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One issue that continues to plague the federal Liberal Party leadership contest is how bilingual - or, more accurately, how unilingual English - are many of the leadership candidates. Within Liberal circles, this debate often takes the positive form of how fluency in French will be key to winning back the hearts and minds and, more strategically, seats in Quebec.

In the media, particularly within Quebec, this takes the negative form of how having so many leadership contenders who aren't fluently bilingual might hurt the party of Wilfrid Laurier, Pierre Trudeau and official bilingualism.

But is this more than a strategic and political question? Is bilingualism in modern Canada now a job requirement to be an MP, cabinet minister or prime minister?

As part of the Canadian Candidate Survey, which was conducted out of McGill University during the 2004 federal election, we examined the views of candidates running for the five main political parties (Liberal, Conservative, New Democratic, Green and Bloc Québécois). While we did not ask specifically about the job of Liberal leader, we did ask about the importance of bilingualism for the job of MP and cabinet minister.

Given that the job of prime minister is first among equals within the cabinet, it is safe to assume that something considered "important" for a minister is essential for the PM. It is also noteworthy that many of the Liberal candidates we surveyed will be delegates at the next Liberal leadership convention.

An overwhelming 79 per cent of Liberal candidates said they thought it was "important" that all cabinet ministers be bilingual. And the Liberals were not alone. A majority of candidates from all five parties said bilingualism was important to be a minister, with the Bloc candidates unanimous in that view, the NDP and Greens at 77 per cent and the Conservatives at 66 per cent.

It is worth stating again that these were people running for election to the House of Commons. Or, put another way, they were applicants for the very jobs we were asking them to evaluate.

When we control for other factors that might influence their opinions on this question, the Liberals separate from the pack and continue to show high evidence of an almost ideological commitment to bilingualism. For example, when we separate out the candidates who did not classify themselves as bilingual, only the Liberals still had a majority who thought bilingualism was important at both the MP and ministerial level (even the Bloc numbers dropped when it came to non-bilingual candidate's views on what language skills it took to be an MP).

When we separate out the incumbent candidates from non-incumbents, the vast majority of Liberals in both groups once again felt bilingualism was important to be either an MP or a cabinet minister, with 80 per cent of incumbents placing value on bilingualism at both levels. Interestingly, only 40 per cent of incumbent Bloc MPs thought bilingualism was important for their job (though 100 per cent thought it was needed to be a minister).

Similarly, if we divide the candidates by provinces, the provinces most important to the Liberals regaining power place high stock in bilingualism. These are also the provinces that send the most delegates to a leadership convention.

In Quebec, the province in which candidates hope to make gains during the next election, an overwhelming majority of Liberal candidates thought bilingualism was important (85 per cent for an MP and 100 per cent for a minister). In Ontario, where most of the leadership contenders hail from and where 34 per cent of the seats in the Commons are up for grabs, 75 per cent of the Liberal candidates said bilingualism was important at the MP level and 82 per cent at the cabinet level. Even in Alberta, a strong 64 per cent of Liberal candidates felt bilingualism is needed to be a federal politician.

These numbers do not address the question of whether an MP, minister or leadership contender can learn French down the road. But, under the current system, the prime minister gets to call an election whenever he or she thinks it is most advantageous. The new Liberal leader may not have time to improve in French. One can imagine a scenario of the Conservatives moving quickly to an election immediately following the convention. This is a trick the Liberals have successfully used in the past.

Ironically, when we asked candidates their support for moving to a system of fixed election dates, only the Liberals had a majority (55 per cent) who opposed the idea; they preferred to leave the election call in the hands of the prime minister.

Bruce M. Hicks, a former Liberal strategist, is an associate at the Canada Research Chair in Electoral Studies at the Université de Montréal.