For the first time in nearly fifty years, no provincial party leader in Ontario will speak French during the election campaign that will begin next week. Although some chiefs have taken courses, none can express themselves fluently in French, a language spoken by more than 600,000 people in Ontario, the largest French-speaking minority community in the country.
The four main leaders — Doug Ford (Progressive Conservative Party), Steven Del Duca (Liberal Party), Andrea Horwath (New Democratic Party) and Mike Schreiner (Green Party) — have promised to learn French. “We had the impression that there had been progress in this direction and that the leaders were going to pay particular attention to the Francophone fact,” notes political scientist Geneviève Tellier.
In the fall of 2021, Doug Ford said he had stopped his French lessons because the pandemic meant that he could not be in the presence of his teacher. Opposition leader Andrea Horwath said she didn’t have the time to learn the language. The teams of the two chiefs did not respond to questions from the To have to on their current state of learning French.
The team of Liberal leader Steven Del Duca did not specify whether the latter had continued his French lessons. In October 2021, Del Duca announced that he planned to resume classes he started in 2013, when he was a parliamentary assistant.
Since the mid-1970s, at least one bilingual chef has been in the running in Ontario. The New Democratic Party (NDP) was able to count on Bob Rae and Howard Hampton, among others, while the Progressive Conservative Party was led by Patrick Brown between 2015 and 2018, one of the few bilingual leaders of the party during the 25 last years.
The Ontario Liberal Party, long recognized for its defense of Franco-Ontarians, has elected bilingual leaders since 1975: Stuart Smith, David Peterson, Dalton McGuinty, then Kathleen Wynne. It was Premier David Peterson’s office that, in 1986, introduced the French Language Services Act, which legally protects the French fact in Ontario.
The Queen City sits enthroned
The absence of French from the chiefs’ linguistic repertoire does not completely surprise former NDP leader Howard Hampton, who served as chief at Queen’s Park from 1996 to 2009. [pour les chefs] is: Who can win the most ridings in the Greater Toronto Area? » he maintains during an interview in French. Nearly 40% of the seats in the Ontario legislature are located in the region, which does not include the city of Hamilton and its surroundings, where a large number of people who travel to the metropolis for work reside.
The southern region of the province welcomes more than three-quarters of newcomers to Ontario. An electorate that the leaders try to please. For these new communities, “the French language is not an important issue in their economic life,” thinks Howard Hampton, former representative for the riding of Kenora–Rainy River, in the northwest of the province. “The Francophonie was more important 30 or 40 years ago, but with immigration, the place of French is diminishing,” said Marcel Beaubien, former MP for the riding of Lambton–Kent–Middlesex.
A matter of sensitivity?
The region of origin of the chiefs may partly explain the absence of Francophones in the race. But that’s not the only reason, says University of Ottawa professor Geneviève Tellier. Former Liberal leader Kathleen Wynne, for example, spoke French even though she represented an urban riding in Toronto. “It was laborious at the start of the mandate, but she made a lot of effort. There was in her this sensitivity to learn and communicate in French,” observes Ms.me tellier.
What impact will this have on the campaign? No.
The current leader of the Liberal Party, Steven Del Duca, hopes to be elected in the riding of Vaughan, a suburb of Toronto. His team did not respond directly to our questions on the importance or not that his leader attaches to the election of a bilingual premier in Ontario. In a press release, however, the party said that several of its Francophone candidates were fervent defenders of French: three of the seven members of the current Liberal caucus are Franco-Ontarians.
Professor Tellier thinks that the presence of French-speaking candidates can make up for the chef’s lack of knowledge, but she does not feel any conviction or interest on the part of Steven Del Duca, or the other chefs, for the defense of French in this election. The question of French could have little impact on the choice of voters, however, thinks the professor emeritus of the University of Toronto Nelson Wiseman. “The only people who are interested in this subject are Franco-Ontarians,” he says. What impact will this have on the campaign? No. »
This story is supported by the Local Journalism Initiative, funded by the Government of Canada.