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Part of the problem is just how politics can poison anything. It continues to amaze me that language is so divisive in Canada. Speaking a second language should be one of life’s great joys, and back in the 1970s there was genuine excitement in English Canada about becoming a truly bilingual country with those great packages in English and French that we boasted of while abroad.

It sure went sour fast once the state got actively involved. And yet we apparently retain a naive enthusiasm for big government, and for “national strategies” on any imaginable problem, that should be as dated and embarrassing today as platform shoes, bellbottoms and big glasses.

People, we have a national bilingualism strategy. And it’s not working. Not in the “Rest of Canada” and not in Quebec, where the elite is bilingual and the rest struggle. And where, even more ominously, a troubling, reflexive tribalism around language seems to persist and run so deep that it rarely needs to be spelled out and, hence, causes shock as well as dismay elsewhere when someone blurts it out.

Normally it’s subtle, a soothing undertone, as in the October 2014 Liberal press release offering a look at “‘Team Trudeau on the Issues’ discussing the middle class, the regulation of marijuana, public service and leadership, and local needs in our communities. You may also view our French-language videos addressing les droits des femmes, la classe moyenne, la réforme démocratique, and la culture Québécoise.” A very different list, worldly and progressive, nudge wink.