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@erinotoole "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
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Alex Murphy
6.7K posts
Alex Murphy
@AlexMurphysLaw
Project manager and CAF veteran 🇨🇦 that lives by Murphy's Law.
Canada Katılım Aralık 2022
308 Takip Edilen204 Takipçiler
@Graham_Mark_E Except that cognitive science has shown as we age it becomes significantly more difficult to learn a new language.
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The former leader of the Conservative Party of Canada giving the impression that French (French!) is a language too hard to learn is not a call for sanity - it just reinforces our image as Conservatives as anti-intellectual and a bit stupid.
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@GJCMDP @ThomasHall17 You're confusing a failure to understand the benefits of bilingualism with a disagreement regarding its representation of education.
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@AlexMurphysLaw @ThomasHall17 As does those who can’t understand the benefits of speaking both languages
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As an immigrant to Canada, I cannot understand how any Canadians who call themselves educated cannot speak a bit of French. Not fluently, but able to exchange a few words and able to read and understand more. It's a mark of an educated person, quite frankly. Part of the problem
Candice Bergen Harris@CandiceBergen_
Mr. Rousseau is expressing what millions of Canadians who don’t know french and have tried to learn it feel. What I am tired of is that a few elites (in Ontario primarily) get to tell the 80% of Canadians who don’t speak french fluently that we need to sit on the sidelines. It’s time for a conversation about what 2 official languages actually means. What’s transpired over the last few days is not about the communication or language but about control.
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@OrbitStudios Did you conveniently forget the last decade of federal Liberal budgets?
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Have we seen a more disastrous budget from any government, ever?
Not in my life.
The Ford government is in the running for the worst government in our great nation’s history.
Frank Domenic@TheFrankDomenic
Ontario doubled its expected deficit, and tabled a budget that is, from all perspectives outside of the government, an absolute disaster, delivering none of the promises they were elected on. #ontario #onpoli #dougford #frankdomenic🍁
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@Lux_Stella_ The craziest part is that he said that bilingualism has prevented "merit-based hiring" as if being able to speak the language of a significant portion of your customer base and workforce isn't a "merit" factor.
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i think JJ's essentially correct about mass french language acquisition west of francontario being a pipe dream, but also idk im unsympathetic to the premise that passible conversational french is a major imposition on admin positions already credentialed out the wazoo
J.J. McCullough@JJ_McCullough
Everything about official bilingualism in Canada is built on myth. People can’t “just learn” a language they don’t need. Canada isn’t “built on” two equally-sized language groups. Bilingualism isn’t “necessary” to function at an elite level. It’s all just Laurentian folklore.
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@JJ_McCullough A point of clarification, Canada has two official languages, not official bilingualism. There is an important distinction to be made there.
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Everything about official bilingualism in Canada is built on myth. People can’t “just learn” a language they don’t need. Canada isn’t “built on” two equally-sized language groups. Bilingualism isn’t “necessary” to function at an elite level. It’s all just Laurentian folklore.
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Is it just me or is it refreshing to hear a politician actually say it like it is?
Wab Kinew isn’t dancing around it.
While others play politics, he’s calling out the distractions.
Release the Epstein files!
Scott Robertson@sarobertsonca
Wab Kinew: “No American child from the blue collar or the middle class should have to die in Iran. Let the Epstein class fight the Epstein war.”
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Imagine the outrage if the CEO of a Calgary based company failed to offer condolences in English for the death of their anglo employee because they, despite having lived and worked in Alberta for 2 decades, didn’t know the language.
Candice Bergen Harris@CandiceBergen_
Mr. Rousseau is expressing what millions of Canadians who don’t know french and have tried to learn it feel. What I am tired of is that a few elites (in Ontario primarily) get to tell the 80% of Canadians who don’t speak french fluently that we need to sit on the sidelines. It’s time for a conversation about what 2 official languages actually means. What’s transpired over the last few days is not about the communication or language but about control.
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@AlexMurphysLaw If the situation were reversed Anglo Canadians would be going thermonuclear. Imagine if the CEO of a Calgary based company didn’t offer condolences in English for the death of their employee because they, despite having lived in Alberta for 20 years, didn’t speak English.
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You *don’t* have to be bilingual to be a C-suite executive.
Rousseau doesn’t speak French despite having lived in Quebec for two decades, and all that is being asked of him is that he should offer condolences in the language of the bereaved.
It’s an insanely small ask
Roman Fisher@RomanFisher__
If you have to be bilingual to be considered a worthy C-suite executive in Canada, you’re going to push out many of the best candidates. Convince me I’m wrong. Quebec cannot demand concessions from Anglo Canada in perpetuity without giving something back in exchange. The asymmetry is unsustainable.
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@JJ_McCullough @Anthony__Koch An inferiority complex is the foundation of our entire national identity at this point.
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@Anthony__Koch Maybe patriotism should be based on something other than hating our neighbors.
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My take that pisses everyone off:
It is impossible to be a Canadian nationalist while denigrating the significance or relevance of the French language.
The single greatest differentiator between Canada and the United States is the existence of Québec.
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@DimitrisSoudas @eyebaws1 @mikethenavyguy That's a weird way of admitting Quebec is susceptible to shameless pandering.
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@eyebaws1 @mikethenavyguy Québec francophones delivered more seats to Carney in Quebec than they did to Trudeau.
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Let’s be precise.
Millions of Canadians are not paid 12 million dollars a year to lead a company that is legally bound by the Official Languages Act. That standard exists for a reason. It comes with the job. It is not optional.
Framing this as a struggle of “ordinary Canadians versus elites” is simply not grounded in reality. In Ottawa, the vast majority of deputy ministers are Anglophone. In cabinet, francophone ministers have often presented in English. I do not recall many, if any, Anglophone ministers presenting in French. The imbalance you are pointing to is not where you suggest it is.
This is not about sidelining anyone. It is about leadership and responsibility.
Mr. Rousseau has lived in Quebec for two decades. His spouse is francophone. He leads a national carrier subject to federal law. He publicly committed years ago to learning French. After hundreds of hours of tutoring, in a moment that required dignity and respect, he could not deliver even a few sentences in the language of one of the victims and their family.
That is not about control. That is about priority.
And let’s be honest about the lived reality of this country. Francophones who move into majority Anglophone environments adapt quickly because they must. They do not have the luxury of opting out. That expectation has never been controversial. Yet when the expectation is reversed at the highest levels of leadership, it suddenly becomes a debate about fairness.
It is not.
Canada made a foundational choice. Two official languages. Not one and a half. Not when convenient. Not when it is easy.
In moments of tragedy, language is not a technicality. It is how you show respect. It is how you honour people. It is how you lead.
Reducing this to a question of control or elite pressure misses the point entirely and risks turning a matter of basic respect into an unnecessary division.
Candice Bergen Harris@CandiceBergen_
Mr. Rousseau is expressing what millions of Canadians who don’t know french and have tried to learn it feel. What I am tired of is that a few elites (in Ontario primarily) get to tell the 80% of Canadians who don’t speak french fluently that we need to sit on the sidelines. It’s time for a conversation about what 2 official languages actually means. What’s transpired over the last few days is not about the communication or language but about control.
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@zpaikin Paying lip service by faking your way through a few sentences of broken French is dishonest and arguably more disrespectful than what he did by including French captions.
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You don’t need to speak French fluently. You just need to make a minimal effort to communicate with French Canadians in their mother tongue to show them that you consider them to be equally Canadian. All he had to do was read two sentences off a teleprompter.
Candice Bergen Harris@CandiceBergen_
Mr. Rousseau is expressing what millions of Canadians who don’t know french and have tried to learn it feel. What I am tired of is that a few elites (in Ontario primarily) get to tell the 80% of Canadians who don’t speak french fluently that we need to sit on the sidelines. It’s time for a conversation about what 2 official languages actually means. What’s transpired over the last few days is not about the communication or language but about control.
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@DominicCardy @sailor_rog19339 That's your takeaway? Good grief.
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@sailor_rog19339 Oh, we know the U.S. is no longer reliable.
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@brihard @ThomasWatsonCD It's remarkable how many people believe the falsehood that the US invoked Article 5 after 9/11.
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@ThomasWatsonCD Not quite that. It was a ‘self initiated’ article 5 proposed by NATO. The U.S. didn’t ask for it but were content enough to accept the article 5 offer and the resultant help. Just in the interest of accuracy.
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NATO is a defensive alliance. It’s not designed to join new and exciting wars started by a member.
The ONLY country to use Article 5 was the USA and NATO jumped in and died for them.
The Kobeissi Letter@KobeissiLetter
BREAKING: President Trump says the Iran War was a "test" for NATO and he is "so disappointed in NATO." "Remember my statements in a number of months from now... never forget," Trump says.
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You're really splitting hairs here. A target doesn't need to be set solely via an agreement, so to say we haven't missed the 2% target for decades only because the first agreement was in 2014 is just making excuses.
The fact remains that Canadians have been woefully neglectful of their armed forces.
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Canada has not missed targets for decades.
The desire for NATO members to spend 2% on defence has been discussed since the early 2000s. But the first agreement was in 2014 when members agreed to move *towards* 2% within a decade.
Canada did that.
x.com/nytimes/status…
The New York Times@nytimes
Breaking News: Canada met its NATO military spending target for the first time in decades, spending 2% of its gross domestic product last year on its military, amid tensions with the U.S. nyti.ms/47XE5SR
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@Mattxduchak Remind me, what AD does Canada have for its bases again?
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This is pretty fucking wild. The US has no air defense for some of its US bases. They are so fucking arrogant and complacent considering the enemies they’ve been making the last year.
Lucas Webber@LucasADWebber
Sophisticated drones attacked Louisiana's Barksdale bomber base It is the first time a US airbase was temporarily put out of operation in wartime, something that never happened even in World War II. asiatimes.com/2026/03/sophis…
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@ThomasHall17 The USCG and the Canadian Coast Guard don't operate with anywhere near the same capabilities. For example, the USGC has the Legend-class cutter that is effectively a frigate. Their Coast guard has almost as many frigates as our entire navy.
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The U.S. Coast Guard is a branch of the United States Armed Forces and is considered a military service at all times. Guess they've been doing "creative accounting" for a really long time, eh Erin? The problem was we weren't treating the Canadian Coast Guard that way.
Erin O'Toole@erinotoole
While there is a little bit of creative accounting with the Coast Guard and a few other measures, they are minor. The govt should be applauded for making Canada relevant in NATO once again and showing support for an important alliance. Bravo Zulu. 🇨🇦 cbc.ca/news/politics/…
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@canadaposthelps today I received an envelope that was supposed to contain a bronze pin I was being given following my release from the military. The envelope was torn completely open and the pin was gone. Pretty disappointing.
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