The Canadian Forces just shot themselves in the foot
KAMOURASKA, QUE.—My father never considered himself a hero, although in enlisting in the first days of the Second World War and serving as an anti-tank officer in combat in Sicily and Italy, he faced a great deal of risk.
But like so many veterans, he didn’t talk much about the war, except to mention those he respected. One of his fellow officers was Captain Paul Triquet of the Royal 22nd Regiment, the famed “Van Doos.” Triquet was awarded the Victoria Cross in 1944 for incredible bravery in a place called Casa Berardi.
My father could speak some French, but all his life he made the effort. He recognized and respected that the language of the Van Doos was French, and so he spoke it with colleagues like Triquet. When his grandson, my late son James, went to Bosnia as a United Nations peacekeeper in 1995, he served alongside the Royal 22nd. Again, despite his limited French from a childhood in upstate New York, James made the effort to speak it in the field.
Respect is an important word in the military, and the numbers of Parti Québécois leaders who were in the Canadian military is a sign of the lack of respect given to French-speaking Canadians in the Armed Forces. Former Quebec premier Bernard Landry spoke at length of his career as an Army officer, and how it drove him to be a separatist. It is true there have been many prominent Quebecers who have risen to the higher ranks in the Canadian military (current Chief of Defence Staff Jennie Carignan is one example), but the record is not stellar.
That is why the latest news about bilingualism in the military is a slap in the face to Quebecers. As a report in Le Devoir revealed recently, the Canadian Forces has moved to selective unilingualism.
In a follow-up editorial in the paper, former senior military officers Eric Sauvé and Alain Forand wrote in French: “National Defence has stripped French of its status as a working language in approximately 180 previously bilingual units and organizations … going forward, the working language will be determined primarily by the geographic region in which the unit is located. In practical terms, this means that outside of Quebec, New Brunswick, and certain regions of Ontario, English will become the working language.”
The reasoning is even more galling: “Units located in unilingual regions were having difficulty meeting their language obligations, which led to complaints—which the ministry says are well-founded—and frustration. But rather than trying to enforce the requirements, the authorities chose to scale back the obligations.”
After the news broke, a retired francophone officer friend wrote to express his anger. He pointed out “following this logic could impact every single Canadian citizen as [organizations can say] ‘we're going to cancel the harassment guidelines, because we have too many harassment complaints, or we are going to cancel the airline flight cancellation compensations because there are too many valid complaints.’”
He is absolutely right. As a Quebec anglophone who has fought for bilingualism all my life and supports a bilingual Armed Forces, I am furious. The goals of the new Official Languages Act, C-13, were to improve services for francophones, encourage the use of French, and ensure francophone minority communities can thrive. This policy goes against all those objectives. My friend pointed out our Governor General Louise Arbour is commander-in-chief in support of the Armed Forces. As a francophone, how can she accept this?
Finally, while I have always advocated that public servants should be circumspect about political issues, they might have checked Quebec’s political calendar before announcing the policy. In a few weeks, Quebecers will be in the midst of an election campaign, in which the Parti Québécois will argue Quebecers need their own country because Canada does not properly serve francophone minorities, and that Prime Minister Mark Carney—an anglophon—does not understand Quebec.
In short, this policy change is a gift to separatists. Surely, someone at DND should have been aware of the furore this would cause? As Le Devoir said, “There is no doubt about it: what the ministry is presenting as a mere administrative decision is a huge step backward.”
In the present political context, and because this policy is discriminatory and counter-intuitive, it should be scrapped.
Andrew Caddell is retired from Global Affairs Canada, where he was a senior policy adviser. He previously worked as an adviser to Liberal governments. He is a former town councillor in Kamouraska, Que. He can be reached at pipson52@hotmail.com.
The Hill Times