Foul Language

The consequences of the Official Languages Act continue to roll across the nation. Since it was enacted in 1969, it has exploded into a bloated monstrosity.  It has alienated Anglophones from coast to coast, has cost untold billions, and has forced many thousands of competent Anglophone public servants into early retirement.

• Ontario has let itself be led into developing expensive bilingual programs while serving only a miniscule population of Francophones – who are themselves, fully bilingual.
• Quebec is working desperately to fill the Supreme Court of Canada with fully bilingual judges, with Quebec being the judge of who will qualify as ‘bilingual’ and who will not.
• The Alberta government has been forced - by the Supreme Court of Canada, no less -  to fund the legal costs of a group of Francophones that is suing Alberta – in the Supreme Court of Canada - because Alberta refused to issue a French version of a traffic ticket to a Francophone truck driver. A French win in the Supreme Court is expected to cost all provinces billions of dollars to accommodate their demands.
• The Yukon Government has been ordered, by a Francophone judge, to spend $15 million to build a school, complete with a student-run radio station, for 41 Francophone students. The government is appealing the ruling.

The list of horror stories is long and it demonstrates that Quebec has absolutely no interest in a partnership with Canada; it wants to own Canada. And while politicians such Daulton McGuinty are working hand in glove with the French to give them whatever they want, most Canadians remain blissfully unaware of the disastrous consequences of the Official Languages Act.   - Gerry Porter

Canadians for Language Fairness,

July 30, 2011

By Kim McConnell

It appears that Canada is starting a new trend in human relations – SEGREGATION is in vogue, people!!!  First we have the New Brunswick government being lobbied by the Acadian community (funded by the general taxpayers) to support separate schools and health facilities for the French, while also supporting bilingual facilities for the rest of the population.  Bilingual facilities favour the employment of French-speakers – that is a fact!!! 

We have seen this happening in Ontario as well, especially in areas that have any size of French-speakers.  In the City of Ottawa (less than 15% French-speakers), SEGREGATION has been a policy supported by taxpayers for years – separate schools, separate community centres, separate health facilities!!!  The City of Ottawa itself follows a hiring policy that favours French-speakers as it is obliged to follow the Language policy which, Bob Chiarelli insisted, is “Practical Bilingualism”.  This policy at the City, along with the OLA at the Federal level, has led to more Quebecers moving into Ottawa to take jobs that are designed to favour them.

As the power of French-speakers grow, they can demand more segregation.  Don’t forget that these French-language lobby groups are fully funded by your tax dollars and they can pay high-powered lawyers whose agenda is to increase the power of the French-speakers with every victory.  The Grant School project has been in the works for many years now, carefully guided by the various French-language groups and led by many French law firms.  CFMO was given a grant of $1.9M last year to “buy” the property (valued at $3.94M) and it was given three years to turn the facilities into a mixture of non-profit and commercial facilities serving the French in West Ottawa. 

First of all, grants should not be given to commercial facilities to compete with other commercial facilities as this would be unfair competition.  I wonder if the other commercial facilities (dental clinics and for-profit retirement homes) are aware of this facility that will be set up in competition with them but with the help of taxpayer dollars.

By the way, to complete this project, at least $50M will be required - and who do you think they will get the money from?  That’s right – YOU!!!

- - - -

 

$4M grant will help create west Ottawa francophone centre.

Plan will see old school transformed

Ottawa Citizen, July 29, 2011

By Neco Cockburn

A $4-million Ontario government investment will help a francophone group move ahead with efforts to turn the former Grant Alternative School site into a community centre, the group's president said Thursday.

Roger Farley said the Centre multiservices francophone de l'ouest d'Ottawa (CMFO) will be able to go ahead with the first piece of its development plans - renovating the old school and transforming it into a "multi-service community centre."

The CMFO already has an agreement with the city to buy the site, at 2720 Richmond Rd., and the funding will "permit us to move forward and look at buying the property," perhaps in the next few months, Farley said.

Infrastructure Minister Bob Chiarelli made the funding announcement Thursday, and said in an interview that thousands of francophone residents "will have a community hub" for health care, social and education services.

The CMFO project is meant to serve west Ottawa's francophone population of about 28,000 people.

The second phase of the plan includes a co-operative seniors' housing project, while the third phase involves a long-term care facility, Farley said.

City council in August approved a conditional land transfer for the property.

Bay Councillor Mark Taylor called it "good news" that the project is moving ahead.

"In Bay Ward and in the west end of Ottawa in particular, there's a large and growing francophone population, and they really don't have anywhere near the service capacity that they do in the east end of the city," he said.

"Having something in the west end is more about being equitable than it is anything else."

The project does have its critics, and became one of the issues tackled by Bay Ward candidates during last fall's municipal election. At least one candidate, Terry Kilrea, vowed to scrap the centre if elected.

On Thursday, Kilrea said the project segregates people based on language.

"Why are you making a community centre just for francophones? Should we turn Barbara Ann Scott (Arena) into an English-only complex?"

Taylor said the project is to be a "community hub" despite being a francophone centre.

"They're not intending to keep it closed off, and in fact what they want to do is open it up as broadly as they can to anybody and everybody in the community who wants to come in and take a class, or take a course, or use one of the services," he said.

Residents who attended a community meeting on the centre didn't raise concerns about language, but focused on issues such as parking and traffic, said Taylor, adding that another public meeting is likely to be held within a couple of months.

The old school was built in the 1920s and is considered a heritage site as part of the former Britannia Village. In March 2008, the city bought the school property from the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board for $3.94 million.

- - - -

The Citizen published the following letter from a concerned Ottawan.

Re:  $4 M grant will help create west Ottawa francophone centre

July 29, 2011

As a taxpayer, I am completely disgusted with this blatant attempt at vote buying by Infrastructure Minister Bob Chiarelli and the Ontario Liberal government.

This francophone centre is "meant to serve west Ottawa's francophone population of about 28,000 people".  But, according to the last census, the number of francophones in west Ottawa adds up to less than 15,000 no matter how you look at it.  The only way to boost the number to 28,000 is by including anyone according to the census who speaks French including bilingual anglophones, something that the McGuinty government did by changing the definition of francophone.

And, why is the CMFO being given a grant when the McGuinty government recently announced that they would give low interest loans to non-profit groups to develop facilities, loans that would have to be repaid to the Ontario taxpayers.  Is it because the CMFO actually is not “non-profit” and so does not qualify for these loans because they are including for profit businesses in their plans such as a dental clinic which will compete with other private dental clinics in the area?

It is time to end all government grants to francophone centres that, once operational, will deny services to non-francophones while still requiring all other centres to serve the bilingual community.  This practice is simply unfair to the vast majority of Ontario taxpayers who are non-francophones.
Bob H., Ottawa

- - - -

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/grant+will+help+create+west+Ottawa+francophone+centre/5176417/story.html#ixzz1TVU8wGcf

- - - -

Court orders Yukon to build $15M school for 41 francophone students

National Post, July 28, 2011

By Tamsin McMahon

Citing the need to protect minority-language rights, a Yukon court has ordered the government to give its lone French-language school $2-million and begin a multi-million-dollar school expansion to house an arts studio, separate classes for every grade and space for a student radio station.

In a French-only ruling released this week, Yukon Supreme Court Justice Vital Ouellette ordered the government to build a $15-million high school within two years to house the board’s 41 French high school students.

Maxime Faille, the Ottawa-based lawyer who represented the Yukon government, warned Thursday the ruling would create a “huge inequality between francophone students and other students in the territory.” At around one teacher for every 10 students, student-teacher ratios at the school are better than many others in the territory, Mr. Faille said.

“People in Toronto pay [up to] $50,000 a year to have their students in private schools with student-teacher ratios that are worse than what they have in this school,” he said. Meanwhile, schools for Aboriginal students, who make up 30% of the territory’s population, are so underfunded that students often have move hundreds of kilometres away to Whitehorse to go to high school.

“If another high school has to be built in the Yukon Territory, I’m not sure it should be in the City of Whitehorse for the francophone population that already has a high school, a very good one,” he said.

Whitehorse’s École Émilie-Tremblay was built in 1996 for $6.2-million, shortly after Yukon created its only school board, whose sole job is to run the territory’s lone French school, serving 184 students among a 1,200-strong francophone community.

Since then, officials with Commission scolaire francophone du Yukon have complained that the government hasn’t handed over complete control of Émilie-Tremblay’s nearly $5-million annual budget. The board argued that the government never consulted school board officials when it diverted $2-million in federal French-education funding to pay for French immersion programs in the territory’s 27 other schools.

Judge Ouellette found the government violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom’s protection of minority language education, and ordered it to return the federal money to the school.

The government said it plans to appeal the new case to the Yukon Court of Appeal, arguing Judge Ouellette, who was once president of a minority-language francophone school board in Alberta, was biased in favour of the school board, Mr. Faille said.

The territory appealed to the judge to recuse himself last year, saying he had laughed at some of the government’s witnesses and joked around with the school board’s lawyers. The judge refused, saying that while he didn’t deny he had joked around, judges couldn’t be expected to maintain their composure the entire length of an extended trial. His association with French language education in Alberta was well-known before he was appointed to the bench in 2002, he added.

In previous court rulings, the judge ordered the territorial government to build new portable classrooms at the school and give the board money to hire three new teachers.

Roughly 4% of Yukon’s population is francophone, numbers school board officials said during the trial were underrepresented because, they argued, the Statistics Canada census was flawed. The judge agreed, saying there could possibly be as many as 400 students who could qualify for French-language education in the school. English students who want to learn French can also enroll in the school.

Roger Lepage, the lawyer who represented the school board, called the ruling a “resounding victory” in a news release. “The positions of the judge are well supported and consistent with Canadian jurisprudence,” he said.

- - - -

http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/07/28/court-orders-yukon-to-build-15m-school-for-41-francophone-students/

- - - -

By Kim McConnell

Tim Hudak and Randy Hillier, along with Randal Denley and the other Conservative candidates for the October Ontario election should be contacted with the question of where they stand on this issue:

It appears that Bob Chiarelli and Dalton McGuinty are going after the French votes. What is the Ontario PC's policy on SEGREGATION in Ontario?  It is a well-known fact that the minority French-speakers, which make up only 4% of Ontario's population, have far more clout than the 96% majority English-speakers.  They can demand anything at the taxpayers' expense and NO political party dares to say or do anything. 

Is SEGREGATION also the policy of the Ontario PC Party?

Contact Tim Hudak:  tim_hudak@ontla.ola.org

Contact Randy Hillier: randy.hillierco@pc.ola.org

---<RWR>---

Secret shoppers spy for Quebec

I wrote the following letter to the Ottawa Citizen in response to the “Secret Shoppers” article published this morning.

The article, written by David Reevely, and a link to it follow below.  --JGP

RE: “Secret Shoppers to hunt for laggards on bilingualism,” David Reevely, July 30

If Quebec had the ordinary self-confidence found generally across the rest of Canada, they wouldn’t need to send their obsequious servant, Graham Fraser, into the byways sniffing out businesses that fail their official French-language duties. If Quebeckers were confident in themselves and their native abilities, they would recognize that businesses would be bilingual if and when it is to their advantage.

If Quebec were a place that Canadians respected and could work with as a partner, the Official Languages Act would not exist; we would learn French simply because we wanted to. We wouldn’t have to be coerced.

When Quebec comes to terms with history and learns to earn its way, we will be their best friend and partner. However, as long as they stamp their little feet, and whimper and whine to get their way, and as long as they act the adolescent and keep their little hands buried deep in the federal treasury, Quebec will continue to earn nothing but our contempt.  - Gerry Porter

- - - -

Ottawa Citizen, July 31, 2011

By David Reevely

Secret shoppers working for the official languages commissioner are to fan out across the capital in mid-August to test whether they can get service in French.

The mission is to see what the experience of visiting Ottawa-Gatineau would be like for tourists who only speak the one language. Although the commissioner’s usual job is testing the bilingual fluency of federal departments and services, this time the plan is to case a wider net, including private businesses at likely tourist destinations.

Businesses that lease space from Public Works or the National Capital Commission typically have clauses requiring provide bilingual service, and they’re periodically checked out to make sure they’re complying. This plan goes beyond that.

A list included with the bid documents (it was originally left off, but added when The Citizen inquired) says that the mystery shoppers should visit the federal institutions downtown repeatedly — it calls for 50 visits each to Rideau Hall and the National Gallery, for instance — but also calls for one or two visits to practically every storefront in the ByWard Market, on Sparks Street, and in the Rideau Centre, along with visits to every downtown hotel, as far afield as Rideau Street motels. From hardware stores to hair salons, everybody in those areas can expect to be checked out at least once.

“What sort of impression does a French-speaking Quebecer get, visiting the capital of this country?” asked Graham Fraser, the official-languages commissioner. “My own experience is it’s easier to get an English menu in Barcelona than a French one in Ottawa.”

But, he said, his own anecdotal experience isn’t enough to draw any sure conclusions, which is why his office is conducting the study.

He said he draws the authority to examine private enterprises that don’t have any direct dealings with the federal government from the preamble to the Official Languages Act, which says that “the Government of Canada is committed to enhancing the bilingual character of the National Capital Region and to encouraging the business community, labour organizations and voluntary organizations in Canada to foster the recognition and use of English and French.”

The capital, he said, sends a lot of messages about what kind of country Canada is by the way it presents itself to visitors, and it’s within his authority to examine and report on what those messages are.

Furthermore, Fraser said, it’s plainly in Ottawa’s interests to serve French-speaking visitors well.

The country, he said, “can no longer count on a constant flow of American tourists” when there’s a strong Canadian dollar and tighter controls for Americans crossing the border. It’s useful for the capital to appeal to four million Canadians who speak only French.

The point, said Fraser’s spokesman Nelson Kalil in a separate interview, is not to name and shame particular businesses, but to produce an “impressionistic” report on what the francophone visitor’s experience to the capital is like.

News of the plan surprised Cindy VanBuskirk, the general manager of the Rideau Centre, where dozens of stores are due to be visited.

“This is private property and if there’s a mystery-shopping exercise planned, then it behooves them to inform the property owner of what they’re planning,” she said. She says she’s not against the work the commissioner’s office has in mind, and she’d have no intention of warning the mall’s merchants and skewing the results of the study, but if researchers plan to conduct a study in the Rideau Centre, they should tell the owners about it.

“Obviously the ability to serve customers in the language of their choice is a service profile that’s important, though it’s up to the individual retailer,” VanBuskirk said.

Matthew Mitchell manages Nicholas Hoare, a Sussex Drive bookstore slated for one visit. He says he’s lived much of his life in Quebec, so he’s accustomed to language politics, but he’d rather it be discussed openly rather than through a covert survey.

“No, I don’t think it’s fair, if it’s done in a clandestine fashion,” he said. He said most everyone working at the store has at least some French and he’s bilingual, so a unilingual francophone could be served with no real problem, which is what the store’s lease with the NCC requires.

“But we are an English bookstore specializing in British books, so I think there’s a bit of a hole in their thinking there,” Mitchell said.

The commissioner’s office is looking for bids, on a tight timeline, from companies willing to provide the testers. Between them, they’re to conduct about 545 checks between Aug. 22 and Sept. 30, according to the bid documents, for which the winning bidder would be paid about $40,000. The testing is to include an assessment of bilingual signs, greetings from workers and proper service once a person has been welcomed.

The secret shoppers are either to be unilingual francophones or native French-speakers who will pretend to speak no English. Kalil said that’s because there’s been very little evidence that English-speakers have trouble being served anywhere in the capital region, on either side of the Ottawa River.

“Maybe if you went off past Buckingham, you might run into that,” he said.

The shoppers are to fill out a detailed form documenting each experience. The bid documents say that similar work was done in each of the past two years, though Fraser said that refers to mystery-shopper visits to federal institutions and agencies, which he’s already documented.

The documents say that a double-decker tourist bus “will have to be used for a variety of the institutions being assessed,” but Kalil said that’s really just a suggestion. “It might be easier than fighting traffic to get from place to place,” he said. (The list of businesses to be visited does not include tour-bus or tour-boat operators.)

Bids are due by Aug. 12. They’ll be assessed on a variety of criteria, including the bidders’ experience doing mystery-shopper work and collecting research-oriented data, but the single most important category — accounting for a quarter of the total — is price.

The results of the survey will be included in Fraser’s report in 2012, he said. “We had hoped for a bit more of the element of surprise.”

- - - -

dreevely@ottawacitizen.com

ottawacitizen.com/greaterottawa@davidreevely

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Secret+shoppers+hunt+laggards+bilingualism/5179136/story.html#ixzz1ThMRVl9y

---<FW>---

July 1: Quebec Day?

July 4, 2011

By Kim McConnell

Today, on CFRA, the morning shows focused on the Canada Day Celebrations on Friday, July 1^st.  Mark Sutcliffe referred to the fact that the shows were too heavy on French content with 13 of the 23 noon-time performances being from Quebec. The other provinces were barely represented: two each from Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta and one each from Manitoba and Newfoundland.  I’m missing two. 

In the evening show, of the 19 performances, 11 were from Quebec, two from Ontario, and one each from Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and British Columbia. I’m missing three.  So, out of a total of 42 performances, 24 - more than half, were out of Quebec.

Lowell Green played the “nice guy” telling everyone that he enjoyed the show and that people should stop being so petty as to complain because French-language performances outnumbered the English-language ones. 

Well, did he get lambasted by callers who nearly all said that the show was a disgrace, featuring really amateurish performances and that the preponderance of French-language performances was very insensitive to the English-speaking majority.  Some even said that, instead of calling this the “Canada Day” celebrations, they should have called it the “Quebec Day” celebrations.

If you have any interest in what these many callers had to say, Lowell’s show can be heard at this link:  http://devel.autopod.ca/chum/43/podcasts/

Here is one listener who sent me a copy of the message he sent to Lowell:

Dear Mr. Green,

After listening to your show yesterday, I am utterly disgusted with you for trying to minimize and trivialize your callers’ concerns about the preponderance of French culture and language during this year’s “Canada Day” celebrations. Shame on you Mr. Green, especially considering the fact that you have the nerve to write “Mayday, Mayday” in an attempt to warn and educate Canadians about the dangers of “liberal style” multiculturalism and immigration policies! What the hell is wrong with you? I could not agree with you more about the dangers of “liberal style multiculturalism” but what I can’t understand is your minimizing and trivializing what occurred on “Canada Day” this year?!!

Don’t blame the NCC, the Conservatives are in control now and have a majority Government and if they can legislate a private sector union at Air Canada back to work in record time under the guise that it’s bad for the economy then they sure as hell could have ensured that the NCC and Heritage CANADA did a better job at making Canada day less about Quebec and more about Canada!

Even before Canada day festivities really started, Harper was speaking FRENCH FIRST while introducing the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to Canada.  More than half of the Canada Day shows were in French and ALL the Canada day announcements were made in FRENCH FIRST!

You once said that you basically don’t know what you where thinking back in the days when you were a Liberal and supported liberal policies – well, you still don’t get it!  Why and when do you think Canada started taking a wrong turn and adopting ridiculous multicultural and immigration policies in this country?  When Trudeau introduced Official Bilingualism.

Once a country starts bending, appeasing and accommodating people then it’s the beginning of the end in terms of their heritage, national culture, identity and way of life.

Why is it that you speak out strongly (and rightly so) about Liberal style multiculturalism and immigration policies yet you are COMPLETELY silent and even supportive of Quebec?  Is it that you have a perverted sense of respect for Quebec because they defend their culture at everyone else’s expense or is it that you just don’t get it?

I hear you complain (and I agree with you) about the “left’s moral relativism” yet you suffer from this condition yourself.

Your behaviour on your show yesterday was pathetic and grossly irresponsible. Your book “Mayday, Mayday” is a waste of money as far as I am concerned because it only deals with half the problem this country is facing and you did not touch on what is irrevocably destroying this great country - excessive political correctness and pandering to minority groups at the expense of the majority of Canadians. It is, slowly but surely, ripping this country apart.

I am so disgusted by what happened on Canada day that I cancelled my Conservative party membership and cut off all party donations as this is the only way that the Conservatives will learn.

With all due respect,

Mark K. & family,

Ottawa

I too listened to Mark Sutcliffe’s broadcast this morning.  He’s a good, common sense talk show host.  I watched very little of the televised entertainment portion of the Canada Day show on the Hill.  What I did see was amateurish & for the most part just plain bad!  I  appreciate Canada’s historical connection to the UK & the Crown in general but I’m not much of a fan of specific royal family individuals.  However, I do have sympathy for William and Kate who had sit through the hour & a half of this garbage at mid day & then had to come back in the evening to sit through yet another hour of the same junk.  They reportedly sat through  this ordeal without a single grimace.  Surely it must have been a thoroughly boring experience.  Front-line royalty is, with some exceptions, generally well disciplined. And of course, keenly aware that many cameras are focused on them at all times!

I agree with the caller who proposed that the organization of a substantial part of the Canada Day events on the Hill be taken away from the NCC & placed in the hands of an independent body.  As to the French connection & the NCC  - over the years, regularly watching the local news hour on CTV/CBC,  I have never witnessed an NCC spokesperson who did not have an obvious French accent. This, and the year-after-year over representation of Quebec “entertainers” suggests a built in bias.  But then, I may have acquired a degree of the French paranoia...by osmosis.

Kip Mc.

There are also many complaints about PM Harper and his penchant for starting all his political speeches in French first.  It made sense when he was leading a minority government and Quebec was holding the lynch pin, having 75 seats under their control.  Now that he has a majority government and certainly does not need to pander to Quebec, there is NO need to carry on this charade.

We would like to start a letter-writing campaign on this aspect of Harper which should be slapped down as quickly as possible.  Anyone who would like to submit a sample letter may do so.

Kim