No one is disparaging O'Leary for (apparently) taking the initiative to learn some French. The notion that he will become anything approaching fluent in a short time is ridiculous. At best he may approach the ability to survive a debate (see Ed Broadbent).  What is galling about O'Leary is his obvious avoidance of the French debate and what would be unequivocal evidence of his current inability to communicate in French.
And Chrétien has often been sarcastically cited as the only PM to not be fluent in either official language.