 1867, as well as sections 16 and on of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
In reviewing the text of his speech, and to adequately prepare myself, I sought out an expert whose knowledge of the subject, while perhaps not as great as Senator Carignan's, specifically encompassed the evolution of case law in this area. I found Warren J. Newman's 2002 paper entitled La progression vers l'égalité des droits linguistiques par voie législative et judiciaire. This paper on language rights equality was presented at an Ontario Bar Association conference on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Mr. Newman has been with Justice Canada since 1985. He was senior counsel or assistant counsel for the Attorney General of Canada in the following cases: Bilodeau, the Reference re Manitoba Language Rights in 1984 and 1992, the Reference re Public Schools Act (Man.), the Reference re Secession of Quebec, Arsenault Cameron and Montfort, among others. Given the number of cases he has been involved in, his opinion seems valid to me.
Senator Carignan based part of his argument on a decision, or rather three Supreme Court of Canada decisions, dating back to 1986. In the jargon of language cases, we call them the "1986 trilogy." The trilogy is made up of three Supreme Court decisions: Bilodeau, MacDonald and Société des Acadiens.
Without going into detail, observers later described these three decisions as "restrictive." Some even said they represented a setback compared to Supreme Court decisions such as the ones in the Blaikie cases, which had come in the wake of the passing of Bill 101 in Quebec.
In this trilogy — and Newman says this — the guarantees in section 133 could almost be described as "narrow and minimal," when one uses the ruling by Justice Beetz, who spoke on behalf of the majority of the court, because Chief Justice Dickson and Justice Wilson dissented in this ruling. That may be why observers talked about a setback. I would even say, honourable senators, that they talked about a perhaps slightly pedestrian analysis of the evolution of case law and language rights in Canada, but that word is mine and certainly does not reflect the opinion of Mr. Newman, who was more respectful of the late Justice Beetz's decisions.
I would like to quote part of what Mr. Newman wrote:

The late Mr. Justice Beetz, speaking on behalf of the majority in MacDonald, ruled that section 133 of the Constitution Act, 1867, included only a narrow, minimal guarantee regarding the use of French and English before the courts, a right that imposed no correlative duty on the state to accommodate the individual's choice of official language. According to Justice Beetz, section 133 is a constitutional minimum that could be complemented by federal and provincial legislation. But it was not open to the courts, under the guise of judicial interpretation, to improve upon the constitutional guarantees with respect to language rights.

In Société des Acadiens, referring specifically to subsection 16(3) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which substantively repeats section 133 of the Constitution Act, 1867, Justice Beetz ruled that — as Newman put it:

While "language rights belong to the category of fundamental rights", these rights "are based on political compromise", unlike the legal rights in the Charter, which "tend to be seminal in nature because they are rooted in principle.

You will understand, honourable senators, that the Supreme Court had made an important point. That was in 1986. In the years that followed, the Supreme Court made an effort to distance itself from this trilogy. As I have little time left, I will skip over some decisions and talk about the Reference re Secession of Quebec. In a major decision in 1998 with respect to a reference by the federal government, the Supreme Court ruled on the secession of Quebec and on the rights of the parties in this potential unilateral action by the Government of Quebec. I quote Newman:

In the Reference re Secession of Quebec, the Supreme Court of Canada identified four fundamental principles applicable to the issues submitted to the Court, including the principle of the protection of minorities.

This very important principle underlies the whole Canadian constitutional framework. And Newman retained this principle, as it was used again later in a very well-known Supreme Court case, the 1999 Beaulac ruling, the year after the Reference re Secession of Quebec.
I again quote Newman:

"Existing" language rights must be applied based on the "true meaning" of the principle of equality, that is, "substantive equality," which becomes the "correct norm to apply". Institutional bilingualism in the courts "refers to equal access to services of equal quality for members of both official language communities in Canada."

Newman was referring to paragraph 22 of the Beaulac ruling. Justice Bastarache, writing on behalf of the majority in Beaulac, wanted to ensure that all analysts and readers of his decision would note the distinction the Supreme Court decided to make with respect to the 1986 trilogy and therefore stated the following:

. . . [l]anguage rights must in all cases . . .

He went to the trouble of emphasizing that it means in all cases.

. . . be interpreted purposively, in a manner consistent with the preservation and development of official language communities in Canada . . . To the extent that Société des Acadiens du Nouveau-Brunswick, supra, stands for a restrictive interpretation of language rights, it is to be rejected.

(1600)
I would now like to talk about Mr. Newman's conclusions, which are very interesting:

If there is a leitmotif in Canadian case law regarding the interpretation and application of language rights, it is the desire of the courts to protect and promote the concept of equality between French and English, which respects the legal, constitutional and legislative framework, the history of the country, the demographic realities, the vulnerability of minorities and the remedial role these rights play.

As Justice Betz and Justice Bastarache encouraged us to do, let us take a quick look at that political compromise that led to section 133.
Between 1841 and 1861, the demographics of Canada saw a shift in plurality. I will repeat, because I want to be sure that you all understand. In 1841, there were 650,000 people in Canada East, Quebec, Lower Canada. In Canada West, Ontario, there were 450,000 people. Over the following 20 years, between 1841 and 1861, there was a shift in that plurality.
In the Act of Union, which preceded the Constitution Act we are all familiar with, the two united Canadas had parity. In other words, there were as many members of Parliament from Ontario as there were from Quebec. Unfortunately, that led to some instability.
Take, for example, the period from 1854 to 1864, when 10 successive governments were formed and there was political instability and demographic change. In 1864, for obvious reasons, the leader of a political party in Ontario, George Brown, started calling for proportional representation. He proposed a coalition to John A. MacDonald and George-Étienne Cartier, who accepted. The only condition Brown set was that there be a new Constitution based on a more equal sharing of jurisdictions. Cartier accepted that condition.
Today it seems irrefragable that in 1864, George-Étienne Cartier never would have accepted the coalition with MacDonald and Brown had it not been for his strong conviction and his plan to obtain better representation for Lower Canada in Parliament in the new Canada, as well as recognition of the language rights of French Canadians. This political compromise would later give rise to Canada and a true synallagmatic partnership.
In one of his truculent allegories, Senator Segal was right to remind us of the importance of the great Canadian compromise, given that many historians, especially francophone historians — and secessionists at that, unfortunately — have only nasty things to say when we should be talking about how vitally important this is to building our Constitution.
I would like to read what is written in clause 1 of Bill C-232, which proposes amending section 5 of the Supreme Court Act. Subsection 2 states:

In addition, any person referred to in subsection (1) may be appointed a judge who understands French and English without the assistance of an interpreter.

So what does this clause propose?
First of all, it proposes the principle of an additional qualification, the linguistic qualification of understanding English and French, and prohibits the assistance of an interpreter.
Honourable senators, my 15 minutes have expired and I would like to request another five minutes.
The Hon. the Speaker: Is leave granted, honourable senators?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Senator Nolin: Honourable senators, I think we need to accept the principle that Supreme Court judges should understand both official languages, as required in Bill C-232.
Instead of amending the Supreme Court Act, I believe that subsection 16(1) of the Official Languages Act should be amended. The committee that studies the bill should be asked to assess the possibility of abandoning the Supreme Court amendment and transferring it to the Official Languages Act.
The reference to the absence of interpretation also needs to be eliminated, given that even people who understand both languages very well sometimes rely on the services of an interpreter, and I do not see any point in prohibiting this practice. Only the principle should be maintained.
One other principle needs to be kept in mind as the committee examines Bill C-232. I will once again refer to something Senator Segal said.
The laws we create are not meant to cause chaos. That is not our goal. We must accept the principles that come out of all the evolving case law that the Supreme Court gives us. As we know, the Supreme Court shifts the responsibility of advancing the equality of French and English onto Parliament, as subsection 16(3) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms states.
We have to accept that there will be a transition period. Senator Champagne made reference to that in her speech, and it will be up to the official languages committee to decide, after hearing testimony from representatives of the various bar associations, whether the period will be 5, 10 or 15 years. The most important thing is to accept the principle that Supreme Court justices understand both languages.
Then we shall see whether we want the principle to apply in 15 years. We have to have a transition period, and the committee must decide how long that period will be in order to avoid the chaos to which Senator Segal was referring.
Why am I making these recommendations? First, I want to make things clear. We are not talking about bilingualism in the bill. We are talking about understanding. There is a very important difference. Ask public servants who have their language skills assessed and they will tell you there is a difference between category A, "bilingual," and category B, "understanding."
Second, I believe that the case law is clear despite the fact that I summed up Mr. Newman's paper too quickly. I could have taken a paper by Claude Ryan, who did an extraordinary study on the matter, but I do not have enough time.
Third, I think we have to accept the principle of protection of minorities that the Supreme Court refers to in the Reference re Secession of Quebec. And if you do not accept the principle of advancement, I submit that section 133 talks about "pleading." What does pleading mean?
I consulted Le Petit Robert to find that "plaider" means "to defend with justifications or excuses." As you can see, pleading is not just about talking, but also about being understood.
In closing, for the past decade or so we have been passing legislation that accepts the principle of bijuralism. We are now asking that legislation respect both English and French and also the principles of common law and civil law, all in the same legal document.
(1610)
I would like all Supreme Court justices — not just the three justices from Quebec, but all Supreme Court justices — to understand the importance of bijuralism.
My apologies to the interpreters but, through no fault of their own and without them having known it, in my 20-minute speech I used some words that honourable senators may not have heard correctly interpreted. One of those French words was synallagmatique — "synallagmatic" or "reciprocal" in English. I would be surprised if that were the word chosen. I also used the word irréfragable, which may be "irrefragable" or "indisputable" in English. And when I spoke about Senator Segal, I spoke of his "truculent allegory." I was not talking about a truck or a lorry; I was referring to the vehemence he displays. I hope that those who were listening to me in English were able to understand what I was trying to say. That is the problem. That is why we must have nine judges who understand both of Canada's official languages, whether or not they are fully bilingual.
Hon. Fernand Robichaud: Honourable senators, today I will be speaking in support of Bill C-232, in the belief that we need to support this bill in 2010 in order to take another step towards equality and equity in the use of our country's official languages.
I am always surprised when some people say they are tired of hearing about this bill, which would allow those pleading their case before the Supreme Court to be heard and understood by the justices without the assistance of an interpreter. That is the scope of this bill.
We cannot forget that this issue was discussed at length in 1988 as part of the studies surrounding the adoption of Bill C-72, which made significant amendments to the Official Languages Act.
The honourable senators in this chamber will not be convinced of this bill's merits by reason alone. I think that we also need to appeal to the same sense of justice and generosity shown by those who succeeded in having Bill C-72 debated and adopted in 1988.
When rereading the debates from this chamber and the other place, as well as the committee reports, it is clear that the Progressive Conservative government of the time showed a great deal of generosity as well as steadfast courage in defending and adopting these amendments to the Official Languages Act.
Generosity, courage in the face of adversity and tolerance are intrinsically Canadian characteristics.
In 1988, the justice minister who sponsored the bill, Ramon Hnatyshyn, said:

This bill reflects Canadians' openness and tolerance with respect to language and culture. One of the most cherished characteristics of our national identity is our generosity to one another.

While talking about official languages and the Supreme Court, Mr. Hnatyshyn said:

. . . those who observe the workings of the Supreme Court will say that someday — I think we will get there in time — all Supreme Court justices will have to be bilingual.

He went even further, suggesting that they needed to do more than understand:

This is not about being able to converse in both languages. This is about really knowing the legal terminology in order to understand the arguments and the principles.

On July 20, 1988, Mr. Hnatyshyn said:

Just think of the progress we have made in this area in the past 10 years. Just imagine how things will be in 20 years.

That is what he said just 22 years ago. The Honourable Senator Lowell Murray, then government leader in the Senate, also stated that the C-72 amendments would, among other things, "advance the equality of status and use of English and French."
To my mind, this means that the equality of status and use of English and French had not yet been achieved, but was in progress.
In addition, during an appearance before the committee in 1988, and in response to a question from MP Jean-Robert Gauthier on the exclusion of the Supreme Court from the provisions of Bill C-72, Yvon Fontaine, the president of the Fédération des francophones hors Québec — known as the association at the time — and dean of the Université de Moncton's law school, a guy from my parish, from my town of Saint-Louis, who is now the university rector, said:

We believe that no court should be excluded, including the Supreme Court of Canada.

More recently, former Supreme Court Justice Claire L'Heureux-Dubé stated last April in an interview for the newspaper Le Devoir:

I believe that Supreme Court judges must be bilingual. The bilingualism legislation creating an exemption for Supreme Court judges is an anomaly in 2010, and should have been eliminated a long time ago.

Therefore, some legal experts find it completely logical, appropriate and fair that Supreme Court judges must understand the language of a litigant without the assistance of an interpreter.
In fact, the objective of Bill C-232 is not a recent concern and 22 years later we are still debating whether Supreme Court judges should be required to understand the other official language without the assistance of an interpreter.
Honourable senators, we must realize that the bill is a logical step, a progression toward greater justice and equality in the use of the official languages in the Supreme Court of Canada.
This bill will allow those who plead cases in the court to be heard and understood by the justices without the assistance of an interpreter.
It also means that the justices of the highest court in the land will have to have sufficient knowledge of the other language to understand the pleadings and the nuances of the arguments.
I do not need to repeat all the arguments in favour of this bill, as they have already been eloquently presented.
However, I believe it is necessary to make the intention of the bill perfectly clear and to make a few comments in that regard.
Contrary to what Senator Carignan suggested in his speech, in my opinion, Supreme Court judges will retain their right to express themselves in the language of their choice.
Nothing in this bill eliminates the right of Supreme Court judges to choose which language they will use to express themselves. That is not the intention.
The judges of the court must have the ability to understand both official languages without the assistance of an interpreter. That is all.
Evaluation of the linguistic proficiency of judicial applicants was raised and in that regard I must say, as we all know, the federal administration has been assessing that qualification for other federal courts since 1988. It does not seem to pose a major problem.
Let us ask ourselves just one question: in a country that has chosen to have two official languages, is it too much to ask that Supreme Court judges be able to understand the other official language? Some say yes, others say no, and still others are unsure.
I firmly reply that it is not too much to ask.
(1620)
Some senators feel that legislation is not always the best way to solve such a problem. To that argument I would simply reply that sometimes, although it may not be ideal, legislation is the only solution.
Consider the context in which the Official Languages Act was passed in 1969. The bureaucracy of Canada operated entirely in English. The main idea was to allow French-speaking Canadians to be able to deal with federal institutions in the language of their choice and to receive services in their mother tongue. At the time, the Official Languages Act was needed in order to guarantee the rights of French-speaking Canadians and to maintain consistency across the country. As we know, the act was amended in 1988. The 1988 amendments to the Official Languages Act brought about by Bill C-72 incorporated linguistic duality into Canada's institutions, promoted the development of Canada's official language minority communities and guaranteed equality of status and equal rights and privileges as to their use in all federal institutions.
An entire section dealt with the administration of justice. The amendments required the courts to ensure that any person could be heard in the official language of his or her choice and, when required, to provide simultaneous interpretation into the other language. Judges had to listen to and understand the French or English without the assistance of an interpreter. However, judges of the Supreme Court of Canada were exempt.
At the time, there were long discussions in committee about an amendment to include the Supreme Court in the provisions of this bill. In 1988, the government authorities believed that it was best to wait and not move too quickly. It was best not to add constraints on the Supreme Court's operations at that time.
It is understandable that this step would have to be taken eventually. Although it may have been considered too difficult to require judges to understand the pleadings without an interpreter, it seems to me that an inability to understand without an interpreter must also create difficulties in the operations of the court.
When Bill C-72 was being studied in the other place, I was an MP and I participated in the debates. This is what I had to say about Bill C-72. It is rather odd to be quoting myself, but I will risk it:

Yet, there is a deficiency in this bill in view of the fact that the Supreme Court will be excluded. When we deal with this bill in committee, Madam Speaker, we will have to see whether these provisions could not apply also to the Supreme Court.

I would like to point out that the woman I addressed was the honourable Senator Champagne, who was the Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons.
When I participated in the debates on Bill C-72 in 1988, the hon. Senator Champagne was in the chair and I voted — of course, I was a member of the Liberal Party — with the Progressive Conservative members, including Ms. Champagne, Mr. Campeau, Mr. St. Germain and Ms. Fortin-Duplessis who, at that time, sat in the other place.
Senator Champagne: We are not getting any younger.
Senator Robichaud: Exactly, time is marching on and I believe, Madam Senator, that we must take action. Today, it is time to take action, especially since it was clearly understood at that juncture that the time would come to do so. The time has come to take action. After four decades, one would have thought that bilingualism would be accepted and implemented in all federal institutions. Unfortunately, that is not the case.
The members of the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages know what I am talking about, and you also know the difficulties and hurdles that have to be overcome day after day, month after month, year after year, to ensure that bilingualism is respected in this country. It is a never-ending fight to ensure the rights of French-speaking people in this country. In an ideal world, the government would present measures similar to the one that is before us to help advance the equality of official languages within our justice system.
But that is not the case. It is the same every time — once again, we have to set out on another long journey to have our linguistic rights respected. I think that it is important to understand that justices do not need to be perfectly bilingual but, rather, they need to know legal terminology and understand the legal principles and arguments without the help of an interpreter.
I am aware that there is still a lot of sensitivity about the question of bilingualism in Canada today. Those who are opposed to this bill have rehashed the same concerns and arguments. The objections raised seem to me to be similar to those raised in 1969 and 1988. This hesitation and concern that we are seeing is the same each time we try to make the Official Languages Act fairer and more equal.
Could I request an extension of my time, honourable senators?
The Hon. the Speaker: Is leave granted, honourable senators?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Senator Robichaud: Thank you, honourable senators. I think that Bill C-232 is the next logical step in this trend towards greater equality and more justice in our country's legal institutions. Yes, it is a question of equality, but it is especially a question of common sense. If judges in a number of courts are already required to understand both languages, why would we not expect the same of the judges of the highest court of the country?
As Senator Rivest so eloquently said, when speaking about the Supreme Court:

. . .I would find it hard to understand, precisely because it is one of our country's most important institutions, if linguistic duality were not fully realized there. It would be ridiculous, or at least peculiar, if we said that the Supreme Court of Canada is such an important institution that there is no need for those seated on its bench to know both of the country's official languages. This would be complete nonsense.

For those of you who think this bill raises some issues that are insurmountable, I will share with you this quote from the Commissioner of Official Languages, Graham Fraser. He blew the argument that it is impossible to find bilingual candidates in western Canada right out of the water when he said:
[English]

It is worth noting that Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin was born and raised in Pincher Creek, Alta.; studied at the University of Alberta; practised in Edmonton, Fort St. John and Vancouver; taught at the University of British Columbia; and served as a judge in British Columbia. Yet she, and seven others of the nine Supreme Court judges, can hear cases both in English and French.

[Translation]
Eight of the nine justices now serving on the Supreme Court are able to hear pleadings in both languages. Why ignore Canada's linguistic duality when appointing judges to the Supreme Court? With some political will, a government can find brilliant people in every region of the country to sit on the Supreme Court; competent people who can understand the litigant's own voice rather than through the voice of an interpreter.
I also think that by making bilingualism a requirement to sit on the Supreme Court, we are sending a clear message to the legal community across the land about the importance and equality of both our official languages. Whenever it is possible to achieve greater equality and fairness, our leadership must take the necessary measures to do so.
Honourable senators, in the most non-partisan spirit, I urge you to support Bill C-232.
(1630)
Parliamentarians have always had the ability to rise above partisanship to address the language issue.
When the Leader of the Government in the Senate asked senators to adopt Bill C-72 in 1988, Senator Murray used these terms:

That is essentially what I am asking honourable senators today: to take another step forward in respecting the commitment made by the federal government with regard to official languages.

He went on to say:

The bill before us takes us further down the path that the Fathers of Confederation laid out for us, a path if followed properly traces out the principles of justice, tolerance and respect for our fellow citizens.

That is not unlike what is happening today. We can take a step forward in the spirit of the Fathers of Confederation.
For those who often say that we must respect the will of the elected members of the other place, now is our chance to do so.
With a non-partisan attitude, an open mind and in a spirit of generosity, we can, by passing Bill C-232, show leadership and demonstrate full support for our French-speaking citizens.