'I hear it at the dep': Outaouais voters say tariffs loom large on campaign trail

Outaouais voters say U.S. tariffs are a fixture in conversations about the federal election, as the high-stakes French-language debate approaches.

Some pundits view that debate, scheduled for April 16, as the biggest campaign test to date for Liberal Leader and polling front-runner Mark Carney.

But can an Anglophone with rusty French win in Quebec?

CBC Ottawa checked in with voters in the Outaouais at the midway point of the federal election campaign.

Going into the election, most of the province's 78 seats were held by either the Liberals or the Bloc Québécois, each with 33.

In the Outaouais, all four seats are held by Liberals. The nearest exception is the vast ski country of Laurentides-Labelle, well north of Gatineau and northwest of Montreal. That riding is held by the Bloc.

Newly-retired Anglophone Quebecer Val Miller usually votes Liberal. This time will be no exception, but unlike past elections, her thoughts are on geopolitics instead of Quebec's cultural or linguistic identity.

"I'm more concerned with … south of the border issues affecting us than the language issue," said Miller, whose husband is Francophone.

Tariffs the 'flashier' topic

Emilie Lynes and her husband Shawn Macmillan live on the Ottawa River and wish the front-runners would spend more time talking about the environment. They're especially worried about the impact of the Chalk River nuclear facility on the health of the river.

Instead, they said, tariffs seem to be taking up a lot of the oxygen.

"I hear it at the dep [depanneur], and I hear it everywhere. You don't have to be informed to know that that's happening," Lynes said.

Macmillan said social media is focusing on "flashier causes" instead of issues that are more complicated and harder to fix.

Gatineau voter Daniel Larocque agrees.

"People are concentrating too much on what's going on between Trump and Canada," Larocque said.

French fluency

Mark Carney's French has figured prominently in the campaign. Carney himself grades his command of the language as a six out of 10.

But Jacques Chapleau, of Luskville, Que., is more generous.

"I'll give him a little bit more. Seven, maybe eight," said Chapleau, who is Francophone. "His French is not bad at all. I was surprised."

Another Francophone voter, Denyse Bélec of Hull-Aylmer, would only go as high as five.

"He's halfway there, but at least he is trying," she said.

Despite the low grade, Bélec said she isn't bothered by Carney's linguistic mistakes, because she feels an urgency to find someone who can stand up to the United States.

First-time voter Jethro Irakoze of Gatineau points out that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's French needs some work, too.

"Out of 10, it's a seven. Maybe six-point-five," Irakoze said, describing "English tonalities" in Poilievre's French.

Cultural literacy

Some voters in the Outaouais are concerned less about conjugating verbs and more about cultural literacy.

Carney's campaign in Quebec was fraught with gaffes. He called Quebec a "distinct society" instead of describing the province as a "nation."

And the former University of Oxford goalie could not identify the lone Quebecer on Canada's team at the 4 Nations Face-Off — Montreal Canadiens netminder Sam Montembeault.

Carney confused shootings at Concordia and École Polytechnique. He then got the name of his own candidate wrong, herself a survivor of the 1989 Polytechnique massacre, which claimed the lives of 14 women.

"I think the Polytechnique one was a bad mistake, because it's still very fresh in people's minds, especially in Quebec, " Bélec said.

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Macmillan thinks these missteps point to a disconnect between Carney and Quebec.

"I don't know if he has a real Canadian identity," Macmillan said. "Those kind of mistakes show that."

But the polls also seem to show Quebecers are in a forgiving mood.

"He's not been in politics. He's not even lived in this country for some time, so for him to make a slip I think is human," Outaouais voter Peter Becke said. "Are any of those things acceptable? Maybe not perfectly, but are they human? Yes." 

Becke is also pleased that a Mark Carney government would seek intervenor status if Quebec language law Bill 96 is ever heard by the Supreme Court. The law limits the use of English in Quebec, to preserve and promote the French language.

"Our rights should be respected as people living in Quebec as English speakers," Becke said.

Pierre Poilievre has said he wouldn't intervene in Bill 96, citing Quebec's right to set its own language laws.

And many disagree with Becke that Carney's position on Bill 96 is a winning one.

"I think he's going to tread very carefully around that topic, especially if he doesn't want to upset people on the Quebec side," Bélec said. "You don't want to do something that's going to make people rise up."