“It’s a stupid idea”

That was the reaction of Edmonton area Member or Parliament, Laurie Hawn, to a preliminary report by Canada’s federal Commissioner of Official Languages.

Canada is an officially bilingual country, with English and French. Commissioner Graham Fraser’s report says that ministers do not have to be be bilingual, but in public communication in their official capacities, they must use both languages.

This comes in reference to complaints that some federal ministers were often tweeting in English only.

The Official Languages Act says parliamentarians can use one language in their private office and with staff.

They must, however, use both official languages when communicating “objectives, initiatives, decisions and measures taken or proposed by a ministry or the government,” the report says.

In his own tweet in reaction to the preliminary report MP Laurie Hawn tweeted, ‘The  Commissioner of Official Languages says cabinet ministers MUST tweet bilingual. Quelle idée stupide.”

The Canadian Press reports that Commissioner Fraser is expected to rule that ministerial Twitter and othe social media accounts such as Facebook, should be treated the same as other official government communication, and thus the Languages Act should apply.

MP Laurie Hawn says in reaction that such an idea is nonsense. He spoke to the CBC’s Mark Connolly saying that social media are not official communications of the government.

“I tweet and facebook and I’m not speaking for the government, I’m speaking for me. People need to step back and giver their head a shake.”

In the preliminary report Graham Fraser concludes that former foreign affairs minister John Baird and Public Security Minister Steven Blaney violated the language laws with unilingual tweets.

Last year MP Tony Clement who is also President of the Treasury Board and who often tweets, told Postmedia News, ““I sometimes tweet in French, much in English. If he [Fraser] proposes to overlord me, I will quit Twitter…”

It is expected that a ruling requiring social media communications in both languages, might put a damper on  spontaneity of politicians communications, and the amount.