In response to the increasingly criticized absence of French, at the commission of inquiry into the state of emergency, Justin Trudeau promises to strive to express himself in the language of Molière during his testimony expected on Friday . Although the Prime Minister regrets that the deliberations took place almost entirely in English, he refrained from criticizing his ministers who themselves spoke few or no words in French. About twenty sentences, in total, over more than 22 hours of hearings.
“I find it unfortunate that there was not enough French during the commission,” agreed Justin Trudeau upon his arrival in the Commons on Thursday. “Obviously, I will try to use it as much as possible so that everyone can understand me in both official languages,” he added, noting that simultaneous translation is offered for the proceedings.
However, this service will not have been used much to translate from French to English. Because in six weeks, a handful of dozens of witnesses spoke French. The leader of the protest group the “Farfadaa”, Steeve Charland. And two of Justin Trudeau’s seven cabinet ministers who marched before the commission this week.
“If there were not many questions in French, sometimes it is difficult to answer in French too,” argued Prime Minister Trudeau to defend his ministers.
20 phrases in French
Of the lot, only the Minister of Defense, Anita Anand, and the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, the Acadian Dominic LeBlanc, spoke a little French.
The first spoke five sentences in nearly an hour and a half, while the second spoke 15 over the course of his five-hour testimony, when he discussed the situation in Quebec during the crisis of last winter. Mr. LeBlanc also thanked Judge Paul Rouleau in the evening and told him, jokingly, that he would go smoke cigars with his colleague Marco Mendicino, who had also just paraded before the Franco-Ontarian judge.
Minister Mendicino, responsible for Public Security, only offered a “Thank you” to conclude his testimony at 6:30 a.m., although he speaks very good French. The Minister of Justice and Montreal MP, David Lametti, also only articulated a “thank you, good luck” after three hours on the witness stand.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland did not speak French despite her approximately five hours of testimony Thursday.
Ministers Bill Blair and Omar Alghabra, responsible for Civil Protection and Transport respectively, do not speak French and therefore testified only in English.
On Monday, the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), David Vigneault, and two other senior CSIS leaders, Michelle Tessier and Marie-Hélène Chayer, all testified exclusively in English for 4:30 hours.
Mockery and unilingual decisions
At the very beginning of the hearings, a municipal councilor from the French-speaking district of Vanier in Ottawa, Mathieu Fleury, had been snubbed by the lawyer for the organizers of the “freedom convoy”. Mr. Fleury asked that a specific question on the definition of the term micro-aggression be asked of him in French. The lawyer replied “My name is Brendan Miller” and mocked the lack of understanding of the councilman, who had spent five hours testifying in his second language in English.
The commission also issued two decisions in English only this week on the appearance of witnesses and access to unredacted government documents that were requested by the organizers of the “convoy”. The French translation of these two decisions was made public 24 hours and 48 hours after the English version.
Lawyers for the various parties conduct their interrogations almost entirely in English. The spoken French often boils down to the short formal phrases of the registrar, who announces in both official languages during the breaks that “the commission is lifted” or that “the commission resumes”.
The Rouleau commission will conclude its public hearings this Friday, with the testimony of Prime Minister Trudeau. The mandate of the public inquiry is to determine whether it was justified for the federal government to invoke the Emergencies Act last February to respond to border blockades and the occupation of downtown Ottawa, which had then been stretching for three weeks.