Canadians up in arms over French lessons from 'Yanks'

Some Canadian bloggers are not pardoning their French over a $285,000 government contract for a Colorado Springs firm to give French lessons to Canadian military here.

Canadians take their French seriously. It’s tied with English as an official language of Canada, hence the outrage over it being taught by “Yanks,” as one blogger put it.

“How can this be?” bloggers spat. “Most Americans can’t even speak proper English!” “Will we send the French soldiers to Paris to learn English?” “When we go into war are we going to be talking French?”

At the center of the saga, both amused and stunned by the reaction, is Fadia Gnoske, owner of Colorado Springs Globelink Foreign Language Center, whose bid is the lead contender. “It is making a big storm in a teacup,” she said.

Canada’s Department of National Defence preliminarily awarded her the three-year contract to tutor Canadians at North American Aerospace Defence Command.

Members of the Canadian Forces must be proficient in French and English in compliance with the country’s Official Language Act.

“You have a right to receive orders in your mother tongue,” Canadian Forces Commander Hubert Genest said with a French accent by phone from Ottawa, Canada. “Those in senior positions must be able to speak orders both in French or English.”

So, the Francophones get English lessons and the Anglophones get French lessons. It’s as simple as that … or at least it was.

“Two years ago, we received not such a great assessment,” Genest said of the military’s poor evaluation on its bilingual training.

Steps were taken to rectify that.

Gnoske’s bid for the contract was uneventful. “I submitted a quote for per hour,” Gnoske said. “I wasn’t even aware of the size of the contract.”

The $285,000 is about $270,000 U.S. dollars. It is a ceiling, not a guaranteed paycheck.

Gnoske has tutored hundreds of Canadian military over the years on smaller defense contracts.

It’s not like our Canadian friends have much chance to use their French while at this end of the Rocky Mountains.

The 2000 U.S. Census estimates 0.45 percent of Colorado residents age 5 and older speaks French at home.
Gnoske, 50, is an American citizen, but hardly a “Yank.”

“I am this Egyptian who grew up in Italy and went to a French-speaking school from preschool onwards,” she said. “I went to college in Scotland.”

She said after the defense contract news broke, it wasn’t only Canadian reporters ringing her office. She is getting résumés from local linguists looking for work.