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OTTAWA — Liberal leadership candidate Ruby Dhalla said she’s working on her French skills, but plans to ask for a translator to help her in the party’s upcoming French-language debate.
Dhalla is one of the five leadership candidates who will face off in two debates in Montreal later this month, one in French and another in English.
She said she plans to appear at the French debate in Montreal on Feb. 24 and make her opening and closing statements in French, despite not having mastered the language.
Dhalla said she’s taken French up to Grade 12 and is now working with a teacher because she believes it’s important to speak both languages.
“I believe that the French language and the French people play such an important role in our country and they’re an important part of who we are as Canadians,” she said, adding she would have a deputy prime minister from Quebec.
Liberal MP Chandra Arya raised the ire of Quebec Liberals last month when he said he didn’t think it was vital for a prime minister to speak fluent French.
Businessman Frank Baylis, another candidate in the race, said on Parliament Hill Monday that speaking French is essential to becoming prime minister.
“Demonstrating some skills is demonstrating some form of respect. And arriving at the last minute saying, ‘I will take some French classes to improve myself or try to express myself’ is not, I think, a good way of doing things,” he said in French.
Candidates Mark Carney and Chrystia Freeland have recently made big organizing pushes in Quebec. Early in the campaign, Freeland appeared on the influential French-language talk show Tout le monde en parle.
Carney has been working on improving his French skills — his campaign says he’s only speaking with bilingual staff in French — and has made stops in Quebec City and Mauricie, Que.
“Mark Carney knows that our two official languages are at the core of Canada’s identity, and that bilingualism is essential for any prime minister to engage with all Canadians,” said campaign spokesperson Emily Williams.
Dhalla, meanwhile, said she plans to announce a two-week cross-country tour in the coming days as she seeks to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the helm of the party.
Dhalla, who was the Liberal MP for Brampton—Springdale from 2004 to 2011, insisted she’s the true outsider of the race, having not been part of the government during the Trudeau era.
“The other candidates are career politicians,” she said, noting Carney has advised Trudeau, Freeland was a central figure in Trudeau’s cabinet and Baylis was in Trudeau’s caucus. “The only outsider in this race is Ruby Dhalla.”
She said she believes the race will come down to her and Carney, a former central bank governor.
The former Paul Martin-era Liberal MP is running to the right of all the other candidates and tells The Canadian Press there are thousands of Liberals like her who want to see the party move back to the centre.
But her platform — with its promises to deport illegal immigrants and enforce life prison terms for possession of hard drugs — has some similarities to policies being promised by Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.
He has promised mandatory life sentences for fentanyl dealers and deportation of temporary residents who committed violence or hate crimes.
“I don’t think that the Conservative party has a hold on developing or talking about issues that Canadian families are facing at this moment,” Dhalla said.
“I’ve been talking to real people, learning about all of their issues. Because I haven’t been in the Ottawa bubble, I have actually in this campaign been talking about issues that Canadians are facing on a day-to-day basis.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 10, 2025.
Kyle Duggan, The Canadian Press