Oh boy, here we go...

The honeymoon is over. As I have often heard, the best possible day in a politician's life is the day he is elected. For Larry O'Brien, that day was three days ago.

Sorry, Larry... time to put the kevlar suit on. It seems that the francophone minority in Ottawa has just discovered that you don't speak French. I don't recall this fact being brought up as a major issue in the weeks leading up to election day. I thought that light rail, taxes and change were the main topics of discussion when examining the facts as they pertained to the race for mayor.

Before I am accused of being intolerant towards francophones, I am one myself. My mother grew up in Hull and my father's mother was half French herself. I attended French schools from kindergarten through to grade nine. When I moved to the Ottawa Board of Education for grades ten through thirteen, I had the opportunity to examine how well the so-called French immersion program worked for those children who wished to learn the language while growing up in an anglophone household. Much of my university education has come from classrooms where French was language of choice.

Back to Larry O'Brien. Everyone knew (or should have known) that he was an anglophone when he was running. Everyone knew (or should have known) that the only candidate running for mayor who had a decent working knowledge of the French language was Alex Munter. As the Ottawa Sun points out today, Bob Chiarelli more or less gets along well enough in French, but be clearly is most comfortable when speaking English. Now that the vote is behind us, why must the topic of discussion on open line programs be the reprehensible fact that we now have a unilingual mayor?

The thing that really drives me nuts about this never ending language debate is that despite the fact that less than 20% of Ottawans are francophones, their "needs" seem to be elevated so they become known as being much more important than the needs of the majority. After all, a good portion of the francophone Ottawans do also speak, read and write English. Despite this, a certain segment of the francophone population seems to like throwing its political weight around whenever it feels the urge to do so. After all, we should not be neglecting the needs of francophones and discriminate against them, right?

Of course not.

We are told that we must not discriminate against minorities. That's fine! But what about those who don't use either one of the "official" languages? I work with seniors and I happen to have the 2004 Council on Aging fact book that contains many tables that provide 2001 Census data. In 2001, population 65 and over, 59.4% spoken English only. 18.2% spoke French only. 20.9% spoke "other languages". I'm sure there's an even bigger percentage of "others" today in 2006.

If we are therefore going to shake our fists at anglophones who occupy public posts for their dastardly inability to speak French, why don't we elevate our expectations even higher and require that they speak the dozens or hundreds of other languages that are spoken in Ottawa households? I've never seen the francophone minority rights activists line up shoulder to shoulder with others who are allegedly discriminated against to demand language equality for all.

I wonder why.