Pierre Poilievre promises a law against government jargon


OTTAWA-

Pierre Poilievre is fighting one of his last battles in the Conservative leadership race.

The so-called defender of free speech’s latest target: the jargon used by the federal bureaucracy.


In a new video posted on social mediathe apparent frontrunner promises to enact what he calls the “Plain Language Act”, which he says would end government jargon, including in legislative documents.

Poilievre says the law would ensure that government publications are written in simple, straightforward sentences instead, but he didn’t explain how such a law would work — or how the bill itself would be written without using jargon.

He argues that government documents are unnecessarily complicated because the bureaucrats who write them use too technical language, which creates barriers for small businesses to read them.

The fight for fewer words seems to be one Poilievre takes personally, as he complained about politicians’ use of jargon in a speech over a decade ago.