Quote:
Originally Posted by J81
Except politicians turning a tragedy into a gongshow about language is something that would happen only in Canada. Using those young men’s unfortunate deaths to score political points is disgusting in a lot of peoples eyes, mine included.
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Politicians have been using tragedy to score political points for centuries.
Besides, in this particlar case, it's not quite that, as leaders/ministers from several political parties - both federal and provincial - condemned the CEO for his lack of french. So who really scored the points? All of them?
Whether this kind of stuff is seen as true leadership or just exploitation usually depends on the audience's political - or in this case, linguistic - perspective.
I'm trilingual. English and French are my second and third languages. I'm fluent in all 3. So if you were to ask me if the politicians are exploiting the situation, I would say no. All the CEO had to do was learn a bit of french and sew a couple of french sentences together during a 4 minute speech. It's not rocket science. He didn't do it. He's an idiot. Not the politicians.
If you were to ask the same question to a unilingual anglophone who lives outside of Quebec, he will most likely give you a different answer.
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