Canada sorry for offensive French fries invitation

Tag : french fries

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's U.S. embassy apologized on Thursday fora party invitation that featured a prominent figure in Canadianhistory brandishing a large plate of French fries covered in cheesecurds and gravy.
The dish -- known as poutine -- is often looked down on as a kindof staple fast food in the French-speaking province of Quebec,where some nationalists are quick to take offense at what they seeas unfair treatment by the country's English-speaking majority.
The e-mailed invitation to a Canada Day party on July 1 showedSamuel de Champlain, the French explorer who founded Quebec City onJuly 3, 1608, holding a plate of poutine.
Jean-Paul Perreault, president of the Imperatif Francais group,said the invitation was an outrage and an insult. He demanded anapology from Prime Minister Stephen Harper and said ForeignMinister David Emerson should resign.
"If they wanted to make a joke it's a really bad joke and if itwasn't a joke, well, it's worse," he told the Canadian BroadcastingCorp., saying the invitation was equivalent to using a hot-dog topromote English-speaking Canada.
"The embassy of Canada changed the invitation to its Canada Daycelebrations with Samuel de Champlain. It was not intended tooffend anybody and we apologize if it offended anyone," saidembassy spokesman Tristan Landry.
He added that contrary to initial reports, the invitation had beene-mailed out in both English and French.
(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Peter Galloway)