Infoman, the French language equivalent to the Rick Mercer Report on Radio Canada, pointed out the obvious and made fun of Jack Layton's French Thursday. It is really bad. Seriously, practice man! It isn't just bad ad lib like Dion's English. It is bad when read!
Hopefully, this will be Layton's last election.
Infoman also made fun of Young Liberals in Ottawa who apparently don't understand a single word of French. The show laughed at the Bloc's much ado about a bus. The Green Party's Elizabeth May wasn't made fun of and was even allowed to ridicule Harper driving accross the street to the Governor General's office.
If the NDP has any hope in this election in French Canada, it has to hide Layton and advertise "end the war now" ad nauseum.
The Téléjournal on Radio-Canada presented Jack Layton promising to inject funds into manufacturing (ie, Ontario) and mentioned the NDP's million dollar Quebec advertising budget against the war. If I remember the quote "because of Mulclair, the NDP seem to think they can do well in Quebec, pause for laghter, and are spending ONE MILLION DOLLARS in advertising in Quebec."
In short, Thursday was a bad day for the NDP in Quebec. On the other hand, they were mentioned on two of the most watched shows that night...
5 comments:
Touché. Not sure what is wrong with "practice" though.
By the way, I have a blog, I'm not running for Prime Minister.
And Ark, my second language (English) is better than your second language
:-P
Okay, after posting, I sort of regretted being so stringent. I suppose I was simply responding to the apparently straight line you drew from Layton's linguistic ability (French) and his political abilities as NDP leader.
I'm not a gung-ho Jack-ite. But I do appreciate what he's done for the party's prospects and relevance federally. If we begin harshly judging our pols based in their bilingual -- or even unilingual -- acumen, I suspect that would leave us with very few contenders.
While criticism of Dion's poor English might be more legitimate, even then I'm often put off by the snarky tone.
Granted, you're posting, not running. And I'm reading; also appreciate those who put view out there. I also believe that when one does venture out into the cyber-arena, best be prepped to throw and receive a virtual punch or two -- especially when the subject matter's political.
btw, be careful: you have no idea what my first or second (or even third) language is...
"(...)criticism of Dion's poor English might be more legitimate, (...)
Are you trying to say that Layton is better in French than Dion in English? Because if that is your opinion, you are very wrong.
What I was saying:
if we're going to get snarky about language ability, Dion's English could (arguably) be more of an issue than Layton's French. Why? Because -- despite the Official Languages factor -- Canada is far more Anglophone than Francophone. So -- ideals aside -- English is, pragmatically-speaking, the more crucial language for a federal pol. Regrettable, but true.
Post a Comment