Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks at a press conference at the Port of Montreal in Montreal, on March 28.ANDREJ IVANOV/AFP/Getty Images
What sound does the cheese make in a good poutine? Virtually the whole hockey arena in Shawinigan, Que., called out the answer to help the floundering Liberal leadership candidate: “Squick squick!”
Mark Carney had flubbed his test of Quebecitude, administered by the satirical Radio-Canada show Infoman in January. Maybe he hadn’t fully understood the question, as francophone reporters sometimes suspect he does not.
But as Mr. Carney’s struggles with French now threaten to become an issue for the Liberal Leader in the federal election campaign, amidst a fierce three- and sometimes four-way race for seats in la belle province, Quebeckers seem to be cutting him the same slack as those poutine-loving hockey fans.
The former central banker retains a comfortable lead in Quebec polls on the strength of his economic credentials despite what might have been, for another politician in another time, a disastrous first week on the campaign trail.
After suggesting he would participate in a French-language debate on the influential TVA network, he backed out, prompting attacks from the Conservatives and Bloc Québécois that he was afraid to debate in French. (The Liberals and their leader respectively pinned the decision on a $75,000 entrance fee and the absence of the Green Party.)
While introducing a candidate who survived the 1989 Polytechnique massacre – a moment of collective trauma for Quebec – Mr. Carney wrongly said she had survived the 1992 mass shooting at Concordia University.
Even straight news stories in Quebec routinely refer to his French as “hesitant” or “laborious.”
Whatever his limitations in la langue de Molière, however, Mr. Carney’s résumé as a financial manager seems to be compensating, especially as the trade war with the U.S. intensifies. The polling aggregator Qc125 shows the Liberals far ahead in Quebec, with 40 per cent support, leading the Bloc and Conservatives by double digits.
“The more space Donald Trump takes up, the more it will help Mark Carney get over his linguistic challenges,” said Sébastien Dallaire, executive vice-president for Eastern Canada at the polling firm Leger.
The Liberal Leader has made gestures toward francophones, reappropriating the slogan maître chez nous, or masters in our own home, from Quebec’s Quiet Revolution to describe the need for Canadian economic sovereignty.
During a speech in Montreal on Thursday, delivered largely in French, Mr. Carney promised to put Quebeckers “at the decision-making table.”
Some analysts view his language skills more favourably, docking points mainly for a strong accent and awkward delivery. The author Jean-Benoît Nadeau recently wrote a column in L’actualité magazine defending Mr. Carney’s French and criticizing those who pounced on his gaffes after the Liberal leadership debates.
Quebeckers should welcome efforts by outsiders to learn Canada’s other official language, rather than ridicule them, Mr. Nadeau argued.
“If you want people to learn your language, you cannot possibly, logically criticize them for their accent,” he said in an interview.
Some of the controversy has been stoked by the Québecor media empire, which is run by the former sovereigntist politician Pierre Karl Péladeau and comprises the TVA network and popular Journal de Montréal tabloid. Journalists at both outlets have been among the sharpest critics of Mr. Carney’s failure to take part in the TVA debate, although he will participate in another French-language debate organized by the Leaders’ Debates Commission.
But plenty of neutral observers are concerned that Mr. Carney’s limited French will prevent him from understanding and communicating with Quebeckers on a deeper level, even if the province’s voters support him during the campaign for his crisis-management chops.
“Sometimes I only understand him in French because I’ve already heard what he’s saying in English,” said Hélène Buzzetti, an independent political analyst with Les Coops de l’information. “I sympathize with him, because I know what it’s like to speak in another language and feel like I’ve lost 10 IQ points. But in his case it might be 15 points.”
Just as striking was his Polytechnique gaffe, she said, which was hard to imagine coming from someone more versed in Quebec society.
Responding to the perception that he was out of touch with francophone Canada at a press conference in Windsor, Ont., this week, Mr. Carney replied that he “loves Quebec, the language, the culture, the history,” but acknowledged that his French was “far from perfect,” although he later said in English that it was “fine.”
Dimitri Soudas, the former chief spokesman for former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper and a trilingual Montreal native, said Mr. Carney’s French was actually better when he was Governor of the Bank of Canada from 2008 to 2013. At the time, he was steeped in the more bilingual culture of the senior civil service and called on to give regular speeches in French.
The Liberal Leader may be able to regain that degree of fluency, but believing his current level of French is “fine” won’t help him forge a lasting connection with francophones, Mr. Soudas argued.
“I believe the likelihood of him getting away with this for the next four weeks is high, but can he get away with it for the next four years?” he said. “How will the Prime Minister speak to Quebeckers, touch the heart of Quebeckers? … Right now, he is Mr. Teflon. But in politics, Mr. Teflon eventually becomes Mr. Velcro.”