OTTAWA \u2014 Prime Minister Mark Carney is once again criticizing a prominent Canadian business executive for failing to use both official languages \u2014 except this time, it\u2019s a close friend he personally selected for the job of U.S. ambassador.<\/p>\n
As first reported by Radio-Canada<\/a>, Mark Wiseman, who became Canada\u2019s top diplomat in Washington D.C. in February, sent an invitation to members of the House of Commons foreign affairs committee inviting them to a reception at the Canadian embassy on May 12.<\/p>\n However, the invitation was sent in English only which caused consternation among some Quebec MPs.<\/p>\n Speaking in Ottawa on Thursday, Carney said the situation was \u201cunacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m disappointed. I\u2019m disappointed in him, disappointed in his office,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Last month, Carney used similar words<\/a> regarding Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau\u2019s unilingual English video after the loss of two pilots in a tragic crash at the LaGuardia airport, including one who was a francophone living in Quebec.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m very disappointed as others are, rightly so,\u201d said Carney of the situation.<\/p>\n Days later, it was announced that Rousseau would retire as Air Canada CEO in the fall.<\/p>\n Wiseman, since his appointment, has been criticized as insensitive to Quebec<\/a> because of his past affiliation with the Century Initiative, which has lobbied for mass immigration by 2100, and his criticism of supply management, which regulates dairy, poultry and eggs.<\/p>\n The fact that his office issued an invite to MPs in English only did not help his cause.<\/p>\n \u201cMr. Wiseman is not a wise man,\u201d said Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre in French.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s insulted Quebec and now, he sends out invitations in one official language. It\u2019s a lack of respect for the French language and it puts into question Mr. Carney\u2019s commitment to protect the interests of Quebec and francophones in negotiations with the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n Bloc Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois Leader Yves-Fran\u00e7ois Blanchet said the least Wiseman can do is apologize for his \u201clack of consideration\u201d for Quebecers and francophones in general.<\/p>\n The Bloc leader also offered to help the new ambassador better grasp the cultural differences in Quebec, including the French language and supply management.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe Mr. Carney is not the best person to give him such information, so I propose to do it myself,\u201d said Blanchet, who added that his team is working on setting up a meeting with Wiseman at the earliest opportunity.<\/p>\n On Thursday, Carney said his government has been very clear that it intends to protect supply management and the cultural exemptions in Quebec in trade talks with the U.S.<\/p>\n While he reiterated his trust in his ambassador, he said he does not have the final say.<\/p>\n \u201cI have tremendous respect for Mr. Wiseman, and he\u2019s the right person for the job, because he\u2019s very good at strategy, deals, he\u2019s got very good contacts, including within this administration and the broader business and governmental community in the United States, which is part of the job of diplomacy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cBut he\u2019s a diplomat, not a decider, and the decider is the Government of Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n Wiseman is set to testify at a parliamentary committee Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n More to come.<\/p>\n National Post Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com<\/a> and sign up for our newsletters here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OTTAWA \u2014 Prime Minister Mark Carney is once again criticizing a prominent Canadian business executive for failing to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[1206,111,4775,2071,241,8731],"class_list":{"0":"post-16792","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mark-carney","8":"tag-air-canada","9":"tag-mark-carney","10":"tag-mark-wiseman","11":"tag-official-languages","12":"tag-quebec","13":"tag-supply-management"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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