We're not asking for perfection. I'm fluent in four languages, including English and French, and I think my English is pretty good, although I couldn't say “auditor” two minutes ago.
We're not asking for perfection. I want to be able to understand, I want to be able to be understood. That's all we're asking.
There is a difference between starting from scratch and trying to build. I was in charge of language training for a federal crown corporation. It doesn't take a year. When you have a key position within government, your learning curve is very high and very steep without the language, so imagine adding a language.
You can't learn a language in one year. It's hard to do even full time so imagine when it's only a fraction of your time. I think these are unrealistic expectations. I think we put very high demands on Mr. Ferguson by putting him in that position, and I don't think it was fair to him or to the Canadian population.