Inkless Wells

Paul Wells on all the latest out of Ottawa—along with the occasional post about jazz. Follow Paul on Twitter: @InklessPW
He also offers his thoughtful perspective of Stephen Harper’s last 10 years in his recent eBook, The Harper Decade.

Categories: Blog Central, Capital Read, Inkless Wells

Le ciel est bleu: liveblogging Stephen Harper's first Quebec City event of Campaign '08

by Paul Wells on Sunday, September 7, 2008 2:50pm - 40 Comments

2:41:18 PM

So here’s the thing. I don’t actually plan to do a lot of liveblogging during this campaign, because that’s ITQ’s thing and I’m not so much the blackberry-typing guy. Thumbs hurt. But two things happened on the way to the Quebec City Hilton (official motto: “Since We Renovated, The Decor Sucks A Lot Less”). Here are the two things:

1. ITQ told me how to do the datestamp thing, so now I can datestamp at any time. Look: 2:44:07 PM

2. When we landed at the airport, they told us the dogs would be sniffing the bags when we get back on, and while I have nothing the dogs will find suspicious, it got me thinking about lugging my backpack all over Quebec’s half acre, and I thought, why bother?, so I left my backpack on the plane. This seemed clever until I realized we have 2 hours of filing time after the event here, and I got nothing but my berry.

So I might as well use it. Hence: a liveblog! Translated from French, in part! Steve Blaney is here, so you know it’ll be a party. The fun starts in about 15 minutes.

3:08:44 PM small delay. I had imagined a bigger room and a bigger crowd, and apparently when the plane left Ottawa the Conservatives still weren’t sure whether they’d hold the event indoors or out. (Just as the PM wasn’t sure whether he’d walk or drive to Rideau Hall. Harper ’08: it’s highly improvisational, you just can’t tell from the visuals.) In the end, we’re in a room just off the lobby that’s designed to handle 200 or 300 people, which is handy because that’s what we’ve got.

There is milling. I spotted a familiar Quebec City Conservative face and asked him how it looks for the party here. “Around Quebec City? Solid,” he said. “Making gains in the city itself?” He puffed out his cheeks and rolled his eyes: it’ll take hard work if it can be done.

And still there is milling.

3:38:36 PM
So much has happened, including my blackberry crashing. Josée Verner introduced the boss while the Quebec City region MPs and candidates cheered her name as they would have if they were actually excited to see her, an unlikely prospect as she is not really a roof-raising kind of lady.

Now Harper’s up. He made a point of introducing his candidates. By name. Something he was rather famously unable to do when he came to Quebec City on the second day of the 06 campaign. So, progress.

And no sooner had he completed that exploit than he’s lighting into the Bloc, hammer and tong. This is the Message of the Event, and I’m not just guessing, because we’ve been handed press releases with the headline, “Quebec Must Choose Between Harper and Dion.” The Bloc? “As their slogan says, they’ll be present” — not deciding or running things, Harper says.

3:44:08 PM
It’s the Harper government that lowered taxes and recognized Quebec — Oops! The Québécois — as a nation, “Not the Bloc or the Liberals,” Harper says.
And a small thing, but striking to me at least: just as, at Rideau Hall, he made a point of saying how much he had appreciated even having the job, he hits hard here on the part of his speech where he thanks Quebecers for their support while he’s been PM. “It’s true that not everyone in Quebec agrees with everything I’ve done — but you know, not everyone in Alberta agrees with everything I’ve done either.” But he tries to deserve Quebecers’ support, including by “speaking your language.” He allows as how his French isn’t perfect — in fact today it’d been a little shakier than I remember it, without being a real problem; nerves, I suspect — “but I hope that every day it’s getting better.” Warm applause at this. “Because a prime minister must be able to transmit your pride to the world.”

And with that, the event, mostly just a rally, is over. Mme Verner is gonna scrum in a couple of minutes, but unless she says something surprising, I’ll sign off.

Flying to Vancouver tonight. For now, two hours filing time with nothing to do but flâner dans le vieux-Québec. Boy I love campaigns.

Tags: Election Watch, i have a strong hunch we'll hear the phrase "bloquer le, Stephen Harper, Steve Blaney, the absent-minded pundit, where the heck is Inkless?

More by Paul Wells

David

Gains in the city itself? What, the one seat they don’t already have?
http://skinnydips.blogspot.com SD

Excuse my franglais, but I hope you will someday write, “Le ciel tombe.”
Pingback: Liveblogging the Liberals’ Ottawa South campaign kickoff: It’s almost like being on a leaders’ tour (but not quite) : Capital Read : Inside the Queensway : Macleans.ca Blog Central
http://tigerinexile.wordpress.com Ben

Yeah… don’t the Tories have five of the six Quebec City seats already?
Paul Wells

David has a point: I’m a goof. Well, only partly. My friend was indeed referring to a single Bloc-blue riding in Quebec City, which handily goes by the name “Quebec.” It’s Christiane Gagnon’s fiefdom since forever, and it contains both this Hilton near the National Assembly and the hardscrablle but gentrifying St.-Roch neighbourhood in the lower town. Harper made a point of giving an extra-strong shout-out to his candidate here, Myriam Taschereau, who has her work cut out for her.
Paul Wells

Also: as predicted, not much happened in the Verner scrum, except the PMO staff cut it off after 7 minutes, which we’re used to in Ottawa, but which upset our Montreal and Quebec City colleagues something fierce.
http://carnewsandviews.com jwl

“He allows as how his French isn’t perfect — in fact today it’d been a little shakier than I remember it, without being a real problem”

Does anyone know if Harper’s french is better/worse than Dion’s english?

I wonder because I find it awfully hard to listen to Dion in english and I wonder if Quebecers are tuning out Harper like I do with Dion. For some reason I could listen to Chretien mangle english but I don’t have the patience with Dion.
Paul Wells

These things are a matter of opinion, but I think most bilingual observers would say Harper’s French is stronger than Dion’s English. Harper did have serious comprehension problems during the French leaders’ debate in 2006, which left him adrift after a couple of questions. But he does work hard on his French. I’ve seen him rehearsing words he screwed up as he leaves a stage, so he’ll be less likely to get them wrong next time.
jenniferross

Really, jwl? I like Dion’s accent–much better than Chretien’s.

And I also find I listen more intently, although I probably wouldn’t if the speech was, say 1/2 hour long or something.
Calgary Junkie

Bob Fife on CTV Newsnet pointed out that there were a lot of Jean Charest organizers and such in the crowd.

I’m told that Quebecers put a lot of importance on symbolism, so starting the campaign in Quebec City will hopefully be appreciated by Quebecers.

Harper looked a lot more relaxed, and like he was having fun. Deborah Grey gave out that advice on tv a few days ago. I dunno, but so far, all the ‘scary Harper’ rhetoric from every opposition corner isn’t matching the visuals of Harper.
http://carnewsandviews.com jwl

Thanks Paul. Harper seems very sincere about his French, so that’s something. And reading your live blog, it makes me think Harper has been listening to Tip O’Neill and his all politics is local. Thanking people, asking for their vote, a bit of humility. It looks good.

Jennifer Ross

Yes, really. I have no explanation for my reaction because I know that Chretien speaks english worse than Dion does. Maybe it’s something to do with expectations: I hear all the time how smart Dion is but his tone and demeanor makes me feel like he’s lecturing me all the time, telling me to eat my sprouts or there will be no dessert.
Brian

Chretien has the gift of knowing what he wants to say and being able to make his point in a few short phrases. Thus, it doesn’t matter if he makes a grammatical error or two. One usually understands what he wants to say. Dion, on the other hand, rambles a lot, leaving the listener frustrated with his accent. In other words, it’s not the quality of the grammar that counts.
Sophie

Well, I think that Harper does better on the syntactical front, whereas Dion is slightly better at comprehension and pronunciation. I enjoyed listening to Chrétien speak in either language because he used common language and phrasing. Dion sound like a university professor in French, and in English this interacts with his pronunciation to make him occasionally difficult to understand. (He has gotten much better, I suspect that anglophones across Canada will soon have the luxury or reliving their university lecture days)
Jack Mitchell

Just the other day, on Mr. Wells’s first video reportage, Dion was on camera mispronouncing “minority.” (He said my-nority.) What makes it so strange is that it’s the same vowel in French; he must be extrapolating from “minor.” It just seems insane that after uttering the word every day for the last three years he wouldn’t have corrected this. He must just not have an ear for languages. Whereas Harper, in spite of his accent, makes so few mistakes in French; perhaps he is less ambitious? Does he improvise at all, Sophie, in French, or does he have a few scripts he uses?
Hazzard

Shame on anyone who casts a vote based on a candidates accent or mispronunciation of words! Have we really become this petty?
http://www.gauntlet.ca Jason Morris

Shame, fine. But “become” this petty? It was ever thus.
http://cork2toronto.blogspot.com Mark Dowling

@jack mitchell, plenty of unilingual anglophones use that pronunciation of that word.

Now if someone could only persuade Dion not to say “country”…
Jack Mitchell

@ Mark Dowling, hmm, you’re right, I do say “my-nority” in some contexts.

But not for “minority government,” surely? You can have a my-nority, but you form a mih-nority govt., right?

@ Hazzard, who says I’m casting a vote for any of these guys? I’ll be voting for my MP, thank you very much. Anyway, I do think it’s something of a reflection on Dion that he hasn’t cared enough to learn proper English, whereas Harper has genuinely tried to improve his French. I think it shows that Dion does not listen to those around him.
David

Dion just has to learn the bad-word pronunciation of “country”. He, um, needs to take the o out of it.
Sophie

Personally, I’ve noticed that Harper tends to stick to a few main points that he has mastered whereas Dion makes a real effort to say everything properly and originally in English. Therefore I don’t think you can say that Dion’s English is worse than Harper’s French. Dion seems to need some syntactical training- I should volunteer.
Richard

“Le Quebec fait ses forces”. Great slogan. Are they running those signs in Alberta, too?
Sara

The consensus in my bilingual household it that Dion’s English is far better than Harper’s French.

I think it will be pretty clear at the debates. Harper would have a harder time having a non-scripted conversation in French about the constitution or the environment than Dion would have doing the same in English. Yes, Dion has pronounciation issues, but his English vocabulary is larger than Harper’s French vocabulary, which I think it more important.

And for what it’s worth, I always say “my-nority government”, it never occured to me that the other way was more correct. I hear other anglophones say “my-nority government” more often.
Sophie

Exactly: I think Harper will struggle in the french-language debates far more than Dion will in the English debates. He speaks well when saying something he’s rehearsed, but spontaneously or in a debate, I think it will be hard for him.
matt

I was surprised to read that people gave Harper the edge. I think the point is moot, however, in light of the fact that people expect Dion to be cogent in English owing to the egghead rep, and he doesn’t come across that way. Harper comes closer to meeting the second language expectations his second language audience sets for him, autrement dit. And I think there’s broad consensus that Harper has made the most progress a) overall, and b) particularly while in Ottawa.
Ryan

I find Dion easy to understand when he’s on a subject he believes in: the environment and national unity primarily. In those cases emotion works well to fill in the blanks where the language fails him. It’s when he tries to spin that things get rough. His feigned indignation at a ‘snap’ election and attempts to equate Harper with W. or McCain come out garbled and do Dion no favour.

Chretien communicated well with English Canada, despite his sub-Dion command of the language, because he was a conviction politician by nature: something Dion and Harper clearly aren’t.