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TOP STORY
More than three years after vowing to learn French, Governor General Mary Simon abruptly cut short a visit to Quebec City after local media noticed that she wasn’t able to say much more than, “Hello, how are you?”
On Tuesday and Wednesday, Simon was scheduled for a series of public appearances in and around the Quebec capital. But during a visit to the food bank Comptoir Le Grenier, reporters accompanying the Governor General took note that she didn’t seem to have even a basic grasp of French.
“Aside from common greetings, a ‘Hello how are you?’ we noticed that the discussions between Grenier staff members and the Governor General were conducted exclusively in English,” read an account by Journal de Quebec correspondent Vincent Desbiens.
Desbiens also noted that Comptoir Le Grenier is located within one of the most Francophone areas of the entire country, with 99.8 per cent of the population counting it as their mother tongue.
Soon after Desbiens’ story went live, Simon’s office suddenly announced that a second public appearance had been cancelled. On Wednesday, the Governor General had been scheduled to visit Le Pignon Bleu, another Quebec City food charity.
“With regrets, Her Excellency the Right Honourable Mary Simon, Governor General of Canada, will not be visiting Le Pignon Bleu today,” read an official alert to media.
No reason for the cancellation was given, and Rideau Hall did not respond to National Post requests as to why the visit was cut short.
Rather, Simon’s office sent over a statement saying that the Governor General’s “persistent effort to learn French over the past few years has been inspiring to many who know how difficult it is to learn a new language as an adult.”
“Since her installation in 2021, the Governor General has been learning French and has been incorporating it in her duties,” it read.
Simon was appointed as Governor General on July 6, 2021. Although Simon is Canada’s first-ever Indigenous governor general, she was also the first Canadian-born holder of the office not to speak both official languages.
And that hasn’t happened for quite some time. The last Governor General without a working knowledge of French would have served during the pre-1950s era, when the position was reserved entirely for British nobility.
In Simon’s first speech as Governor General, she expressed a commitment to add “Canada’s other official language, French” to her repertoire. But after this week’s events in Quebec City, Francophone commentators and politicians are noting that Simon’s French appears to have made little progress in the interim 38 months.
Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet reacted by telling The Canadian Press in French that when “the big boss of everything that is Canada needs an interpreter to walk around in Quebec, that’s a little shocking.”
Simon is a Quebecer, but was raised in the Arctic Quebec community of Kangiqsualujjuaq, where the predominant language remains Inuktitut.
“Growing up in northern Quebec, the Governor General attended Federal Day School. There, she was not given the chance to learn French and was forbidden from speaking her first language, Inuktitut,” read Rideau Hall’s Thursday statement to the National Post.
“Nevertheless, she continued to maintain her language and is extremely fluent in Inuktitut,” it added.
Simon’s lack of French has been a major point of contention among Francophones.
The Commissioner of Official Languages was barraged with complaints following Simon’s appointment. An Angus Reid Institute survey from the time found a plurality of French-speaking Quebecers opposed her appointment.
When Quebec Premier François Legault first met with Simon in Quebec City in May 2022, he told reporters, “She still has work to do. It’s really not ideal that she does not speak French.”
Two French-language advocacy groups are also championing a Charter challenge seeking to have Simon’s appointment annulled.
The groups Justice Pour le Québec and Association De Défense Des Droits Individuels Et Collectifs Du Québec (ADDICQ) have argued that Simon’s appointment is a violation of the Charter guarantee for French and English to have “equality of status and equal rights and privileges as to their use in all institutions of the Parliament and government of Canada.”
Although the federal government has attempted to have the case quashed, last month a Quebec judge ruled that it will proceed to a hearing.
IN OTHER NEWS
Question period on Wednesday devolved into a heated dispute over an alleged gay joke. It all started when Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was grilling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about a $9 million residence his government purchased for New York consul general Tom Clark. In a rote response, Trudeau said he was “engaging with international leaders on fighting climate change, on solving global crises, on standing up unequivocally for Ukraine.” This led to a heckle accusing Trudeau of “engaging” in the bathtub of the $9 million residence (it has a handcrafted copper soaker tub). Trudeau said this was a “homophobic” joke and “crap” – he had to apologize for the latter word, which is unparliamentary. If the Tories were indeed implying some act of sexual congress with the comment, it’s only been seven months since a similar comment in which the NDP’s Daniel Blaikie expressed concern in the House of Commons for “the tongues of certain Conservative members that I feared would get stuck in the backside of their leader as he exited the chamber.” Nobody accused Blaikie of being a homophobe, although he was asked to withdraw the comments.
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