The refusal to participate in the traditional French debate seems to highlight the PM’s inability to speak French fluently
In recent days, the French television channel TVA announced it would broadcast the traditional French debate and invited the main parties’ Leaders to participate.
The Liberal party Leader, Mark Carney, the current Prime Minister of Canada, declined the invitation under a questionable pretext.
The Prime Minister’s dismissal to participate in the televised French debate surely rose some eyebrows in the province of Quebec and across the country as well.
This refusal is odd coming from the person who wants to get ‘officially’ elected as the Prime Minister while other party Leaders are offended to be excluded from this important event for the francophone citizens.
The French debate is considered as an opportunity for every party Leader to present their electoral platform to the French-speaking population which constitutes a significant part of the electorate.
The fact that the unelected Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney, refused to participate in the French debate may expose a deeper reason than just the absence of the Green party in the line-up.
To remediate this situation, the Conservatives offered to invite the Greens if that’s all it takes to get the Liberals on board and even pay the Liberal party’s $75,000 participation fee therefore, there is no reason for Mark Carney to refuse taking part in this event.
Why would the person freshly parachuted in Canadian politics not want to participate in a French debate to defend his ideology and most of all, give all the citizens the chance to discover his greatness and self-righteousness?
We can ask ourselves: Why wouldn’t the ruling party’s Leader participate in an electoral debate? Is it really because of the absence of another Leader or to hide an inability to speak the second official language fluently, as required by the highest position in government? This sure shines a light on a fundamental question not mentioned much yet.
French Proficiency
This week during a press conference, a French-speaking journalist asked Mark Carney to translate to French what he just said in English.
He started with a few insignificant sentences, put-in the smearing English words ‘conspiracy theorist’ and continued in English, discarding the translation the journalist asked for.
Mark Carney tried to exit the press conference until an other question was asked in English. Watch this intervention below.
His answer revealed a very basic oratorical level, a poor French fluency and mainly an inaptitude to switch between languages, like any bilingual individual can easily do.
It appears that Mark Carney just cannot speak French with proficiency as the government employees are required to at this position level.
Another example of his language inaptitude happened during a CPAC press conference. A francophone journalist asked clarifications on what he was saying, Mark Carney mumbled some French then told the journalist “Ça suffit!” which means “That’s enough!”, when she asked for clarifications.
Not only couldn’t he speak French properly but Mark Carney told this journalist to shut up and went on to the other point of the question with limited ‘yes-and-no’ answers. Watch this interaction below.
One can wonder if Mark Carney meets the language proficiency level or is even close to be fluently bilingual.
Language Requirements for Candidates
In Canada, there is what is called the ‘Language Requirements for Candidates’. The Prime Minister position requires the Candidate to be bilingual which means that his spoken French should be as fluent and rich in vocabulary as his first language.
According to the government’s website, the ‘Language Requirements for Candidates’ are (extract from the website):
After reading these requirements, big questions come to mind:
Did Mark Carney even pass the required language tests BEFORE his appointment as Prime Minister of Canada?
If he did indeed complete these tests, when did he pass these tests exactly? What were his scores in these English and French tests used to confirm that Mark Carney’s French language proficiency was effectively sufficient for the position of Prime Minister?
Judging by his answer to the French-speaking journalist, Mark Carney clearly does not meet the ‘C’ level requirement for his position regarding French speaking.
His spoken French is at beginner’s level, just good enough to order in restaurants or travel to France but way too poor to represent the entire Canadian nation adequately in a fully bilingual manner as his predecessors did.
The requirements also take into account the reading and writing proficiency of the Candidates. When somebody has a hard time making full rich sentences in French like Mark Carney demonstrated this week, it is hard to believe that the proficiency level ‘C’ was met in reading as well since reading and speaking almost go hand-in-hand when you are indeed bilingual.
The French language being rich and complex, its reading at a ‘C’ level can be hard to attain even for French-speaking individuals. Does Mark Carney really also meet the reading proficiency requirements to position of Prime Minister of Canada?
Since Mark Carney does sound like a French beginner, did he already sign up for the language training program to become bilingual as required by the ‘Public Service Employment Act’?
The Prime Minister position being part of what are designated as ‘Imperative Appointment’ positions, the Candidate does require to be bilingual BEFORE being appointed, one does wonder who exactly assessed Mark Carney’s languages proficiency in order for Mark Carney to get in the Prime Minister position?
It sounds fishy that he could even have met the bilingual ‘C-B-C’ level language criteria just hearing him speak in a broken French along with his refusal to debate on French television.
A quick look at the government web page concerning the ‘Public Service Official Languages Appointment Regulations – SOR/2005-347’ from the ‘Public Service Employment Act’ one can question what was changed on this web page on March 18th 2025?
Could this page have been modified to exclude some regulation points from public scrutiny? You can do the comparison exercise yourself by clicking here.
In conclusion, in order to have the right to represent both English and French-speaking citizens in Canada, a Candidate must be fluent in both languages.
Therefore, the deficient language proficiency demonstrated by Mark Carney when speaking in French does not qualify him for the adequate representation of all Canadians for the Prime Minister position, and this fact is Inconveniently TRUE.
I thank you for taking the time to read this article.
Inconveniently TRUE 