Top Bureaucrat Resigns Over AG Who Can't Speak French

And this unilingual auditor general SNAFU just drags on, and on, and on...

A top civil servant has resigned in protest over the appointment of the new auditor general because he can't speak French, according to Liberal MP Denis Coderre. Michel Dorais, a veteran of the public service who had been working for the agency that oversees the expenses of the auditor general's office. In essence, he's kind of like the auditor general's auditor. Coderre says that Dorais tendered his resignation because Michael Ferguson, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's choice to succeed Sheila Fraser as auditory general, can't speak French, despite his pledges to learn the language within a year. Yesterday, the Liberals refused to sit in Parliament for the vote to approve Ferguson's appointment, with interim leader Bob Rae calling the the Tories' decision to appoint Ferguson an "abuse of process" because the job requirements stipulate that candidates must be bilingual. Resignations for political reasons are pretty rare among the bureaucracy, with the former head of Statistics Canada, Munir Sheikh, being the most prominent one in recent years due to his opposition to the Tories' decision to end the long-form census.