Canadian Bilingual

You have to appreciate Keith Spicer, 89, who just passed away. In many official capacities for Canada he was a backer of two Canadian tongues who, as the obit headline tells us, rarely held his own, especially when he explained, "bilingualism and biculturalism works best through biology. The best place to learn French is in bed."  (That's nearly as good as when in 1973 Dick Schapp, a sports reporter and broadcaster, declared that the recent Triple Crown winner Secretariat and his stablemate Riva Ridge were the most famous stablemates since Joseph and Mary. Jesus, did he get in trouble.)

(Note: I'm not sure, but it's rather rare to read a NYT obit headline that is a bit of a play on words. I like to think the headline writer got one past the obit editor William McDonald, who might have been at the tennis matches in Flushing. It's just a guess.)

Whether he said this with his tongue in his cheek is not in the NYT obit by Sam Roberts. Certainly if your bed partner is French and you're not, you can learn a thing or two. You can probably learn another language even if they're Hungarian and you're not. The language of love knows no borders.

Mr. Spicer was not a professional comedian. The obit tells us he was, "an irreverent official who urged his nation to reconcile its English and French heritage."

Certainly not an easy task when the Quebecers were blowing up mail boxes, spray painting over STOP signs and writing ARRÊT on them, and otherwise lobbying strenuously for not being part of the rest of Canada that was predominately English speaking.

But Mr. Spicer was both an academic and a bureaucrat, having advanced degrees in modern languages and literature (French and Spanish), earning a doctorate in 1962 from the University of Toronto. He was twice appointed to government posts on language by two different prime ministers.

In 1970 Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau made him Canada's first Commissioner of official languages, charging him with enforcing the Official Languages Act which gave both English and French official status. 

In 1990 after the collapse of a constitutional compromise that would have declared Quebec a "distinct society," Prime Minister Brian Mulroney tapped Mr. Spicer to lead the Citizens Forum on Canada's Future.

Mr. Spicer was also a founding director of the Institute for Media. Peace and Security at the University for Peace in Costa Rica, serving in that capacity from 2000 to 2007. He was a busy guy.

Mr. Spicer was a Protestant born in Toronto, raised by anti-Catholic, anti-French parents, but not a stance he followed.

He says he was besotted by the French when in 10th grade he was a pen pal with a French girl who sent him a photograph of herself. (No Internet, then.) He claims to have become a confirmed Francophile ever since then. And why not? Their wines are pretty good, and he might have liked duck, frog legs and snails.

In short, this guy was a man for all seasons and all Canadians. When he was finally confined to an Ottawa hospital bed shortly before he passed on, his son reminded him of his role in getting the country to accept both languages. His son told him his medical chart in the hospital was in French and English.

In a hospital bed, he already knew French.

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