NDP leadership candidate defends his lack of French proficiency

A New Democrat leadership candidate is taking some heat for his lack of French proficiency.

Nova Scotia MP Robert Chisholm has been called-out by many in the media for his performance at a televised all-candidates debate Sunday, where he spoke in English during the French portion of the debate.

The Chronicle Herald said Chisholm ended up sticking out "not for his policies, but for his inability to speak French."

Gloria Galloway of the Globe and Mail wrote "there was no clear winner" from the two-hour debate but Chisholm may have been a loser.

The most pointed attack, came from the National Post's John Ivison.

"Robert Chisholm should drop out of the race," Ivison wrote.

"An ability to read a pre-written text in French is a pretty low bar."

But Chisholm, who is the former leader of the Nova Scotia NDP is not apologizing for his inability to speak.

In an interview with Yahoo! Canada News, the rookie MP says he's actually proud of himself for his performance at Sunday's debate.

"It was the first time that I've actually been faced with speaking French to a national audience. It was pretty traumatic thing but I managed to get a couple of (French answers) in," he told Yahoo! Canada News.

"Like 80 per cent of the population in the country don't have facility in a second language. Not to make any excuses but like a lot of Canadians I live in a province that's unilingual. I haven't been exposed to (French)."

Nevertheless, Chisholm says he is learning French because of a commitment he made to two Francophone constituents in his riding, during the last election campaign.

"I started with a tutor not long after I was elected," he said.

"I did 4 weeks of immersion this summer — before the leadership stuff came up and I've been working ever since with a tutor almost every day."

While there have been successful party leaders, in the past, who were not fluent in French (ie: Preston Manning and John Difenbaker), most pundits believe the next NDP leader will need to be fully bilingual, or risk losing the party's Quebec support.

Chisholm has until March 25 to become bilingual - the date of the NDP leadership contest.