That is the title of the best selling book by Peter Schweizer that was released late last year. Subtitled "Profile in liberal hypocrisy", the book details high profile liberal americans including Barbra Streisand, Ted Kennedy and Noam Chomsky whose private lives and actions are completely opposite to their left wing preachings. For example, while Streisand strongly promotes environmentalism and conservation, she spends about $22,000 a year on water for her lawn. While lecturing Californians about the need to turn down their air conditioners during that state's energy crisis in 2001, she kept the air going full blast on all her palatial homes whether or not she happened to be, as they say, in residence. Streisand rails against militarism and the U.S. military industrial complex but that has never stopped her from buying shares in companies that carry on defense work such as Lockheed Martin and Honeywell.
On Saturday, the Globe and Mail reported that a language test was administered by Professor Hélène Knoerr of the University of Ottawa to 10 of the 11 Liberal Party leadership candidates to test their competency in both of Canada's official languages. Candidate Hedy Fry declined to take part, citing her poor French. Nine of the remaining candidates were tested on their ability to communicate in French while Stéphane Dion was tested on his English language ability. Candidates were rated on a scale of 1 to 4, 4 being the highest rating. Five of the candidates passed: Bob Rae, 4; Michael Ignatieff, 4-; Stéphane Dion, 3+, Joe Volpe, 3; and Martha Hall Findley, 3-.
The remaining six candidates failed: Maurizio Bevilacqua, 2-; Gerrard Kennedy, 2-; Scott Brison 1+, Ken Dryden, 1; Carolyn Bennett, 1 and Hedy Fry, 0 (incomplete).
The Liberals, who are running for the leadership of the party and who are not completely bilingual, are no less hypocritical than the limousine liberals that are mentioned in Schweizer's book. Since the 1960s, bilingualism, along with multiculturalism has defined what Canada is as a nation. Yet many of those who seek their party's leadership for the express purpose of being the country's next prime minister feel that it's perfectly acceptable for Canada to have a leader that is not fully bilingual, as least as long as they are that leader. Singing the praises of bilingualism while not being functionally fluent in French is a classic case of "do what I say, not what I do". To these candidates, there is nothing wrong with telling everyone else in the country to speak both official languages while they themselves can barely get by in one of them. Their desire to win the leadership has nothing to do with the party or the country--it's all about them.
Ken Dryden was quoted in the article as saying that it is more important to understand Quebec and its culture than it is to speak French. Dryden didn't say exactly how he was able to gain an understanding of Quebec culture without being able to communicate with the province's unilingual French speaking citizens. But hey, why worry about details? Dryden employed a common debating technique; minimize the importance of something by pointing to something else and saying that that is more important. The Globe and Mail article also points out that Dryden failed to learn French despite spending 9 years in Montreal when he played goal for the Canadiens. The poor ability of some of the candidates to communicate in French should be compared to Michael Ignatieff who scored a 4- after having spent the past 30 years in the non-French speaking United States and Great Britain.
It is too much to expect that all Canadians or even all members of Parliament become fully bilingual. But it is certainly not asking too much to require the next leader of the Liberal Party and potentially the next prime minister of Canada to be able to communicate with Canadians in both official languages. If Stephen Harper could not speak to French Canadians in their own language, the Liberals would never let him or the country forget it. But with some of the Liberal leadership candidates, their linguistic abilities simply don't matter. Of course it's not about Canada--it's all about power.
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