Jeanne Barr and the Pakenham Post Office

The Pakenham Post Office story is growing legs!!  Kelly Egan has written a fantastic story (in the Ottawa Citizen) with the human angle – how Jeanne Barr is not just part of the community; her roots are deep. www.ottawacitizen.com/life/Canada+Post+return+this+decision+sender/2318924/story.html

What kind of country have we become that she should be told that she can no longer do a job she’s been doing for the last several years?  True, she has been doing the job as a stand-in because she applied several times for a permanent position but was denied because she’s not bilingual and has no interest in becoming so. 

This policy has been imposed on us from on high – first it was pushed through the Federal government by the Liberal government which was concerned with keeping Quebec in confederation i.e. it was sold as a Unity Imperative. 

It was initiated by Pearson but carried to its conclusion by Pierre E. Trudeau.  Did it work as a unity ploy?  No, Quebec still has a very virulent separatist element that has been making demands of the Federal government and many of these demands are granted for the sake of “unity”. 

Forty years and hundreds of billions later, only a very small proportion of Canadians are truly bilingual (12% according to Jack Jedwab – Director of the Association for Canadian Studies), and even though the last census states the figure as 17%, this figure measures the ones who are self-declared as bilingual.  Not just that but most of them are in Quebec and New Brunswick!!!  Less than 4% of Canadians outside Quebec are French-speakers and for this miniscule proportion, we are willing to sacrifice the interests of the majority English-speakers???  INSANITY!!

The policy is quickly working its way down to the provinces and the municipalities (bribed by generous Federal funding) to comply with the restrictions placed on the majority English-speakers.  For over 40 years, various groups have been fighting this policy but without funding (but freely given to the French-rights groups), the English-rights groups are left to twist in the wind. 

Chretien redefined “democracy” as “the rights of minorities” – a typical rallying cry for whiners.  This has become an entrenched entitlement on the part of the French-speakers – French has become the primary merit of all public service jobs!!!  No wonder, most French-speakers support this policy – Affirmative Action program just for them – why not?

Pakenham has become the line that has been drawn in the sand – cross that line and all hell will break loose!!!  Let’s give the Pakenham residents a hand to raise our voices and shout, STOP!!!   Here’s how you can help.  Circulate this to your own list and let’s show them that they’ve gone too far!!!

www.gopetition.com/petitions/remove-bilingual-designation-at-pakenham-post-office.html

Kim for CLF

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

Kelly Egan, writing in the Ottawa Citizen, had this to say about Jeanne Barr and bilingualism.

You really have to wonder whether they've licked one stamp too many at Canada Post.

What a disgrace.

Somebody in the big, shiny offices at headquarters should not only give Jeanne Barr her job back, but offer her a profound apology.

Barr, 50, is the postmistress in the village of Pakenham. It has virtually no citizens who speak only French. In fact, the greater municipality of Mississippi Mills -- which swallowed Pakenham Township in 1998 (another bonehead move) -- had only 25 people who claimed they spoke only French at the time of the 2006 census.

Read more:

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/Canada+Post+return+this+decision+sender/2318924/story.html