The French Whine: Un tete-a-tete

… Quebec's workplace health and safety board had deleted its "Press 9 for English" option on its automated telephone answering service.

National Post, December 11, 2010

By Kathryn Blaze Carlson

In its 40 years of existence, official bilingualism in Canada has been conferred a sort of religious mystique--heralded as a unifying force, accepted as an untouchable sacred cow, and decried a decade ago by the current prime minister as the "god that failed."

And yet, for a policy that riles nationalist sentiment -- and costs the federal government upward of $1.8-billion annually, according to a Fraser Institute report -- official bilingualism is the elephant in the room: Few federal politicians have dared to deal with its weight, which over the decades has crushed those who challenge Canada's linguistic duality or the way it is implemented.

Nevertheless, there are those who now ask: Is it time for a frank conversation on bilingualism in Canada, where 40% of federal public-service positions require knowledge of both official languages? Is it time for Canadians, whose rate of bilingualism has hovered at roughly 17% for years, to take a hard look at the way the government administers language policy from sea to sea to sea?

Is it time to examine the $1.8-billion annual bill to see what, exactly, those taxpayer dollars glean -- especially at a time when one in five Canadians are foreign-born, and are likely to speak a number of other international languages?

More importantly, is this kind of national discussion welcomed, or even possible?

"If we're spending as much as we seem to be spending, and if we're getting as poor a result as we appear to be getting, then maybe we should reconsider the whole thing," said Link Byfield, former publisher of the now-defunct Alberta Report and a Wildrose Alliance party founder and candidate.

"It may be that the time has come to review the application of the Official Languages Act to see if there can be some savings," echoed Donald Savoie, a Moncton, N.B., scholar who says he firmly supports linguistic duality. "It's a sacred cow, but that doesn't mean that it should be a sacred budget."

In the past eight days alone, Canadians have on four occasions been reminded of the cost and contentious nature of Canada's linguistic duality: First, the B.C. RCMP announced that the publication of online news releases would be delayed by a day to allow for French translation - in a province where 1.5% of the population declares French as their mother tongue, and where Chinese and Punjabi are heard far more often.

Second, it was revealed that language-training expenses at the Treasury Board Secretariat have jumped five-fold in the past five years, from $428,490 to $2.1-million in the latest fiscal year. Next, news broke that Quebec's workplace health and safety board had deleted its "Press 9 for English" option on its automated telephone answering service.

Finally, the Senate (for the 15th time) hotly debated a bill that would require Supreme Court judges to be fluently bilingual. The controversial bill has already passed third reading in the House of Commons -- proof, some have argued, that official bilingualism is almighty, trumping even legal competency.

Official language rights are entrenched in Canadian legislation that dates as far back as the Constitution Act of 1867, but which are most famously outlined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and then prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau's 1969 Official Languages Act.

"In all parts of the country, within both language groups, there are those who call for uniformity," Mr. Trudeau told the House of Commons in 1968, before the act was enshrined. "It will be simpler and cheaper, they argue. In the case of the French minority, isolation is prescribed as necessary for survival."

Today, naysayers still question whether the cost of official bilingualism fits the benefits.

"The federal government's approach to official bilingualism is kind of like this: They want to paint one object, but they line up 10 and they throw a bucket of paint at them all," said Kevin Gaudet, federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. "Of course they end up painting the one bucket, but you also end up painting the other nine. It's overkill."

Mr. Gaudet questions whether federal offices should be forced to offer both French and English in areas where the linguistic minority comprises as little as 5% of the population, as mandated by the Official Languages Act.

The government is also obliged to offer services in both official languages at all departmental headquarters, as well as to the traveling public, for example at border crossings or at airports that serve more than one million passengers annually.

"Something like 15% of the population [speaks French], and some small subset of that number doesn't even speak any English," Mr. Gaudet said. "And yet the thought is, 'Let's spend billions and billions every year for fear that one of those people could trip into an office in Meadow Lake, Sask., and be upset because they couldn't get a government service' " in their mother tongue.

Also among the most hot-button issues is the makeup of the federal public service, where 40% of positions require knowledge of both official languages. About a third of all federal offices are required to offer services in both official languages.

"Services to the public are the face of Canada saying to Canadians, 'This is your country,' " said Graham Fraser, the Official Languages Commissioner of Canada, who was reached this week in Spain after attending a UNESCO conference in Egypt.

Over the past decade, Ottawa has imposed stricter bilingualism requirements on senior public servants: Incumbent executives in designated bilingual regions had to improve their language skills to reach an advanced level of bilingualism, and deputy ministers were required to reach proficiency in French and English.

Some argue that those sorts of language requirements unfairly squeeze out anglophone Canadians, particularly in the West, who seek to rise in the federal public service. They argue that this in turn perpetuates resentment of Ottawa by the West, which decreasingly sees itself reflected in the federal government.

And then there is the cost of language training: Across the country, unilingual employees striving for a promotion can seek approval from their manager to leave their post for months on end to learn French or English at the expense of Canadian taxpayers.

Recently, though, individual departments took over responsibility for language training, and their budgets dictate a tighter leash on those taxpayer dollars, Mr. Fraser said. When asked whether any federal dollars have been wasted or misspent on official bilingualism, Mr. Fraser said "yes," and said he believes the training program "got misused."

It is all but impossible to know exactly how much the federal and provincial governments spend ensuring official bilingualism in Canada. But one of the firmest federal numbers yet emerged last year, when a Fraser Institute study found that the federal government and its Crown corporations spend somewhere in the order of $1.8-billion annually providing French-language services. That amounts to $55 per Canadian.

Mr. Fraser said he does not "challenge nor vouch for" those numbers, and added that it is "not an unreasonable price to pay for what is basically the cost of equality."

The $1.8-billion price-tag includes the cost of an $800 bilingualism bonus paid to federal employees who occupy a bilingual position and meet the language requirements. That amounts to $51-million in bonuses per year-- an amount Mr. Fraser called "an inappropriate use of public funds."

In fact, as was pointed out by Mr. Trudeau in the House of Commons, a salary differential has been paid since 1966 to those holding secretarial, stenographic and typist positions in which both languages are used.

"My predecessor - and my predecessor's predecessor - stopped beating this horse because it's part of the collective bargaining process," Mr. Fraser said of the bilingualism bonus. "Any time I have raised it, people have said, 'Don't go near that.' "

Mr. Byfield said it is precisely this "don't go near that" mentality that has stalled official languages policy in Canada.

"When you see the number that says about 20% of Canadians are now foreign-born, the old sort of 1960s bicultural, binational delusion is seen for what it is," he said. ''There has to be something of a national discussion on this.... But it's hard to do this if you can't talk about it in Parliament, and you can't."

Indeed, even musing on official bilingualism -- and even doing so outside of Parliament -- draws fire upon politicians.

Conservative MP Scott Reid, author of Lament for a Notion: The Life and Death of Canada's Bilingual Dream, suggested in 2004 that it might be time to reconsider offering bilingual services coast to coast, in turn forcing Conservative leader Stephen Harper to launch into damage control.

"People have different views on different criteria for service or language of work, but the fundamentals are things we support," Mr. Harper told reporters in Winnipeg at the time. Just three years prior, Mr. Harper wrote in a Calgary newspaper column that, "as a religion, bilingualism is the god that failed. It has led to no fairness, produced no unity, and cost Canadian taxpayers untold millions."

Prof. Savoie, of the Universite de Moncton, said that is not the case in New Brunswick, and said Ottawa could learn from the experiences of Canada's only officially bilingual province.

"First, one has to be patient -- you do not create a bilingual nation overnight," he said from Moncton, the country's first officially bilingual city. "Second, it takes a fair bit of good will, especially as we see governments struggling with some pretty stubborn deficits. There will be pressure to cut or tone down bilingualism, but I would urge caution."

New Brunswick's Official Languages Act is up for review in 2012, after it was declared in 2002 that the act would be revisited each decade. Mr. Savoie said the federal government should take up this 10-year review model, although he conceded that it will take a "fair bit of courage to launch a review."

Mr. Byfield, of the Wildrose Alliance, said "the government cannot touch this under the current parliamentary system," because national parties depend too heavily on support from both French and English speaking Canada. The only thing that would open the door for a political discussion, he said, would be via a provincially elected Senate.

"Until you can talk about official bilingualism in Parliament, I don't think much can happen," he said.

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THE SHIFT AWAY FROM FRENCH

As the proportion of francophones declines in Canada, other languages are increasingly heard in major cities across the country - marking a significant shift in the nation's linguistic landscape.

The 2006 census was telling, and showed that francophones are making up a smaller and smaller proportion of Canada's population: 22.1% of Canada's population reported French as their mother tongue, as compared with 22.9% in 2001. And within Quebec, the francophone population had dipped to 79.6%, marking the first time in 75 years that francophones comprised less than 80% of the population in that province.

Indeed, in many Canadian cities, French is being outpaced by other languages, namely Chinese, Italian, German, Punjabi and Spanish -- all of which have risen in use across the country over the past three decades. About 38% of those in Vancouver report Chinese as their mother tongue, and 8.8% of Torontonians say Italian is their language of choice. There, only 1.7% of the population is francophone.

"I think schools should start to encourage the acquisition of English, French, as well as other global languages," said Fred Genesee, a Canadian expert in second-language learning, adding that the European Union is on track with its own "2+1" language approach. "For those who are a bit lukewarm on bilingualism because they're soured by the nationalism debate, it might be beneficial to conceptualize bilingualism within the idea of preparing our children for a global village."

In fact, there are already those who argue that Canada's linguistic duality drives economic development -- whether via trade, tourism or services offered.

"Come to Moncton, look at the number of jobs that have been created by bilingualism," said Donald Savoie, who holds a Canada Research Chair in public administration and governance at the Universite de Moncton. "There are call centres and businesses in Moncton that service French-speakers in Quebec and France, for example."

Beyond that, Mr. Savoie said, official bilingualism holds an intangible value, as linguistic duality is "part of Canada, it's part of who we are."

He said New Brunswick -- Canada's only officially bilingual province -- has come a long way, offering hope to Canadians who question whether the nation is, after all these years, still headed down the right path.

"I'm of the vintage that remembers Leonard Jones," he said, referring to Moncton's anti-bilingualism mayor. "I remember, on the streets of Moncton, people saying 'Speak white.' You don't hear that any more."

Source: Kathryn Blaze Carlson, National Post

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BY THE NUMBERS

24 in millions, approximate number of Canadians likely to interact with the federal government in English
7 in millions, approximate number of Canadians likely to interact with the federal government in French
6 in millions, approximate number of foreign-born people in Canada
4 in millions, approximate number of unilingual francophones in Canada
3.9 in million, approximate number of unilingual francophones in Quebec
38 as a percentage, Vancouverites who report Chinese as their mother tongue
17 as a percentage, Canadians who consider themselves bilingual
40 as a percentage, federal public-sector jobs that require knowledge of both official languages
33 as a percentage, federal offices that are required to offer services in both official languages
1.8 in billions of federal dollars, estimated cost to provide French-language services in Canada in 2006
55 in dollars, per capita cost spent federally on official bilingualism in 2006