It's this kind of thing that gives socialism a bad name, the opposition to the appointment that is. Let's not pick the best candidate because only someone who is bilingual should be picked, not because French is actually needed for the job, but rather because 'dem's the rules'.
I tell you, this act alone will get the conservatives my vote moving forward (and I didn't vote conservative in the last election because I felt they really dropped the ball on usage-based billing and allowed a corrupt CRTC to almost screw over the whole nation when it came to Internet billing).
I've always felt the bilingual requirements within the federal government discouraged merit-based hiring (actually, here in Ottawa everyone knows that to be the case, merit is a far second in considerations to bilingualism). I've known plenty of people who have jobs in the government who hardly knew how to do the job they were hired for, but because they were bilingual they waltzed through the front door.
Good on Harper for doing what's right instead of 'politically correct' - I think from a PR standpoint it will only strengthen his standing with most Canadians.
Given that ....Only 9% of Anglophones outside Québec can communicate in French.... it seems fairly absurd to me that, as a result, 89 per cent of the anglophone population outside of Quebec are essentially excluded form federal government jobs (given almost every federal government job is bilingual).
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