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When Kathleen Wynne rolled up to the Mouvement d’implication francophone d’Orléans building in Ottawa’s east end — more than an hour later than planned, after her charter plan had mechanical trouble in Toronto — she had a job to do.
Glengarry-Prescott-Russell is in danger, with two-term Liberal MPP Grant Crack retiring; in Orléans, Marie-France Lalonde has shot up the cabinet ranks in her first term, but is facing a serious challenge from Tory Cameron Montgomery; and the strength of the New Democrats this campaign has rookie Nathalie Des Rosiers in an unaccustomed two-front fight in Ottawa-Vanier.
“Ontario’s francophone community has a rich history more than 400 years long,” Wynne said in French, after admiring the work in a seniors’ painting group and lamenting that her late arrival meant she couldn’t get in a game of pétanque. “Even before our province was called Ontario. You can be assured that everyone on the Liberal team will defend francophone services.”
Wynne had a pretty good list to rhyme off: starting under Dalton McGuinty but accelerating under Wynne, the Liberals have taken francophone rights and services seriously. They’ve made francophone affairs the subject of a standalone ministry, passed a law creating a new French-language university that’s supposed to take its first incoming class in 2020, sharply increased French-language court services, and expanded French schools, nursing homes and child-care centres.
Not everyone thinks this is great. When Wynne was in Nepean last winter for one of her pre-election “town halls,” a man putting a question to her in French was interrupted by a woman yelling a demand for “English!” At the end, as attendees collected their jackets and started to head for the exits, I saw a heated argument between a woman who spoke with a French accent and an older man wearing a Sikh turban who was pointing to a portrait of the Queen in the old Ben Franklin Place council chamber and demanding the French-speaker acknowledge that Canada is a British country.
Ontario has more than 600,000 francophones, concentrated in the east and the north, but if Franco-Ontarians sometimes feel as though their place isn’t secure, they’re not crazy. As Wynne pointed out.
She reminded her small audience at MIFO that when the Progressive Conservatives were last in power, they tried to close the Montfort Hospital, Ontario’s only French-language teaching hospital. This wasn’t so much an intentional attack on Ontario’s francophonie as an act of obliviousness as the Tories merged and closed smaller hospitals across the province, but it galvanized an opposition movement whose members still recognize one another like veterans of a war. Once elected, the McGuinty Liberals funded a massive expansion, nearly doubling the Montfort’s capacity.
The province’s commissioner for French-language services still gets more than 200 legitimate complaints a year about inadequate services — nearly half of them from Eastern Ontario. More relate to health services than any other field.
“I can hardly claim to be perfectly fluent in French, we all know that,” Wynne said. “But I try very hard because the ability to speak both of Ontario’s official languages is very important to me.”
Ontario Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne talks with St. Albert Cheese Coop Director Eric Lafontaine, right, as she makes a campaign stop at St. Albert Cheese in St. Albert, Ont., on Thursday, May 31, 2018.
The poke at her opponents was obvious. Wynne is the only leader of any of the three biggest parties with even rudimentary French. Her grasp of the language is basic — she’ll often ask Lalonde or Des Rosiers to translate questions posed in French to be sure she gets the nuances — but she can carry on a conversation. Andrea Horwath can deliver a prepared text in French, but not with ease. Doug Ford has a few words at most.
In an English-language interview on Radio-Canada that quickly became notorious when he was running for the Tory leadership, Ford agreed that it’s important for the premier of Ontario to speak French… because the premier needs to be able to talk to other parts of the country where that’s what they speak. “I love Quebec,” he went on. “I love Quebecers. They’re passionate.”
The Liberals and the New Democrats also have French-language versions of their websites and platforms; the Tories don’t.
After MIFO, Wynne headed east to the St-Albert cheese co-op, where, before the last election in 2014, she dispensed $1 million to upgrade the factory operation after a devastating fire in 2013. She’s been to Ottawa-Vanier, Ottawa South and now Orléans and Glengarry-Prescott-Russell this campaign. Not to Nepean or Kanata.
Liberals say their leader always intended a late-campaign swing through Ontario’s eastern tip to emphasize her party’s francophone credentials. It’s a point where they consider themselves strong and the New Democrats and Progressive Conservatives (especially the Progressive Conservatives) weak. Maybe so. In context, Wynne’s third trip to Ottawa in a month still looks like an attempt to salvage seats that haven’t been in play in 15 years.
dreevely@postmedia.com
twitter.com/davidreevely
查看原文...
Glengarry-Prescott-Russell is in danger, with two-term Liberal MPP Grant Crack retiring; in Orléans, Marie-France Lalonde has shot up the cabinet ranks in her first term, but is facing a serious challenge from Tory Cameron Montgomery; and the strength of the New Democrats this campaign has rookie Nathalie Des Rosiers in an unaccustomed two-front fight in Ottawa-Vanier.
“Ontario’s francophone community has a rich history more than 400 years long,” Wynne said in French, after admiring the work in a seniors’ painting group and lamenting that her late arrival meant she couldn’t get in a game of pétanque. “Even before our province was called Ontario. You can be assured that everyone on the Liberal team will defend francophone services.”
Wynne had a pretty good list to rhyme off: starting under Dalton McGuinty but accelerating under Wynne, the Liberals have taken francophone rights and services seriously. They’ve made francophone affairs the subject of a standalone ministry, passed a law creating a new French-language university that’s supposed to take its first incoming class in 2020, sharply increased French-language court services, and expanded French schools, nursing homes and child-care centres.
Not everyone thinks this is great. When Wynne was in Nepean last winter for one of her pre-election “town halls,” a man putting a question to her in French was interrupted by a woman yelling a demand for “English!” At the end, as attendees collected their jackets and started to head for the exits, I saw a heated argument between a woman who spoke with a French accent and an older man wearing a Sikh turban who was pointing to a portrait of the Queen in the old Ben Franklin Place council chamber and demanding the French-speaker acknowledge that Canada is a British country.
Ontario has more than 600,000 francophones, concentrated in the east and the north, but if Franco-Ontarians sometimes feel as though their place isn’t secure, they’re not crazy. As Wynne pointed out.
She reminded her small audience at MIFO that when the Progressive Conservatives were last in power, they tried to close the Montfort Hospital, Ontario’s only French-language teaching hospital. This wasn’t so much an intentional attack on Ontario’s francophonie as an act of obliviousness as the Tories merged and closed smaller hospitals across the province, but it galvanized an opposition movement whose members still recognize one another like veterans of a war. Once elected, the McGuinty Liberals funded a massive expansion, nearly doubling the Montfort’s capacity.
The province’s commissioner for French-language services still gets more than 200 legitimate complaints a year about inadequate services — nearly half of them from Eastern Ontario. More relate to health services than any other field.
“I can hardly claim to be perfectly fluent in French, we all know that,” Wynne said. “But I try very hard because the ability to speak both of Ontario’s official languages is very important to me.”
Ontario Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne talks with St. Albert Cheese Coop Director Eric Lafontaine, right, as she makes a campaign stop at St. Albert Cheese in St. Albert, Ont., on Thursday, May 31, 2018.
The poke at her opponents was obvious. Wynne is the only leader of any of the three biggest parties with even rudimentary French. Her grasp of the language is basic — she’ll often ask Lalonde or Des Rosiers to translate questions posed in French to be sure she gets the nuances — but she can carry on a conversation. Andrea Horwath can deliver a prepared text in French, but not with ease. Doug Ford has a few words at most.
In an English-language interview on Radio-Canada that quickly became notorious when he was running for the Tory leadership, Ford agreed that it’s important for the premier of Ontario to speak French… because the premier needs to be able to talk to other parts of the country where that’s what they speak. “I love Quebec,” he went on. “I love Quebecers. They’re passionate.”
The Liberals and the New Democrats also have French-language versions of their websites and platforms; the Tories don’t.
After MIFO, Wynne headed east to the St-Albert cheese co-op, where, before the last election in 2014, she dispensed $1 million to upgrade the factory operation after a devastating fire in 2013. She’s been to Ottawa-Vanier, Ottawa South and now Orléans and Glengarry-Prescott-Russell this campaign. Not to Nepean or Kanata.
Liberals say their leader always intended a late-campaign swing through Ontario’s eastern tip to emphasize her party’s francophone credentials. It’s a point where they consider themselves strong and the New Democrats and Progressive Conservatives (especially the Progressive Conservatives) weak. Maybe so. In context, Wynne’s third trip to Ottawa in a month still looks like an attempt to salvage seats that haven’t been in play in 15 years.
dreevely@postmedia.com
twitter.com/davidreevely
查看原文...
