Montreal Canadiens and Language

Prof. David Doorey has written two interesting and opinionated pieces (here and here) on the controversy in Montreal regarding the appointment of a unilingual Anglophone head coach (Randy Cunneyworth) for the Montreal Canadiens. My colleague Genevieve Lay also wrote about it here.

The General Manager of the Canadiens recently apologized for hiring a unlingual Anglophone coach. Clearly, Prof. Doorey is not pleased with the controversy, writing:

This really is an outrageous example of public in-your-face discrimination on the basis of ethnicity and/or place of origin, isn’t it?  Could you imagine an employer apologizing publicly for hiring an African-Canadian and promising to replace him later with a white person?

I would have to respectfully disagree with Prof. Doorey's comparison and his qualification of the situation as "outrageous". (Full disclosure: I am an Anglophone by birth, though I do work and live much of my life in French.)

Simply put, many Québeckers simply don't speak or understand English. Therefore, there is a legitimate interest and need for a sports team in this province (and the public) to prefer a coach who can speak in a language understandable by the majority of the population. My fellow Canadians must remember that French is the lingua franca in Québec and that NHL hockey coaches speak to the press almost every day. In Québec, to be understood by the majority of people, that communication must be in French. Preferably it can also be in English.

Indeed, Québec is neither a bilingual nor Anglophone province - it is Francophone.

The Charter of the French Language, a very important (and sometimes contentious) law in Québec, provides among other things, that:

1. French is the official language of Québec.

and

46. An employer is prohibited from making the obtaining of an employment or office dependent upon the knowledge or a specific level of knowledge of a language other than the official language, unless the nature of the duties requires such knowledge. ...

 

Accordingly, the law provides that you can't even require an employee to speak English unless the nature of the duties require it. 

 

While that specific provision doesn't really apply in Coach Cunneyworth's situation, it provides a little context to show the reality in Québec and the Canadiens are probably justified in having a coach who can speak some English.

However, under our laws, if the Canadiens chose to reject a French-speaking candidate because his English was insufficient, that candidate could likely file a complaint and attempt to force the team to justify that linguistic requirement before a tribunal. As I mentioned, while the reality of life in the NHL might merit such a requirement, it shows how important the protection of the language is to many Québeckers.

Indeed, as Dave Stubbs put it in yesterday's Montreal Gazette:

There is no doubt that the head coach of this hockey club should be able to communicate in both official languages; anyone who feels otherwise is disconnected from the social reality of the Canadiens, who greatly transcend a sheet of arena ice in their home province.

However, at the end of the day, most Canadiens fans care about one thing: winning. One fan's comments, picked up by the Canadian Press, sum up many views on the situation:

"In Montreal, if we win, no one's going to care about language," said Tommy Tremblay, 35, a bilingual Montrealer originally from the Saguenay region, where most only speak French.

"They talk about it more because we are losing, if we win a few, no one will talk about it anymore."

I am not saying that Randy Cunneyworth was the wrong choice as coach for the Canadiens. I don't know enough about hockey to say. However, that the decision provoked a controversy should not shock anyone. The concerns are legitimate and the Canadiens should explain why they made their decision.

Personally, if Mr. Cunneyworth wins and makes a concerted effort to learn French, that's good enough for me. 

Update on Monday, January 9, 2012 by Gabriel Granatstein

Prof. Doorey posted a great response to this post, entitled "Take that Doorey. Granatstein defends Canadien's Poo Poo of Anglo Coach". Great title!