I must admit, in all the debate madness of last nite, I completely forgot about the French-language debate on TFO. Not that it was top priority for me, as none of the candidates that took part are running in my city, much less my riding, and mon anglais is just fine, thank you. That said, I would’ve tuned into a leaders debate in French, but that was not the case here, as neither Tim Hudak nor Andrea Horwath speaks our second official language.
Dalton does, apparently, though he sent Madeleine Meilleur, minister of francophone affairs, to represent his party–which makes perfect sense. The NDP went with Gilles Bisson, a Franco-Ontarian from Timmins-Baie James, while Hudak’s hand-picked candidate was a guy named Jason MacDonald from Ottawa, who admittedly speaks French as his second language. Hey, so do I, though it seems that according to L’Express, Toronto’s weekly French newspaper, my French is better than his. Here’s what they had to say about the PC representative:
“Son voisin d’Ottawa-Sud, Jason MacDonald, a parlé plus posément que les autres – français langue seconde oblige – mais il a passé la soirée sur la défensive, sachant que son parti, dont le site web n’a même pas de version française, a peu d’appuis chez les Franco-Ontariens.
Dans la discussion sur les services en français, il en était réduit à promettre de «respecter la loi» et il s’est acquitté tant bien que mal de sa mission d’annoncer des «décisions difficiles», jamais précisées, afin d’équilibrer le budget.”
Okay, let me put on my translating cap here…
Her (Meilleur’s) Ottawa South neighbour, Jason MacDonald, spoke more slowly/calmly than the others – French being his second language – but he spent the evening on the defensive, knowing that his party, whose web site isn’t even available in French(!!!), has little support amongst Franco-Ontarians.
In the discussion on services in French, he was reduced to promising to “respect the law” and he acquitted himself, for better or worse, on his mission to announce “difficult decisions,” without going into further detail, in order to balance the budget.
Hé les francos, si les PCs prennent le pouvoir, c’est lui qui pourrait être notre ministre des Affaires francophones!
(I’ll leave it to Jason MacDonald to translate that last sentence for ya.)
