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  #41  
Old Posted Mar 5, 2021, 5:44 PM
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On the flip side, Chretien had poor English and it gave him a lot of charm.

Stephane Dion had bad English and it absolutely impacted how English Canada perceived him.
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  #42  
Old Posted Mar 5, 2021, 5:51 PM
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On the flip side, Chretien had poor English and it gave him a lot of charm.
Jean Chrétien is another good example because he could express himself spontaneously in English better than most of the politicians on the federal scene who are ostensibly bilingual can in French.
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  #43  
Old Posted Mar 5, 2021, 5:57 PM
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Chretien had charisma, Dion had none. Proficiency in English is less important, I expect, for anglophone voters because we're the dominant language nationally. There's less of a drive to protect our language, or be represented, because we're the norm in that regard. And I get it. I will march in the street if VOCM drops its Newfoundland accent for CBC NL's generic one.

Trudeau annoys me. Obviously the Liberals are the only viable choice for me nationally, but the facade is overpowering with him - that polite, fawning thing he does. Reminds me of Ben Mulrooney where you could know them for 5 years without ever actually meeting their real personality.

An aside - we've come a long way. Happened upon a Facebook video of some random Sikh guy in Yukon dancing and my immediate reaction was to roll my eyes and think, "Oh FFS, what government Minister is trying to be cool now?" He wasn't, of course. Just some random dude.
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  #44  
Old Posted Mar 5, 2021, 6:17 PM
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Chretien had charisma, Dion had none. Proficiency in English is less important, I expect, for anglophone voters because we're the dominant language nationally. There's less of a drive to protect our language, or be represented, because we're the norm in that regard. And I get it. I will march in the street if VOCM drops its Newfoundland accent for CBC NL's generic one.

Trudeau annoys me. Obviously the Liberals are the only viable choice for me nationally, but the facade is overpowering with him - that polite, fawning thing he does. Reminds me of Ben Mulrooney where you could know them for 5 years without ever actually meeting their real personality.

An aside - we've come a long way. Happened upon a Facebook video of some random Sikh guy in Yukon dancing and my immediate reaction was to roll my eyes and think, "Oh FFS, what government Minister is trying to be cool now?" He wasn't, of course. Just some random dude.
Out of curiosity, how do you know that the JT persona you’re seeing isn’t the real JT?
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  #45  
Old Posted Mar 5, 2021, 6:22 PM
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It could be, but that's too depressing to imagine. You think he talks to his wife and kids or even just friends the way he talks to Canadians?
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  #46  
Old Posted Mar 5, 2021, 6:28 PM
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Out of curiosity, how do you know that the JT persona you’re seeing isn’t the real JT?
If that is the case, then it would be tragic.

FWIW, JT and Ben Mulroney do share this sort of insipid and fawning characteristic to their persona, but for whatever reason, Ben doesn't bother me so much. At least Ben has a sense of humour.

Interesting that they are both sons of prime ministers, and that apparently they are friends.
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  #47  
Old Posted Mar 5, 2021, 6:33 PM
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It could be, but that's too depressing to imagine. You think he talks to his wife and kids or even just friends the way he talks to Canadians?
There definitely are people like that.

Now, can you imagine Stephen Harper speaking to his wife and kids in the same way he addressed the country's citizens?
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  #48  
Old Posted Mar 5, 2021, 7:08 PM
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My thoughts on this bilingualism issue are mixed. On the one hand I do think it is somewhat unfair to expect bilingualism out of each individual,
As you and most people know, the bilingualism "requirement" is not written down anywhere and something the parties impose upon themselves. Based on a political calculation.

It's not just about Quebec either, at least not directly. And by this I don't mean francophones outside Quebec, but rather non-francophone voters in Ontario for example, many of whom apparently won't take a potential PM candidate seriously if they can't speak French. Even if they themselves don't speak French.

So in theory at least there is absolutely nothing preventing a national party from taking the risk of choosing a leader who doesn't speak French.
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  #49  
Old Posted Mar 5, 2021, 7:15 PM
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Originally Posted by jigglysquishy View Post
On the flip side, Chretien had poor English and it gave him a lot of charm.

Stephane Dion had bad English and it absolutely impacted how English Canada perceived him.
Dion was way more pissed off about getting a pie in the face. Chretien shrugged it off. I still laugh when I see this shot:

entartistes




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Quote:
That evening, Chrétien joked about the incident when speaking to supporters.

"You have developed a very funny way of serving pies these days," he said. "I'm not that hungry."
https://www.cbc.ca/archives/few-laug...a-pm-1.4786653
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  #50  
Old Posted Mar 5, 2021, 7:20 PM
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Jagmeet Singh is another good example. His French sounds really weird and is not very good, but I'd guess it's good enough to not be a major handicap. I doubt that Jagmeet Singh had a special leg up in learning French.
I agree he's good enough. He's about on the same level as Freeland, though the style is quite different.

Freeland is way more bookish-sounding. Singh is more informal, almost Layton-esque at times. But not on Layton's level in terms of sounding comfortable.

Though I have to say that Layton had a pretty strong accent and made lots of mistakes, but he came across as extremely comfortable and unintimidated. Which endeared him to people I think.
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  #51  
Old Posted Mar 5, 2021, 7:23 PM
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Layton's French was better than Trump's English. The guy couldn't string together more than 4 cogent words.
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  #52  
Old Posted Mar 5, 2021, 7:24 PM
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Layton's French was better than Trump's English. The guy couldn't string together more than 4 cogent words.
“Look, having nuclear—my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart —you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world—it’s true!—but when you’re a conservative Republican they try—oh, do they do a number—that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune—you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged—but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me—it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are (nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what’s going to happen and he was right—who would have thought?), but when you look at what’s going on with the four prisoners—now it used to be three, now it’s four—but when it was three and even now, I would have said it’s all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don’t, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years—but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.”

And he still won.

I can't find it now but there's a compilation vid of foreign language translators covering Trump's rallies having existential breakdowns. It's great.
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  #53  
Old Posted Mar 5, 2021, 7:29 PM
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Dion was way more pissed off about getting a pie in the face. Chretien shrugged it off. I still laugh when I see this shot:

entartistes




cbc


https://www.cbc.ca/archives/few-laug...a-pm-1.4786653
A perfect illustration of the difference in personality between the two. Dion was always perceived as taking himself too seriously. Chrétien was the exact opposite.
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  #54  
Old Posted Mar 5, 2021, 7:30 PM
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Though I have to say that Layton had a pretty strong accent and made lots of mistakes, but he came across as extremely comfortable and unintimidated. Which endeared him to people I think.
Sounds like Chretien in English. He had a very strong accent and made a lot of mistakes too, but he was relaxed and unintimidated and we loved him for it.
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  #55  
Old Posted Mar 5, 2021, 7:38 PM
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Damn, I really miss Jean Chretien.
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  #56  
Old Posted Mar 5, 2021, 7:47 PM
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Damn, I really miss Jean Chretien.
The only prime minister of Canada neither fluent in English or French.
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  #57  
Old Posted Mar 5, 2021, 7:49 PM
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So in theory at least there is absolutely nothing preventing a national party from taking the risk of choosing a leader who doesn't speak French.
Part of what is odd about this to me is that it's become received wisdom that Francophone Canadians demand high French skills in their candidates, or view French fluency as important promotion of their mother tongue, or want to see the PM effortlessly hobnobbing with Emmanuel Macron, or something. But my experience from listening to French language Canadian media is that this doesn't come up as much as policy. And it's hard to see what discernible impact the language skills have. Quebec voted for a bunch of non French speaking NDP folks at one point and as others have said Jack Layton had far from perfect French. The voting patterns do not add up.

I think this idea that Francophone voters have demanding French requirements is just one of those fictions of Canadian politics. It's convenient for J. J. types who want to complain, and it sounds plausible to people who don't speak or understand French or have much exposure to the Francophone media landscape.
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  #58  
Old Posted Mar 5, 2021, 7:54 PM
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Damn, I really miss Jean Chretien.
He's the only Liberal leader in the last 60 years to not come from extreme privilege.

Both Trudeaus and Martin came from political families. Dion and Turner came from upper class families. Ignatieff is literally a grandson of Russian nobility.

And the greatest of them all was an awkward Francophone from a working class family.

Edit: looks like Turner was not wealthy. I mistook the English birth for wealth
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  #59  
Old Posted Mar 5, 2021, 7:56 PM
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Part of what is odd about this to me is that it's become received wisdom that Francophone Canadians demand high French skills in their candidates, or view French fluency as important promotion of their mother tongue, or something. But my experience from listening to French language Canadian media is that this doesn't come up as much as policy. And it's hard to see what discernible impact the language skills have. Quebec voted for a bunch of non French speaking NDP folks at one point and as others have said Jack Layton had far from perfect French.
The general wisdom is that it makes a difference during campaigning, especially during the French language television debate.

I view it an irritant that many excellent anglophone candidates are automatically disqualified from seeking the highest public offices, but, on the other had, I fully realize the equity of the situation, and the importance of a national leader to be able to speak to all Canadians. I have accepted that this is just a cross that we must bear as a nation. The cross being that we have prevented ourselves from benefiting from excellent leadership from many fine unilingual anglophone and francophone candidates.
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  #60  
Old Posted Mar 5, 2021, 7:57 PM
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Part of what is odd about this to me is that it's become received wisdom that Francophone Canadians demand high French skills in their candidates, or view French fluency as important promotion of their mother tongue, or something. But my experience from listening to French language Canadian media is that this doesn't come up as much as policy. And it's hard to see what discernible impact the language skills have. Quebec voted for a bunch of non French speaking NDP folks at one point and as others have said Jack Layton had far from perfect French. The voting patterns do not add up.

I think this idea that Francophone voters have demanding French requirements is just one of those fictions of Canadian politics. It's convenient for J. J. types who want to complain, and it's plausible for people who don't speak or understand French or have much exposure to the Francophone media landscape.
Any thread on this subject, and others like it, instantly devolves into 'Can they speak French?', to the point where it feels like the main or primary qualification.

At some point again we'll have a PM with no French skills and the country will continue on.
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