There’s a lot of buzz on the blogs about the Globe & Mail front page story on bilingualism among Liberal Party candidates. Even the “friends of Joe Volpe” sent me a copy of the article (how I got on that list bewilders me).

In typical Globe fashion, the front page screams “Six Liberal contenders don’t pass as bilingual“. According to the Globe’s language expert, over half the Liberal leadership contenders aren’t even bilingual. Pretty damning stuff.

If it were true.

Oh yeah, apparently, Norman Spector has a new candidate for correction of the day:

Editor’s note: Due to an error in the article, Gerard Kennedy and Maurizio Bevilacqua were misidentified earlier as failing to meet the requirements for a bilingualism certificate. Anyone receiving a grade of 2 or more would be deemed bilingual. Both Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Bevilacqua received a grading of 2.

Oops. So yes, according to the Globe’s language expert, Gerard Kennedy is bilingual (and Maurizio too, for that matter). Obviously, he’s not at the same level as Rae or Ignatieff, but the language expert also observed that he had the most potential for improvement since his main limitation was vocabulary which is the easiest to learn. And given that his wife and kids speak French and that the Kennedys will be living in Quebec for much of the summer, he’ll certainly have lots of time to practice.

Yes, bilingualism is a job requirement for being Prime Minister. Stephen Harper understood that and has dramatically improved his French over the past few years. Hopefully the Liberal candidates who still need to work on their second language will put in l’effort necessaire.