{"id":135395,"date":"2017-12-01T00:57:15","date_gmt":"2017-12-01T05:57:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=135395"},"modified":"2017-12-01T00:57:15","modified_gmt":"2017-12-01T05:57:15","slug":"trudeau-nominates-theberge-belanger-as-commissioners-for-languages-and-lobbying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/12\/01\/trudeau-nominates-theberge-belanger-as-commissioners-for-languages-and-lobbying\/","title":{"rendered":"Trudeau nominates Theberge, Belanger as commissioners for languages and lobbying"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Trudeau<\/a>
FILE: Justin Trudeau\u00a0(Photo:<\/a> Justin Trudeau\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau nominated an official languages commissioner on Thursday as well as a lobbying commissioner.<\/p>\n

Trudeau’s choice for the languages job was Raymond Theberge, who has been president and vice-chancellor of Universite de Moncton since 2012.<\/p>\n

The Franco-Manitoban’s name began circulating last week as the likely successor to Graham Fraser.<\/p>\n

Madeleine Meilleur withdrew her candidacy earlier this year following accusations from the opposition she was too closely linked to the governing Liberals.<\/p>\n

Trudeau praised Theberge as someone with a passion for the linguistic duality.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am confident that Mr. Theberge will hold our government to account for the full implementation of the Official Languages Act,\u201d Trudeau said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The federation representing francophone and Acadian communities across\u00a0Canada\u00a0said it was thrilled the new commissioner is not from Ontario or Quebec — something not seen in almost 50 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I see that is positive with the nomination, above all, is that someone was finally chosen — it was about time,\u201d said federation president Jean Johnson. \u201cWe are officially happy with the nomination, full stop. Now, let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the lobbying position, Trudeau chose Nancy Belanger, who currently has a high-ranking position at the Office of the Information Commissioner of\u00a0Canada.<\/p>\n

The Prime Minister’s Office said Belanger’s legal career with the federal public service spans more than two decades.<\/p>\n

Trudeau said Belanger has the legal background and leadership experience to do an outstanding job as lobbying commissioner.<\/p>\n

Both nominations must be approved by the House of Commons and the Senate.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau nominated an official languages commissioner on Thursday as well as a lobbying commissioner. Trudeau’s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":131693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[10768,36485,3070,36484,36486,1112,4088,36483,3251,34803],"class_list":["post-135395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","tag-house-of-commons","tag-jean-johnson","tag-justin-trudeau","tag-madeleine-meilleur","tag-nancy-belanger","tag-ontario","tag-quebec","tag-raymond-theberge","tag-senate","tag-universite-de-moncton","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}