"It often feels as though we are being asked to justify the continuing existence of [Indigenous] languages to a Canadian audience who may not value them.  I believe we need to remind Canada that Indigenous languages are an Aboriginal right, enshrined in section 35 of the Constitution, as well as an inherent right — to speak and pass on our languages — that is recognized internationally by the United Nations Declaration on Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), which Canada has officially adopted."

—Métis author Chelsea Vowel writing for Chatelaine, May 2018

Conservative writer Kenneth Whyte instigated a Parliament Hill maelstrom in mid-January when he suggested the Conservative party was wasting its time by courting a competent bilingual as leader.  The Globe and Mail op-ed trigged a flurry of responses, including from current and former government ministers, most asserting it would be ludicrous for a prospective prime minister to not wield a command of both of Canada's official languages.

Whyte's piece offered a persuasive argument: federal parties in the modern era can either seek the support of the West or Quebec, but not both.  Brian Mulroney's sweep of every province and territory in 1984 is no longer feasible today.  The West won't accept a leader from Quebec, while Quebec won't accept a leader from any other province.  And since the Conservative base is in the West, there's no point alienating them by pandering to an elusive Quebec.  If the Tories want to form a majority government, they should concentrate on swaying Ontario and the Maritimes instead.

None of the predictably bluster-filled responses to Whyte's article thus far have successfully countered his assertion.  But there is an opportunity to think deeper about official bilingualism in Canadian politics, other than for purposes of political strategy or electoral game theory, as pragmatic as they may be.  The question of whether political party leaders should be competent in both English and French invites a more fundamental debate about what Canada desires to be as a country, as well as how earnestly it is willing to address the wrongs of its past (and present).

I will offer several reasons why Canadian party leaders should not be expected to be bilingual in both official languages.  And please don't confuse this as an attempt to trivialize the importance of French, for I suggest that francophones who do not speak a lick of English have every right to seek our country's top political office.

First, the most provocative argument: the moral dubiousness of which languages Canada has deemed "official."  If we recognize that Indigenous people have been living on the land that now comprises Canada for more than 10,000 years before Europeans arrived, that more than 100 Indigenous languages were spoken here prior to European contact, and that a state-sponsored attempt at eradicating Indigenous culture and language through the residential school system was morally repugnant, how can we accept in this era of purported reconciliation that Indigenous languages hold essentially the same federal status as Somali or Turkmen?  How can we justify western European linguistic supremacy by the state when the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action stare us in the face?

Should a speaker of English and hÉ™nÌ“qÌ“É™minÌ“É™mÌ“ (Musqueam) from Vancouver, or a French and ᐄᔨᔫᐊᔨᒨᓐ(Northern East Cree) speaker from rural Quebec, be deemed any less Canadian than an "official" polyglot?  Are we not engaging in an insidious continuation of colonization and assimilation of Indigenous peoples when we call into question the worth of their languages in the context of Canadian identity?

Second, by demanding that political party leaders speak both English and French, we are instantly barring the vast majority of Canadians 83 per cent of us from becoming prime minister.  The role is essentially reserved for a thin slice of the population that is over-represented in its socio-economic privilege (census data shows a clear correlation between official bilingualism and wealth).

Perhaps more importantly, we are ignoring the vast diversity that exists across the country, disqualifying all but one niche combination of backgrounds.  Are you a fifth-generation Canadian from Toronto who speaks English and Cantonese?  Or perhaps a proud Québécois who understands French and Haitian Creole?  Sorry, you've both been eliminated from contention.

Should the desire to maximize appeal to the represented inevitably cause the representative to be limited to a shallow pool of people?  Other than one-majority Stephen Harper and a couple of prime ministers who lasted less than a single year, we have to look back more than a half-century to find a national leader who didn't hail from a small region of the country coined the "bilingual belt" by Richard Joy.  No wonder the West seems to incessantly "want in."

Ultimately, if Canadians don't see themselves reflected in their leaders, it undermines the legitimacy of our democratic institutions.

Now, you could counter that a Canadian who only speaks one official language could and should simply take the time to learn the other language.  But would a Vancouverite who graduated from a French language immersion program really have more than a superficial grasp of Quebec history and culture?  Perhaps it would be better to rotate between English and French speakers as prime minister, just as we do for chief justices of the Supreme Court of Canada, rather than expect all political leaders to speak both fluently.

Admittedly, Quebec's sovereignty movement fomented during a decade of anglophone prime ministers who could not speak French.  But if Canada were to adopt a convention of rotating between anglophones and francophones as federal leader, that would probably assuage Quebec's insistence on wielding a prominent role in the federation while simultaneously allowing for much greater diversity in the country's leadership.

Third, it's worth noting that other countries have leaders who are unable to speak all official languages.  Singapore has four constitutionally-recognized tongues: English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil.  None of the country's prime ministers, past or present, have been able to conduct a conversation in all four.  Despite this, Singapore is often cited as a successful example of multiculturalism.

If some or all Indigenous languages had been granted official status in Canada, would we reject a candidate for party leader who spoke, for example, English and three Indigenous languages but not French?  Might it be scandalous for a prime minister to be fluent in Inuktitut but not understand Obijwe?

No single political leader can ever represent the full diversity of what Canada was and has become, but pretending that Canada is a country of just two nations is the most obvious of falsehoods.  As such, our fanaticism about prime ministers having one leg placed in each official nation at the expense of Indigenous traditions and our country's contemporary diversity does a disservice to 83 per cent of Canada's population. And that's a colossal portion of the electorate no pragmatic political party can afford to offend.

Photo Credit: Richmond School Distrct No. 38