Swapping symbols

Re: It's OK new GG's not fluent in French, Colby Cosh, July 8; and GG's flippancy about French is a danger, Barbara Kay, July 10

At a time when the federal government has made a first priority of shoring up French across Canada, and has even invaded provincial jurisdiction to do so, it is cognitively dissonant to appoint a governor general who speaks no French. The governor general doesn't simply represent the Queen as an internal matter. She is the head of state and the face of Canada abroad. It is part of her job description to speak French. Many Aboriginals in high places do.

For a government seemingly preoccupied by the decline of one of the country's official languages, and excessively attached to symbolic gestures, this appointment appears to have swapped one symbol for another.

Howard Greenfield, Montreal