Conservative MP wants more French in Parliament

Tory MP Jacques Gourde apparently misses the separatist Bloc Quebecois.

According to the Toronto Sun, the unilingual parliamentary secretary for official languages is upset that members of the NDP aren't speaking enough French in parliament.

"It is an insult to our identity as Quebecers to see the NDP MPs from Quebec put half their questions in English," Gourde said earlier this week.

"When the Bloc Quebecois was there, they asked all their questions in French and it brought a certain proportion of French in the House of Commons."

But as David Akin of the Sun News Network writes, maybe Gourde should be looking in the mirror.

"According to Hansard, the official record of what was said in the House of Commons, it's Gourde's own Conservatives who spend less time speaking French. New Democrats have asked questions in French during question period nearly 46 per cent of the time since the election of Thomas Mulcair as their leader," Akin wrote.

"On the other hand, when the government is asked questions in French, Conservative ministers have answered in English 57 per cent of the time. By tradition, answers are normally given in the language in which they are asked."

Gourde also made headlines this week, when the Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN) complained that the MP was ignoring their requests for a meeting suggesting it was because he couldn't speak English.

"If our access is limited by a parliamentary secretary who cannot or refuses to meet with us because of his limitations in English, that is a problem," director general Sylvia Martin-Laforge told CJAD Radio.

Opposition MPs are also perplexed as to why the Prime Minister Stephen Harper would appoint Gourde to the post of parliamentary secretary for official languages.

"I think the prime minister made an appalling lack of judgement when he appointed a unilingual MP," Liberal MP Stéphane Dion said Thursday.