This just in from Kim McConnell of the Canadians for Language Fairness, an organization dedicated to changing Canadian bilingual policies and ending the appalling cost and inefficacies.
In the following letter, Kim congratulates the Ottawa Citizen for acknowledging what Canadians have bee saying for decades: government bilingual policies are not working, are enormously expensive, and are denying highly qualified unilingual applicants access to federal, provincial and municipal jobs.
| Canadians for Language Fairness P.O. Box 40111 Bank & Hunt Club Postal Outlet 2515 Bank Street, Ottawa, ON, K1V 0W8 Tel (613) 321-7333 Website: www.languagefairness.ca Email: clf1@bell.net |
by Kim McConnell
The Ottawa Citizen has really come onside on the language issue. About time too, I’m glad to say. For too long, this paper which is read very widely in Ottawa and beyond, is finally admitting that the language policy is “cultural engineering” – that is a biggy!!! I have to circulate this immediately so that the whole country can rejoice that we’re on the road to having this policy seriously looked at by the powers that be. Please do your part by circulating to your own personal lists as well as to your local media and your politicians to alert them to the fact that after 40 years of this stupid policy, it is time to take another look.
Can we (supporters of CLF) take any credit for this change of heart? I’d like to think so!! Not just for the fact that having a group of people keeping a constant watch on what’s happening with this disastrous failure of a policy must put a damper on the enthusiasm of the Francophones and the Francophiles to keep escalating this social engineering policy that works only for the benefit of a small group of citizens, many of whom are not really all that keen on being a part of the country anyway and are only hanging on for the benefits they can force us to give them. Always the reason given by those who support this insane policy – it is to keep the country united and together!!!!
This policy has been so divisive that it is impossible to say that this policy has done anything for unity – the West is totally annoyed with being kept out of the Halls of Power because French was not, is not and will never be a language spoken by the majority of Westerners. Just the ones who are eager to buy into the policy because they are linguistically gifted and are willing to send their children to French Immersion to learn to appreciate a language & culture that will give them a shot at a government position. The rest of the citizenry just don’t give a fig because they don’t aspire to a government position anyway, forgetting that this policy is changing the country so drastically and so effectively that we don’t even notice that most positions of power are held by people who are French-speakers first.
Quebec’s views on anything, domestic or international, are given more attention; Quebec separatists get to control what historical events in our country are to be given public financing and public display; Quebec is the only province allowed to publicly discriminate against their English-speaking minority while the Rest (Most) of Canada is forced to toe the line and put French-speakers on a pedestal!!! Is it any wonder that many of us are just sick & tired of having Quebec, a province that lives off the rest of us, hold so much influence & power?
I had prepared a special message to highlight the situation in New Brunswick but for the moment I’m going to circulate that only to the New Brunswickers on my list. This is so that you don’t get bombarded with too many messages that may not interest you. I have tried to keep our supporters separated by province whenever I can – this helps when people let me know which province they come from. Information that affects Westerners get messages that focus on the West; information that affects the Eastern provinces get messages that focus on the East. If you like me to do that, reply to me with this information & I’ll be glad to help make our messages a little more meaningful for you.
Kim McConnell
Cultural Engineering
The Ottawa Citizen Nov. 28, 2009
Official Languages Commissioner Graham Fraser is only the latest critic to note some of the flaws in the way the federal government trains and tests government employees to meet language requirements.
Current and former public servants have also expressed concern that taxpayers' dollars are being spent to help government employees learn how to pass French tests and keep their jobs, without necessarily becoming fluent in, or even using, the language.
More at: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/Cultural+engineering/2279442/story.html
Kim commented further on the matter in a letter posted online in yesterday’s Citizen (Nov. 29).
It is amazing that once the floodgate is open, such a torrent of comments have poured through from English-speakers who have been frustrated by the Official Languages policy and the inept way it has been administered. Nobody is against service in French to French-speakers but this does not require ALL management positions to be made bilingual imperative, at the expense of the Merit Principle, sacrificing a large number of experienced people who were forced to quit out of sheer frustration.
No, it is not laziness on the part of English-speakers that explains their lack of success, Antiwhiner!! In Quebec where the French-speakers are in the majority, most English-speakers are bilingual because they are surrounded by French-speakers. However, French is spoken by a miniscule number of Canadians (only 3% of Canada outside Quebec are classified as French-speakers) and it is not easy to become fluently bilingual unless one goes out of one’s way to be immersed in French. French-speakers outside Quebec pick up English by osmosis because they are surrounded by English-speakers. In addition to that, it is a proven fact (admitted to by Liberal MP Lloyd Francis, now deceased) that the French tests for English-speakers are far more difficult than the English tests for French speakers - and very few English-speakers can pass the test at the BBB designation.
Apart from all of the above, why should a minority language spoken in a small part of Canada, be imposed on the majority on the futile premise that it will unite the country? Canada is more disunited than ever before in our history and further pursuit of this expensive, failed cultural engineering policy will lead to the eventual breakup of the country with the Western provinces walking away from Eastern & Central Canada.
--Kim McConnell
Read the other comments on bilingualism at:
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/Cultural+engineering/2279442/story.html#Comments
