Meilleur will not be new language commish
QUEBEC • Madeleine Meilleur has pulled out of the running for the job of Canada’s language commissioner, saying the controversy surrounding her candidacy has compromised her ability to do the job.
In a letter to Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly released Wednesday in Ottawa, the former Ontario cabinet minister said she was giving up, faced with increasingly difficult questions about the process.
Her newly revealed lack of knowledge about the English minority situation in Quebec was another issue.
“Considering the situation, I have concluded my capacity to fully assume this function and act in the name of Canadians has been greatly compromised,” Meilleur writes.
Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly accepted the letter on the spot and continued to defend the nomination as one based on merit and not political ties. She would not say whether she asked Meilleur to withdraw.
The opposition questioned Meilleur’s candidacy because of her close ties to the federal Liberals. The job is technically non-partisan.
Meilleur is a former Ontario Liberal MP and attorney general for the province. She served as minister responsible for francophone issues for 12 years.
Since 2009, she has donated more than $3,000 to the federal Liberal party and to Trudeau’s 2013 leadership race. She has been out of politics for 11 months. She admitted having met two of Trudeau’s top lieutenants — Gerry Butts and Katie Telford — after leaving her cabinet job and before the nomination process started.
She insisted the meeting did not give her an unfair advantage for the job, which pays $308,600 a year.
Three complaints — including one by former New Democratic Party MP Yvon Godin — were filed with the Commissioner of Official Languages about the process that got Meilleur on the short list of candidates.
On Monday, an Acadian rights group, La Societé de l’Acadie du Nouveau-Brunswick, announced it would seek a judicial review of the nomination because the opposition and members of the Senate were not consulted.
On Wednesday, shortly before Meilleur stepped aside, a group representing the English-speaking minority in Quebec, the Quebec Community Groups Network, announced it, too, planned to file a complaint over the lack of consultation. The QCGN was also surprised to learn Meilleur knows almost nothing about the English minority in Quebec, which is part of the commissioner’s mandate.